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I’m observing an odd trend at church. It seems like General Conference talks are supplanting the scriptures in importance, and have become the first line reference for discussion. Case in point, in our ward, speakers are given a specific talk from GC as their “topic”. Obviously, talks that review another talk are incredibly boring, but aside from that, it seems odd, because GC talks themselves are not gospel principles.
In addition, I note that in one of our YM quorums, the lessons do not follow any lesson from the lesson manual, but are… you guessed it… reviews of GC talks. In this case, they take turns reading from the given talk and then discussing it. I’m sure this is because of the mentality that lessons from the manual are boring. I’d argue that the teachers are what make it boring, and that the concepts taught in the manual are the concepts that should be taught in a lesson, even if you don’t quote anything out of the manual. When I was a teacher, I’d always use the lesson objective, look over the material for the rare useful tidbit, and find my own scriptures and stories… but at least I was teaching the thing that was called for.
Just wondering if others are seeing this GC talk prominence.
It’s been a practice in a lot of wards over the years to assign GC talks as the launching pad for Sac Mtg talks. The subsequent Sac Mtg talks can be excellent to lousy and everywhere between – just like regular Sac Mtg talks can be. It all depends on the speaker. Quote:In addition, I note that in one of our YM quorums, the lessons do not follow any lesson from the lesson manual, but are… you guessed it… reviews of GC talks.
Seriously? Is that every week or once a month? Either way, it’s probably a leader trying to mirror the MP lesson structure – which shouldn’t be, but . . .
Purportedly from chapter 16 in the Joseph Smith Manual Quote:“Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the Church, reported: “I will refer to a certain meeting I attended in the town of Kirtland in my early days. At that meeting some remarks were made … with regard to the living oracles and with regard to the written word of God. … A leading man in the Church got up and talked upon the subject, and said: ‘You have got the word of God before you here in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants; you have the written word of God, and you who give revelations should give revelations according to those books, as what is written in those books is the word of God. We should confine ourselves to them.’
“When he concluded, Brother Joseph turned to Brother Brigham Young and said, ‘Brother Brigham, I want you to take the stand and tell us your views with regard to the living oracles and the written word of God.’ Brother Brigham took the stand, and he took the Bible, and laid it down; he took the Book of Mormon, and laid it down; and he took the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and laid it down before him, and he said: ‘There is the written word of God to us, concerning the work of God from the beginning of the world, almost, to our day. And now,’ said he, ‘when compared with the [living] oracles those books are nothing to me; those books do not convey the word of God direct to us now, as do the words of a Prophet or a man bearing the Holy Priesthood in our day and generation. I would rather have the living oracles than all the writing in the books.’ That was the course he pursued. When he was through, Brother Joseph said to the congregation: ‘Brother Brigham has told you the word of the Lord, and he has told you the truth.’
yawn…sigh…it’s friday afternoon. If we believe ‘revelation’ is the core ingredient of the gospel, then revelation should be the most relevant to us, here and now.
The problem is that the church doesn’t distinguish between revelation and counsel. In fact, they are very cautious about revelation at this point, due to the complex corner they’ve painted themselves into on some doctrines. So caution is advised.
But of course, the problem with living oracles is that there isn’t a lot to put a stake into to have consistency.
I would not give up the concept of active, current revelation for anything. But I also recognize that it is a source of chaos for the church.
What wayfarer said. Old-Timer wrote:
Quote:In addition, I note that in one of our YM quorums, the lessons do not follow any lesson from the lesson manual, but are… you guessed it… reviews of GC talks.
Seriously? Is that every week or once a month?
Every week.
Right, so that’s it for me… My first choice would be to have Jesus sitting in my office, telling me if I should take the freeway or the back roads on my way home. If he’s not available, I’d like to have his prophet, receiving revelation, and conveying it to me. If the prophet isn’t receiving revelation, then I still have the scriptures, but they might not be as immediately applicable to my situation. I get that. But when Elder , from the nth Quorum of the Seventy gives a talk in a heavy accent about how when he was a boy, blah, blah, blah, that is not scripture, or more important than scripture… it’s just counsel. Not sure why we would ascribe any more truth or accuracy to scriptures than any other pronouncement from a religious leader. Is it because they are old that we feel they contain greater truths? Is not it all basically counsel or opinion. Cadence wrote:Not sure why we would ascribe any more truth or accuracy to scriptures than any other pronouncement from a religious leader. Is it because they are old that we feel they contain greater truths? Is not it all basically counsel or opinion.
Scripture is basically pious fiction, myth, made up history, and time-specific teachings of those who were thought to be inspired. No different than conference addresses or FP letters.What kind of gets me is that it seems like God is never the source. The source of one talk is often another talk which referenced some older talks, which may or may not have correctly interpreted the scriptures. It’s rare (outside of JS writings) that we hear “and God told me this”. That’s why it is hard to know what is doctrine and what is just opinion or counsel. If mormon leadership are really prophets seers and revelatory then obviously your equation is correct. Mormons should memorize GC talks. Parse them into chapters and verses and collate them into new holy scripts
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afterallwecando wrote:If mormon leadership are really prophets seers and revelatory then obviously your equation is correct.
Mormons should memorize GC talks. Parse them into chapters and verses and collate them into new holy scripts
But rarely do they say anything that isn’t a compilation of previous talks. And those quoted talks were the same. So when a prophet quotes something it makes it scripture?
