Archive for the ‘Paul Nurnberg’ Category

The 10 Myths Part 6: “Biblical Christians worship the cross and the Bible.”

Posted: November 6, 2022 in Book of Mormon, Canonicity, Christian History, Mormon Studies, Paul Nurnberg, The 10 Myths Mormons Believe About Christianity, The Book of Mormon, Worship
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If using symbols and scripture is worshiping them
then Mormonism has a beam-in-eye problem

“The Crucifixion”, by Harry Anderson. This is one of two paintings that Mormon Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland referred to in his Fall 2022 General Conference address that, “…serve as backdrops for the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in their sacred weekly temple meetings each Thursday in Salt Lake City,” (see Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lifted Up upon the Cross”). So if symbolic reminders of Christ’s sacrifice like this aren’t a problem when Latter-day Saint leaders use them, then why is it a problem when others do too? (credit: LDS Church Media Library)

by Paul Nurnberg
Introduction
Mormonism is fueled by faith-promoting stories. No one said this better than Mormon Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie, “We have in the Church an untapped, almost unknown, treasury of inspiring and faith-promoting stories. They are the best of their kind and there are thousands of them.” (“The How and Why of Faith-promoting Stories”, New Era magazine, July 1978). Unfortunately, some of them, as another Mormon Apostle said well, only provide “…a kind of theological Twinkie—spiritually empty calories?” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “A Teacher Come from God”, Spring General Conference 1998). This series exposes the following ten “Twinkies”…

10 Myths That Mormonism Tells About Biblical Christianity

  1. Biblical Christianity apostatized.
  2. The Bible has been corrupted.
  3. Biblical Christians believe in cheap grace.
  4. biblical Christians believe Christ prayed to Himself.
  5. The Biblical Christian God is a monster who sends good people to hell just because they never had a chance to hear the gospel.
  6. Biblical Christians worship the cross and the Bible.
  7. Biblical Christians have no priesthood.
  8. Biblical Christian Pastors and Apologists practice Priestcraft – they’re only in it for the money.
  9. Biblical Christians hate Mormons.
  10. Biblical Christianity is divided into 10,000+ sects, all believing in different paths to salvation.

… and replaces them with nourishing truth. Let’s talk about the one that’s bolded, shall we?

Sixth LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith speaking at the pulpit of a funeral service in the Brigham City Tabernacle surrounded by cross symbols in the architecture and floral arrangement. Please note the highlighted floral cross that’s at the center of the proceedings. (credit: Utah State Historical Society Classified Photo Collection)

The Myth
“Biblical Christians worship the cross . . .”

In the mid-twentieth century, LDS leaders began suggesting that Biblical Christians worship the cross.1 Prior to that many Latter-day Saints embraced the cross as a symbol of their religion, similar to Protestants and Catholics. In 1957, LDS Prophet and Church President, David O. McKay, responded to a question about a Salt Lake City jewelry store advertising cross necklaces for girls, (see “Mormons and the Cross” by Michael De Groote). Following McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:

This custom of adoring the cross seems to have grown out of the purported vision given to Constantine when it is stated that he saw a cross in the heavens and was told that by it he was to conquer. From that time the use of the cross as an object of reverence grew and, when the rebellion against the Catholic Church commenced, the adoration of the cross continued more or less among the Protestant churches.

To many, like the writer, such a custom is repugnant and contrary to the true worship of our Redeemer. Why should we bow down before a cross or use it as a symbol? Because our Savior died on the cross, the wearing of crosses is to most Latter-day Saints in very poor taste and inconsistent to our worship. [ . . . ] We may be definitely sure that if our Lord had been killed with a dagger or with a sword, it would have been very strange indeed if religious people of this day would have graced such a weapon by wearing it and adoring it because it was by such a means that our Lord was put to death.
(Joseph Fielding Smith, “Your Question: The Wearing of the Cross, Answered by Joseph Fielding Smith of the Council of the Twelve,” The Improvement Era, Volume 64, 1961 March (No. 3), bolding added for emphasis)

Latter-day Saints often paraphrase Smith’s statement as a question, “If a member of your family was shot with a gun would you wear it around your neck to remember them?” In 1975, Gordon B. Hinckley stated:

I do not wish to give offense to any of my Christian brethren who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the altars of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ.
(Gordon B. Hinckley, “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Gordon B. Hinckley”, “Chapter 8 We Look to Christ”)

Very recently, Jeffrey R. Holland attempted to explain why Latter-day Saints do not use the cross as a symbol of their faith:

As I attempt to explain why we generally do not use the iconography of the cross, I wish to make abundantly clear our deep respect and profound admiration for the faith-filled motives and devoted lives of those who do.

One reason we do not emphasize the cross as a symbol stems from our biblical roots. Because crucifixion was one of the Roman Empire’s most agonizing forms of execution, many early followers of Jesus chose not to highlight that brutal instrument of suffering. The meaning of Christ’s death was certainly central to their faith, but for some 300 years they typically sought to convey their gospel identity through other means.2

By the fourth and fifth centuries, a cross was being introduced as a symbol of generalized Christianity, but ours is not a “generalized Christianity.” Being neither Catholic nor Protestant, we are, rather, a restored church, the restored New Testament Church. Thus, our origins and our authority go back before the time of councils, creeds, and iconography.
(Jeffrey R Holland, “Lifted Up upon the Cross” October 2022 General Conference, bolding added for emphasis)

First, in his General Conference address, Elder Holland says, “…the absence of a symbol that was late coming into common use is yet another evidence that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration of true Christian beginnings.” Then, he immediately appeals to the cross in the left panel as a symbol of the price that Christ paid for us as evidence of the superiority of his “restored” church stating, “These portrayals serve as constant reminders to us of the price that was paid and the victory that was won by Him whose servants we are,” (see Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lifted Up upon the Cross”, click on the above image to view this portion of his address in context)

“Biblical Christians worship the Bible . . .”
The Book of Mormon accuses those who reject it of having a closed-minded devotion to the Bible alone: “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” (see 2 Nephi 29:3).

The argument by Latter-day Saints that Biblical Christians engage in bibliolatry is often tied to three positions:

    1. Biblical authority
    2. Biblical inerrancy
    3. Biblical sufficiency3

Jeffrey R. Holland laid out the full argument that the bibliolatry charge sets up. Namely, that the Bible is insufficient to answer all of life’s questions. Enter stage left: LDS Scripture.4

The Bible is the word of God. It is always identified first in our canon, our “standard works.” Indeed, it was a divinely ordained encounter with the fifth verse of the first chapter of the book of James that led Joseph Smith to his vision of the Father and the Son, which gave birth to the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our time. But even then, Joseph knew the Bible alone could not be the answer to all the religious questions he and others like him had. As he said in his own words, the ministers of his community were contending—sometimes angrily—over their doctrines. “Priest [was] contending against priest, and convert [was contending] against convert … in a strife of words and a contest about opinions,” he said. About the only thing these contending religions had in common was, ironically, a belief in the Bible, but, as Joseph wrote, “the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question [regarding which church was true] by an appeal to the Bible.” Clearly the Bible, so frequently described at that time as “common ground,” was nothing of the kind—unfortunately it was a battleground.
(Jeffrey R Holland, “My Words . . . Never Cease” April 2008 General Conference, bolding added for emphasis)

Photography of Amelia White Young, Brigham Young’s 51st wife, wearing a cross in 1895. (credit: Utah State Historical Society Classified Photo Collection)

Does the Use of Symbols Necessarily = Idolatry?
The main thrust of this LDS polemic is that use of the cross as a Christian symbol is too late to have been part of original Christianity, and is therefore a sign of apostasy. LDS leaders tie its use to the influence of the fourth-century Roman Emperor, Constantine, whom Latter-day Saints believe introduced pagan influences to the Church.

But is the use of the cross as a symbol by Christians in fact late? Much of the argument that the cross as iconography is late is based on archaeological data that shows that the earliest artistic depictions of the crucifixion itself were not made until around 400 years after Christ’s death. But literary data shows that prior to Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, Christians were already using the cross, among others things, as a symbol of their faith. Christian historian and theologian Everett Fergusson notes, “Writings from the early church show how central the cross was to Christian preaching and confession.”5

In his letters, the apostle Paul—the earliest New Testament author—referred eleven times to the cross of Christ as symbolic of the Christian faith. Why does Paul tie persecution of Jesus’ followers to the cross (see Galatians 5:11, 6:12 & 14)—or mention enemies of the cross—if association with the cross of Christ was not an early symbol of the Christian faith?6

Latter-day Saints use various symbols to represent aspects of their belief and practice: the beehive, CTR rings, sunstones, and moonstones—statues of Moroni adorn LDS temples. Are Latter-day Saints worshipping these symbols by their use? Clearly, no. So the claim that Biblical Christians worship the cross is a myth.

Does Having a Defined Canon of Scripture = Bibliolatry?
The charge of bibliolatry, or the worship of the Bible, is an attack against those who hold to biblical authority, inerrancy, and supremacy. Those Christians who hold to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura will hear this charge from Latter-day Saints. As believers in revealed religion, Latter-day Saints and Biblical Christians should share some common ground with regard to the authority of Scripture.

The authority and inerrancy of Scripture derive from its divine Author. R. C. Sproul summed it up nicely:

The authority of the Bible is based on its being the written Word of God, and because the Bible is the Word of God and the God of the Bible is truth and speaks truthfully, authority is linked to inerrancy. If the Bible is the Word of God, and if God is a God of truth, then the Bible must be inerrant [ . . . ].
(R.C. Sproul, “Scripture Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine” (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2005), p.121)

Why then do Latter-day Saints attack the authority and inerrancy of the Bible? It is odd!7 By doing so, they cut off the very argument for revealed religion that they adopt when arguing for the authority of Joseph Smith from the Book of Mormon by the oft-repeated axiom “If the Book of Mormon is true, then it follows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and if Joseph Smith was a prophet, then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s church.8

Does using a text as the basis for authority amount to worshiping that text?
Clearly not, lest the Latter-day Saints be guilty of the very charge they levy against Biblical Christians. This is another myth!

