Tag: Historic Christianity

I Am a Mormon, Part 2

The “Historic Christian” faith fragmented because of centralized control seeking to govern even the thoughts of “Christian” believers. The creed I quoted in Part 1 says Christians “must think thus” about God. The rulers of the church were not content to claim they held the keys, but wanted to micromanage even the minds of their followers.

On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV issued his edict titled “Exigit sincere devotionis” which authorized the appointment of “inquisitors” to assure the thoughts of faithful “Christians” were doctrinally pure. This authorization allowed the Catholic kings of Europe to not merely preach the religion, but also to police and compel orthodoxy. Those who were regarded as non-conforming were to be treated as heritics and to be persecuted, even destroyed.

If what they were doing was good, then in the eyes of the hierarchy no deed done in pursuit of the “true Christian faith” was to be avoided; even if the means used involved treachery, deceit and torture. The “truth” was just so important that it justified whatever needed doing to accomplish it.

To incentivize the inquiries, the kings were allowed to confiscate heritics’ property. Thus it was financially beneficial to the kings to determine there were heritics among them. In the extremity of torture, almost any person would confess they were heretical to end their pain.

The Inquisition was made possible from the work done two centuries earlier by the man now known as “St. Dominic.” He envisioned the idea of moving from persuasion to excommunication to compel conformity among “Christians.” If that failed to reform, then he thought it well to engage in even more coercive means, such as confiscation of property and corporeal punishment. This would allow the wayward to be reclaimed. After all, if the church held the keys to save people, then using those keys in coercive ways was justified by the ultimate goal of saving souls. Pope Pius XII would cooperate with Hitler in the Balkans using the same justification.

St. Dominic conceived of a religious order that would be devoted soley to the duty to combatting heresy and propogating the “true Catholic faith.” This order, now known as the Domicans, was known by other, earlier nicknames. They were initially the Militia of Christ. They took St. Dominic’s name only after his death. Much later, after they headed the effort to eradicate heresy by policing the Inquisition, they were known as the “hounds of God” or the “dogs of God” because of their zeal in shedding the blood of heretics.

When a religion abandons the obligation to persuade, and resorts to intimidation and coercion, it has lost the battle. Whenever this happens, the faith declines. “Christianity” was already losing its grip when the Pope Sixtus IV Bull was issued. The Inquisition that followed guaranteed there would be protests against the greatly altered church which benefitted and promoted the Inquisition.

In Mormonism there is a doctrinal bulkwark in place to prevent this kind of historic error from being repeated. Our scriptures decry the use of any means, however slight, to compel conformity. We have no “orthodox” creed in Mormonism. We welcome all truth, from whatever source. We have the following statements in our scriptures:

“We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dicates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” 11th Article of Faith.

We condemn those “whose hearts are so set upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson –That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.  …[W]hen we undertake to cover our sins, or gratify our pride, our vain ambitions, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.” (D&C 121: 35-37, emphasis added.)

Our faith permits one means to “control” members: “[O]nly by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul.” (D&C 121: 41.)

We are hemmed in, curtailed and cannot behave as St. Dominic deemed necessary, and as the Holy Inquisition performed. We are relegated to use only persuasion. If we hold a truth as correct, then the burden rests on us to advance it persuasively and to bring others to voluntarily accept it. Our only power, as a church, is in the meek advancement of truth by our persuasion and example. Force, dominion and control is not ours to use. So in this sense also Mormonism departs dramatically from Historic Christianity.

Furthermore, a well respected official LDS Church Historian published an article in the BYU Studies magazine titled, “I Don’t Have A Testimony of Church History.” In it, Assistant LDS Church Historian Davis Bitton explained that when it comes to the LDS Church’s history, we are free as church members to believe and express our beliefs on any topic because we do not have an official version. For example, he remarked specifically he did not have a “testimony” of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

One of the great strengths of my religion is the open willingness to allow freedom of thought, and to require the better view to be established only by persuasion, and never by coercion.

