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I was listening to John Dehlin’s recent Mormon Stories interview with the Purves family (former Bishop from Davis, California). My reaction to the interview was the same reaction I generally have, namely “Wow, these would have been great, dynamic, interesting people to keep in the Church, what a shame we couldn’t hang on to them.” Scott Purves mentioned being a seminary teacher while going through his faith crisis. He mentioned something that was very worthwhile and definitely needs to be addressed in the Seminary manual regarding D&C 89.
The teacher’s edition of the Seminary manual acknowledges that D&C 89:2 says that the WOW is not a commandment. It also acknowledges that early leaders did not live it the way we do now. That is progress, and I applaud that. However, it then makes a very bold claim: “On October 13, 1882, the Lord revealed to President John Taylor that the Word of Wisdom was to be considered a commandment.”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual-2017/chapter-35-doctrine-and-covenants-89-92?lang=eng There is no footnote to this claim. Looking up the revelation
http://www.yorgalily.org/~yorgasor/church/MiscRevelations/RevJohn%20Taylor-1882.html Sadly, it seems like we were trying to sloppily patch a theological hole with the hope that no one would really dig into what this revelation said and just take the statement at face value. A short-term fix that will do more harm than good in the long run.
Not super surprising in light of the way things worked in what I hope is quickly becoming the “old church.” That is, if it was in a manual, church magazine, etc., or mentioned over the pulpit, it just wasn’t questioned. I think we live in a new era where we do and should question and I think Elder Bednar (and others) made that pretty clear in last GC. Taking the manual’s word for it that John Taylor received a revelation isn’t enough – we should know for ourselves. (Upon examination, it does appear that the referenced revelation in the manual was likely referring to polygamy and its main purpose was actually to fill leadership vacancies.) This is also something I think some apologists do with some frequency – make a leaping connection that isn’t really there. Nothing against your link, Felix, it’s just kind of an odd site to find something like that on (although it did pop up in my search as well), but here’s another link (from BYU) which also includes other Taylor revelations:
https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/champion-liberty-john-taylor/john-revelator-written-revelations-john-taylor ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/champion-liberty-john-taylor/john-revelator-written-revelations-john-taylor I think there were many things like this happening in the early church which would surprise us and teach us how revelation in the church works. All it takes, it seems, is a prophet to say we must obey it…and it is done.
“patching together a theology” is kind of another way to say “ongoing revelation” or “the restoration.”
I think as members, in an age of information, we just have to start seeing these things as they are, and accept many things we thought were some kind of iron-clad revelation from the mouth of God are actually just part of religion…things we hope for, evidence for it is unseen.
It takes faith. It requires being open to redefine our faith over and over throughout our life as we change and as our perceptions change and as our awareness of events change.
The good news is the church is open to calling things as they are. I think more and more TBM members would agree the WoW is open for interpretations and would agree it wasn’t originally given as a commandment as we live it now. But they also wait for the prophet to speak and change the rules…until then…they live it as a commandment as if from the lips of God.
Quote:I think we live in a new era where we do and should question and I think Elder Bednar (and others) made that pretty clear in last GC.
I believe he is making this his present platform. At least he continued it when he was in our area recently.
mom3 wrote:
Quote:I think we live in a new era where we do and should question and I think Elder Bednar (and others) made that pretty clear in last GC.
I believe he is making this his present platform. At least he continued it when he was in our area recently.
I agree. I am not a huge fan of DAB, but I did really like his last GC talk. He is almost a shoe in for the big chair. If this is his theme, I’d be OK with that part.
Heber13 wrote:
I think there were many things like this happening in the early church which would surprise us and teach us how revelation in the church works.All it takes, it seems, is a prophet to say we must obey it…and it is done.
“patching together a theology” is kind of another way to say “ongoing revelation” or “the restoration.”
I think as members, in an age of information, we just have to start seeing these things as they are, and accept many things we thought were some kind of iron-clad revelation from the mouth of God are actually just part of religion…things we hope for, evidence for it is unseen.
It takes faith. It requires being open to redefine our faith over and over throughout our life as we change and as our perceptions change and as our awareness of events change.
The good news is the church is open to calling things as they are. I think more and more TBM members would agree the WoW is open for interpretations and would agree it wasn’t originally given as a commandment as we live it now. But they also wait for the prophet to speak and change the rules…until then…they live it as a commandment as if from the lips of God.