Maybe it is the fact that Biblical Christians affirm the inerrancy of the Bible that rightly brings the charge of bibliolatry. Latter-day Saints believe that an ancient prophet named Moroni wrote the title page of the Book of Mormon, and included this warning, “And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.” (see Title Page to The Book of Mormon). The author attributes any faults in the Book of Mormon to the mistakes of men and also implies perfection in the things of God.

Christians who hold to the inerrancy of the Bible—the divine nature of Scripture—do so on the basis of God’s absolute perfection and ability to convey His Word perfectly. They do not deny the human nature of Scripture. Sproul stated the position well:

The process of inspiration did not make the biblical writers automatons, for their books reveal differences of vocabulary, style, and other matters of variation between one human author and another. But inspiration did overcome any tendency they may have had to error, with the result that the words they wrote were precisely what God, the divine Author, intended us to have.
(Ibid. R.C. Sproul, 135)

Is it idolatrous to trust wholeheartedly in the reliability of God’s Word?
Isn’t that the equivalent of saying that leaning on God’s own trustworthiness is wrong? Surely not! Yet, another myth.

But what about the supremacy of the Bible? Are Biblical Christians engaging in idolatry when they claim that the Bible is the sole source of God’s Word? Many texts claim to be revelations from God. The Quran of Islam and the Zend-Avesta of Zoroastrianism are two ancient examples. Indeed, the LDS Church is beset by many would-be successors to Joseph Smith’s role as producer of hidden, ancient, scriptural writings.

The Book of Mormon indicates that the plates from which Joseph Smith translated had a sealed portion, and looks forward to a time when that sealed portion would be translated (see 2 Nephi 27). Individuals have stepped forward making conflicting claims to having translated the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon or other additional records.9

The LDS Church has not added the Quran or the Zend-Avesta to its canon. Nor does it accept the writings of other “latter-day translators.” In fact, it has from its very beginning exercised discrimination relative to the authority claims of others claiming revelations within the broader Latter-day Saint Restoration Movement (see for example the incident of Hiram Page’s seer stone recounted in Doctrine and Covenants 28).

By rejecting other would-be additions to the LDS canon of Scripture, and holding that the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price are the only modern Scriptural sources of official LDS doctrine, are Latter-day Saints worshiping their canon? No. Clearly, the claim that Biblical Christians are idolaters for exercising discernment is a myth.

‘Why then do Latter-day Saints attack the authority and inerrancy of the Bible? It is odd! By doing so, they cut off the very argument for revealed religion that they adopt when arguing for the authority of Joseph Smith from the Book of Mormon by the oft-repeated axiom “If the Book of Mormon is true, then it follows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and if Joseph Smith was a prophet, then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s church.’ (Paul Nurnberg)

How It’s a Myth
Christians wear the cross as a symbol of their faith in their Lord, Jesus Christ, who hung and died upon it—suffering death for their sins. We worship “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (see 1 Corinthians 2:2 and Revelation 5:11-14). The authority that Biblical Christians ascribe to the Bible is based on the nature and perfection of God. It is not illegitimate to appeal to God’s nature as a presupposition of the reliability of His Word. Having established that, let’s look at some of the Biblical data that supports the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of God’s Word.

When the chief priests and elders confronted Jesus for teaching in the temple and challenged his authority, Jesus told the parables of the two sons and the tenants. When his accusers rightly perceived the action the master of the vineyard would take towards the wicked tenants, Jesus appealed to the authority of the Word of God (see Matthew 21:42).

In John 10, Jesus declared the unity of himself with his Father, claiming that he will give eternal life to his sheep and that no mere human can pluck them out of his hand. He makes his identification with Deity explicit when he states that his Father gave his sheep to him, and his Father is greater than all, and no mere human is able to pluck them out of the Father’s hand. The implication of these claims of Jesus was not lost on those who heard him. When he stated, “I and my Father are one,” they picked up stones to kill him. Their reasoning is conveyed clearly by Matthew, “For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself, God.”

Jesus then cited Psalm 82 as justification for identifying himself with God, and asked his accusers: “If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” (see John 10:23-39).

If Scripture is necessarily errant in places because God used human authors to produce it, then we could say that Scripture could be set aside or nullified. But here the Lord Jesus declared that Scripture cannot be set aside or nullified. Jesus reminded those prepared to stone him what Scripture said and reminded them that it cannot be a mistake. As Sproul noted in the above quote, the authority of Scripture is tied to its inerrancy.

In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Paul wrote to his ministry partner that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” By use of the Greek word theopneustos (lit. “breathed out by God”), Paul highlights the divine nature of Scripture. Paul provided Timothy with the implications of that important fact. Scripture is profitable for doctrine or teaching, for reproof (the Greek word used here implies that by which disputes may be resolved), correction (restoration to an upright state or improvement of life or character), and for instruction in righteousness.

When Biblical Christians affirm the doctrine of Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone), they highlight God’s intended role for Scripture in the life and faith of the Church as the sole God-breathed source for doctrine, teaching, correction, and instruction. They affirm the authority of Scripture because its divine Author is perfect and speaks truthfully.

Why It Matters
Gordon B. Hinckley stated, “[ . . . ] the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship” (“Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Gordon B. Hinckley”, “Chapter 8 We Look to Christ”.

Latter-day Saints are presented with a never-ending spiral staircase of attempts at obedience, sin, and repentance—followed by more attempts at full obedience. Rinse and Repeat. CTR rings remind them that their church teaches obedience as the means of salvation and exaltation. The hope is that they will eventually reach the top of the staircase and achieve exaltation (see Come Follow Me Insights – Staircase).

Don’t misunderstand what I wrote above. Obedience and sanctification are important to Biblical Christians. But obedience isn’t the means by which we are justified before God (see Romans 4:1-5) Those who believe in Him who justifies the ungodly are saved from the effects of sin and are justified by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. As Paul the Apostle wrote “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (see 1 Cor. 1:18). Paul wrote that letter and sent it to the church at Corinth well before Constantine was born. Revering the cross as the symbol of what Christ accomplished on behalf of believers is not idolatry!

The key takeaway I want my LDS readers to think about is this: In accusing Biblical Christians of idolatry for using the cross as a symbol of our faith and bibliolatry for accepting the Bible as the sole source of God’s revealed Word, the aim of LDS leaders is not to engender trust in their people in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross or trust in God’s Word in the Bible. Rather, it is a polemical device aimed at making space for LDS teaching. And LDS teaching about the cross and about the nature of Scripture is unbiblical. It leads people to place their trust in their own efforts to be obedient as the means by which they will be exalted. It leads people to question the reliability of God’s promise of salvation to those who believe on his Son (see John 6:28-29).

Summary and Conclusion
The polemic aim of these charges is to try to demonstrate that the LDS Church has a better claim to undefiled worship (no pagan influence) and a better (more complete) canon of Scriptures. These charges are myths that cut both ways. They are misrepresentations of the positions of Biblical Christians. Latter-day Saints should not perpetuate these myths if they wish others to treat their own positions with charity (see Matthew 7:12).

“An inconvenient truth is still truth” (Paul Nurnberg)

NOTES
1 The rejection of the cross by LDS leaders and the argument that its use is representative of apostasy followed a period of doctrinal development in which several influential LDS leaders, B.H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, and Joseph Fielding Smith, developed a distinctly LDS narrative of a “Great Apostasy” from the Christian faith, necessitating restoration. (see Eric R. Dursteler “Historical Periodization in the LDS Great Apostasy Narrative” in “Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy”). It is interesting to note that this period of narrative building came directly after the LDS cessation of polygamy and during the period when the LDS leaders were working to build a new identity after ceasing what had been Mormonism’s most distinctive doctrine and practice from the 1840’s through the early 1900’s. LDS leaders needed to affirm how they stood apart from broader Christianity without polygamy. During the early decades of the twentieth century, the challenge posed to the authority of LDS Church leadership by an emerging LDS Fundamentalist movement over the cessation of the practice of polygamy necessitated a narrative of apostasy and restoration that was more heavily focused on priesthood authority. That development continues to influence LDS narrative and practice today.

2 This is assumed but not supported by Holland. In his General Conference address, “Lifted Up upon the Cross”, Holland recounted an anecdote in which a graduate school student asked him why Latter-day Saints do not adopt the cross as a symbol of their faith. In responding to the young person’s question, Holland recounts that he read to him passages from the Book of Mormon that touch on the cross. In his spoken remarks, Holland elicited laughter from the crowd in the Conference Center when he said, “I was about to quote the Apostle Paul when I noticed that my friend’s eyes were starting to glaze over.” That is the last time in his spoken address that Holland mentions the apostle Paul. Why? Holland goes on to argue that Latter-day Saints don’t use the cross as a symbol because it represents an admixture of pagan religion into pure Christianity, and argues:

“Being neither Catholic nor Protestant, we are, rather, a restored church, the restored New Testament Church. Thus, our origins and our authority go back before the time of councils, creeds, and iconography. In this sense, the absence of a symbol that was late coming into common use is yet another evidence that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration of true Christian beginnings.”
(Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lifted Up upon the Cross”, Fall General Conference of the LDS Church) 

This argument is ludicrous for several reasons. First, Holland quoted the Book of Mormon to the graduate student and even stated his own belief that Nephi wrote about the cross 600 years before Jesus Christ lived. If the Book of Mormon really were an ancient record that would imply that there is pre-Christian literary evidence of the cross as symbolic of salvation. Citing the Book of Mormon as Holland did undercuts his own argument.

Second, in his spoken remarks, Holland ignores (except for his joke) the literary evidence provided by the letters of the apostle Paul that the cross was understood by the earliest Christian writer as symbolic of their faith in the work of Christ on the cross. Instead, Holland relegates that evidence to a footnote in the transcript of his talk. Why? Again, it doesn’t fit his agenda.

