Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin

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Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Eight)

Posted: October 10, 2021 in Christ, Fred Anson, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

by Fred W. Anson
The Church of Jesus Christ claims, “The gospel has been known throughout eternity, and its principles have been preached among men and women from their beginnings on this earth.” (Robert L. Millet, “The Eternal Gospel”, Ensign, July 1996) and “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a divine and perfect plan. It is composed of eternal, unchanging principles, laws, and ordinances which are universally applicable to every individual regardless of time, place, or circumstance. Gospel principles never change.” (Ronald E. Poelman, “The Gospel and the Church”, Ensign, November 1984).

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the eighth in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

34) Use of the cross in Mormon architecture and fashion
In today’s Mormon Culture the cross is treated more like it’s a radioactive or a symbol of shame, not glory. As LdS President, Gordon B. Hinckley said in a 2005 address:

The cross had been the bitter fruit of Judas’s betrayal, the summary of Peter’s denial. The empty tomb now became the testimony of His divinity, the assurance of eternal life, the answer to Job’s unanswered question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14)… And because our Savior lives, we do not use the symbol of His death as the symbol of our faith.
(Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Symbol of Our Faith”, Ensign, April 2005)

However, as Mormon Studies Scholar, Michael G. Reed points out this was not always the case – quite the contrary in fact:

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many Latter-day Saints individually used and promoted the symbol of the cross in its visual and material form. The current taboo emerged among Mormons at the grass-roots level around the turn of the twentieth century, and became institutionalized mid-century under the direction of David O. McKay, president of the LDS Church 1951–70.
(Reed, Michael G. “Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo”, John Whitmer Books. Kindle Edition locations 136-143)

And a 2009 Deseret News article on Mr. Reed’s book explains further:

In 1916 a church asked the Salt Lake City Council to allow them to build a huge cross, “the symbol of Christianity,” on Ensign Peak. “We would like to construct it of cement, re-enforced with steel, of sufficient dimensions that it can be readily seen from every part of the city,” the request read.

That request came from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The cross was to honor the Mormon pioneers.

Even though the proposal was approved by the City Council, the monument was never built.

Today there are no crosses on Mormon temples. Yet two are shaped like a cross. Mormon chapels do not have crosses either. But many have prints of the crucifixion hanging on their walls…

It appeared as jewelry on Brigham Young’s wives and daughters. It appeared in floral arrangements in funerals. It appeared as tie tacks on men’s ties and watch fobs on men’s vests. It appeared on cattle as the official LDS Church brand. Crosses were on church windows, attic vents, stained-glass windows and pulpits. They were on gravestones and quilts.

Even two temples, the Hawaiian and the Cardston, Alberta, Canada Temple were described in a 1923 general conference as being built in the shape of a cross.
(Michael De Groote, “Mormons and the cross”, Deseret News, Sep 10, 2009)

And if any further proof of this is required, please consider the photographs that are included throughout the Deseret New article that I’ve just cited from (link provided above). This article contains several photographs from an earlier age of Mormon History when the cross was a glory, not the symbol of shame that it is today. They’re interesting, to say the least.

LdS President Joseph F Smith at a funeral in the Brigham City Tabernacle with a floral Cross that’s central to the funeral arrangements.

35) Plain identity of extant Native Americans as Lamanites.
Prior to the DNA evidence discrediting the claim that the American Aboriginals were the descendants of the Lamanites claims that was, in fact, THE official, correlated view of the LdS Church. As the Daily Herald summarized so nicely back in 2007:

“The Lamanites, church members have long believed, are the direct ancestors of the indigenous peoples found in North, South and Central America by European explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries.