I do think it was interesting that the referenced revelation, which again did not seem to address the WoW, did address the idea that the top leadership must be united. That is a theme we’ve heard over the last several years which I think in the early days may not have been emphasized as much. The president/prophet is the captain of the ship but “rule by committee” does seem to have a part in the modern church. I think that’s why Nelson has been able to make many of the changes he has made and perhaps why some of the others we hope for have been a little slower in coming (but can’t be ruled out).
I think the general issue is understood by many members. It certainly has been taught in Seminary for decades. I heard it taught 35-40 years go when I took the D&C in Seminary – and I have heard it mentioned lots of times in church throughout my life. Most members don’t know or care about exactly when it changed, but most who are from active, multi-generational families understand it started as counsel and later was changed to command. Honestly, I am not sure what the issue is that the Church is going to have to address. Whether there actually was a classic revelation to make the change? That literally is unprovable one way or another. I am as certain as I can be there is no “smoking gun” record proving it was fabricated and deceitfully presented. I also know there cannot be an audio-visual recording of a divine visitation commanding the change. So, what is left that could force the Church to address it differently?
I have no idea. Right now, it is what it is – which means it could remain exactly as it is right now or change in any way the current or future leadership might feel inspired/commanded to implement.
I understand felix to be saying that the referenced revelation on October 13, 1882 does not seem to address the WoW and that the people who edit the next version of the seminary manual might want to change that sentence to, “In 1882, the Lord revealed to President John Taylor that the Word of Wisdom was to be considered a commandment.” In making this statement I assume that the church leaders might not be able to pinpoint exactly the moment that the WoW shifted from counsel to commandment but they can narrow it down to the year that the WoW was treated differently by church administration. Otherwise the editors could take a page from the intro to D&C 132 and say something like “Although the change from counsel to commandment wasn’t fully implemented until 1882, evidence indicates that President John Taylor and his predecessors had been receiving pangs of inspiration in that direction as early as 1851.”
In writing that last sentence it was rather difficult for me to convey that God might have been revealing this change incrementally over a period of 31 years. When I conceptiualize the word revelation, I think of it as a sudden single event. I personally find it interesting how difficult it can be for me to decribe revelation as a process. I imagine that in the passage in question – “On October 13, 1882, the Lord revealed to President John Taylor that the Word of Wisdom was to be considered a commandment.” – the editors were going for that sort of hard, tangibe, event, type revelation that you can sink your teeth into. On October 13, 1882, the Lord took action! How definitive and compelling!
Roy wrote:
I understand felix to be saying that the referenced revelation on October 13, 1882 does not seem to address the WoW and that the people who edit the next version of the seminary manual might want to change that sentence to, “In 1882, the Lord revealed to President John Taylor that the Word of Wisdom was to be considered a commandment.”In making this statement I assume that the church leaders might not be able to pinpoint exactly the moment that the WoW shifted from counsel to commandment but they can narrow it down to the year that the WoW was treated differently by church administration. Otherwise the editors could take a page from the intro to D&C 132 and say something like “Although the change from counsel to commandment wasn’t fully implemented until 1882, evidence indicates that President John Taylor and his predecessors had been receiving pangs of inspiration in that direction as early as 1851.”
In writing that last sentence it was rather difficult for me to convey that God might have been revealing this change incrementally over a period of 31 years. When I conceptiualize the word revelation, I think of it as a sudden single event. I personally find it interesting how difficult it can be for me to decribe revelation as a process. I imagine that in the passage in question – “On October 13, 1882, the Lord revealed to President John Taylor that the Word of Wisdom was to be considered a commandment.” – the editors were going for that sort of hard, tangibe, event, type revelation that you can sink your teeth into. On October 13, 1882, the Lord took action! How definitive and compelling!