Finally, Holland is just wrong about the use of the cross as a symbol of Christian faith coming only after the time of “councils, creeds, and iconography.” But these facts don’t fit the polemic of painting the LDS Church as restored and pure Christianity and all other Christian sects and denominations as “apostate”. Inconvenient truth is still truth!

3 Although “bibliolatry” is not a term used by LDS leaders, it is one used often by online LDS apologists. The below quote from a Facebook discussion group is representative of Latter-day Saints who accuse Biblical Christians of bibliolatry:

“[Evangelicals] exalt the Bible to the level of bibliolatry: They derive their purported authority from it, they claim it is inerrant and complete, they claim it is the sole source of God’s word (Sola Scriptura). None of these claims is true.”
(Anonymized LDS Facebook user in the LDS and Biblical Christians Facebook group, link to source withheld to maintain anonymity of the commenter) 

4 In the quote cited, Holland argues that theological disagreements among Christians of Joseph Smith’s day are evidence of the need for a restoration and for new Scripture. Since Joseph Smith kicked it off, there have been at over 500 branches or denominations of the Latter Day Saint Restoration Movement (see Steven L. Shields, “Divergent Paths of the Restoration: An Encyclopedia of the Smith–Rigdon Movement” for an encyclopedic roster and descriptions of these groups) all of which disagree on key aspects of theology, such as the nature of God, locus of priesthood authority, line of succession, the scope, and authority of the Latter Day canon, and even on the nature of the restoration itself.

If one considers Holland’s argument for a brief moment, one realizes that the sword begins turning in on Holland himself. Is another restoration needed? There are some in the Latter Day Saint Restoration Movement who are calling for or claiming to lead just that, hence the constant, non-stop splintering and schisming that has led to over 500 new Latter-Day Saint denominations in just the first 192 years of the movement.

5 Everett Ferguson, “When did the cross supplant the ichthus (fish) as a symbol of the Christian faith?”, Christianity Today magazine, February 2009.

6 In addition to the apostolic era represented by Paul’s letters, other early Christian writings show widespread use of the cross as a Christian symbol. Ignatius (c. 50 AD to c. 98 – 140 AD) wrote in his Epistle to the Ephesians “Let my spirit be counted as nothing for the sake of the cross, which is a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to us salvation and life eternal.” (Philip Schaff, ed. “The Church Fathers. The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection,” London, England: Catholic Way Publishing. 2014. Kindle Edition.).

In the already cited article, Everett Fergusson notes:

Justin Martyr, a Christian apologist writing in the 150s–160s, argued that God had providentially put the shape of the cross in everyday objects, such as the masts of ships, tools like the plough and the axe, and the standards of Roman legions. Christians would often pray standing up with their arms stretched out in the form of a cross. As early as the 200s, Christians were making the sign of the cross with their hands. The cross was so important that pagans charged Christians with worshipping the cross.
( Ibid, Ferguson, “When did the cross supplant the ichthus (fish) as a symbol of the Christian faith?”) 

Justin also saw the shape of the cross built into human anatomy formed by the forehead and the nose and related this to Lamentations 4:20 “The breath of our nostrils, the LORD’s anointed, was captured in their pits, of whom we said, ‘Under his shadow, we shall live among the nations.’”

The Epistle of Barnabas dated from internal evidence (16.3-4) after the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70 but before the Bar Kokhba revolt in AD 132 argues that baptism and the cross were prefigured in Psalm 1. Of the Psalmist, Barnabas states:

“Mark how He has described at once both the water and the cross. For these words imply, Blessed are they who, placing their trust in the cross, have gone down into the water; for, says He, they shall receive their reward in due time: then He declares, I will recompense them.”
(Ibid, Schaff, ed. “The Church Fathers. The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection,”, bolding added for emphasis) 

Tertullian, writing To the Nations (Ad Nationes) in approximately AD 197 juxtaposes the symbols of Roman religion with the wearing of simple unadorned cross necklaces:

“Your victories you celebrate with religious ceremony as deities; and they are the more august in proportion to the joy they bring you. The frames on which you hang up your trophies must be crosses: these are, as it were, the very core of your pageants. Thus, in your victories, the religion of your camp makes even crosses objects of worship; your standards it adores, your standards are the sanction of its oaths; your standards it prefers before Jupiter himself. But all that parade of images, and that display of pure gold, are (as so many) necklaces of the crosses. In like manner also, in the banners and ensigns, which your soldiers guard with no less sacred care, you have the streamers (and) vestments of your crosses. You are ashamed, I suppose, to worship unadorned and simple crosses.”
(Ibid, Schaff, ed. “The Church Fathers. The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection”, bolding added for emphasis)

7 Both of the myths covered in this article are perpetuated by Latter-day Saints not because the positions of Biblical Christians are wrong or fallacious. Rather, the arguments are made to make room for LDS positions. The argument against inerrancy is not made because the argument from God’s nature as a speaker only of truth breaks down. Instead, Latter-day Saints argue against inerrancy because the teaching of the Book of Mormon about the Bible does not allow them to adopt the position. If a Latter-day Saint were to affirm the position of inerrancy, they would be contradicting what the Title Page of the Book of Mormon says about the nature of Scripture and inspiration.

8 See, for example, Thomas S. Monson, “You Can Know It Is True,”

9 Just to name a few: Christopher Nemelka has published The Sealed Portion – The Final Testament of Jesus Christ, and claims to have received the Urim and Thummim by which he translated the sealed plates; Mauricio Berger claims that on April 6, 2007, the angel Raphael led him to the summit of a hill and led him to pray, upon doing which, he was visited by the Angel Moroni who gave him the plates, the interpreters, and the sword of Laban—his published The Sealed Book of Mormon claims to be a translation from the Plates of Mormon; Matthew Gill claims that at the age of twelve, he was visited by the angel Moroni and told that he would one day complete a mission like that of Joseph Smith—many years later he claims that the angel Raphael delivered to him many revelations as well as The Chronicles of the Children of Araneck: A Further Testimony of Jesus Christ & A Record of the Early Inhabitants of the British Isles.

About the Author
Paul Nurnberg was born and raised in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. He served a two-year proselytizing mission for the LDS Church in Hungary. After converting to Biblical Christianity, he studied at Cincinnati Christian University. He holds a M.Div. in Biblical Studies and a BBA from Thomas More University where he graduated summa cum laude. He is a member of Lakeside Christian Church in Kentucky, which belongs to the Independent Christian Churches / Churches of Christ, which has roots in the American Restoration Movement. He has enjoyed a long career in the health insurance industry, and since 2019 has produced the podcast, Outer Brightness: From Mormon to Jesus. He has been happily married to his best friend, Angela, for 22 years. They have five children and three dogs.

The 10 Myths Part 4: “Biblical Christians believe Christ prayed to Himself.”

Posted: October 9, 2022 in Mormon Studies, Paul Nurnberg, The 10 Myths Mormons Believe About Christianity, The Trinity
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Biblical Christians fully acknowledge the one-ness and  the three-ness of God

A detail from Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci, “Battesimo di Cristo (The Baptism of Christ)”, c.1475. Please note how this allegedly “apostate” artist has clearly depicted the three persons of the Trinity as distinct.

by Paul Nurnberg
Introduction
Mormonism is fueled by faith-promoting stories. No one said this better than Mormon Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie, “We have in the Church an untapped, almost unknown, treasury of inspiring and faith-promoting stories. They are the best of their kind and there are thousands of them.” (“The How and Why of Faith-promoting Stories”, New Era magazine, July 1978). Unfortunately, some of them, as another Mormon Apostle said well, only provide “…a kind of theological Twinkie—spiritually empty calories?” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “A Teacher Come from God”, Spring General Conference 1998). This series exposes the following ten “Twinkies”…

10 Myths That Mormonism Tells About Biblical Christianity

  1. Biblical Christianity apostatized.
  2. The Bible has been corrupted.
  3. Biblical Christians believe in cheap grace.
  4. Biblical Christians believe Christ prayed to Himself.
  5. The Biblical Christian God is a monster who sends good people to hell just because they never had a chance to hear the gospel.
  6. Biblical Christians worship the cross and the Bible.
  7. Biblical Christians have no priesthood.
  8. Biblical Christian Pastors and Apologists practice Priestcraft – they’re only in it for the money.
  9. Biblical Christians hate Mormons.
  10. Biblical Christianity is divided into 10,000+ sects, all believing in different paths to salvation.

… and replaces them with nourishing truth. Let’s talk about the one that’s bolded, shall we?

This meme illustrates how this myth is typically used in popular culture by Mormons.

The Myth
To illustrate how this myth is typically used by Latter-day Saints, I have included a well-known Mormon meme that pops up on Social Media from time to time. It shows how Latter-day Saints will often use critiques they believe to be silver bullets that debunk the doctrine of the Trinity when, in fact, they are nothing more than contrived strawman arguments. The myth being addressed here isn’t the only one of these, but it’s probably the most common.

So, where do Latter-day Saints get the incorrect idea that Biblical Christians who affirm the doctrine of the Trinity believe that Jesus was praying to himself when he lifted his voice in prayer to the Father?

Gordon B. Hinckley said the following:

“I am aware that Jesus said that they who had seen Him had seen the Father. Could not the same be said by many a son who resembles his parent?

When Jesus prayed to the Father, certainly He was not praying to Himself!

They are distinct beings, but they are one in purpose and effort. They are united as one in bringing to pass the grand, divine plan for the salvation and exaltation of the children of God.”
— Gordon B. Hinckley
(“The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” October 1986 General Conference, bolding added for emphasis)

LDS leaders often appeal to Joseph Smith’s First Vision as the reason they teach that the Father and the Son are distinct beings (see, for example, N. Eldon Tanner’s “The Contributions of the Prophet Joseph Smith”).