It’s a matter of some controversy, then, that LDS officials have now changed the text of the Introduction to the Book of Mormon, softening the assertion made when the Introduction was first included, in 1981, that the Lamanites “are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” The new text says only that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”
(Cody Clark, “Book of Mormon introduction change may reflect new thinking about an ancient people”, Daily Herald, Nov 23, 2007)

And the historical record backs their claims and documents this now dust binned doctrine well:

“Verily, I say unto you, that the wisdom of man, in his fallen state, knoweth not the purposes and the privileges of my hold priesthood, but ye shall know when ye receive a fullness by reason of the anointing: For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just, for even now their females are more virtuous then the gentiles.”
(Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., 1831 revelation, recorded in a letter from W.W. Phelps to Brigham Young, dated August 12, 1861)

“In addition to this, and to co-operate with it, it has been made known by revelation, that it will be pleasing to the Lord, should they form a matrimonial alliance with the Natives; and by this means the Elders, who comply with the thing so pleasing to the Lord, and for which the Lord has promised to bless those who do it abundantly, gain a residence in the Indian territory, independent of the agent. It has been made known to one, who has left his wife in the state of N.Y. that he is entirely free from his wife, and he is at liberty to take him a wife from among the Lamanites. It was easily perceived that his permission was perfectly suited to his desires. I have frequently heard him state, that the Lord had made it known to him, that he is as free from his wife as from any other woman; and the only crime that I have ever heard alleged against her is, she is violently opposed to Mormonism.”
(Ezra Booth, Ohio Star, December 8, 1831)

“After the people again forgot the Lord and dissensions arose, some of them took upon themselves the name Lamanites and the dark skin returned. When the Lamanites fully repent and sincerely receive the gospel, the Lord has promised to remove the dark skin. The Lord declared by revelation that, ‘before the great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness, and the Lamanites shall blossom as a rose.’ The dark skin of those who have come into the Church is no longer to be considered a sign of the curse. Many of these converts and delightsome and have the Spirit of the Lord. Perhaps there are some Lamanites today who are losing the dark pigment. Many of the members of the Church among the Catawba Indians of the South could readily pass as of the white race; also in other parts of the South.”
(Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 3, p. 123, 1953)

“The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos; five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation…. At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl-sixteen sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents on the same reservation, in the same Hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather. There was the doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.”
(Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, “Day of the Lamanites”, General Conference, Oct. 1960)

“The Lord has never indicated that black skin came because of being less faithful. Now, the Indian; we know why he has changed, don’t we? The Book of Mormon tells us that; and he has a dark skin, but he has promise there that through faithfulness, that they all again become a white and delightsome people.”
(Apostle LeGrand Richards, Interview by Wesley P. Walters and Chris Vlachos, Aug. 16, 1978, Church Office Building)

“We are greatly conscious of the fact that among the Lamanites – as well as among all peoples of other countries – we have a responsibility to see that the gospel touches their hearts and minds and that they understand it.”
(Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, October 1980 General Conference, Ensign, November 1980, p.76)

“The Lamanites [Native Americans], now a down-trodden people, are a remnant of the house of Israel. The curse of God has followed them as it has done the Jews, though the Jews have not been darkened in their skin as have the Lamanites.”
(Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, v. 22, p.173)

And if that’s not enough, you will find many more such quotes here: http://www.mormonthink.com/QUOTES/native.htm

A map from the December 1975 Ensign Magazine from the article, “Who and Where Are the Lamanites?” by Lane Johnson. Ensign magazine is an official, correlated LDS Church periodical.

36) D&C 89’s encouragement to drink beer.
As Rock Waterman explains:

“God tells us in Section 89 that beer is one of the reasons He gave us barley.

If you didn’t know that, it’s probably because like many latter day saints, you learned all about the Word of Wisdom in Sunday school, but you’ve most likely never gotten around to really reading the thing.

So let’s look at it again. Remember the part describing the purposes of the various grains, the one that begins “Nevertheless, wheat for man…”? Open your scriptures to Doctrine and Covenants Section 89 and turn to verse 17. Let’s read, in God’s own words, what he created barley for: “…and barley for all useful animals and for mild drinks, as also other grain.”

The early saints would have been astounded that future members would ever conflate their mild barley drink -beer- with the “strong drink” advised against in verses 5 and 7. Early Mormons regularly consumed beer without compunction, as had most of mankind throughout recorded history.

