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Yes ReflexZero, that’s what I meant. We have a lot of Muslims here, they’d want it. It was a gay guy who pointed this out to me!
I must be to far gone. This seems so not a big deal. Is this what revelation has come to in the church? A bit of rearranging of text to make it more palatable. Of course I have given up on the church having one ounce of inspiration in its vast empire, so stuff like this just seems like another press release to clarify another bizarre doctrine, that any sane person would dismiss as just that a bizarre belief. I am with cwald just fess up and say the ban was stupid and polygamy was even more stupid. Its just the proverbial lipstick on a pig.
Cadence wrote:I am with cwald just fess up and say the ban was stupid and polygamy was even more stupid..
I think a lot of people (okay, what do I know, speaking for myself) aren’t anxious to say stupid. I don’t even think apologies are all that meaningful since I know that many polygamists were as righteous as they come. But I’m starting to lose faith in men who tell me in 2013 that polygamy is divine with no apparent recognition of the impact of that statement on women today.
Cadence, nobody is claiming this is revelation. However, I like anything that corrects formerly incorrect information, and some of these corrections are exactly what we discuss here – the most obvious being the change to the Book of Abraham origin description. I can’t complain about something and then complain when it’s fixed.
Looking at the end of D&C last night, there’s a right mishmash. The Martyrdom really belongs next to JSH in the POGP. The two ODs don’t read like the rest of D&C at all and look like semi-legal retractions. Then there’s #132!
The real gem IMHO is Joseph F Smith’s revelation… but how I’d like to see work by Lorenzo Snow, David O McKay or that First Presidency message I quote from below.
Put back lectures on faith dangit! :silent: Amen Brother Wuwei! I love “Lectures on Faith”. I also love the King Follett Address – I know it puts us in a controversial spot, but the controversy to me, doesn’t go away with or without. So put it in. And Amen to that Sister 3! King follett is such a beautiful sermon to me. And it gives such a window on JS’ personality. And why its not taught is beyond me since JS basically says if the ideas in the King Follett discourse aren’t true then he should give up all pretenses as a prophet and revelator. And it makes me yearn for as time when real doctrine was taught… Not every Sunday being pay your tithing, stay away from porn and coffee and you’ll live happily ever after. 
Wuwei-Every time I read the King Follett address – I feel sucked back in time. I sense myself sitting in a long dress, bible on my lap, sitting on a log outside of town listening. Imagining. Soaring with possibilities. Even when we as church don’t use it – it still shapes my desired theology. I love a living, breathing God.
mom3 wrote:Wuwei-Every time I read the King Follett address – I feel sucked back in time. I sense myself sitting in a long dress, bible on my lap, sitting on a log outside of town listening. Imagining. Soaring with possibilities.
Even when we as church don’t use it – it still shapes my desired theology. I love a living, breathing God.
Have you read The God Who Weeps yet? It was the book that helped me “fall in love” with mormonism again.
There’s a line I love that says (paraphrasing): “heaven is a condition or attitude… not a door we walk through carrying a heavenly hall-pass.”
Thanks for posting this, Ray. I like to see a little clarification on things.
Old-Timer wrote:2) The heading for OD2 makes absolutely no claim that the Priesthood ban was inspired or was the result of revelation. There is no justification for it in the heading – none. In fact, it says directly that black men were ordained in Joseph’s time, and it calls the ban a “practice”, not a “doctrine”. It also uses the word “clear” when talking about church records, which I think is accurate and a good way to state it in concise terms.
Thoughts?
It would be so awesome if the PF and Q12 would pray and receive revelation about this. Can’t the Lord tell them more about why, how, and when the restriction began? Maybe they have tried. It just seems that prophets, seers, and revelators could get some inspiration that would help people understand this better.I was shocked a year ago when I read
this
Quote:For a time in the Church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of African descent. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago.
(Start rant) I find the answer “we don’t know” from a prophet quite unsatisfactory.
Given Joseph seemed able to ‘get a revelation’ at will (even about random bones he called Zelph on Zion’s march), it seems odd that our prophet today seems so cut-off from the heavens.
What happened to Amos 3:7 that was drilled into me during seminary: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets”
Whenever a prophet/apostle says “we simply don’t know” I wonder if we really do still have a prophet getting revelation. Did they even think to ask?