Some LDS leaders, Smith included, seek to make the case on biblical grounds:

“I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! we have three Gods anyhow, and they are plural; and who can contradict it?”
— Joseph Smith, Jr.
(quoted in Joseph Fielding Smith, ed. “Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith” Section VI, 370, bolding added for emphasis)

More recently, Jeffrey R. Holland attempted to make the case that the Latter-day Saints hold to a more biblical view of the Godhead than Biblical Christians do:

“Indeed no less a source than the stalwart Harper’s Bible Dictionary records that “the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the [New Testament].”

So any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost is not a comment about our commitment to Christ but rather a recognition (accurate, I might add) that our view of the Godhead breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself…

To whom was Jesus pleading so fervently all those years, including in such anguished cries as “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” and “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”? To acknowledge the scriptural evidence that otherwise perfectly united members of the Godhead are nevertheless separate and distinct beings is not to be guilty of polytheism; it is, rather, part of the great revelation Jesus came to deliver concerning the nature of divine beings.”
— Jeffrey R. Holland
(“The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent” in October 2007 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, bolding added for emphasis, ellipses added for the sake of brevity)

Why It’s a Myth
Biblical Christians agree with Latter-day Saints that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons. On biblical grounds, we disagree that this means they are three Gods. The three-in-one nature of God means that when the incarnate Son prayed to the Father, he was praying to a distinct person. Latter-day Saints fail to acknowledge that the three-ness of God in the doctrine of the Trinity is a true distinction of persons.

Holland wants to give the impression that the LDS view of a Godhead is the doctrine of God taught by Jesus and his apostles. In his attempt, he abused his source, making it look like it concedes more than it does.1 Biblical Christians affirm the doctrine of the Trinity primarily on the basis of the biblical data; not solely because of the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople. It is precisely this point that Harper’s Bible Dictionary makes. Directly following the lone sentence Holland quoted from the concluding paragraph of the Trinity entry, one finds the following qualification:

“Nevertheless, the discussion above and especially the presence of trinitarian formulas in 2 Cor. 13:14 (which is strikingly early) and Matt. 28:19 indicate that the origin of this mode of thought may be found very early in Christian history.”
— Thomas R. W. Longstaff, Ph.D.
(“The Trinity” in “Harper’s Bible Dictionary”, Paul J. Achtemeier, ed. Harper & Row. San Francisco, 1985, pp. 1098-1099)

Joseph Smith’s “Sermon in the Grove” that I quoted above was delivered in Nauvoo, Illinois on June 16, 1844, just eleven days before he was killed. Later in the same sermon, he quoted from Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John 17, specifically vv. 9 and 11b. Then, after polemically mutilating the doctrine of the Trinity, Smith told his audience that he wanted to read them the text of John 17 for himself. He paraphrased verse 21, claiming that the Greek should be translated “agree” instead of “one.”

The Greek word translated “one” in this verse is from the root heis; the Greek word for the cardinal numeral “one.” In the 345 times that it is used in the Greek New Testament, it never means “agree” as Smith claimed (see Bill Mounce’s Biblical Greek Concordance and Dictionary). Of the seven times the English word “agree” is found in the KJV, it is most often translated from the Greek verb symphōneō (“agree”). Further, Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible does not change heis to “agree” at John 17:21, as Smith attempted to do in his sermon (see John 17:21 in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible)

Smith was not only wrong about the meaning of the Greek in John 17, but also wrong about the implication of that chapter for the doctrine of the Trinity. He didn’t take seriously the myriad biblical passages that declare that God is one.

Pietro Perugino, “The Baptism of Christ”, c.1482. Again, please note how this allegedly “apostate” artist has clearly depicted the three persons of the Trinity as distinct.

Hinckley gave a nod to a biblical passage that should give any Latter-day Saint pause (John 14:9), but he dismissed it too easily, given the ubiquity of New Testament passages declaring that the Father and the Son are one. Benjamin B. Warfield noted the following about the authors of the New Testament:

“[W]e cannot help perceiving with great clearness in the New Testament abundant evidence that its writers felt no incongruity whatever between their doctrine of the Trinity and the Old Testament conception of God. The New Testament writers certainly were not conscious of being “setters forth of strange gods.” To their own apprehension they worshipped and proclaimed just the God of Israel; and they laid no less stress than the Old Testament itself upon His unity (Jn 17:3; 1 Cor 8:4; 1 Tim 2:5). They do not, then, place two new gods by the side of Yahweh, as alike with Him to be served and worshipped; they conceive Yahweh as Himself at once Father, Son and Spirit. In presenting this one Yahweh as Father, Son and Spirit, they do not even betray any lurking feeling that they are making innovations.
[ . . . ]
It is not in a text here and there that the New Testament bears its testimony to the doctrine of the Trinity. The whole book is Trinitarian to the core; all its teaching is built on the assumption of the Trinity; and its allusions to the Trinity are frequent, cursory, easy and confident. It is with a view to the cursoriness of the allusions to it in the New Testament that it has been remarked that “the doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard as overheard in the statements of Scripture.” It would be more exact to say that it is not so much inculcated as presupposed. The doctrine of the Trinity does not appear in the New Testament in the making, but as already made.”
— B.B. Warfield
(“Trinity” in “The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia”, edited by James Orr, 5:3,012–22. Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company, 1915)

Biblical Christians agree with Warfield that the doctrine of the Trinity is incipient in the Old Testament revelation, that it is clarified in the New Testament revelation, and that in “point of fact, the doctrine of the Trinity is purely a revealed doctrine” (Benjamin B. Warfield “Trinity”, ibid).

How It’s a Myth
The doctrine of the Trinity declares the clear biblical data that can be summarized in four statements:

  1. There is only one God.
  2. The Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is God.
  3. Jesus Christ, the Son, is God.
  4. The Holy Spirit is God.

Latter-day Saints who charge that Biblical Christians think Jesus prayed to himself fail to take into account the whole counsel of God (for an accessible overview see “The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of the Trinity” by Robert Bowman, Jr.). The doctrine of the Trinity maintains both the one-ness and the three-ness of God, as revealed in the biblical record.

The criticism levied by Holland is that the doctrine postdates the New Testament. Specifically, Latter-day Saints argue that the doctrine amounts to the philosophies of men mingled with Scripture. Biblical Christians acknowledge that there are ways of explicating the doctrine of the Trinity that use nonbiblical words, but that the doctrine itself is thoroughly biblical. Warfield states the matter clearly:

“The term “Trinity” is not a Biblical term, and we are not using Biblical language when we define what is expressed by it as the doctrine that there is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence. A doctrine so defined can be spoken of as a Biblical doctrine only on the principle that the sense of Scripture is Scripture. And the definition of a Biblical doctrine in such un-Biblical language can be justified only on the principle that it is better to preserve the truth of Scripture than the words of Scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view. Or, to speak without figure, the doctrine of the Trinity is given to us in Scripture, not in formulated definition, but in fragmentary allusions; when we assemble the disjecta membra into their organic unity, we are not passing from Scripture, but entering more thoroughly into the meaning of Scripture. We may state the doctrine in technical terms, supplied by philosophical reflection; but the doctrine stated is a genuinely Scriptural doctrine.”
— B.B. Warfield
(“Trinity”, Op Cit, bolding added for emphasis)

Biblical Christians fully acknowledge the one-ness and the three-ness of God as described in revelation.

The Doctrine of the Trinity and Mormon Godhead doctrine illustrated graphically.

Why It Matters
From my perspective as a former Latter-day Saint, the impulse on the part of Mormons to critique the Trinity is primarily the result of Smith’s innovative teachings – an anti-Trinity, if you will – of his most distinctive doctrines:

  1. God the Father has a body of flesh and bones (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22)
  2. Man was also, in the beginning, with God, and in essence “was not created or made, neither indeed can be” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:29).
  3. That humans must learn how to be gods [themselves], and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before [them] [ . . . ] (Joseph Smith, Jr. “King Follett Sermon”)

Smith himself argued the difficulty that his teachings posed when run up against the doctrine of the Trinity:

“Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are only one God. I say that is a strange God anyhow–three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization. “Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me.” “Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.” All are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God–he would be a giant or a monster.
— Joseph Smith, Jr.
(quoted in Joseph Fielding Smith, ed. “Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith” Section VI, 372, bolding added for emphasis)

In this sermon, Smith argued essentially as Holland did. Namely, that Latter-day Saints affirm the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit “are one in every significant and eternal aspect imaginable except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance [ . . . ]” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent”). The key question here is this: Are the Father, Son, and Spirit unified in any way that is different than how believers are unified? Smith and his successors argue that the unity of both the Godhead and of humanity with the Godhead is solely that of will and purpose — not of substance. Biblical Christians answer in the affirmative that there is a difference between the unity of substance shared by the Godhead, and the unity of will and purpose that Jesus prayed his followers would have — with the Godhead and with each other.

In his great High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prayed, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent (John 17:3 KJV). Ambrose of Milan, one of the greatest theologians of the fourth century compared our unity with the Godhead’s unity:

“No separation, then, is to be made of the Word from God the Father, no separation in power, no separation in wisdom, by reason of the Unity of the Divine Substance. Again, God the Father is in the Son, as we ofttimes find it written, yet [He dwells in the Son] not as sanctifying one who lacks sanctification, nor as filling a void, for the power of God knows no void. Nor, again, is the power of the one increased by the power of the other, for there are not two powers, but one Power; nor does Godhead entertain Godhead, for there are not two Godheads, but one Godhead. We, contrariwise, shall be One in Christ through Power received [from another] and dwelling in us.

The letter [of the unity] is common, but the Substance of God and the substance of man are different. We shall be, the Father and the Son [already] are, one; we shall be one by grace, the Son is so by substance. Again, unity by conjunction is one thing, unity by nature another. Finally, observe what it is that Scripture hath already recorded: “That they may all be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee.”