Givens points out in
Wrestling the Angeland Feeding the Flockthat it’s easy for us to look at things like the temple ceremony and look back believing it was given in a linear fashion, sort of from start to finish according to what we have now. That wasn’t the way it really happened, though. Some of the later pieces were given first and some of the earlier pieces were given much later. Such is the case with much of what Joseph did. Our point of view is much different from the way things really transpired. Stuff apparently really came in bits and pieces and not necessarily in the order we know it now. This idea is alluded to in several introductions to sections of the D&C. The WoW could very well be in this same category, including with Joseph’s successors. I think what Felix is pointing out is that the statement in the manual is incorrect, and as you say it should be adjusted so as not to make reference to that particular revelation. In reality there are only two items in the WofW that we care about. No tobacco and no alcohol. Even then it says beer and wine are ok to some degree. Coffee and tea get thrown in for some reason and the are not even mentioned. We talk about it being a commandment and all but we don’t remotely live it as it is worded. Instead we live some kind of culturally created commandment
It is interesting how just some slivers of it became engrained in the church and the rest is politely ignored. Drink a beer and you are apostate. Eat fruit out of season no problem.
I think like many things it is in for an overhaul in the near future. The leaders recognize it is out of place in our world and does not fit the mindset of the masses.
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Quote:I think like many things it is in for an overhaul in the near future. The leaders recognize it is out of place in our world and does not fit the mindset of the masses.
I also think being a global church with totally different eating experiences, refrigeration, water, poverty are going to effect it. We like to think it’s we American’s pushing for something but I would bet the cultures outside of us provide as much input to change as we here do.
Absolutely, mom3. Some of the most recent changes were driven largely by other countries, like the elimination of the sealing wait period. There was no waiting in some countries, so Americans started saying, “They don’t have to wait, so why do we?” Scouting is another good example.
Americans forget quite often that we truly are a global church.
Just for clarification, the manual doesn’t designate any particular revelation when it states the date of the revelation in question. It simply gives the date. It links to lots of other stuff but not to a particular statement about the revelation it cites. The issue is that there is another statement of revelation on that date that we can find, so we assume the manual references that revelation. That assumption is logical for some people, but it isn’t a direct claim of the manual. It is easy to look at what is presented and assume that date is when the WOW began being presented as a commandment. The marriage statement of revelation obviously was a huge deal at the time, and it is easy to see the WOW change as something that would have not been given as much official attention and been emphasized as much. That seems odd to us, since we aren’t dealing with the marriage issue in the same way they were at the time but still are dealing with the WOW issue. It is front and center for us, so we think it should have been front and center for them. It is obvious, however, that it wasn’t. It was a fairly quiet change.
I would support changing the manual to say the change occurred that year, but I also don’t know the reason why the manual mentions that date. I don’t know if it was an assumption or if that was when the change started to be preached, another major revelation was announced that day, and the writers assumed it also had to have been revelation based on what was said about it afterward. I just am not comfortable personally saying it is “an issue” the Church is going to have to address.
Interesting comments. I can now see, this, like so many things, really depends on your point of view. From my point of view, the WOW started as JS getting a revelation (or maybe attributing to revelation) general health advice that was widely accepted and circulated during that time. The primary goal being to reduce alcohol consumption, his father was an alcoholic after all. It kind of ebbed and flowed in emphasis after that, but was generally treated good advice, but not a requirement. As polygamy started to come to a halt and we tried to assimilate into American society, we picked up the WOW as a new cultural identifier and gave it more and more emphasis until it became a test of fellowship. The boundaries had to be marked somewhere, we threw in coffee and tea because Hyrum Smith (Joseph F.’s father, who advocated emphasis) said they were hot drinks and Heber J. Grant decided Coca Cola probably should be included but decided not to. In my mind, this was an institutional decision and the emphasis was to create a group identity, get people away from drinking alcohol and assimilate into American society. I see the evidence as strongly supporting this view. We created a narrative that the WOW was in place since the beginning, which the membership accepted. Now, more evidence is coming out countering that narrative and we’ve had to concede that D&C 89 says it’s not a commandment and it wasn’t a requirement before the 1920s. Theologically, this is problematic, because it shows that it was more of an institutional decision and not necessarily revelation. I see the seminary manual as a dishonest attempt to solve the theological problem. But, from a more believing point of view, the Lord started impressing this on the mind of John Taylor in the late 1800s. While there may not be an exact revelation, it became more impressed with each subsequent President of the Church and gave the membership some time to adapt to it being a commandment. This acknowledges some messiness, but puts the Lord in the driver’s seat and faith in this being a commandment. Both are valid viewpoints and this was a good discussion to show that.
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