We should never lapse into the darkness of policing the thoughts of Mormons by a central hierarchy bent on extinguishing different thought among Mormons. We have no “orthodox” criteria which can be used to carve some believers out and relegate them to the status of “apostate” or “heretic,” and thereby dismember the membership. Our faith was established on a scriptural and doctrinal foundation which precludes it. Each Mormon is responsible for what they believe and to provide reasons to persuade others of the correct view.

This necessarily requires a good deal of work for Mormons. We are required to research and gather the information for ourselves. We are free to believe as we will, but to defend our religion we must undertake some work to find it. Therefore, the most devout members of the religion are also among the most studious of the church. We are permitted to believe as we will, but the church is under no obligation to do the work for us. We study, research and ponder this faith individually. For we believe salvation is individual, not collective.

I am a Mormon, Part 1

The rant by the MSNBC reporter denigrating Mormonism, provoked by the political season we are in, has inspired the following response:

By faith I self-identify as “Mormon” because that was what we called ourselves when I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe the faith, accept the Book of Mormon as scripture, and have received the ordinances offered by the church, including the temple rites. I appreciate and respect these rites and trust in them as a covenant between myself and God.

It is as silly a proposition for someone from my faith to “interpret” my beliefs and say I’m “not a good Mormon” or that I’m “not a faithful Mormon” as it is for the larger “Christian” community to say that Latter-day Saints aren’t “Christian.” (I’ll get to that in Part 3) In this, however, I want to look at the criticism of Mormonism by the self-identifying “Christians.”

I’ll concede that Mormons don’t accept Historic Christianity. I don’t accept it. I think it is riddled with errors, believes in a falsely constructed set of mental gyrations which produce an incoherent definition of the Godhead that even self-proclaimed “Christians” admit they can’t understand. I am not sure they could even say they actually believe it. At least those who have it explained to them don’t believe it. What does “uncreate” and “of the same substance” and “not dividing the parts” of the three members of the Godhead give us, anyway? It produces a God who is “wholly other” and therefore as alien to me as the stuff living in tubes beside the volcanic openings on the bottom of the Pacific. That God (or those Gods) or whatever sense you want to make of it, is something I reject. Not only do I reject it, it repulses me. It makes me think the Historic Christian God is a complete fabrication, unscriptural in origin, incomprehensible in form, the product of such contradictory assertions that only a fool could trust in the existence of such a thing. I reject it. Period. It is damned foolish for anyone to trust in it and think it will save them. It won’t. It is a complete fabrication and utter nonsense. Now, having said that, I have no interest in questioning their “Christianity.” If they want to believe that, they are free to do so and call themselves Christians.

On the other hand, I do believe in Jesus Christ. Not in the sense that He’s everywhere and nowhere, but that He at one time occupied an actual manger on the evening of His birth. He was baptized in water by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. His Father witnessed it; not from “inside Jesus” because they were comingled; instead the Father (a separate Being occupying a separate location) looked down, saw His Son baptized, and then sent a sign to testify of the Son while speaking in a voice heard by John the Baptist. I believe in Jesus who was crucified, died, was laid to rest in a borrowed tomb, and then rose from the dead. I believe in the man whose body was torn and had the prints of nails in His hands and feet, and who then returned to life. I believe in that Jesus. He showed those hands to 11 surviving Apostles and then to a crowd gathered in the Americas. All of them touched His physical, wounded hands. I believe in Him. Because of my belief in Him, I have done whatever I have come to understand He wanted from me. As a result, I have obtained faith in Him. Moreover, because of the things I have offered in obedience to Him, and by making an acceptable sacrifice, and enduring what others apparently are not willing in this day to endure, I know Him. I know His hands have wounds, His arms are open to welcome those who will come to Him, and He embraces those whom He saves. He is not a God of the dead or the distant, but the God of the Living. Real. Tangible. Resurrected and living now.

So when Historic Christianity presumes to judge my faith and relegate me to non-Christian, I’m absolutely willing to say I do not believe as you do. I reject, outright, what you say about Christ. It is nonsense to me, and I refuse to be included among those who claim to follow Historic Christianity. It is powerless to save. It is the doctrines of men, mingled with scripture. Your creeds are an abomination to God. He has said so. I believe Him. Consequently I MUST reject your creeds. But despite this, I still have faith in Christ. Not as you do, but as I do.