In 1843 the church’s newspaper, the Nauvoo Neighbor, advertised ale and beer available at the Nauvoo Brewery. Joseph Smith oversaw a fully stocked bar located at his home in the Mansion House. In an 1844 journal entry Joseph Smith mentions that he stopped in and “drank a glass of beer at Moesser’s“. He mentions this in passing as if it was no big deal, because to him it wasn’t.

This was eleven years after Joseph received the revelation known as the Word of Wisdom, so you can’t say he didn’t know better. The fact is, beer was not proscribed by Section 89; it was prescribed.

Within three years of the saints’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, breweries were operating at the mouths of every river canyon from Logan to Nephi. Most of the saints were immigrants from England, Denmark, and Germany, and these Teutonics brought with them their old-world brewing skills. A sizable brewery once sat close to where the Provo temple is now, and the Henry Wagener Brewery took up a massive 150 acres just across the street from where the “This Is The Place” monument now stands. So many breweries appeared so fast that by 1851 the smell emanating from all these operations provoked the city council to declare them a nuisance. Yet they continued to operate.

Beer was manufactured and consumed by faithful members of the church who never gave a second thought to the idea that there might be anything wrong with it. Most would have applied Benjamin Franklin’s famous declaration regarding wine to their beer and ale, that it was “proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy”.

By the time Johnston’s Army arrived in 1857, ushering in a steady stream of thirsty gentiles through Utah, things really took off for the Mormon brewers. Beer was available everywhere, including the church owned ZCMI where both Mormons and gentiles could stop in to grab a brewski any day but Sunday.

So how did the LDS church membership devolve from an appreciation of beer as a gift from God, to our present-day anathema toward it?

Well, we got the idea from the protestants.

Temperance Nation
By the time of the Manifesto in 1890, the LDS conversion rate was practically nil. All anybody knew about Mormons were that they were that crazy bunch of polygamous weirdos off in the desert. Any growth the church experienced was primarily internal, as pretty much the only baptisms Utahns were performing were on eight year old kids who already lived there. Certainly nobody new wanted to join.

The united states government and the eastern newspapers had painted us such pariahs that we couldn’t get anybody to take our religion seriously on a bet. Missionaries couldn’t get anyone to take a pamphlet, let alone read the Book of Mormon. Proselyting was at a standstill. We needed to find some way to get our numbers up.

Meanwhile back in the states, a huge temperance movement was sweeping the sectarian religious world, a backlash against decades of unbridled American alcoholism and public drunkenness. Public vows of abstinence were all the rage. It was no longer cool to profess Christ on Sunday if you spent Saturday night in a saloon; now a man’s spiritual measure was taken by how vociferously he denounced the demon rum.

The motto of virtuous young women everywhere was “lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine”, and young men, whose lips desperately wanted to touch the lips of young women, dutifully fell into line. It was futile to argue with these women that beer and ale, which were brewed, did not belong in the same class as hard liquors such as whiskey, which was distilled. These young ladies had zero tolerance for any of it, it was all the same to them. Talk to the hand, ’cause the lips ain’t listenin‘.

There was a pious war against booze raging in Christian America, and mild drinks were getting caught in the crossfire.

The debate spilled over into Utah where, though public drunkenness was strictly forbidden, wine and distilled spirits had always been available (some members paid their tithing in wine they made themselves; the St George tithing office reported collecting 7000 gallons by 1887). Still, hard liquor was hardly tolerated by Mormons the way beer had traditionally been.

By 1900, the parsing of the Word of Wisdom was well under way in debate among the leaders of the church. According to BYU Professor Emeritus Thomas G. Alexander:

“…All general authorities were not in agreement on all aspects of the word of wisdom…After he became president of the church, Lorenzo Snow again emphasized the centrality of not eating meat…and in 1901 John Henry Smith and Brigham Young, Jr., of the Twelve both thought that the church ought not interdict beer, at least not Danish beer.” Apostle Anthon H. Lund, who happened to be Danish, agreed, especially with the part about Danish beer. So did Mathias F.Cowley and others.

