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Are there really members who claim that McConkie didn’t mean Catholicism? I thought he made that crystal clear – then bowed to pressure from above to delete it in the 2nd edition. Since I believe he was wrong, I’m glad it got deleted, but I can’t remember every hearing anyone claim he meant anything else. Old-Timer wrote:Are there really members who claim that McConkie didn’t mean Catholicism? I thought he made that crystal clear – then bowed to pressure from above to delete it in the 2nd edition. Since I believe he was wrong, I’m glad it got deleted, but I can’t remember every hearing anyone claim he meant anything else.
I had a seminary teacher that taught (in the 70s) that McConkie “said” words that implied Catholicism, but that he really meant the entire Christian world, since every other church was an offshoot of the Catholic church.
Brian Johnston wrote:
I am not sure there is always a single meaning in what someone says, at least not so much in a religious context. That would assume that something is said by someone or through them (as in divine revelation) perfectly. The conversion from soul to mind to tongue isn’t always a lossless conversion.For example, how do you parse a passage of scripture that isn’t clearly translated or that contains error? The NT is notorious for this.
One of the great pieces of wisdom I have gained in the last 6 months is to assume that the single meaning I am getting from a communication is incomplete and false – and that is OK. I can check/clarify for multiple meanings – even enjoy it at times.
Life became a lot easier for me when I could not longer submit to single meanings of anything scriptorial (between the prophetic viewpoint, translation/transmittal viewpoint, cultural viewpoint and religious basics, I am probably missing a lot of intended meaning) – a lot less black/white and a lot more watercolory…
AmyJ wrote:
One of the great pieces of wisdom I have gained in the last 6 months is to assume that the single meaning I am getting from a communication is incomplete and false – and that is OK. I can check/clarify for multiple meanings – even enjoy it at times.Life became a lot easier for me when I could not longer submit to single meanings of anything scriptorial (between the prophetic viewpoint, translation/transmittal viewpoint, cultural viewpoint and religious basics, I am probably missing a lot of intended meaning) – a lot less black/white and a lot more watercolory…
Amy, I like where you are going with this. In one of the other recent posts there was an analogy to an art museum. For me “revelation” and “spiritual expression” is much more like art than like science. Suppose we have a piece of cat art that has become iconic with multiple compelling schools of thought as to its meaning. It is one of those pieces that can “speak” at different metaphorical levels.
Suppose, someone went back in time and met the artist and asked him what his intention was in making the art. He responds that he was looking for a subject to paint and his neighbors cat wandered by. Would that make those “schools of thought” wrong? I believe that art can take on valid and even contradictory meanings beyond the creators specific intent.
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