If your inauthentic, incomprehensible, creedal God wants to damn me because I do not accept the creeds of Historic Christianity, then I’m pleased to go into a lake of fire and brimstone and enjoy the heat. I think it is stupid to think that kind of flimsy and man-concocted God exists. And even more foolish to think your pious condescension is going to bind God to accept your opinions about my faith. I am Christian. Just not dazzled by your creedal nonsense.

I’ve studied the pre-Nicean debates, am acquainted with the political and social arguments leading up to standardizing the disputes of then-extant Christianity, and know why they returned again to adopt the follow-on creeds of the Apostles and Athenasian Creed. Here, for you good Historic Christian readers, is what your creeds say I must believe to be saved:

We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One, the Glory Equal, the Majesty Co-Eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father Uncreate, the Son Uncreate, and the Holy Ghost Uncreate. The Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible. The Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Etneral and yet they are not Three Eternals but One Eternal. As also there are not Three Uncreated, nor Three Incomprehensibles, but One Uncreated, and One Uncomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not Three Almighties but One Almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not Three Lords but One Lord. For, like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say, there be Three Gods or Three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

So there is One Father, not Three Fathers; one Son, not Three Sons; One Holy Ghost, not Three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore or after Other, None is greater or less than Another, but the whole Three Persons are Co-eternal together, and Co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity is Trinity, and the Trinity is Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.

To me this is not merely confusion, it is complete crap. Undiluted and unfiltered. I agree there is not “three incomprehensibles” here, but dozens. And there are not “one uncreated” thing going on here, but instead many foolish mental creations launched in a torrent of contradictory and nonsensical gibberish. It is worthy of Lewis Carroll. They multiply as soon as you begin to read them. It is nothing I can, do or ever would accept; and certainly not something to be worshipped. The better approach might be to adopt Through the Looking Glass in its place. At least that nonsense is interrupted occasionally by brilliant prose. This “Christian” creedal stuff is neither prosaic nor sensible. And, all the worse, to be saved you “must thus think of the Trinity!” Well, there you go. You’ve set the bar too high for me. I cannot pass over. I cannot get to “Go.” I surrender in my inability to manage this capacity to “thus think of the Trinity” because my mind requires something “comprehensible” rather than “incomprehensible.” Or “Incomprehensible.”

Christ said it was “eternal life to know” God. (John 17: 3.) Your God is by your own definition “Incomprehensible,” and therefore cannot be known. So you see, you’re damned too if you take this stuff seriously. Because you can’t “think thus of the Trinity” and comprehend, much less “know” the only true God. So you are as damned as I in your profession of the “Incomprehensible” God of your creed.

However, I allow you the privilege of believing this stuff. I trust your sincerity when you say you do believe it. I do not question whether you are in your right mind for claiming to believe and to “think thus of the Trinity.” After all, you have a whole lot of history on your side. I respect that. But I’d ask that you not presume to speak for God when you try to speak about Him. Unless He has said it, then I’m not particularly interested in what men have to say about Him. Furthermore, I do not believe Historic Christian Councils are entitled to any respect in their compromises and voting to establish the “truth” about God.

Either you’ve met with Him, have a message from Him, and can tell me what He said to you, or you have a political rally and you’ve produced merely more noise, like any political convention does.

This creedal system has resulted in a history of excesses designed to protect it from criticism and to coerce skeptics. I will touch upon that in the next post.

Jacob 5: 34-37

The servant observes that the original group of people have been preserved by the efforts of the Lord. There is still a “root” which “have not perished” (5: 34.) The bloodline remains. The covenant can be renewed with them. While it would require work, the potential for reviving the failed family remains possible.

Despite the potential, the Lord of the vineyard has a more practical objective in mind. There must be actual saved souls, part of the Family of God, for the work of preserving souls to matter. “The tree profiteth me nothing, and the roots thereof profit me nothing so long as it shall bring forth evil fruit.” (5: 35.)

They have been preserved to allow for the possibility for a return of covenant Israel. (5: 36.) However, it must result in an actual return, the living tree bringing forth good fruit, children of promise, raised in righteousness, schooled by parents who will raise them to keep the ways of God as His people, for the effort to have been worthwhile. (Id.)