Over the next couple of decades, the Mormon people as a whole jumped on the Temperance bandwagon, and in 1919 Utah enthusiastically ratified the 18th amendment prohibiting all alcoholic beverages, including beer. Utah breweries closed down and before long all traces disappeared. In time, the descendants of the pioneers forgot they had ever existed. Land once occupied by the sprawling Henry Wagoner Company eventually became home to the Hogle zoo.

The Mormon support of prohibition had a positive effect on missionary work. We could boast to teetotaling Christians that we were way ahead of the curve on the evils of alcohol, having been hip to that scene as far back as 1833. With the hub-bub over polygamy having pretty much quieted down, the church was experiencing a re-branding. Missionaries were no longer fearsome devils come to steal your daughters; they were now those nice young men who didn’t smoke or drink.

Looks like we’d found our gimmick.”
(Rock Waterman, “Too Bad I Don’t Like Beer”, Pure Mormonism website, June 18, 2009)

37) Paid Clergy.
Mormon scripture explicitly mandates that clergy be paid:

Doctrine & Covenants 42
71 And the elders or high priests who are appointed to assist the bishop as counselors in all things, are to have their families supported out of the property which is consecrated to the bishop, for the good of the poor, and for other purposes, as before mentioned;

72 Or they are to receive a just remuneration for all their services, either a stewardship or otherwise, as may be thought best or decided by the counselors and bishop.

73 And the bishop, also, shall receive his support, or a just remuneration for all his services in the church.

Yet today, despite the clear command of scripture, today the LdS Church denounces churches with a paid clergy in the strong terms:

“Wherever creeds are found one can also expect to find a paid clergy, the simple truths of the gospel cloaked in the dark robes of mystery, religious intolerance, and a history of bloodshed.”
(Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig Ostler, “Revelations of the Restoration”, p. 964, published 2000)

But as D. Michael Quinn explains this wasn’t always the case:

“In the nineteenth-century West, local officers of the LDS church obtained their support from the tithing they collected. As early as 1859, Brigham Young wondered “whether a Stake would not be better governed when none of the officers were paid for their services.” During Brigham Young’s presidency, ward bishops drew at will from the primarily non-cash tithing Mormons donated. President Young complained at the October 1860 general conference “against a principle in many of the Bishops to use up all the tithing they could for their own families.

Even full-time missionaries benefited from tithing funds in the nineteenth century The senior president of the First Council of Seventy commented in 1879 that the families of married missionaries should be supported from tithing funds.55 However, at best that practice barely kept struggling wives and children out of abject poverty while their husbands and fathers served two-year missions.

In 1884, Church President John Taylor limited bishops to 8 percent of the tithing they collected (now primarily cash), while stake presidents got 2 percent of the tithing collected by all the bishops of the stake. In 1888, Wilford Woodruff established set salaries for stake presidents, and provided that a stake committee would apportion 10 percent of collected tithing between the bishops and the stake tithing clerk. At the April 1896 general conference, the First Presidency announced the end of salaries for local officers, in response to the decision of the temple meeting “to not pay Salaries to any one but the twelve.
(D. Michael Quinn, “LDS Church Finances from the 1830’s to the 1990’s”, Sunstone Magazine, June 1996, p.21; audio presentation January 1, 1992)

And right into the dustbin a paid clergy, along with beer-drinking for health, clearly identifying American Indians as the descendants of the Lamanites, and glorying in the cross, swish, swish, swish, it goes. It’s just as Mormon Researcher, Aaron Shafovaloff’s Couplet says so well,

“As heresy is, Mormon doctrine once was.
As Mormon doctrine is, heresy will it become.”
— Shafovaloff’s Couplet

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Seven)

Posted: August 29, 2021 in Christ, Christology, Fred Anson, Jesus Christ, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Priesthood

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the seventh in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

30) Women holding, partaking, and practicing Priesthood authority.
Renowned Mormon Studies Scholar, D. Michael Quinn explains;