Mark now that He said not “Thou in us, and we in Thee,” but “Thou in Me, and I in Thee,” to place Himself apart from His creatures. Further He added: “that they also may be in Us,” in order to separate here His dignity and His Father’s from us, that our union in the Father and the Son may appear the issue, not of nature, but of grace, whilst with regard to the unity of the Father and the Son it may be believed that the Son has not received this by grace, but possesses by natural right of His Sonship.”
— Ambrose of Milan
(“On the Christian Faith” cited in “Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament” IVb John 11-21, Thomas C. Oden, ed. InterVarsity Press, Dowers Grove, IL 2007, pp. 256-57, bolding added for emphasis)

The Book of Mormon states that “God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people” (Mosiah 15:1). Biblical Christians can affirm this without qualification. The nature of the Son as fully God is critical to the efficacy of his sacrifice, as is the reverence for and the submission of his human nature to His Father, which he demonstrated in his prayers.

Summary and Conclusion
The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. Yet, there are not three Gods, but one true God. The Son did not pray to himself, but to His Father.

The Trinity Triangle: “We believe in the Triune God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, three Persons” This window uses the Latin Pater, Filius, and Spiritus Sanctus to name the persons in the Trinity. One God and Three Persons is a great mystery of the Church. The window explains that the Persons are not each other, but each is God (Deus).

NOTES
1 Here is what that entry in the 1985 Harper’s Bible Dictionary actually says in its full and complete context:

“Trinity, the, a term denoting the specifically Christian doctrine that God is a unity of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The word itself does not occur in the Bible. It is generally acknowledged that the church father Tertullian (ca. a.d. 145-220) either coined the term or was the first to use it with reference to God. The explicit doctrine was thus formulated in the postbiblical period, although the early stages of its development can be seen in the NT . Attempts to trace the origins still earlier (to the ot literature) cannot be supported by historical-critical scholarship, and these attempts must be understood as retrospective interpretations of this earlier corpus of Scripture in the light of later theological developments.

For the purpose of analysis, three relevant categories of NT texts may be distinguished (although such sharp lines of demarcation should not be attributed to first-century Christianity): first are references to the incarnation, describing a particularly close relationship between Jesus and God. Although a number of passages make clear distinctions between God and Christ and therefore suggest the subordination of the Son to the Father (e.g., Rom. 8:31-34; 1 Cor. 11:3; 15:20-28; 2 Cor. 4:4-6), there are other texts in which the unity of the Father and the Son is stressed (e.g., Matt. 11:27; John 10:30; 14:9-11; 20:28; Col. 2:9; 1 John 5:20). This emphasis on the unity of the Father and the Son may be understood as a first step in the development of trinitarian thought.

Second are passages in which a similarly close relationship between Jesus and the Holy Spirit is depicted. In the ot, the Holy Spirit (i.e., the Spirit of God) is understood to be the agency of God’s power and presence with individuals and communities. In the NT , Jesus is understood to be the recipient of this Spirit in a unique manner (see esp. Luke 3:22, where the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form upon Jesus after his baptism), to be a mediator of the activity of the Spirit (Acts 2:33 and elsewhere), and even to be identified with the Spirit (Rom. 8:26-27, 34; John 14; cf. expressions such as ‘the Spirit of Christ,’ ‘the Spirit of the Lord,’ ‘the Spirit of Jesus,’ and Gal. 4:6, where God sends ‘the Spirit of his Son’). While one cannot use the creedal formulation that the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father and the Son’ in its later dogmatic sense, in the NT the Holy Spirit comes to represent both the presence and activity of God and the continuing presence of Jesus Christ in the church.

Finally there are passages in which all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned in the same context. The most important of these are the ‘Apostolic Benediction’ of 2 Cor. 13:14 (the earliest trinitarian formula known) and the baptismal formula of Matt. 28:19 (perhaps a development from the simpler formula reflected in Acts 2:38; 8:16; and elsewhere; see also 1 Cor. 12:4-6; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2; Jude 20-21).

The formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the NT . Nevertheless, the discussion above and especially the presence of trinitarian formulas in 2 Cor. 13:14 (which is strikingly early) and Matt. 28:19 indicate that the origin of this mode of thought may be found very early in Christian history.”
(Thomas R. W. Longstaff, Ph.D., “The Trinity” in “Harper’s Bible Dictionary”, Paul J. Achtemeier, ed. Harper & Row. San Francisco, 1985, pp. 1098-1099)

About the Author
Paul Nurnberg was born and raised in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. He served a two-year proselytizing mission for the LDS Church in Hungary. After converting to Biblical Christianity, he studied at Cincinnati Christian University. He holds an M.Div. in Biblical Studies and a BBA from Thomas More University where he graduated summa cum laude. He is a member of Lakeside Christian Church in Kentucky, which belongs to the Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, which has roots in the American Restoration Movement. He has enjoyed a long career in the health insurance industry, and since 2019 has produced the podcast, “Outer Brightness: From Mormon to Jesus.” He has been happily married to his best friend, Angela, for 22 years. They have five children and three dogs.

Dialogues with My Former Self: The Breath of God (Part Two)

Posted: June 21, 2020 in Hermeneutics, Mormon Studies, Paul Nurnberg, Recovery from Mormonism, Theology
1

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.“
–Matthew 22:37 (NKJV)

by Paul Nurnberg
An Application of Textual Criticism
The year before I left the LDS Church, I received as a gift Royal Skousen’s The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, published by Yale University Press. That first night, I read the introduction in which Skousen describes his decades of research aimed at reconstructing the earliest English text of the Book of Mormon by comparing the various early manuscripts and stripping away changes made by Smith’s scribes and later editors. It had only been a couple years since I’d been introduced to the science and purpose of Textual Criticism. Here, I was seeing it applied to a Mormon text for the first time. While I was eager to get to the resultant textual reconstruction to see what insights Skousen’s work had uncovered, I re-read the 35 pages of Introduction and Editor’s Preface that first night. It had unlocked in my mind several questions that had been sitting on the shelf of my mind for a few years, and now weren’t going to let go.

  • All of that work to arrive at the earliest English text, but to what end?
  • Aren’t there still cultural and time gaps between modern readers and the supposed ancient authors that can never be bridged due to the fact that the golden plates aren’t extant?
  • On what basis were subsequent changes to the English text of the Book of Mormon made, if they weren’t original, and there is no recourse to an original language manuscript?

As I’ve engaged with Latter-day Saints on these questions, answers have varied, but mostly those I’ve encountered have held to the idea that original language manuscripts for the Book of Mormon aren’t needed, because Skousen’s work gets us as close to the source of Joseph Smith’s inspired translation as we’re going to get. This raises a couple related questions:

  • Who was inspired, the supposed ancient authors of the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith?
  • If both, then does Joseph Smith’s original manuscript also contain errors?

Approaching Inerrancy
Like my view of Scripture, my understanding of the concept of Biblical inerrancy was informed by my upbringing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The title page to the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith said was translated from the last leaf of the golden plates, contains a statement and a warning about mistakes in the text. It reads, “And now if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men; wherefore condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.”[i] Not only did the Book of Mormon’s supposed ancient authors predict how its detractors would react to it (“A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.”[ii]), but also predicted that it would be put under scrutiny for errors and warned against rejecting it on that basis. The passage about how “gentiles” would react to the Book of Mormon had struck me as the manipulative, self-serving justification of a modern author trying to foist his own work on the world as ancient Scripture since that notion had unlocked in my mind sometime in early 1999 when I was sitting on a bed in an apartment in Budapest, but I’d pushed it aside. The title page warning now struck me as similar.

When asked why the eighth Article of Faith doesn’t contain a disclaimer for the Book of Mormon like it does for the Bible (“as far as it is translated correctly”), Latter-day Saints will often argue that it’s not needed because the Book of Mormon was translated “by the gift and power of God” so its resulting translation is perfect and exactly as God wants it. That aligns with Skousen’s work to try to identify the earliest text. Presumably, the closer Skousen gets to the original English text, the closer he gets to the perfect English text—but not to the ancient version of the text, if such were indeed to exist.

Ostensibly, both the ancient authors of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith in translating it, were inspired in what they wrote. Skousen’s entire exercise would be futile without that assumption! Why, then, does the title page contain the escape hatch it does? It suggests that despite God’s involvement if humans are involved in the production of Scripture (either in writing the original texts or in translating them with God’s help) there will unavoidably be errors.

The translation process as described by David Whitmer suggests that Smith put his face in a hat and the translation of the characters on the plates was shown to him on his seer stone in the hat, one character from the plates and its interpretation at a time, and that the next character’s interpretation would not appear until the scribe had recorded it correctly.[iii] Such a verbally inspired translation process should not have resulted in any errors needing correction by later editors, but that is not what we have with the Book of Mormon, necessitating Skousen’s work to arrive at the earliest text.[iv]

Where Christians can logically reason to the inerrancy of Scripture from God’s perfection, Mormon Theology seems to lack a robust concept of inspiration powerful enough to overcome human frailty, else Latter-day Saints would also reason to a position of scriptural inerrancy, but even the supposed inspired translation of the title page of the Book of Mormon prevents them from doing so. The Book of Mormon, from the title page to the supposed worries of its ancient prophet Moroni is rife with the concerns of a mind seeking to convince the world that what he is producing is Scripture on par with the Bible.[v]

The Helaman 1–15-16 manuscript from the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon known as “O”. The “O” manuscript contains the transcriber’s handwritten record of what Joseph Smith dictated via the infamous peep stone in the hat “translation” technique.

Flunking Inerrancy
In the first article in this series, I affirmed a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.[vi] A friend with whom I served on the LDS Mission wrote to me to share his thoughts on my article. One of his statements reminds me of a sentiment I have seen often from Latter-day Saints. He said, “I don’t think I can ever conceive of anything as ‘God’s inerrant word.’”

As I transitioned out of the LDS Church and continued to discuss religion with others online, I found that Latter-day Saints often reacted with incredulity to the concept of Biblical inerrancy. I think this stems somewhat from what is stated in the eighth Article of Faith: “We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God.” This ties the reliability of the Bible with the reliability of the translation, in some ways confusing what Christians are affirming when they hold to the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. I also think it stems from the idea that human involvement in the production of Scripture necessarily entails error because as the title page of the Book of Mormon suggests, to “err is human.”[vii] Latter-day Saints come by a misunderstanding of the doctrine of inerrancy honestly.[viii]

One thing that discussing the concept of Biblical inerrancy with Mormons online circa 2010-11 taught me is that I didn’t have a firm grasp of the concept of Biblical inerrancy myself. I knew that it was something that many Evangelical Christians affirm, but as Latter-day Saints (at least one of them a Biblical scholar not just laypersons) presented me with their arguments against the concept, I often found myself either agreeing with them or flummoxed as to how to respond.

