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Someone once told me that if a priesthood leader tells you to do something, and its wrong, you still get the blessings due to obedience.
I’ve never liked Lucifer’s plan.
I think the answer to the “do what seems wrong out of obedience” is to insist on personal confirmation. Not to act without it, even if there is urgency expressed by the priesthood leader. So, it means you might consider the contrary, illogical act, but if it’s destructive or objectionable (like the house-burning example) I personally am going to have STRONG personal revelation God wants me to do that.
As cwald says
It’s not God-Priesthood Holder – INdividual
It’s God- INdividual. Priesthood holders can make suggestions, but ultimately it’s my choice what I do. And I will rarely ever obey out of blind obedience.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:Someone once told me that if a priesthood leader tells you to do something, and its wrong, you still get the blessings due to obedience.
I’ve never liked Lucifer’s plan.
What plan? The one taught by apostles you mean?
Quote:
“Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it, but you don’t need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.”Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, Oct. 1960, p. 78
“When the Prophet speaks the debate is over.”
Eldon Tanner, Ensign, Aug. 1979, pp. 2-3.
For the record, I don’t agree with their POV.
Thankfully there are lots of others to counter this attitude. I especially like the third of these:
Quote:
“We talk of obedience, but do we require any man or woman to ignorantly obey the counsels that are given? Do the First Presidency require it? No, never.”Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses, v. 16, p. 248
“President Wilford Woodruff is a man of wisdom and experience, and we respect him, but we do not believe his personal views or utterances are revelations from God; and when ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ comes from him, the saints investigate it: they do not shut their eyes and take it down like a pill.”
Charles W. Penrose, Millennial Star, v. 54, p. 191
“And none are required to tamely and blindly submit to a man because he has a portion of the priesthood. We have heard men who hold the priesthood remark, that they would do anything they were told to do by those who presided over them, if they knew it was wrong; but such obedience as this is worse than folly to us; it is slavery in the extreme; and the man who would thus willingly degrade himself should not claim a rank among intelligent beings, until he turns from his folly. A man of God… would spite the idea. Others, in the extreme exercise of their almighty authority have taught that such obedience was necessary, and that no matter what the saints were told to do by their presidents, they should do it without asking any questions. When Elders of Israel will so far indulge in these extreme notions of obedience as to teach them to people, it is generally because they have it in their minds to do wrong themselves.”
Charles W. Penrose, Millennial Star, v. 14, no. 38, pp. 593-595
SilentDawning wrote:Someone once told me that if a priesthood leader tells you to do something, and its wrong, you still get the blessings due to obedience. I believed that as a young, impressionable adult in my early twenties until I mentioned it to someone. They told me that was an outright falsehood and dangerous too.
Well hell, I was taught that in general conference in October 2010.
Some of you may remember my nuclear melt down here.
The correct path, for me, is…MAN > GOD > church. TMed by Brian Johnson btw…wasn’t my original idea.
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If you want my more comprehensive view of it, read my Sunday School lesson summary about Elder Oaks’ talk, “Two Lines of Communication”. It has gotten attacked in some places, but it teaches a balance (and even limits the Priesthood line fundamentally to the administration of church affairs), and that’s my general stance – honoring both for what they are intended to do in the spheres in which they apply but not confusing them and allowing them to stretch beyond those intended spheres. cwald wrote:The correct path, for me, is…MAN > GOD > church. TMed by Brian Johnson btw…wasn’t my original idea.
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Verses the current church model which goes… man > CHURCH > god
Also TMed by Brian Johnson
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Old-Timer wrote:If you want my more comprehensive view of it, read my Sunday School lesson summary about Elder Oaks’ talk, “Two Lines of Communication”. It has gotten attacked in some places, but it teaches a balance (and even limits the Priesthood line fundamentally to the administration of church affairs), and that’s my general stance – honoring both for what they are intended to do in the spheres in which they apply but not confusing them and allowing them to stretch beyond those intended spheres.
I really like this perspective. In rereading this talk I have pulled the following quote that seems to be in support of this position: “Personal decisions and family governance are principally a matter for the personal line.”
Unfortunately, the rest of the talk seems to define personal decisions and family governance as things that the priesthood line has not spoken on.
Quote:“Unfortunately, it is common for persons who are violating God’s commandments or disobedient to the counsel of their priesthood leaders to declare that God has revealed to them that they are excused from obeying some commandment or from following some counsel. Such persons may be receiving revelation or inspiration, but it is not from the source they suppose. The devil is the father of lies, and he is ever anxious to frustrate the work of God by his clever imitations.”
What is considered “disobedient to the counsel of their priesthood leaders”? Might a mother decide to work (outside the home) even when not strictly necessary for survival? Might some parents allow a child to go on a date before they turn 16? Might a woman wear two pairs of earings or pants to church? Might adults decide what rated R movies might still be worth watching?
mackay11 wrote:Old-Timer wrote:
“I’ve never liked Lucifer’s plan.”
What plan? The one taught by apostles you mean?
It would seem that elements of Lucifer’s plan can sometimes be taught over the pulpit in GC. It would also seem that the only way we can filter the elements of Lucifer’s plan out of our personal gospel understanding is by applying the personal line of divine communication. But if we feel that we are directed by the spirit that we are not under divine mandate in a particular instance and are “excused…from following some counsel,” then we find ourselves (according to Elder Oaks) to be deceived by the devil.
😈 Sounds like circular reasoning to me.
Nice post Roy. 
I love the way Ray made this crappy Oaks talk work. Great. Ray is truly one in a million…and I mean that because the other 999,999 Mormons who heard the talk ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE AWAY THE SAME MESSAGE THAT RAY DID.
Ray was able to find something positive about this whole cluster…which I do admire, even though he, Ray, drives me
nuts when he does so. What made October 2010 conference so egregious was this Oaks talk coupled with Costa’s basically reading Benson’s 14 Fundamentals of the Prophet talk back into the record which automatically puts it in HC and church PH and SS lessons throughout the year.
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Quote:Verses the current church model which goes… man > CHURCH > god
I think a more accurate description of the LDS Church model is: God –> individual
ANDGod –> Church. The issue is defining the balance of those two, which is what I tried to help the students understand in that lesson. Quote:Unfortunately, the rest of the talk seems to define personal decisions and family governance as things that the priesthood line has not spoken on.
Yes, the talk’s weakness was the fact that it didn’t recognize explicitly that the “Priesthood line” too often has encroached into the “Personal line”, although he did mention explicitly the danger of allowing it to do so. That’s why I liked the student’s drawing of the concentric circles and the discussion that followed.
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