Prophets and Revelation

[Anonymous]

I think Tom sees the way.

You go Bro!

[Anonymous]

Hearing from you “non-traditional Mormons” is like seeing something familiar in a very unfamiliar way. This is really, really great. Thank you everyone for your answers. I’ll respond to a few of your comments and make few additional points for clarification of our very interesting dialogue.

Quote:

Valoel wrote:

When it comes to messages from prophets, I see them as a mirror. . . Everyone sees their own message in the mirror. We are looking into our own soul and drawing out the wisdom specifically tailored to fit our needs. That message could have nothing to do with the literal words and ideas being spoken. What matters is the sense of receiving the whispers of the divine, and trying to figure out what the message might be.

Valoel brings up an interesting point about prophets and revelation being mirrors. It reminds me of the uncomfortable fact that when JS translated the BOM, he mostly used his own seer-stone that he found when digging a well with Willard Chase, and the gold plates were either covered or not even present – so he didn’t use the gold plates when dictating the BOM. So why did the BOM prophets painstakingly preserve a record for over a thousand years and carefully preserve them for Joseph, along with a means to “translate” them, when he didn’t even use the gold plates or the Urim and Thummim during the translation? Similarly, one defense of the Book of Abraham (since the Egyptian papyri have nothing to do with the text in the BOA) is that the papyri served as a facilitator for the actual text – given by revelation. So why did he need to purchase the papyri and say he was translating them? Maybe the gold plates and Egyptian papyri can be thought of as “mirrors” that helped JS get his own God-inspired message. Similarly, if we also view our prophets as a mirror or facilitator for our own personal revelation, then why do we need prophets at all? Couldn’t a work of art, music, or nature itself be a mirror or facilitator for our personal revelation? If JS didn’t need the gold plates or papyri, then do we need prophets?

Another point I wanted to highlight and discuss further involves something Orson said:

Quote:

. . . we may just need to think in the Martin Luther mindset — that no earthly authority can get between a man and his God. Maybe if we look at earthly “authority” as facilitative instead of absolute and literal then we can move forward and find the spiritual food where it exists.

In the reformation, Luther said that the way to discover truth was not by following the authority of the Catholic church. Rather, the way to discover truth was through personal revelation. The Catholic church and their apologists, during the counter-reformation, said people should trust the church and it’s authority as the divinely sanctioned repository of truth (interesting parallels between our church and apologists and the Catholic church).

Anyway, Luther’s ideas are great. I’m personally a fan and agree with Orson. However, the problem with Luther’s “personal revelation” path to truth is that it gave rise to many different views of Christianity and eventually many different churches. This is exactly what the Catholic church wanted to avoid, and just what our church wants to avoid now. Our “watchman on the towers” try to prevent this sort of heresy from entering into our church and dividing the flock. This was the problem that JS had to confront when Hiram Page said he was getting revelations with his own seer stone (see D&C 28). It seems JS (or the Lord) realized that this would be a problem, JS received a more authoritative revelation with his seer-stone, and Hiram was told that the messages he received were from Satan (vs 11).

Some part of me feels that to be part of the church in a meaningful and honest way, I have to “follow the rules” that the church makes. The church has that right. It’s like playing a game. If I’m going to play, I have to agree to play by the rules, and when the referee says I fouled, then I eventually have to agree or I get ejected. If nobody follows the referee and becomes a law unto themselves, then the game stops because chaos ensues. One of those rules seems to be “follow the brethren”. I think that in small ways, we can be our own light, but can we really disagree about the big things; the nature of God and salvation, the historicity of the BOM, the literalness of the BOA, or restoration of priesthood, necessity of temple ceremonies or ordinances of salvation, etc, etc?

[Anonymous]

jpacman, thanks for a great dialogue.

I feel that our participation in the Church must follow some set of rules upon which the collective organization settles. But I don’t know that this has to be a Bruce R. McConkie or even a traditional understanding of what those rules are. I see the “rules” as being entirely composed of two questions:

1) Do you want to be a part of the Church or the LDS family?

2) Will your participation stop others from having the experience they want?

#2 doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If you feel like you have to be honest all the time, maybe you might not be able to teach Sunday School. Maybe you can’t even go to the temple (with John’s fabulous essay in mind). But you don’t have to walk out of the community because you don’t think the Book of Mormon is ancient history. At most, you should probably keep that belief to yourself while you’re at church.