It wasn’t until I began attending a Christian Seminary, studying for an M.Div. in Biblical Studies that I encountered two clarifications that gave me solid footing for understanding the concept of Biblical inerrancy, and could see that many of the arguments made against the concept are rooted in a misunderstanding of what is being affirmed.[ix] Two clarifications that helped me to have a better grasp of what an affirmation of inerrancy entails are:

  • Infallibility (the idea that the Bible is incapable of failing) is the stronger concept than inerrancy
  • Inerrancy (the idea that the Bible contains no errors) applies only to the original text, not to later copies or translations

I affirm both the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible. Here’s why.

  • The Bible teaches that God’s word is truth (free from error)
  • The utter reliability of God’s Word has been the consistent teaching of the Church from the earliest times
    • “You have studied the Holy Scriptures, which are true and inspired by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing contrary to justice or truth has been written in them.” – Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians (between 70 – 96 CE)[x]
    • “[. . .] the Scriptures are indeed perfect since they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit [. . .] – Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, Chapter 28 (between 174 and 189 CE)
    • “For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error.” – Augustine Letter From Augustine to Jerome (405 CE)

An elegant argument can be made for the infallibility and inerrancy of the Biblical autographs. One of my theology professors lays out the argument for the inerrancy of the Bible as a logical syllogism supported by the Bible’s own teachings:

  • Premise A: Every word of God is true (Titus 1:2; John 17:17; 2 Cor 6:7; Col 1:5; 2 Tim 2:15; James 1:18)
  • Premise B: The Bible is the Word of God (2 Tim 3:16; Mt 15:6; Mk 7:13; Rom 9:6; Psalm 119:105; Rom 3:2
  • Conclusion: The Bible is inerrant[xi]

Another of my favorite theologians, R. C. Sproul, puts that syllogism this way:

  • Premise A: The Bible is the infallible Word of God.
  • Premise B: The Bible attests to its own infallibility.
  • Premise C: The self-attestation of Scripture is an infallible attestation.
  • Conclusion: The Bible is the infallible Word of God[xii]

However, Sproul rightly notes that the syllogism as structured above leads to the charge of circular reasoning. The conclusion is contained within the first premise. This pre-suppositional method of argumentation is wholly a theological enterprise, and I don’t have any problems with it and can affirm it on those grounds. But it doesn’t describe how I came to trust the Bible as infallible and inerrant.

A portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This, and all I have laid out in this article about the historical reliability of the Bible when compared with the Book of Mormon, is why I hold to the classical approach to Biblical infallibility and inerrancy. It also can be structured as a logical syllogism:

  • Premise A: The Bible is a basically reliable and trustworthy document.
  • Premise B: On the basis of this reliable document we have sufficient evidence to believe confidently that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
  • Premise C: Jesus Christ being the Son of God is an infallible authority.
  • Jesus Christ teaches that the Bible is more than generally trustworthy: it is the very Word of God.
  • Premise D: That the word, in that it comes from God, is utterly trustworthy because God is utterly trustworthy.
  • Conclusion: On the basis of the infallible authority of Jesus Christ, the Church believes the Bible to be utterly trustworthy, i.e. infallible[xiii]

The first premise allows for the study and wrestling that I’ve done with regard to the historical reliability of texts claimed to be Scripture. The rest of the premises argue from that to various theological positions leading to the conclusion. This classical structure marries the two facets of my religious experience: mind and heart. I can love God with my mind and be justified in loving God with my heart. It leaves room for the work of the Holy Spirit in me through my studies. It escapes base fideism and allows for the evaluation of evidence and reasoning to play its part in my religious convictions. Historicity matters!

NOTES
[i] Times and Seasons, Vol. III, No. 24, “Truth Will Prevail” accessed from http://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v3n24.htm#943
[ii] 2 Nephi 29:3
[iii] See David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ
[iv] This problem was also identified by LDS Scholars David L. Paulsen and R, Dennis Potter in their response to Owen and Mosser’s review of How Wide the Divide: A Mormon & An Evangelical in Conversation. See their discussion of the issue as handled by Stephen Robinson on pp. 231-235 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1408&context=msr
[v] Ether 12:23-29
[vi] Continuing the Tragic Quest https://beggarsbread.org/2019/03/03/12289/
[vii] Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, accessed from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69379/an-essay-on-criticism
[viii] The Gospel Topics entry on Bible, Inerrancy Of states the following:

Latter-day Saints revere the Bible. They study it and believe it to be the word of God. However, they do not believe the Bible, as it is currently available, is without error.

Joseph Smith commented, “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, chapter 17)…

As the Bible was compiled, organized, translated, and transcribed, many errors entered the text. The existence of such errors becomes apparent when one considers the numerous and often conflicting translations of the Bible in existence today.

So while Joseph Smith, as quoted here, explicated a view that is close to what Christians mean by inerrancy, the view argued against in this brief article from the LDS Church’s website is a straw-man. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/bible-inerrancy-of?lang=eng
[ix] Hat tip to my theology professor and the Dean of the Seminary while I was there, Dr. Johnny Pressley, for the clarity with which he (and Dr. Cottrell) presented theological concepts. They both achieved within me a clarity of thought and enunciation of theological concepts for which I will forever be grateful and which I will forever be chasing.
[x] Most scholars date this writing to the last three decades of the first century CE.
[xi] Jack Cottrell, Solid: The Authority of God’s Word, College Press Publishing Company, Joplin, MO 1991, 40-41.
[xii] R. C. Sproul, Scripture Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine, P&R Publishing, Philipsburg, NJ, 2005, 69.
[xiii] Ibid. 72-73.

Dialogues with My Former Self: The Breath of God (Part One)

Posted: June 7, 2020 in Ex-Mormons, Mormon Studies, Paul Nurnberg, Recovery from Mormonism, Theology
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“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
–2 Timothy 3:16

By Paul Nurnberg
Finding Hidden Books
Recently, I listened to an Episode of Mike Licona’s Risen Jesus Podcast. He was discussing three methods of approaching ancient texts that he defined as follows:

  • Methodological Credulity – One comes to the text assuming that it is reliable, that it is reporting truth until one is shown otherwise. The default position is: this text is true.
  • Methodological Neutrality – One approaches the text with an attitude of neutrality, not assuming it to be true or false. The default position is: openness to the text being true or false.
  • Methodological Skepticism – One approaches the text with the attitude that one has to be convinced that it is true. The default position is: this text is false.[1]

Having been born into a Mormon family, by default I inherited a certain view of what constitutes Scripture. More specifically, I inherited a set of books that the LDS Church holds as its “standard works” or canon. Chief among these was the Book of Mormon. That was the book that had been, according to the narrative, preserved by God, prophesied by Old Testament prophets (Isaiah 29:4; Ezekiel 37:16), and had been brought forth in the last days to convince Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, like those of old.

The story — that Joseph Smith was visited by an angel and led to find a set of golden plates in a hill near his home in upstate New York — always seemed audacious to me. When I was growing up, I accepted this narrative as true — that actual metal plates had been buried in a hill which contained the history of an ancient American civilization, which had its origins in a family who left Jerusalem during the reign of King Zedekiah, and whose patriarch, Lehi, had been a contemporary of the Biblical prophet Jeremiah; and that these plates had been delivered to Joseph Smith after four years of testing his resilience, sincerity, and obedience, and that he translated the writings on the plates into English from a language called in the text “Reformed Egyptian.” I believed that the Book of Mormon published to the world in 1830 was, in fact, the Word of God — delivered by a prophet to prepare the way for Jesus’ return. Smith’s explanation for why the source text — the plates themselves — were no longer extant, seemed equally incredible to me.

I said that the story seemed farfetched to me. It did! Smith’s claims are recognizable as bold, even for one predisposed by upbringing to take an approach to them of methodological credulity. But I didn’t have any reasons when I was young to seriously doubt the narrative. Everywhere I turned there were adults I knew, loved, respected, and trusted who believed whole-heartedly in that story and the resultant text. I didn’t see compelling reasons to take a different approach than to believe what was presented. My mother believed it and her family had roots in the LDS Church that went back to the 1860s and included the leaving behind of home and family in Denmark to cross the American plains pulling a handcart — dedication to the cause. My father believed it, and he had left the Lutheran Church to join the LDS Church, subjecting himself to a lifetime of serious and sometimes heated discussions with his born-again-Christian brother. These played out over the phone and I recall often eavesdropping on my dad’s side of their conversations.

I’ve been a bibliophile from a young age. I come by it honestly. My parents built a large library of books in our home. My dad’s bookshelves had two shelves at the bottom that were behind closed doors that latched magnetically, and three shelves above that were open to view. One night while perusing his library, I found among the books that were behind closed doors, a book titled “The Book of Mormon on Trial” by J. Milton Rich. Curious, I flipped through this comic book style Mormon apologetic work. I don’t know how my dad came to have the book, but the titles of the other books that were stashed away with it in the bottom shelves taught me early the meaning of “putting something on the shelf.” I am not suggesting that the possession of books that present a defense of one’s beliefs automatically suggests that one’s faith is unreasonable or indefensible. Rather, I am describing what I learned from this experience — that faith entails reasoning through the arguments both for and against one’s beliefs.

Inside the Shrine of the Book in West Jerusalem. This museum houses the famous Isaiah scroll and other Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts dating back to 150BC.