For 150 years Mormon women have performed sacred ordinances in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every person who has received the LDS temple endowment knows that women perform for other women the “initiatory ordinances” of washing and anointing.1 Fewer know that LDS women also performed ordinances of healing from the 1840s until the 1940s.2 Yet every Mormon knows that men who perform temple ordinances and healing ordinances must have the Melchizedek priesthood. Women are no exception.3

Two weeks after he organized the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith announced his intention to confer priesthood on women. He told them on 30 March 1842 that “the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood” and that he was “going to make of this Society a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day.” In printing the original minutes of the prophet’s talk after his death, the official History of the Church omitted Joseph’s first use of the word “Society” and changed the second “Society” to “Church.” Those two alterations changed the entire meaning of his statement. More recently an LDS general authority removed even these diminished statements from a display in the LDS Museum of Church History and Art which commemorated the sesquicentennial of the Relief Society.

On 28 April 1842 the prophet returned to this subject. He told the women that “the keys of the kingdom are about to be given to them that they may be able to detect everything false, as well as to the Elders.” The keys “to detect everything false” referred to the signs and tokens used in the “true order of prayer,” still practiced in LDS temples. Then Joseph Smith said, “I now turn the key to you in the name of God, and this society shall rejoice, and knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time …” For nineteenth-century LDS women, Joseph’s words were prophecy and inspiration to advance spiritually, intellectually, socially, professionally, and politically.

Mormon women did not request priesthood—Joseph Smith would soon confer it on them as part of the restoration of the gospel. His private journal, called the Book of the Law of the Lord, specified the priesthood promise in his instructions to the women on 28 April 1842: “gave a lecture on the pries[t]hood shewing [sic] how the Sisters would come in possession of the privileges & blessings & gifts of the priesthood & that the signs should follow them. such as healing the sick casting out devils &c. & that they might attain unto these blessings. by a virtuous life & conversation & diligence in keeping all the commandments.” Joseph clearly intended that Mormon women in 1842 understand their healings were to be “gifts of the priesthood,” not simply ministrations of faith.

Apostle Dallin H. Oaks observed in a 1992 general conference talk, “No priesthood keys were delivered to the Relief Society. Keys are conferred on individuals, not organizations.” The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve as organizations are not even exempt from the limitation he describes for the Relief Society. Elder Oaks noted, for instance, that “priesthood keys were delivered to the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, not to any organizations.”
(D. Michael Quinn, “Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843”, Chapter 17 of “Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism”, Maxine Hanks, editor)

Quinn then goes on to explain how and why the Priesthood was slowly but surely denied to Mormon women:

By the early 1880s death had taken all the general authorities who had specifically stated that the endowment conferred priesthood upon women. Joseph and Hyrum Smith died in 1844, and John Smith joined them a decade later. Heber C. Kimball died in 1868, and Brigham Young in 1877. Sidney Rigdon had been excommunicated in 1844 but continued to affirm Nauvoo’s “female priesthood” until his death in 1876. In 1881, both Orson Pratt and Joseph Young died.

By 1888 Mormon misogyny was linked with denials of women’s authority, and this resulted in a public comment by Apostle Franklin D. Richards. He said: “Every now and again we hear men speak tauntingly of the sisters and lightly of their public duties, instead of supporting and encouraging them.” Apostle Richards added: “There are also some who look with jealousy upon the moves of the sisters as though they might come to possess some of the gifts, and are afraid they [LDS women] will get away with some of the blessings of the gospel which only men ought to possess.” Because of this “envy and jealousy,” Apostle Richards said some Mormon men “don’t like to accord to them [Mormon women] anything that will raise them up and make their talents to shine forth as the daughters of Eve and Sarah.” Franklin D. Richards is the only general authority to publicly acknowledge that jealousy and fear are the basis for the opposition of some Mormon men against the spiritual growth of all Mormon women.
(Ibid)

In current Mormon Theology Mormon women only have the Priesthood through her husband rather than apart from him, as Quinn explains:

In today’s church a woman who has received the temple endowment has more priesthood power than a boy who holds the office of priest. However, the priest has more permission to exercise his priesthood than does the endowed woman to exercise hers.
(Ibid)

31) The Mormon gospel law of Mormon men forbidden to marry black women.
LdS President and Living Prophet Brigham Young, couldn’t have been clearer in his March 8, 1863, Mormon Tabernacle address:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. (Brigham Young, “The Persecutions of the Saints—Their Loyalty to the Constitution—the Mormon Battalion—the Laws of God Relative to the African Race”, Journal of Discourses 10:110)

In 1954, Mormon Apostle, Mark E. Peterson’s rhetoric was less extreme but still to the point:

“I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after. He is not just seeking the oppor[t]unity of sitting down in a café where white people sit. He isn’t just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. From this and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not. be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that, we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that they used to say about sin, “First we pity, then endure, then embrace.”’
(Mark E. Peterson, “Race Problems – As They Affect the Church”, Address By Elder Mark E. Petersen Given At: The Convention of Teachers of Religion On The College Level, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954)

An inter-racial couple takes wedding photos in front of the Salt Lake Temple.

“When He placed the mark upon Cain, He engaged in segregation. When he told Enoch not to preach the gospel to the descendants of Cain who were black, the Lord engaged in segregation. When He cursed the descendants of Cain as to the Priesthood, He engaged in segregation. When He forbade intermarriages as He does in Deuteronomy, Chapter 7, He established segregation. You remember when the Israelites were about to come into Palestine and there were evil nations there, the Lord was anxious to preserve his people by an act of segregation. He commanded His people Israel: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” It was a law for the preservation of Israel and it certainly was an act of segregation.”
(Ibid)

“The Lord segregated the people both as to blood and place of residence, at least in the bases of the Lamanites and the Negroes we have the definite word of the Lord himself that He placed a dark skin upon then: as a curse — as a sign to all others. He forbade inter-marriage with them under threat of extension of the curse (2 Nephi 5:21) And He certainly segregated the descendants of Cain when He cursed the Negro as to the Priesthood, and drew an absolute line. You may even say He dropped an iron curtain there. The Negro was cursed as to the Priesthood, and therefore, was cursed as to the blessings of the Priesthood. Certainly God made a segregation there.”
(Ibid)

“Now what is our policy in regard to intermarriage? As to the Negro, of course, there is only one possible answer. We must not intermarry with the Negro.”
(Ibid)

But in today’s LdS Church not only are inter-racial marriages common but as of June 1, 1978, no one can be denied the Mormon Priesthood based on their race.

32) Couples should refrain from physical intimacy a week or so before attending the Temple.
Church archives document the prerequisites for Temple work during the 19th Century.

From 1868:
“Pres[iden]ts [Brigham] Y[oung][,] [Heber C.] K[imball] & [Daniel H.] W[ells] Spoke on the impropriety of our youth marrying [for time], instead of getting sealed [for eternity]; also spoke of cleanliness in person before going to get their endowments; a woman should not go for a week after her menses were upon her; a man should not have intercourse with his wife for several days; but should be clean in body and exercised in spirit previous thereto. His clothing should be changed once or twice before going there. —Historian’s Office Journal, Jan. 31, 1868″
(Devery S. Anderson. “The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History”, Signature Books, Kindle Edition location 1470-1482, bolding added for emphasis)

From 1877:
“We herein embody a few instructions which we wish you to strictly enjoin upon the brethren and sisters who come to the Temple to officiate for themselves or their friends: Those who wish to receive endowments for themselves or friends should be provided with oil or means to purchase it. The sisters should be provided with two or three white skirts and the brethren should have their garments to button from the back, clear round and up the front, and skirts made to reach down to the knees or a little below or one may be pieced to this length for the occasion. Before the brethren or sisters go into the Temple to receive their endowments; they must wash themselves all over, perfectly clean, so as to enter the Temple clean. Men and women should have no sexual intercourse for a week or more previous to their going into the Temple to receive their endowments. —Brigham Young, John W. Young, Wilford Woodruff, Erastus Snow, and Brigham Young Jr. to Bishops, Jan. 13, 1877″
(Ibid, location 1649-1651, bolding added for emphasis)

Today, no such restrictions exist.