The root, and all the various manner of fruit which sprang from it, have “overrun the roots thereof” and only “evil fruit” was left. (5: 37.) Not just evil fruit, but “much evil fruit” was the result of this long apostasy from the original. (Id.) The overwhelming production of this vile product has overtaken the “root” so that the entire tree appears to “perish” and “it will soon become ripened, that it may be cast into the fire, unless” the Lord does something to alter the course it was following. (Id.)

Christianity failed in its original purpose. No one was being saved when the Lord considered His vineyard. Left to its own, the result would be universal destruction at His coming. He would burn the vineyard and remove all the various Christian offshoots claiming to have originated in the New Testament stock.

This allegory shows the need to separate ourselves from Historic Christianity. If we are part of it, then we are nothing worthy of being preserved. Like them, we should be gathered into bundles and cast into the fire.

When the Lord declared that “they were all wrong” and “that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight” and “that those professors were all corrupt” (JS-H 1: 19) He was confirming the allegory of Zenos and the prophecy of Jacob. This was the condition of the vineyard.

We should view the ambition of being considered part of that “abomination” and “wrong” “corruption” as an unworthy ambition. We are NOT (or at least should not) be part of the Historic Christian tradition. It is riddled with “much evil fruit” and the people who profess their creeds are “all corrupt.” Not in the sense that their hearts are vile, but in the sense that they do not comprehend what it means to be part of the Family of God, much less even occupy that association with Him. They are orphans, unconnected with the “living vine.” (John 15: 4-6.) Unless they occupy a family relationship with God, they are not His and will be gathered and burned at His coming.

2 Nephi 29: 3

 
“And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.”
 
This is one of the great missionary scriptures.  It is used to show the Book of Mormon already anticipated an argument against it, and as a result shows there is no reason to reject the Book of Mormon because there is already an existing, recognized volume of scripture.
 
The gentiles are prone to prefer the Bible to the Book of Mormon. We emphasized the Book of Mormon for a few years, but found that other faiths were critical because we were not using the Bible as we should. So there has been a conscious effort to re-emphasize the Bible and de-emphasize the Book of Mormon. This has been done to broaden our appeal to members of other faiths.
 
The gravamen of the argument is in the words: “there cannot be any more Bible.” The idea there are other words of God, requiring equal respect to the words in the Bible, is a shocking heresy for many of the gentiles.  Remember that first phrase in the first verse: “Behold there shall be many” who are going to say this. The “many” are the gentiles, and their criticism will be Bible-based.
 
So, how are we doing with this idea? Do we prefer the Biblical teachings to those of the Book of Mormon? Do we spend more time with the Bible than the Book of Mormon in our own individual study? If we had to choose one as the “standard for our people” which one would we choose? The Book of Mormon (as verse 2 suggests) or the Bible (as verse 3 suggests)?  The Lord’s standard is the Book of Mormon. The gentile standard will be the Bible. Once again we are at odds with Historic Christianity.
 
This is not to say we disrespect the Bible. We don’t. We accept it as scripture. It is an admittedly valuable standard work, to be used in study and receiving knowledge of the things of God. Indeed, among other things the Book of Mormon testifies of the truth of the Bible.  Therefore the Bible is certainly accepted as a work of importance and value to us in matters of faith. But only one can assume primacy. The primary one for us is the Book of Mormon.
 
We may be justified in our attachment to and affection for the Bible. But the Book of Mormon must be preeminent. Our respect and affection for the Doctrine and Covenants, Temple and church organization is also well placed and should inform our understanding and behavior. But the Book of Mormon was intended to be the primary means for the Lord to impart understanding to us.
 
Much has has been written and said about this volume of scripture, but we are only now beginning to understand what we are looking at.

In Eighteen Verses I have shown how little we have done so far with this book of scripture. I have never attempted to be exhaustive in any discussion about the book. In a decade of teaching weekly about the book, where I only went from 1 Nephi 1: 1 to Jarom 1: 4, the discussion was not exhaustive.
 
This book was a gift to us. We ought not think the Bible has more to offer than what we find in “the most correct book” because a “man can get closer to God by abiding the precepts [of the Book of Mormon] than any other book,” just as Joseph Smith said.
 
