The Journals of William Clayton

[Anonymous]

Personally, I think we are missing those years before Jesus’ ministry to keep us from using them to deny his divinity. If we saw his entire life, we would see him as just another guy – exactly as the people did in his own country who saw him growing up and couldn’t accept him as the Messiah. We nit-pick prophets; can you imagine how we would nit-pick someone who claimed to the Savior and Redeemer of mankind?

[Anonymous]

magicmusician wrote:

You say that but can i post this question

What about the life of Jesus and accounts thereof – there are a huge number of years of his life that we have no details of arent there

So wouldnt that cause the same problems?

It would. And if a person decides to base his or her testimony, or lack thereof, on the foundation of history that is missing so many pieces anyway, that makes for a weak foundation.

The foundation that is stronger, IMO, is the foundation of our own experience with the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and our own experience with the Holy Ghost. And when we make the present more critical than the fragmented record of the past, then we can build on our own foundation of faith in Christ, based on our own experience.

Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

well that makes a lot of sense to me

Good point and definatly worh a lot of thought

[Anonymous]

Fig’s concept of the here-and-now is largely what kept me in the Church in the beginning of my crisis. There was this confusing flood of information about the past — all the problems in history and inconsistency in doctrine over time. But what I kept trying to do is look up from the books, the books talking about the past, and look around me. The Church I went to every week was full of really nice, quirky, struggling people just like me. Nobody was preaching about polygamy, adam-God theory, blood atonement or recruiting for the Danites — not when I looked up from my books. What I saw was a community of people trying their best to build on the words of Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous]

The thing is – I dont quite have the same

When I look up from my books

I see people who live in perfect worlds and perfect families

now i KNOW logically that maybe they put on their best suits and clothes

and show their best side on Sundays

But I see people who seem to have such a strong testimony and I cant help the fact that I want to know about the history and the whys and wherefores

I am the kind of person that would keep saying why in school

I wanted to know why gravity occured

I wanted to know why or how to pretty much anything

I feel that the need for a deeper knowledge of things – thats something that I have been given especially when I can understand it

Make sense?

[Anonymous]

Like you MagicM I need to ask why, I need to grasp as clearly as I can what things are, what they represent, why they are that way, and how they got to be what they are. I like Fig’s statement about the present personal experience, I have grown to the point (I feel anyway) spiritually of being able to agree with that statement. I think what we experince personally, in a spiritual way, is more important than how anything external may relate to our spiritual life. With my unique personality I have needed to put the whole authority question “on the shelf” to be able to focus on my personal spiritual growth. In my mind the circumstances of the past, our early church history, do relate to whether or not God actually gave “exclusive authority” in a universal worldwide sense to Joseph Smith to establish an exclusively authorized church on earth that has the sole responsibility to unlock the salvation of all men, women, and children past and present. The literalness of these types of statements are difficult for me to understand and process – so to be quite frank I don’t worry about it. I focus on my personal growth and hope that by improving myself I can help to change the world in some small way. I don’t know if the second coming of Jesus (in power and glory) will be a literal returning of the resurrected personage, or if his teachings and message will be accepted world-wide (teachings of love, forgiveness, non-violence, etc.) to the point that his presence will “rule” and the world will be transformed. Either way I see my personal growth and promotion of these principles to be an assistance of the end goal.

I also constantly think of something Leonard Arrington said regarding spiritual truth and scriptural stories – “I am prepared to accept them as historical or as metaphorical, as symbolical, or as precisely what happened. That they convey religious truth is the essential issue, and of this I have never had any doubt.”

[Author]

Posts