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I have often wondered about modern day revelation from the leaders or what I see as the lack of it. We teach constantly of the principle. We say the “prophet” receives it for the whole church. Yet in all my life of 50+ years I can not point to one comment from any leader that I could point to and say that was pure revelation. I have heard, read, and seen inspiring things. But when I break it down there is nothing that a wise or educated person with reasoning and common sense skills could not come up with. In my life we never even here from the pulpit in GC that the lord spoke to me and said thus. It is just a bunch of touch feely stories. Is that what revelation consists of today? I often think of the interview President Hinckley gave where he quoted 1 Kings 19:11-12. If the spiritual leader of the whole church and even perhaps for the world must rely on the whisperings and thoughts of his mind for guidance does that constitute revelation? Perhaps I want to much, but at least Joseph had the fortitude to say that God spoke to him and this is what he said. I am afraid I have concluded that the leaders refrain from pronouncing anything as revelation in that if nothing is said nothing can be interpreted as incorrect. Have we backed ourselves into a corner in the church where we say that what the leaders say is revelation but it is more like advice. Thus putting them in an awkward position.
Fwiw, I think we simply live in a day and age when what used to be seen as clear-cut revelation now is interpreted as non-revelation. I think we have seen what happens when leaders interpret their own feelings and beliefs as ordained of God (Priesthood ban, anyone) – and so they are careful only to attribute “thus saith the Lord” to things where they are certain it has been communicated through extraordinary means. I’m OK with that – since everyone here also chafes at being told what to think and believe. It’s a two-edged sword – and I’m not sure anyone here really wants the President laying out lots of things we simply MUST believe came straight from the mouth of God in a way that closed the discussion and said, essentially, “Shut up and accept this.” It’s one thing to be able to say, “Our leaders are fallible, and it’s up to us to ponder and pray about what their words mean to us personally;” it’s a completely different thing to say, “Please tell us, ‘Thus saith the Lord’ and take away our need to find individual meaning for ourselves.”
I also think that there is lots of validity to the scarcity of “new stuff” between Nephi and Alma in the BofM – and the blunt statements of the leaders at the end of the small plates of Nephi that say, essentially, “I know of nothing new, so I’m not going to clutter the plates with my own ramblings.” The Church makes changes (and sometimes pretty radical changes) on a regular basis in both what it teaches and what it does. I’m fine with attributing that to revelation – which I define as “insight from God” received in some way.
Given that definition, I’m fine with revelation being the result of long-time dedication to striving to understand and come closer to God – even when it happens through what we might naturally consider to be “normal” means.
Up to a point in my life, I also saw leaders as having magical answers (revelation). We go through a painful and wrenching experience as we transition our center of authority from outside sources like leaders and group approval to bring that inside ourselves, so that we become the ultimate authority for our life. It is so nice and tidy when someone else has the right answer. We can depend on that. It is less stressful because someone else made the decision or figured out the answer — they got the revelation.
I still value leaders. Many of them spend a great amount of time and energy pondering and praying for insight, but now I see them more like peers. I am the one that
mustreceive the “revelation” for myself now. Other people have been wrong, or their ideas are not for me. I have personally experienced failure depending on others for revelation. A peer can still provide invaluable observations, insights and ideas though. I have to figure it out for myself now.
Isn’t that really better? Isn’t that progress and personal evolution?
Cadence, you should read my post about the CoC. They are currently in the process of trying to canonize a new revelation (a relatively frequently occurence for them.) Does this process appeal to you? See http://mormonmatters.org/2010/01/05/canonizing-modern-revelation-a-tourist-guide/ here are some of my thoughts. i think that in a sence we are all prophets capable of receiving revelation. some special people (imo in and out of the church) have just recieved larger amounts or more revealing revelation than others. unfortunately the huge spiritual paradigm shift of joseph smith’s cosmology hasn’t been matched since probably as far back as christ. someone like a joseph smith, (or in modern times perhaps say ghandi?), don’t come along very often. i’m sure there is something that can be learned from our modern day church heirarchy (lately i’ve been wondering what exactly that is) but to expect them to bring forth something as significant as joseph smith’s revelations is unlikely and unfair given the pattern of history. i guess you can consider numbers 12:6 which states “if there be a prophet among you, i lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream” I guess their are at least two possible interpretations of this verse; either that in order to be a prophet you have to have been spoken to personally by god, or, moses was just trying to establish his premenince against aaron and miriam and so he sited his personal experiences with god to bolster his claim as prophet. The scripture then reads in verse 8 “with him will i speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the lord shall he behold”. most members believe that this is what happens with our modern day prophets and so they continue to allow this myth to continue but as you sited with gordon b hinckley’s admission, even prophets rely on the still small voice of the spirit. from this verse moses is claiming that god speaks loud and clear to him not ambiguously and through touchy feely stories that are mostly read over the teleprompter at gc. i feel the same way as brian johnston in that i do value our leaders but they don’t hold the same kind of ultimate authority over my spirituality as they use to. they are just wise peers attempting to run a global expanding church that attempts as best it can to serve the spiritual needs of its members and i see how difficult that must be. on my mission i had a companion who, luckily not while serving with me, would “receive spiritual promptings” that he needed to put all kinds of crazy rules and regulations on the missionaries in his zone. while we were serving together he’d constantly receive the same spiritual promptings to go to certain doors or streets that most of the time were empty. sure some of them might have been real spiritual promptings but imo most of the time he was nuts and so did the majority of missionaries in my mission. i see that possibly that might be a microcosm of how some leaders even operate at the top of the church. don’t get me wrong, he had good intentions but good intentions don’t always mean your doing the right thing for yourself or others. and it’s not like i’m immune to it either. i’m positive that i currently believe something that is totally wrong and false and have most likely taught it to someone else and they probably tried to apply it and it didn’t work. maybe what i’m writing right now is wrong, who knows, so remember that we all, everyone one of us, sees through a glass darkly and the best that we can do is test it out and see if it rings true to us personally and then try and apply it the best we can. mostly i’m pretty glad that the more modern prophets haven’t had any “major” revelation because it would probably just be a bunch of rules. i don’t fully agree with the proclamation to the family, although that’s not really revelation, it’s more like a creed. i don’t believe the blacks and the priesthood revelation would have ever been necessary if they would have gotten it right to begin with. hopefully they’ll recieve some new revelation concerning women’s roles and homosexuality but that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. until then i’ll just catch all the gc talks during sacrament meeting when someone is assigned to give commentary on one of the ga’s recent talks instead of thinking for themselfs, hahahahaha I distinctly remember an occasion where Spencer W. Kimball had a revelation. Now, everyone knows about the revelation which allowed all worthy male members of the Church to hold the Priesthood . . . but President Kimball had another revelation. I was serving as a full-time missionary in a large College Campus in 1980. Our Mission President called a special meeting which we were all required to attend. We had to leave our proselyting for this special session. The Prophet of the Church had just received a revelation. “Tell them to repent”. “Tell everyone who is not obeying the law of chastity to repent”. “If they do not repent right now, there won’t be any time, there won’t be any time”.
My companion and I drove home to our Mission District. What did President Kimball mean. Was Christ about to return to earth? What did he mean that we were,”out of time”.
1981 . . . the first case of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV was reported in the U.S.).
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