Out of the Dust
Once when I was a teenager, during a particularly boring Sunday service, both I and my older sister ducked out to “go to the bathroom” and ended up sitting together on a sofa in the foyer. I was leafing through my quad (one thick volume that contained all of the LDS canon) and looking at the maps. The Bible had maps of the Mediterranean showing where the Apostle Paul had journeyed, but the Book of Mormon didn’t have maps. My sister told me about the conversation they’d had in Seminary about whether the Nephites inhabited all of North and South America or just a small portion. Her High School Seminary teacher always brought the goods!

My mom did family history research for others, spending long days at the Family History Library downtown Salt Lake City. During the dog days of summer, when boredom with suburban life would set in, and I’d pine for the regimen of school, and I’d often go with her. I’d walk the stacks, looking through books or drawers of microfilm, or I would find the picture books with coats of arms and practice drawing the one for Nürnberg, with its black eagle on a yellow background and red bands[2]. As a teenager, I geeked out on that historical connection to my family name. I was excited by history in general. Many of those summer days, I would go next door to the Church History Museum or walk up the hill by the Deseret Gym, past the spot where I later learned Mark Hofmann nearly blew himself into eternity, to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum.

The museums enthralled me. In the exhibits, I could see artifacts from the lives of the founders of the LDS Church and of the Mormon pioneers. Among the tangible relics, I saw the pocket watch that saved John Taylor’s life in the firefight at the Carthage Jail in Illinois, where Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob. The exhibits there connected me with my heritage in a way that both grounded me to my people and to my story.

In March of 1997, as I was preparing to leave on a mission for the LDS Church. BYU was hosting the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, and I went to Provo to see it. As I stood in front of a long display case that held the traveling reproduction of the Great Isaiah Scroll, I listened to the self-guided tour cassette on a Walkman describe this ancient text. I learned of the import the Dead Sea Scrolls held for Biblical Scholarship because they pushed the dating for the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible back by nearly a millennium. The Biblical record was indeed ancient.

Standing there on the campus of BYU, I had what I would describe as a first brush with methodological skepticism towards the Book of Mormon. I thought of the missing plates contrasted with the Great Isaiah Scroll. It was a jarring juxtaposition because the Book of Mormon uses Isaiah 29 in 2 Nephi 27 to suggest that Isaiah was prophesying the coming forth of the Book of Mormon “out of the dust.” But there I was, standing before an ancient text that actually had come forth out of the dust. It wasn’t sealed. Scholars actually could read it and compare it to the other known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Differences though there may be, the process of Textual Criticism could be applied. The Book of Mormon plates were nowhere to be found, and according to the narrative, shouldn’t be expected to be discovered. Scholars could not read them.

Despite that first encounter with methodological skepticism, with my mission approaching, I knew that a spiritual witness of the book is what my church leaders prescribed. So I settled into an attitude of methodological neutrality and studied the book extensively. I didn’t then concern myself with scholarly, critical approaches to the Book of Mormon. Rather, I approached it like I hoped those I met on my mission would, I read it and prayed to know if it was true.

On a hot summer day in 1998, as a Mormon missionary knocking doors in Szeged, a beautiful university city in southeastern Hungary. One man spoke with us from his front window, seemingly uninterested. When we told him about Joseph Smith and the golden plates, he suddenly became enthusiastic and asked, “Do you want to read a real book pulled from the dust of the earth?”

My companion and I exchanged puzzled glances and the man disappeared into his house and returned a few moments later with a stack of paper. He handed it to me and said, “I got this from a friend. You can borrow it if you promise to bring it back tomorrow.”

Never one to miss the opportunity to bargain, I told him I would read his stack of papers if he would take a copy of the Book of Mormon and read it. He agreed. That night I sat on our balcony reading. The packet of photocopied material he had lent me was a translation of the “The War Scroll,” found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Each page was bisected with Hebrew script on one side and the English translation on the other. I was mesmerized by the description of the eschatological war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. The packet lacked a contextual description of the work, and I was so steeped in Mormon cosmology, that I tried to make sense of what I was reading as a description of a primordial War in Heaven. The dots weren’t connecting, but I stayed up late trying to make it fit. Reading that non-canonical work from the Second Temple period was a formative experience. It helped me to see that even the evidence for a small Jewish sect could be unearthed and provide valuable historical and cultural insights into their beliefs and practices—evidence of their existence.

Throughout my two-years in Hungary, I studied the LDS Standard Works (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the King James Bible). I used the LDS Institute manuals, designed as curriculum for Mormon college students, as study aids. While studying the Old and New Testaments, I was fascinated by the cultural insights the manuals provided that helped to illuminate the context of the Biblical narrative. Even the manual for the Doctrine and Covenants provided valuable 19th-century cultural context for each section in that book. As I studied through the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price, however, I was troubled by the paltry size of those manuals. They contained only summaries of the narratives and teachings of each book supplemented by quotes from LDS General Authorities.

The Pearl of Great Price is only 61 pages long. It makes sense that the commentary for such a brief work would be less substantial than for the Bible. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, claims to be an epic covering roughly a millennium of history—more when you count the Jaredite narrative—and fills 531 pages. The cultural commentary for that book should have been weighty. But it wasn’t.

By the end of my mission, I would sit on my bed during morning personal study, and daydream about becoming an archaeologist and finding the evidence that would vindicate the Book of Mormon as ancient history. When I returned from my mission, I subscribed to the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, then published by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). With each issue, I was dismayed as the articles would walk back from premature claims made by previous generations of Mormon archaeologists about ancient Mesoamerican artifacts such as Izapa Stela 5. While I was glad for the forthright dedication to accuracy, I began to have serious doubts about the Book of Mormon as a historical narrative about real people who existed in the ancient past.

Photo Credit: British Library

The Codex Sinaiticus was handwritten well over 1600 years ago. This manuscript contains the entire Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.

Fast forward about a decade to 2007 and I was finishing up a business degree at a small Catholic college near my home in northern Kentucky. One of the requirements for graduation was to complete a religion class. I signed up for Intro to the New Testament. The class was taught by a priest who rekindled in me the fire I had felt years before when studying the New Testament. We used “Understanding the New Testament and Its Message: An Introduction” by Vincent P. Branick as our course text. Beyond providing a cultural framework for understanding the New Testament, Branick discusses the textual issues: oral tradition and two-source theory, the “Synoptic Problem,” as well as Text, Form, and Source Criticism. I was fascinated! Why? Because the New Testament can be studied as history and as a historical text. Unbelievers argue that Jesus’ miracles, resurrection, and other supernatural elements of the narrative are hagiography, but all but the most skeptical scholars agree that the New Testament is focused on the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth.

Taking that class was the nail in the coffin of my belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. One simply cannot study the Book of Mormon in historical and cultural context the way one can the Bible.[3] Although I have been charged with “trusting in the arm of flesh” because I have sought to understand the Word of God as history, and have rejected works that do not display the same traits as the Bible, the very point of the Gospel is that God acted in history to accomplish His plan of salvation.

I know in whom I have trusted to lead me in my studies. I thank God for my mind that has ever sought Him, and the Holy Spirit for teaching me in the way that He knew would be convincing to me and prepare me for the gift of a new heart. I praise Jesus, my Savior, forevermore. I can never go back. As Peter testified, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16 ESV). Historicity matters!

NOTES
[1] Risen Jesus Podcast S3E5 Methods of Approaching Ancient Text
[2] https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/heraldrywiki/index.php?title=N%C3%BCrnberg
[3] I am not convinced by Brandt Gardner’s arguments in Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History.

Dialogues with My Former Self: Continuing the Tragic Quest

Posted: March 3, 2019 in Mormon Culture, Mormon Studies, Paul Nurnberg, Poetry
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Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That’s what the Quester says.]
There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke.
What’s there to show for a lifetime of work,
a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
But nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old
planet earth.
—Ecclesiastes 1:2-4 (The Message)

by Paul Nurnberg
Accepting the Labels
I’m a quester. A seeker. I accept those labels, because “he who seeks shall find.”1 Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Ecclesiastes renders the Hebrew qoheleth as “quester” (typically preacher). This word choice highlights a reality that surprised me as I completed graduate studies at a Christian seminary. Namely, many of my fellow students—often vocational ministers—were also seekers. That is, they were intensely interested in seeking and knowing God’s truth and had passed through crucibles of doubt and suffering that ultimately drew them closer to God. Such is true of most of the believers I count among my spiritual mentors. Petersen’s rendering of the opening verses of Solomon’s realist musings powerfully capture the tragic quest of seeking to know and grow closer to the heart of God and the disillusionment one feels when one’s faith universe implodes.

In 1984, Mormon thinker, professor, literary critic, and yes, theologian, Eugene England published his first collection of personal essays, Dialogues with Myself. In the first essay in that collection, “Joseph Smith and the Tragic Quest” England quotes from and shares his thoughts on an essay  entitled “Tragedy as Religious Paradox” by the former chairman of the English Department at BYU, P.A. Christensen:

. . . the emerging and unifying element in the richly diverse tragic tradition is the focus on that ultimate desolation, available to us all, when by accident or our own questing we come to feel “the universe has lost its meaning, its moral bearings, its spiritual security.” Tragic man, the subject of our greatest literature, unwilling to rest with simplistic and thus secure conceptions of the universe, pushes at the paradoxes of his mind and experience uncover, “lives precariously on the growing margin of knowledge,” and challenges—or obeys—the Gods of his conceptions in ways that bring, in either case, suffering and loss out of all proportion to his actions. Yet tragic man persists in testing the paradoxes and enduring the suffering. Perhaps he does so because that is the process of all significant learning, of breaking out of confining concepts, out of old seed husks into new life, the process of dying in the old man so a new one can be born; perhaps he does so because it is the ultimate way of courageously confronting the real universe.2

England’s life and letters have been celebrated by a certain subset of progressive and liberal Mormons since he co-founded Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought at Stanford in 1966. Since his death in 2001, younger generations of progressive Internet Mormons have paid homage to England through blog posts and podcasts.3

Mormon thinker, professor, literary critic, and theologian, Eugene England.