The primary text of scripture I have used in The Second Comforter, Nephi’s Isaiah and Eighteen Verses has been the Book of Mormon. The primary text used in this blog is the Book of Mormon.
 
Until we understand that book, I fail to see why we think we should have more. There is more in that book than we’ve noticed. The first step ought be to notice what we have. Then things will be added. However, until we have taken the Book of Mormon seriously, I fail to see why the most important message for us –found within that book– should not be the first thing to be understood.

Constantine and Correlation

I was asked in several ways how I reconcile some modern trends in the Church.  One question was phrased this way:

“Hearkening back to Elder Poleman’s talk on the differences between the Church and the Gospel. It’s often stated (overstated?) that the church is the Kingdom of God in various meetings and most members conflate the Church with the Gospel (i.e. they are synonymous terms these days).  Could you discuss the original differences (as intended in the scriptures) between “church” and “gospel”? Is church, as we currently know it (big meetinghouses, 3 hour blocks, weekly attendance, etc.), the same thing as “church” in the times of the Old and New Testaments?”
Here’s how I reconcile it all:  I don’t.  What I do is reflect upon history.  Here are a few of my ruminations:
Christianity became diverse quite early on.  Almost immediately after the closing of the New Testament, the diversity began to metastasize.
There were those who viewed Christ as a normal man, who had been “adopted” by the Father at the time of His baptism.  These were called “Adoptionists.”
There were those who believed that Christ was just a normal man, but that He had a divine spirit inhabit Him temporarily from the time of His baptism until the time of His crucifixion, at which time the divine spirit left.  It was incomprehensible to them that God would suffer and die.  Therefore, they developed a theory in which He did not.

There were those who believed that Christ was a transcendent spirit, and never corporeal as other men were.  They believed that He manifested Himself as if he were a mortal, but never truly was mortal.  They did not believe it possible for God to become incarnate.

There were those who believed that Christ taught a secret Gospel to His insiders, and that the public teachings were misleading. It was the private “gnosis” that would save you.
There were those who believed that Christ was a separate and distinct being from God the Father, and that the result was that there were two gods and not one.

There were those who argued that if they were separate then it violated the idea of “monotheism” and therefore, God the Father, Christ and the Holy Ghost had to be one, single person.  However incomprehensible that may be, there was only one being, manifesting itself in three forms.

There were those who believed priesthood authority was immutable, and once conferred it could not be lost no matter what the conduct of the person ordained.  That is, authority was not dependent at all upon righteous behavior, and even a thoroughly wicked man, once ordained, held priesthood authority no matter what he did.
There were those who believed that priesthood authority was entirely dependent upon faithful living, and that a failure to live according to God’s will terminated the authority of that man.  This movement was named after a North African priest named Arius who remained devoted during the persecutions and was blinded and crippled by those who were seeking to destroy the Christian faith.
Well, by 324 AD the whole thing had become riddled with controversies and sects.  Therefore, when King Constantine, who had battled his way into sole ownership of the Roman Emperor’s seat, determined to adopt a state religion (he chose  Christianity as that state religion) he presumed he was taking a harmonious, consistent faith.  Upon learning that there were strong internal Christian disputes, some of which led to violence between professors of the various beliefs, he decided that he needed to put down the disputations.
In a fit of practicality, King Constantine convened the great council at Nicea, and summoned all the Bishops of Christianity to a single gathering.  At the gathering he demanded they come to an agreement on what the Christian faith believed.  He could not tolerate disputes leading to violence in the newly adopted Roman state religion.
This council at Nicea was the first attempt at correlation.  The result had little to do with the truth.  It had to do with peace for the Roman state.  Constantine himself did not believe in the doctrine. He believed in the effectiveness of the faith as a basis for political power, domestic security and ease of ruling a diverse population scattered about on three continents.  When the results were achieved, he then exiled the handful of dissenters and ‘voila, Historic Christianity began.  That Historic Christianity remained correlated and of a singular view until the split between Constantinople and Rome at about 1000 AD.  It became further uncorrelated in the 1500’s with Martin Luther.
Once you start letting doctrinal disputes develop you wind up with a split empire, and internal loss of government. The original effort was imposed at the tip of a sword.  When there were dissenters, they were exiled, or eventually made “heretic.” When the final step was taken, and the intellectual buttress supplied by Bishop Ambrose’s arguments, it at last became possible for “heresy” or “heretics” to be snubbed out by murder.  The persecuted became the persecutors. They were justified by the change, having a correlated promise that the faith ratified the reasons that allowed you to persecute, torture and kill those who strayed from the “one true, Catholic faith.”  After all, if you could reclaim them merely by torture of the body, how much better than allowing them to lapse into eternal torment by being consigned to hell.  An endless “Hell” also being an invention of the Historic Christian faith.  So it was really good to do that burning, racking, thumb-dislocating, flaying, stuff after all.  All in a day’s work to convert the wayward soul back to Christ.
Elder Lee, while still a member of the Twelve, began the correlation process in the LDS Church.  It was his crowning achievement when he became President.  Now everything is in harmony. That harmony has come at the price of developing the internal idea of “apostasy” based upon the doctrine we believe in.  A test which was altogether alien to Joseph Smith.  Joseph said, when a brother Brown was being threatened with excommunication for his error in doctrine: 
“I did not like the old man being called up for erring in doctrine. It looks too much like the Methodist, and not like the Latter-day Saints. Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be asked out of their church. I want the liberty of thinking and believing as I please. It feels so good not to be trammeled. It does not prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine.”  