[Anonymous]

I’ve been thinking today about how to address this without writing a novel. (I failed; sorry for the length)

1) I was 7-years-old when I read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover for the first time. It was my choice as part of a reading contest in school. I couldn’t handle reading the Dr. Seuss level stuff everyone else was reading, so my teacher agreed to give me credit for reading 50 books in the contest when I asked if I could read the Book of Mormon. That was an amazing experience for me, but not at all in the way that most members would assume.

I have been a hardcore parser from my earliest memories. As I was reading that book, I remember thinking often, “My parents and church leaders have said that the Book of Mormon says, ‘(Fill in the blank)’, but that’s not what it actually says. It says, ‘(Fill in the blank differently – even with regard to some things that Joseph Smith himself had taught about it and dealing with D&C revelations received by him.)'” Over and over and over again, that struck me as I read – and it left me with a fundamental understanding of something that has been an anchor in my life ever since.

2) It’s easy to dismiss “we see through a glass darkly” as a weak justification, but it was said by a prophet who didn’t exclude himself from that statement – even though he personally had seen the resurrected Lord and apparently had been “caught up to the third heaven”. If even Paul still saw through a glass darkly . . . and if even Paul admitted that “we prophesy in part” . . .

3) Ironically, the fact that I could see where Joseph himself fundamentally misunderstood the Book of Mormon’s actual words strengthened my acceptance of him as a prophet – since it told me that he didn’t understand it like an actual author would have. If he didn’t spend hours and days and months and years concocting it in his mind, but rather dictated it as the words appeared before his eyes, it would make much more sense that he wouldn’t really understand it deeply. Later, in Seminary, I realized that it wasn’t used in the earliest days as a scriptural text to study (as we see it now). Rather, it was used then as a prophetic text to witness of Joseph’s role – to be FELT spiritually rather than UNDERSTOOD intellectually. When that realization hit me, I realized again that I needed to study and parse it carefully if I was to understand what it really was saying, since most of what others were teaching me about it included lots of assumptions passed on through the “incorrect traditions of (my own) fathers”.

4) So, from a very young age, I have seen prophets and apostles as men doing the best they can to see through their own glasses darkly, but I also have seen them as fundamentally honest, good men who were wrong quite often. I consciously decided to step back, if you will, and try to see the totality of their lives and efforts and impact – and not focus exclusively, or even primarily, on what I saw as their mistakes.

5) Finally, my mother was a secretary in Pres. McKay’s administration for a while before she married my father. She didn’t share intimate, confidential details with us when we came along, but she talked frequently about her experience – and especially about how deeply she loved them for their genuine concern and love and anxiety for the members of the Church. She talked of the horrible hate mail they received (that she often screened), and she talked about how their countenances brightened whenever they received word of someone’s triumph over something. She really, truly loved those men (especially J. Reuben Clark), but she also mentioned occasionally how long and intense some of their meetings were when all the apostles were trying to hash out something about which there was no consensus. (Interestingly, that was during the time frame when how to handle the Priesthood ban was under consideration.)

So, by the time I was 16 (at the oldest), I saw prophets and apostles as good men at heart who didn’t understand even some things I thought were quite simple, who made some mistakes that were really stupid to me, who didn’t agree on a lot of things (even important or seemingly critical things), but who still were doing God’s work to the best of their ability because they believed in their calling. I also gained a view of the heavy, heavy burdens they carry and the hellish life they live in many ways that is invisible to the average member – and that blunted any remaining tendency to criticize or condemn THEM, even as I felt totally able to evaluate what they said and did.

Summary: I believe God speaks to each of us in whatever way we are able and willing to experience, but I also believe God doesn’t remove our limitations on understanding very often. I believe there really must needs be opposition in ALL things, including in the actual minds and spirits of his children – including prophets and apostles. I believe the things that prophets were “commanded to not write” were specifically those times when the veil was parted and those prophets saw in purity and beheld clearly. We have relatively few of those moments in our recorded scriptures, so I accept everything else as having been “transmitted through our mortal filters” rather than “revealed clearly and unadulterated”.

