Mormon,Mormonism: Speaking for God?

The purpose of this blog is to discuss speculations about Mormon beliefs. In identifying and discussing these topics, it is important that, from the Mormon viewpoint, the beliefs are considered true and are not just personal opinion or folklore. Truth in religion implies a basis of some kind of revelation from God.

The Scriptures are True

The scriptures, we believe, were revealed by God to ancient prophets, and most Latter-day Saints accept scriptural statements as being true. Of course, individual interpretations of the scriptures may not be correct.

Statements by General Authorities May Be Personal Opinion

Statements by General Authorities are usually accepted by Latter-day Saints as being from God, but we must be careful in accepting such statements, because the authorities may speak their opinions with no desire on their part to have their statements be considered revelation from God. In contrast with today, General Authorities during the 19th century often gave personal opinions in books and sermons. Church Authorities today focus on basic principles from the scriptures and are less likely to propagate their opinions.

The Doctrine and Covenants explains when a Priesthood holder is speaking for God.

And behold, and lo, this is an ensample unto all those who were ordained unto this priesthood, whose mission is appointed unto them to go forth -- And this is the ensample unto them, that they shall speak as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost. And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation. (D&C 68:2-4)

Statements by General Authorities, as well as by other Priesthood holders, should be considered to be the will of the Lord only if the persons were inspired by the Holy Ghost to make those statements. This implies that Priesthood holders may say things that were not inspired by the Holy Ghost and are thus not the will of the Lord. In fact, Joseph Smith said "that a prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such." When General Authorities speak, we have to discern whether they are speaking for themselves or for the Lord.

Only the President Can Declare New Doctrine

More importantly, statements made by Church authorities that are not taken from the scriptures are official doctrines of the Church only when they are given by or are authorized by the President of the Church. President J. Rubin Clark (Counselor in the First Presidency) explained it this way.

only the President of the Church, the Presiding High Priest, is sustained as Prophet, Seer and Revelator for the Church, and he alone has the right to receive revelations for the Church, either new or amendatory, or to give authoritative interpretations of scriptures that shall be binding on the Church, or change in any way the existing doctrines of the Church.

This means that Apostles, or other Church leaders, can not declare new interpretations of the scriptures or new Church teachings as official Church doctrine. In addition, not all statements by Church presidents are given as official church positions. If a president gives a statement as the official position of the Church, he will announce it as a revelation, and the statement will be approved by the Council of the Twelve and will be sustained by the members of the Church. For example, Brigham Young repeated a common belief of his time that there were people living on the moon. Even though that statement was commonly accepted by scientists of his time, the statement was obviously his opinion, and it was not given in the context of new church doctrine.

Folklore Fills in the Details

Every religion has information that should be considered folklore. Folklore might be true or it might be false, but it is accepted by people as being true, even though the truth of it has not been substantiated.

Folklore often attempts to explain situations or incidents that are not fully explained in the scriptures or in history. An example of folklore is the belief that Jesus was married. The scriptures do not teach that Jesus was married, and as far as I know no President of the Church has officially declared as Church doctrine that Jesus was married. There are historical documents that date back to the early centuries of Christianity that state that Jesus was married, but those documents have not been canonized as scripture.

Another example of folklore, from LDS Church history, is that the Federal Government originated the idea and came to the Church with a request that 500 men be formed into a Battalion to fight against Mexico. The truth is that Brigham Young sent Jesse C. Little to Washington to see if the Federal Government could assist the migration by employing Mormons to "fortify and defend the west". President Polk "offered to aid the pioneers by permitting them to raise a battalion of five hundred men, who were to join Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, Commander of the Army of the West, and fight for the United States in the Mexican War. Little accepted this offer." I expect that the men who volunteered for the battalion didn't know that Brigham Young had instigated the negotiations that led to their service with the U.S. Army, and they probably believed that the Federal Government had started the affair. Thus a new folklore was born.

Folklore can be hard to weed out of the Church, because members, including priesthood leaders and General Authorities, may have believed the folklore for generations and may have a difficult time accepting the fact that the stories are just folklore and are not "gospel".

Mormon,Mormonism Folklore

In this Part, I explain how I came to understand that folklore may not be true. The lessons I learned in this regard have helped me handle conflicts between LDS Church doctrine and science, as well as to better understand Church doctrine and Church history, and I hope my experiences will be useful to others.