The price we have paid to date for correlation is a fraction of what will ultimately be paid, if history informs us of anything.  It is now possible to be a “Mormon heretic” for believing doctrine which someone else has determined should be discarded — a thing which was unimaginable at the time of Joseph Smith, even as a result of an actual error in doctrine.  For Joseph, the way to reclaim some errant Saint was, well, confined to the means permitted by revelation:  “only by persuasion, by long–suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile.”  (D&C 121: 41-42.)   Today that has been expanded to excommunication for doctrinal errors.  When such a thing takes place, years go by before such a person is re-welcomed into the church, and then only after receiving permission from the First Presidency.  So the correlation of doctrine has slipped already into a coercive use of authority within the church.  Instead of persuading using better doctrine to correct an error, we punish and silence them through a method that was alien to the original pattern.

History is an interesting thing to study.  Particularly at the beginnings of any religious movement.  It always progresses from movement to institution.  Once it becomes an institution, as King Constantine realized, the institution itself must protect itself against disorder.  That protection comes, as history shows, at the price of contradicting the original premise upon which the movement began.

The ironies of this are always astonishing.  But somehow those who live through it never realize the irony while it is happening.  Only later, as it has taken its full bloom in torture, killing, flaying, racking and destroying the lives of people does the original, root moments in which the errors began to creep in get recognized.  Those making the errors in the first place are celebrated for centuries as “Saints” and “Popes.”

The history of religion, generally, is a transition between the movement stage, where there is always a charismatic or gifted core from which it springs, to the institution stage.  Unfortunately for the institution, gifted folks aren’t usually good businessmen.  (Joseph Smith, for example, had a pending petition for bankruptcy when he was killed.)  Once the movement gets underway, it gets co-opted by businessmen, managers and captains of industry.  Folks like Emperor Constantine, who if nothing else was a consummate manager.

Managers crave order.  They dislike the chaos of the Spirit, which is always unstable, unpredictable, and uncorrelateable.  (John 3: 8.)  As a result, they change a movement into an institution.  Institutions require order.  The nature of an institution requires managers, bankers, businessmen and generals. They consider their “product” to be religion, and they manage and sell their product as if they were General Motors, or the Roman Empire.  The kind of freedom that gave birth to the movement must be disciplined, marshaled and controlled.
Our faith is in a complete internal opposition at the moment. To become a Mormon, if you aren’t born one, you must go through a conversion process which is grounded in the bedrock of revelation.  You must pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true, and then you are to get an answer from God.  We expect you to have a revelatory experience to join.  But, once you have joined, then the scope of your revelatory experience is strictly limited.  You must NOT question any leader, nor ever expect God to tell you something about any subject over which you do not preside, nor to ever realize through the inspiration of the Spirit that there are foolish, vain and wrong notions circulating about.  You must NOT notice that Deseret Book has become a repository of false and foolish books parading sentimentality as if it were salvific.  You should never consider God’s revelations to you as something to be honored apart from what the institution says, does, does not do, or does poorly.  Indeed, the voice of God will come to you solely and exclusively through the institution.  If you need to know something, then the institution will tell you.  Unless you hear your orders from it, then stay as you are.