Finally, as I have started blogging extensively over the last two years (putting my thoughts and beliefs into print that is accessible by the general public), I have felt impressed even more with the need to see others and treat their words in the same way I want myself and my words to be seen and treated in the future. I am certain much of what I write now will be considered foolish or even downright stupid and/or appalling by my great-grandchildren, and I want to judge the prophets in the same light I want my posterity to judge me – with benign amusement and charity, not focusing on my inabilities but rather on my effort and sincerity. I also want them to treat me as they do the prophet of their own day, since, in the end, we’re both just brother schmoes doing our best to make sense of an incomprehensible existence. The difference is that I don’t have to live in the constant glare of the stares of those who hold me to an impossibly high standard AND those who spend their every waking minute dissecting my every word to show that I am an emissary of Satan. I have a hard time reviling someone who is in a position I pray never to have to live.

[Anonymous]

Gabe, you made some good points.

Jpacman, I completely understand what you see from your vantage point. Your questions are valid. The slight difference I see between Luther’s goals and “progressive” Mormons is Luther wanted to fundamentally change the direction and activities of the Catholic church. In my opinion “progressive Mormons” don’t care to change anything in the church (as far as “core doctrines” at least, people’s actions/words or tradition/policy aside) so much as they simply desire the freedom to see what they see through their own lens. Popular opinion around a basketball game may say the objective is to score the most points and win. Other players may claim their personal objective is to learn more effective teamwork, get some exercise, be entertained, or learn game strategy. There could be many personal goals that differ from “winning at all costs” that are still compatible with playing on the same team as those players. Yes, difficulties may arise at times from the different perspectives, but those difficulties could even assist the goal of “learning patience” even more.

In other words I don’t think a “personal path” will always lead to chaos for the group. That’s my thought.

Thanks for your input!

[Anonymous]

jpacman wrote:

If JS didn’t need the gold plates or papyri, then do we need prophets?

I guess it depends on what you mean by “need” and what you mean by “we”, doesn’t it?

jpacman wrote:

Our “watchman on the towers” try to prevent this sort of heresy from entering into our church and dividing the flock. This was the problem that JS had to confront when Hiram Page said he was getting revelations with his own seer stone (see D&C 28).

I think this weakness of Joseph Smith threw an unfortunate twist into our tradition. Then again, I guess maybe “we need” a single point of reference. At least, that has come to be a defining characteristic of the LDS religion. Other traditions (CofChrist, Quaker, evangelical) vary.

jpacman wrote:

follow the rules

I love your thoughts about “the rules”. Great food for thought.

Gabe P wrote:

If you feel like you have to be honest all the time, maybe you might not be able to teach Sunday School. Maybe you can’t even go to the temple (with John’s fabulous essay in mind). But you don’t have to walk out of the community because you don’t think the Book of Mormon is ancient history. At most, you should probably keep that belief to yourself while you’re at church.

Gabe, your post is excellent summary and advice. I might even say, Add that to the essay.

Old-Timer wrote:

The difference is that I don’t have to live in the constant glare of the stares of those who hold me to an impossibly high standard.

Great thoughts. It would be nice, though, if they could grok the things they are doing that are perpetuating that constant and inappropriate glare. Maybe those things are false traditions that need to change. But patience, Tom, patience.

Orson wrote:

In my opinion “progressive Mormons” don’t care to change anything in the church (as far as “core doctrines” at least, people’s actions/words or tradition/policy aside)

Count me an exception. I make no distinction between any doctrine and tradition. It can all be improved with few exceptions (“I am a Child of God” and “Love One Another” would be hard to improve). I hold out hope that my presence will make a difference not only to myself. Otherwise any church would really do, even though I am LDS.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

It would be nice, though, if they could grok the things they are doing that are perpetuating that constant and inappropriate glare. Maybe those things are false traditions that need to change. But patience, Tom, patience.

Tom, I agree – and I think they are trying to do so. There have been quite a few major changes in the Church over the past decade, and perhaps the biggest difference between now and 30 years ago is that they have stopped speculating nearly as much – and actually moving actively away from previous teachings. They say, “I don’t know” a lot more than they used to (if they ever did back in the day). They also are saying openly and frequently things like Elder Oaks’ statements in the post that Bridget just posted, “Special Cases”.

We still have a long way to go, but when I look around, it really isn’t my father’s church anymore.

[Anonymous]

I agree Ray, I see movement. Slow to be sure, but movement.

Tom, I think you hit on the very core of the doctrine: God is love, we are children of God, (love is the rule and everything moves outward from there) maybe the further away from the center the more it could use a course change?

[Author]

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