I suppose, if it was never God’s will in the first place, then there’s no revelation to be had in the first place.
But let’s call a spade a spade. Either the prophets/apostles of the past who called it doctrine/revelation or the ones of today who call it a practice are wrong. One thinks/thought they are “speaking as a prophet” but actually aren’t/weren’t.
(End of rant)
mackay11 wrote:Have you read The God Who Weeps yet? It was the book that helped me “fall in love” with mormonism again.
There’s a line I love that says (paraphrasing): “heaven is a condition or attitude… not a door we walk through carrying a heavenly hall-pass.”
Great book. I should reread it but I’m not sure who’s borrowing it from me right now. It seems to reinvigorate everyone who reads it so I just keep passing it along.
mackay11 wrote:(Start rant)
I find the answer “we don’t know” from a prophet quite unsatisfactory.
Given Joseph seemed able to ‘get a revelation’ at will (even about random bones he called Zelph on Zion’s march), it seems odd that our prophet today seems so cut-off from the heavens.
What happened to Amos 3:7 that was drilled into me during seminary: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets”
Whenever a prophet/apostle says “we simply don’t know” I wonder if we really do still have a prophet getting revelation. Did they even think to ask?
I suppose, if it was never God’s will in the first place, then there’s no revelation to be had in the first place.
But let’s call a spade a spade. Either the prophets/apostles of the past who called it doctrine/revelation or the ones of today who call it a practice are wrong. One thinks/thought they are “speaking as a prophet” but actually aren’t/weren’t.
(End of rant)
This has been bothering me as well. I guess I will share how I’ve been approaching this recently.
My wife and I have consistently read the BoM since we were married and are at the end of Mosiah right now. This is really the first time I’ve approached it very skeptically. But as I’ve done that I’ve realized how different each of the leaders/prophets/etc. are.
–I will preface this with saying that I am assuming the BoM is what it say it is.
We have Nephi who conversed with God, had God show him how to build a ship, had angels appear to defend him, shocked his brothers when they opposed God’s work, caused a tempest to be still with a prayer after being unbound, and on and on and on.
And then we have say, King Benjamin. To my recollection, King Benjamin doesn’t talk about seeing God, angels, or anything approaching the experiences of Nephi. He is remembered for gathering the people together and preaching a sermon on how to act towards each other and God. He refers to the records he’s been given. His discourse doesn’t contain any new or shocking doctrine. It was just a call to rememberance of the things that had already been taught. A very effective one, but that’s it.
Then we have the book of Omni which has many people who were in charge of keeping God’s sacred records who neither received revelation nor were very righteous in some cases.
I think that prophets and leaders such as Nephi are incredibly rare. Those such as Benjamin are few and far between, but much more common. And those who are given an important position but aren’t necessarily prophets at all in the true sense are the most common.
I think that we have entirely convoluted the titles of Prophet and President. If we understand Prophet to mean someone like Nephi, Joseph Smith, Abraham, Moses, etc. –People for whom the heavens have literally opened– then we are confronted with the reality that there have been relatively few of these people in the existence of the world.
Do I personally feel the current leadership is on par with Nephi?…No. Do I think there are some, if not many, that approach King Benjamin?… Yes. Are there lots of Chemishes who just put their name in the book and pass it on?… Yep.
This always gets back to the TR question about sustaining the leadership. I can answer this yes only because it doesn’t require me to say that they are the ONLY prophets, seers, and revelators on earth. And inasmuch as they do prophesy, see, and revelate, I do sustain them. But perhaps they are called only to be King Benjamins. I would rather they expound on what they’ve been given than pretend grandiose revelations. And nowhere in the TR question does it require me to exclude believing a prophesy from another source. And as far as keys and authority and such. If someone were to hold them TSM would be the one they’ve been passed to. But those are more for administering the church than for prophesying, seeing, and revealing. Also, just because someone hold a key ring doesn’t mean they use them all or even know where they all go.
It also helps to remember that the ones the create stories of the presidents of the church seeing Jesus in the temple or other such things are not the leaders themselves but members. I’ve heard so many mormon legends that I can only imagine would make TSM laugh a bit. I think it’s a need of many in the church to believe that the person at the head of the church has seen the end times and knows the eternities. I know that I wish that were the case. But I also know I can seek and experience some of that myself instead of waiting for a prophet to do it and tell me what it’s like.
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