We are at a cross-roads.  At the moment the movement is ending.  The institution is at its pinnacle of complete triumph.  When the process concludes, it will not welcome converts who will challenge the basic assumptions that they, having received revelation to come on-board in the first place, must now quash the Spirit which raises so many questions about how things are proceeding.  Then to be Mormon will mean to be correlated.  Correlated body and soul.  An institutional man.  No longer distinct, unique, or creative.  Disciplined, orderly, subservient, and under control. Then the institution will become a remarkably appealing tool for not only the captains of industry, but also the heads of state.  It will become an almost irresistible tool to be employed as part of governing the world.  And so history repeats itself.

Well, these direful lessons are ones which can be either relived or avoided.  But to avoid them people who are inside the process must step outside their own times and context and to view everything within a larger picture.  I don’t think bankers, businessmen and lawyers do that often.  Indeed, the well educated who lack inspiration are not qualified.  Only the meek.  Only the humble.  As Nephi described us: “they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are  led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men.”  (2 Ne. 28: 14.)  That was the group to whom I dedicated my book The Second Comforter. 

Then I pull myself back into the present reality, and let it all wash over me like a wave.  I take a deep breath and I realize how grateful I am for any bit of goodness I can find anywhere.  And in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I can find a lot of good.  And I count my blessings and rise determined to remain a true, faithful, active Latter-day Saint throughout my life; and to die as an active and contributing fellow member.  But reconciling everything, well, I’m told that’s not my calling to do anyway.  And I’m grateful to sustain other men to grapple with the management of this historic trend, fraught as it is with the damnation or exaltation of the souls of men.  Particularly when they claim to speak in the Lord’s name.  For them there is only an “on/off” button. They can’t have it any other way.  Either they speak truthfully in the name of the Lord and with His authorization, or they use His name in vain.  I certainly wouldn’t want to be put into that spot.  So I gratefully sustain those who rush to fill the offices when asked to do so.  As one who is simply unfit to serve in such a call, I thank God for my disqualification.

Why not the cross?

I was asked about the cross as a religious symbol and why I thought it inappropriate.  Here’s my response:
 
When Christ described what He accomplished for us in His Atonement, He referred exclusively to the suffering in Gethsemane.  (D&C 19: 15-19.)  Therefore, in the Lord’s own explanation, He used the suffering of Gethsemane as the exclusively to let us know the price He paid.
 
I know that among others, James Talmage and Bruce R. McConkie, have said that the suffering in Gethsemane was renewed on the cross.  I have a different view, and I explain that in Come, Let Us Adore Him.  I will not repeat that here.  I expect that since this is my personal view, there will be many who do not share it with me.  However, it is my view that the cross was the means of death; and His death became possible by what He went through in Gethsemane.  Had He not been weakened through the ordeal in Gethsemane, He could not have died on the cross.  But when He arrived at the cross, all that was left to accomplish was His death, while fulfilling the inspired, prophetic foretelling of the event in conformity with the 22nd Psalm.
 
The original Saints who belonged to the Primitive Church (New Testament Church) regarded the great symbol of Christ as the fish.  That symbol was used in the first centuries following Christ.  It was supplanted by Constantine.  Constantine adopted the cross as a symbol for the new, Roman state religion which changed the Primitive Church into the new, Historic Christianity.  It would undergo a name change to the Catholic Church (meaning Universal Church), then the Roman Catholic Church as it was entrenched as the state religion of the Roman Empire.  It has also been referred to as the Holy Roman Empire.  All those names are suitably descriptive.  The adoption of the cross as a religious symbol for this new Historic Christianity, supplanting the earlier fish symbol, is one of the reasons I think it not appropriate.  It symbolizes the change of Primitive Christianity into a new religious form significantly different from what it was when it began.
 