I grew up in a small town in Southern Utah. I believed that everything that was said by a General Authority was true. I also believed that the Book of Mormon was the religious history of the American Indians and that the Lamanites had scattered over the face of the Western hemisphere and were thus the principle ancestors of the Indians.

I served a LDS mission from 1956 to 1958, and I served primarily in West Virginia. As a missionary we spent our time doing door-to-door tracting. While in Clarksburg, West Virginia, we encountered quite a few members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I knew nothing about their religious beliefs, so I studied LDS Church history to better understand why the early leaders of that church hadn't gone west with Brigham Young.

General Authorities May Be In Disagreement

While studying LDS history, I came upon a conflict between Joseph Fielding Smith of the Council of the Twelve and B. H. Roberts of the First Council of the Seventy. Two General Authorities of the LDS Church who disagreed about a point of history. I don't remember the subject of their disagreement, but I realized that both couldn't be right. One had to be right and the other had to be wrong, or they both had to be wrong. This was the first time that I realized that LDS General Authorities might say or publish incorrect statements. That was quite an eye-opener for a young LDS man. While doing this study, I came across a statement by Elder John Taylor that helped me solve the dilemma of two General Authorities being in disagreement (I call him Elder Taylor, because his statement was made before he became President of the Church). Elder Taylor said that the Church can not be held responsible for the statement of any Elder. The Church can only be held responsible for the scriptures. I don't know if Elder Taylor meant his phrase "any Elder" to apply to General Authorities, but I took it that way. I realized that if the Church is not responsible for statements made by General Authorities, then those statements are given as personal opinion not as revelation. This solved my dilemma about two General Authorities being in disagreement. I realized that General Authorities are not infallible and that they have personal opinions about religious and historical matters. This realization has been invaluable to me throughout my life, especially when I've encountered anti-Mormon literature.

Folklore is Common in the Church

Shortly before beginning my mission, I attended a fireside in which a professor at the College of Southern Utah talked about Mormon myths. One of the myths he discussed was the story of the origin of the Mormon Battalion that I discussed in Part 1 of this post. Another myth that he discussed was the common belief among Utah Mormons (maybe non-Utah Mormons too, I don't know) that the Negroes did not hold the Priesthood because in the pre-existence, they were neutral in the war in Heaven. They didn't follow Satan in the war, so they came to earth to experience mortality, but they didn't follow Christ so they were deprived of the Priesthood during their mortality. The speaker explained that even though that story about the Negroes was a common belief, it was not taught in the scriptures. The lesson I learned from that fireside, that not all beliefs that are commonly held by Church members have been substantiated as truth, has been helpful to my understanding of LDS doctrine and history.

Church Leaders are Human

The bottom line to this, as far as I am concerned, is that members and leaders of the LDS Church are not infallible. They are human and have the weaknesses of mortality that we all have. They have personal opinions about religious matters and may express those opinions, as well as make mistakes, in their sermons and writings. This human factor does not detract from their callings as Apostles and Prophets, Stake Presidents, Bishops, etc. It just means they are human like you and me. God has chosen them to be His leaders, but He does not violate their agency by preventing them from being human and from making mistakes as they fulfill their callings.

Compare Statements by Church Leaders With the Scriptures

Elder Taylor said the Church can only be held accountable for the scriptures, so when I hear or read statements from Church Leaders that seem unusual, I compare those statements with the scriptures and with official Church policies. If the statements are not taught in the scriptures or in Church policies, I consider the statements as personal beliefs, and I don't get overly concerned about them. The statements I'm referring to could be in Conference talks, BYU religious talks, talks by visiting authorities at Stake Conferences, books published by individuals, books and manuals published by the Church, and statements published in the Deseret Morning News and the Church News. Many LDS disagree that I include books, manuals, and newspapers published by the Church, because those persons consider such books as official statements by the Church. I include literature published by the Church because of the "human factor" of the committees that create the literature -- mistakes will occur. As an example of this, before my Mission President was called on his mission, his wife had been a member of a committee that approved manuals for use by the Sunday School. She told us about a particular manual that had been approved and had been used in the Sunday School but was later withdrawn because errors were discovered in the book.