I learned of England’s writings posthumously. As a young LDS return missionary in 1999, I began a long quest of seeking and discovery. I began discussing Mormonism online—debating my beliefs and epistemology with others of similar disposition. In 2002, as my religious views began to lean towards the unorthodox in Mormonism, I was in spiritual turmoil. The universe was reeling. It was no longer a secure place. A friend recommended England’s book of essays Making Peace, which I purchased and devoured.

My journey has taken me out of the LDS Church, but the drawing of God to his Son, supported by the evidence for Christianity, has continued to be compelling and convincing to me. I’ve since found a new spiritual home. The tragic nature of being a quester is that one risks losing everything. Just ask Job! As an ex-Mormon, I’ve experienced my share of loss—of friends, of trust and intimacy in family relationships, and of community. Over the years, I’ve witnessed many other young Mormons go through their own quests, a few were family, friends or mission companions, some were merely online acquaintances—all tragic. Some have lost spouses and children to painful separation and divorce, some have lost their sense of community, and many have lost faith in God altogether.

If the above resonates with you, if the universe has lost its meaning, bearings and spiritual security; my hope is that you will decide to continue the tragic quest with me through this series of posts. I understand the pain, loneliness, fear, and rejection that comes from deconstructing one’s faith. I also know the comfort, companionship, assurance, and intimacy that comes from renewal of faith. I hope that you will one day find the words of my apostolic namesake to be as affirming of your journey and transformation as I do now— “. . . whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”4

Pinned to the Spot Where I Stood
My mind screamed: RUN! FIRE! GET OUT! For a moment, I stood there in the darkness—pinned to the spot where I stood by fear—however irrational it seemed. Smoke swirled around the neon green exit signs, glowing brightly, but providing no reassurance. I’d been to enough local rock concerts to recognize the unmistakable smell of artificial smoke and the hiss of smoke machines, but I should back up a bit.

When I was a sophomore in high school, the LDS Seminary teachers at my school in West Jordan, Utah planned a special devotional. In the days leading up to it, we were told that rather than meeting in our classrooms, we would meet in the large subdivided room that was used for devotionals. When the day arrived, I left the school building, crossing the parking lot to the seminary building.

The side entrance was locked, which was unusual. A seminary teacher standing nearby told me that I must enter through the front doors. This change in routine was confusing, but I made my way to the front of the building where a line was forming and waited with my classmates to get into the building.

The glass double doors were obscured. Smoke drifted from beneath a heavy black curtain, which was hung to block our view inside. The whole experience had an ominous feeling. Near the door stood another of the seminary teachers, admitting students one at a time through the curtain. I watched the teacher speak briefly to each student and admit one every thirty seconds or so.

I soon realized that whatever devotional the teachers had planned would not be completed in the fifty-five minutes allotted for third period, especially if they kept up the pace of one-by-one admittance. I wondered about the purpose of this exercise. When it was my turn to enter, the “seminary bouncer” greeted me and asked me to extend my right hand through the curtain. I was told that I would feel a guide take me by the hand, that I should trust the guide, and do as he instructed.

It was a surreal and somewhat unsettling experience, but I followed the instructions and reached my hand through the curtain. As soon as I did, someone inside grasped my hand and gently drew me into the building, which was smoky and dark, and my eyes struggled to adjust. My guide placed my hand on a cold railing, wrapping my fingers securely around it. He gave some brief, whispered instructions. “Hold fast the iron rod,” he said. “It will safely guide you through.” Then he left me. And that is when I stood in place, illogically terrified, before finally moving.

I lumbered through the dark, holding onto the rod, which led to the devotional room, where I was instructed to sit quietly and ponder the experience. A CD loop played Joseph L. Townsend’s Mormon hymn based on 1 Nephi, chapter 8 in the Book of Mormon:

Hold to the rod,
the iron rod;
‘Tis strong and bright and true.

The Iron Rod is the word of God;
‘Twill safely guide us through.5

At sixteen, I couldn’t really grasp the significance of that experience for my spiritual life. It was, at the time, a direct and physical experience with fear and despair—one paradoxically tied to my religious experience. Since then, it has come to be a formative event in my life of faith. Not because anything transcendent happened that day, but because of the experiences I’ve had in the ensuing years.

“Hold to the rod, the iron rod; ‘Tis strong and bright and true.”

Theologians Don’t Know Nothing
The seminal Wilco song Theologians begins with these enigmatic lyrics: “Theologians / They don’t know nothing / About my soul / About my soul. / I’m an ocean / Abyss in motion / Slow motion / Slow motion. / Inlitterati lumen fidei / God is with us everyday / That illiterate light / Is with us every night.”

That indecipherable Latin line leaves the listener deliberating just what Jeff Tweedy is lashing at. On one hand, he seems to be conveying a post-modern approach to truth, which disdains the idea that God has revealed propositional truths of the type that theologians discuss and define—or even that there is a God to reveal propositional truths. On the other, he seems to be suggesting that the light illiterate is with us every night as it was with the ancient Israelites.6

It’s a fascinating line, given that the title for their album A Ghost is Born is taken from the lyrics to this song and the lyrics contain a reference to Christ’s ascension. Perhaps, one should consider the text from the album’s cover design (Wilco ≤ A Ghost is Born) in light of John 8:12, the way Jesus in John’s gospel uses the theme of light to point back to the pillar of fire that led the Israelites in the wilderness by night, and John Lennon’s controversial statement to the effect that the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus now” to fully grasp what may be going on here.

In several ways, this song and the album cover art is a microcosm of my walk with God. Paul Nurnberg ≠ Jesus (see 1 Cor 2:2). Now seems like the right time to finally begin this series of posts that have been rattling around in my head and taking shape for two decades.

There’s the younger, Mormon me, who spent two years in a foreign land, wearing a white shirt and black name badge—peddling Mormonism’s unique brand of Christian Restorationism to the Hungarian people. The one who was serious and conscientious about his beliefs, while also a bit naïve and laissez-faire about his theology. The one crippled by doubt and feelings of unworthiness. The one who came back to the United States and spent well over a decade discussing and debating the merits and pitfalls of Mormon theology and culture in online forums before finally walking away—setting aside with full knowledge and agency the faith, the community, and the beliefs of his birth, all of which he’d once cherished. The one who understands the deconstructionist, “burn it down” skeptical nature of John Lennon.

And then there’s the middle-aged, non-denominational Evangelical Christian me, who watches with bewilderment and sadness as others, seemingly in increasing numbers, take a similar—and sometimes not so similar—path to mine, only in more public forums, and from more faith traditions than just Mormonism. The one who has graduated with an MDiv in Biblical Studies from Cincinnati Christian University. The one who loves the Bible and affirms it as God’s inerrant Word. The one who loves the writings of St. John of the Cross about darkness and spiritual growth. The one who understands the reconstructionist “find what’s burning inside me” nature of Jeff Tweedy. The one who is passionate about living the examined life; about integration and wholeness—the abundant life given me by that illiterate Light.

Ben Shahn, “Ecclesiastes Or, The Preacher”

Enemies to That Illiterate Light
There is something to Jeff Tweedy’s insistence: “that illiterate light / is with us every night.” Theologians aren’t the other. We’re all theologians. When we think about God, we’re all doing theology. The question is whether or not we do it well. Tweedy’s lyrics lead me to conclude the truth of this statement: “We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.”7

Integrating the Tragic Quest
What is conceived here is a series of posts on reconstructing faith that I’ve named Dialogues with My Former Self. Part of reconstruction is integration. In these posts, I will seek to integrate every part of my mind, heart, and soul. They will include creative writing, philosophical and theological arguments, and personal experience; an integrative whole. After this first introductory post to kick off the series, we’ll tackle a simple subject: God. In the meantime, enjoy this poem I wrote to encapsulate my journey—my tragic quest.

Nightwatch
Wolves at the cave’s mouth snarling,
but how wolves,
if Nothing?

Childhood fears
soothsaid and smothered by pious lines,
Faith is standing at the edge of the darkness,
and taking one
faltering footstep forward,
only to find the way lighted
one step ahead.

Such is not
faith! If every step were lighted,
too soon,
you would know.

Where the Mystery?
As if,
no one ever took that uncertain step, only
to be shadowed in blackness,
crowded, shrouded in deep
despair, crushing the soul.

πάτερ εὶ βούλει παρένεγκε τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ . . .
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me . . .”

As if,
no one has ever mouthed that pleading prayer, only
to carry a cross, one
faltering step after another, through
a darkened wilderness, lighted only
occasionally but brilliantly by
lightning striking on
the distant horizon;
beaten, broken by the empty
air surrounding their bed.

St. John of the Cross taught me
of the beauty, the healing
found in darkness.

And St. John the Beloved of
the Light to come,
Who has, and ever will,
everything illuminate,
all shadows
cast aside;
every crevice
of the small cave
thrown into radiance.

Every shaky aleph, every rounded
omega, each faltering figure,
arms upstretched, that I
scrawled on the rock
wall with the tip
of a branch
blackened in the fire
I light
to keep the wolves at bay—
because God loves
a madman.

Waltham St. Lawrence, “Ecclesiastes, or The Preacher Ecclesiastes”, book illustration.

NOTES
1 Matthew 7:8
2 Eugene England, “Joseph Smith and the Tragic Quest,” Dialogues with Myself: Personal Essays on Mormon Experience (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1984), 1-2.
3 For blog posts, see for example Shawn Larsen’s article at Mormon Matters, “Why Eugene England Still Matters” from 2008, or Boyd Petersen’s article at his blog Dead Wood and Rushing Water, “Eugene England and the Future of Mormonism” from 2016. For podcasts, see John Dehlin’s four-part tribute at Mormon Stories “Eugene England’s Life and Legacy” from 2011 and Gina Colvin’s podcast episode at A Thoughtful Faith from 2015, “The Life and Writings of Eugene England.”
4 Philippians 3:7-8a
5 Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1985, 274.
6 See Exodus 13:21
7 For the morphology of this oft-used phrase, see https://humorinamerica.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/the-morphology-of-a-humorous-phrase/

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