The cross symbolizes the newer form of the faith, which adopted many of the earlier Roman state myths and simply gave Christian names and references to them.  The celebration of Sol Invictus mid-winter became the celebration of Christmas.  Spring fertility rites, including use of the egg and rabbit symbols of fertility were converted into a “Christian” holiday of Easter.  Local deities no longer hailed from Olympus, but semi-deified “Saints” could be prayed to just as the earlier veneration of local deities.  The full panoply of changes would require books to explain, but for me these changes are symbolized by the adoption of the cross as the great symbol of the new Historic Christian movement.  Hence the reason I think it inappropriate as a symbol for a restoration of Primitive Christianity.

All is well in Zion

According to the Joseph Smith’s First Vision, the Restoration occurred because of the apostasy of Historic Christianity.  All churches “were wrong” and their “professors  were all corrupt.”  “All their creeds were an abomination.”  The people who inhabited these churches “draw near [to God] with their lips, but their hearts are far from” Him.  (JS-H 1: 19.)
 
This is the historic moment which justifies the Restoration.  It forces a choice upon the world. Mormonism is either correct, or it has no reason to exist.

This forces The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into a dilemma.  It must either proclaim that it is the only repository of saving truth, or it must strike a compromise which betrays the reason for its existence.  

 
Jesus Christ did not intend to let those who follow the work He was to commission through Joseph Smith to become popular, successful, or live in peace.  He intended to put them at odds with all the rest of the world.  The very reason for His strange act was to notify anyone who heard about it that they were to repent, change, accept new truths, or remain “corrupt” and with “hearts far from Him.”  It is an instant challenge to the world.
 
When we shape the message of the Restoration into a vocabulary which does not offend, we miss the point.  We are REQUIRED to offend.  We are REQUIRED to sound the alarm to “Awake! Arise!”  When the message to those who accept the Historic Christian faiths is that “you’re OK” we are contradicting Christ’s opening statement to Joseph Smith.
 
All of this is only true if what we are doing is continuing the work begun by Joseph Smith.  If we have abandoned what he restored, then never mind.  We can fit in and get along.  In fact, we can not only fit in and get along, but we can even mimic the other mainstream faiths of the day. We can adopt a positive mental attitude, and proclaim:  “All is well in Zion, Babylon, Athens, Rome and Nineveh.  In fact, all is well everywhere.  Don’t get up.  Stay asleep.  We’re just here to help make you feel better about yourself.”

Truth

There is “truth” which exists independent of what we think or believe.  (I use the word in the same sense as D&C 93: 24-25.)  Our collective forgetfulness does not erase truth.  Nor does our vain imagination alter truth. 
 
Whenever a doctrine is changed because of man’s planning or arguments, then we are teaching for commandments the doctrines of men; just as Christ complained to Joseph in the First Vision.  (JS-H 1: 19.)
 
During the Third and Fourth Centuries the debates over “adoptionism” were causing doctrinal havoc for the Christian movement.  As they solidified control over the movement, the leaders of the developing Historic Christian faith had a plan to cure the schism involving arguments that Christ was just a man who had been “adopted” at His baptism to become the Son of God.  The original words spoken at His baptism came from Psalms 2: 7.  These words supported the “adoptionist’s” arguments.  The answer was simple – change the text of the Gospels.  So they edited the words and changed them from saying, “Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee” to instead, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  (Matt. 3: 17.)  That drove a stake in the heart of the “adoptionist” arguments.
 
Bart D. Ehrman has shown how this, and other controversies, affected the text of the New Testament in his book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament.
 
Patterns in history have a way of repeating themselves.  Men almost always find it easier to change doctrine than to conform to the truth; and to edit books to fit their failures than to follow direction.  Our challenge is to learn the right lessons from history. We should not succumb to the easy advantages of changing the principles our religion is founded on, in order to accomplish “good” and repel criticism by adapting to meet the critics’ arguments.
 
Truth is immutable and unchanging.  We either conform to it or apostatize from it.  We can’t change it.
 
How grateful I am to still have prophets among us.