Brown wrote:What kind of gets me is that it seems like God is never the source. The source of one talk is often another talk which referenced some older talks, which may or may not have correctly interpreted the scriptures. It’s rare (outside of JS writings) that we hear “and God told me this”. That’s why it is hard to know what is doctrine and what is just opinion or counsel.
in my opinion, Joseph understood that revelation came through his mind and heart. but when he spoke outwardly, he declared his inspiration as direct revelation with such certainty that all others assumed that he had a direct and objective vision or recitation from god. Joseph had kahunas to represent his revelations as direct and objective, and although his confidence and certainty inspired people, he was often wrong…as all inspiration-based subjective revelation is.Brigham Young, and all those who followed, were not made of the same stuff of Joseph: they would not, or could not portray their inspiration-based subective insights as “thus saith the Lord”, because they heard no such voice say it. Brigham Young declared in JD that he did not have the same prophetic abilities as Joseph, and that he was more of a “Yankee Guesser”. Look carefully at BY’s only revelation in D&C 136: it starts with “The word and will of the Lord…”, with very few first person quotes of the lord speaking. He finishes with “you’ve received the kingdom, so enough at present…”, letting him off the hook to have to declare direct, objective revelation into the future.
When I evaluate this situation, Joseph inspired confidence, because he was, by nature and background, a “confidence man”, which term later became “con-man”. it was a talent that served him well in establishing the church, and i believe he was sincere in his “con”. He truly believed that his inner voices came from god, and in some ways, especially as he redefined god as human and connected to us, they they likely did: the book of mormon, to me, is an inspired work. yet Joseph was not truthful in representing his inspiration: he made the revelation sound like more than inspiration in fabricating a legitimizing story about how the book or revelation came about.
there is something very comforting in being certain that the Lord has and is directing the church with objective, clear, word-for-word revelation. Joseph knew that, and had the moxy to make it so. His followers to this day do not have such moxy. They, too, are sincere, but are not made of the same prevaricating fabric as Joseph, therefore no-one is dictating word-for-word revelation, because it doesn’t work that way, and never has.
yet because we tend to believe that Joseph had special, direct, objective revelations, we wonder why the prophets do not today. I believe it is because the leaders of today are far more honest as individuals than Joseph was. in an institutional church, such creative “inspiration portrayed as direct revelation” as Joseph Smith promulgated would not result in increased leadership positions, but rather, such an individual would likely be counseled out of the church as an apostate. So, leaders today are chosen because they are predictable and honest: trustworthy in what they say.
yet each of the current leaders are sincere and desire to reflect counsel as they have been inspired to reflect counsel. such “inspiration” should not be ignored, just because it isn’t preceeded by “thus saith the Lord”. Inspired counsel can be relevant, if we heed it and seek our own witness as to whether it is relevant to us.
Lets assume, for a moment, that God wants to communicate something to the church right now. he “inspires” the brethren through their minds and hearts, as he always has. an individual authority’s talk is always a mix of the inspired with his own opinion. but when several of the bretren and sisters speak, individual opinions kind of cancel each other out, and what emerges is the common inspiration the Lord desired to reflect. emergence of a theme from a conference often is very compelling, and when our own spiritual witness resonates with that theme–we have current revelation.
that’s why, in my impression, a concerted study of the talks helps us find the emergent inspiration. these talks are not recited revelation, but rather, the emergent themes, resonating with our spirits as we read and ponder them, can be revelation to us. that’s how revelation really works.
Amen Wayfarer. Personally I would love to hear more talks that ask a lot of open ended questions …and don’t offer an answer. These are the things that prod me into seeking after answers for myself. That’s what I imagine God would do — send me on my quest. A carefully worded question can give enough initial direction.
I was thinking about how to address the issue of revelation of old vs. inspiration of present. I then read wayfarer’s comment and decided I didn’t need to write the comment I was going to write. I only want to make a little clearer something wayfarer said: I really do believe that Joseph was a prophet who received revelation from God – and I really do believe he was sincere in believing he was a prophet who received revelation from God. However, I also believe he would be diagnosed and medicated if he lived now – that he wouldn’t be accepted in our own day and age as a prophet specifically because we categorize what allowed him to see visions and hear voices as disabilities.
Saying that puts me on the precipice of a very high cliff, since there is a fine line between being able to tap into something extraordinary and wonderful and being off-one’s-rocker, certifiably nuts. I understand that, but we strive so hard to eliminate the extremes now that we end up with widespread mediocrity. Yes, we’re eliminating the negative extremes, but we also are eliminating the positive extremes – often within the same person.
In saying that, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be trying to eliminate the negative extremes. I don’t want my mom (and everyone around her) to have to deal with the negative extremes of her schizophrenia. I don’t want her to have horrible, vicious hallucinations and swear like a drunken sailor. I want her to be able to have the benefits of her medication in order to be the spiritual person I knew growing up, even if those medications blunt some of the natural spiritual insights that are the flip-side of her “disability”.
I don’t see Joseph Smith as schizophrenic – but I do believe he probably had some condition we would diagnose clinically and try to eliminate now. In many ways, that’s too bad on an individual basis – but, in other ways, it’s good on a group, communal basis. It creates MUCH more communal, institutional stability – as it stifles the type of individual, personal “out-there-ness” that is the root cause of almost all radical revolution. Make no mistake about it: Joseph Smith was a radical revolutionary in the truest sense of that term. Radical revolutionaries simply must be borderline nuts to have the visions they have, and, given our rejection of radical revolution, we now have stable, inspired guides instead.
All in all, I’ll take that – since I don’t know how I’d deal with the incredible chaos, messiness and suffering inherent in radical revolution.
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