33) During his earthly ministry Jesus Christ was not only married but also a polygamist in order to fulfill all righteousness in modeling and demonstrating the Plan of Salvation for us – acts which eventually lead to His persecution and crucifixion.
This doctrinal principle was clearly taught in a discourse by Mormon Apostle, Jedediah M. Grant in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle on Aug. 7, 1853:

The grand reason of the burst of public sentiment in anathemas upon Christ and his disciples, causing his crucifixion was evidently based upon polygamy, according to the testimony of the philosophers who rose in that age. A belief in the doctrine of a plurality of wives caused the persecution of Jesus and his followers. We might almost think they were “Mormons”.
(Jedediah M. Grant, “Uniformity” “Journal of Discourses” 1:346)

And this teaching was validated and reaffirmed in a circa 1857, Salt Lake City address by the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Orson Hyde:

“It will be borne in mind that once on a time, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that transaction, it will be discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that occasion. If he was never married, his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and the other Mary also whom Jesus loved, must have been highly unbecoming and improper to say the best of it. I will venture to say that if Jesus Christ were now to pass through the most pious countries in Christendom with a train of women, such as used to follow him, fondling about him, combing his hair, anointing him with precious ointment, washing his feet with tears, and wiping them with the hair of their heads and unmarried, or even married, he would be mobbed, tarred, and feathered, and rode, not on an ass, but on a rail. What did the old Prophet mean when he said (speaking of Christ), “He shall see his seed, prolong his days, &c.” Did Jesus consider it necessary to fulfil every righteous command or requirement of his Father? He most certainly did. This be witnessed by submitting to baptism under the hands of John. “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,” said he. Was it God’s commandment to man, in the beginning, to multiply and replenish the earth? None can deny this, neither that it was a righteous command; for upon an obedience to this, depended the perpetuity of our race. Did Christ come to destroy the law or the Prophets, or to fulfil them? He came to fulfil. Did he multiply, and did he see his seed? Did he honour his Father’s law by complying with it, or did he not? Others may do as they like, but I will not charge our Saviour with neglect or transgression in this or any other duty. At this doctrine the long-faced hypocrite and the sanctimonious bigot will probably cry, blasphemy! Horrid perversion of God’s word! Wicked wretch! He is not fit to live! &c, &c. But the wise and reflecting will consider, read, and pray. If God be not our Father, grandfather, or great grandfather, or some kind of a father in reality, in deed and in truth, why are we taught to say, “Our Father who art in heaven?” How much soever of holy horror this doctrine may excite in persons not impregnated with the blood of Christ, and whose minds are consequently dark and benighted, it may excite still more when they are told that if none of the natural blood of Christ flows in their veins, they are not the chosen or elect of God. Object not, therefore too strongly against the marriage of Christ, but remember that in the last days, secret and hidden things must come to light, and that your life also (which is the blood) is hid with Christ in God.”
(Orson Hyde, “Man the Head of Woman—Kingdom of God—The Seed of Christ—Polygamy—Society in Utah”, “Journal of Discourses” 4:259)

What did the old Prophet mean when he said (speaking of Christ), “He shall see his seed, prolong his days, &c.” Did Jesus consider it necessary to fulfil every righteous command or requirement of his Father? He most certainly did. This be witnessed by submitting to baptism under the hands of John. “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,” said he. Was it God’s commandment to man, in the beginning, to multiply and replenish the earth? None can deny this, neither that it was a righteous command; for upon an obedience to this, depended the perpetuity of our race. Did Christ come to destroy the law or the Prophets, or to fulfil them? He came to fulfil. Did he multiply, and did he see his seed? Did he honor his Father’s law by complying with it, or did he not? Others may do as they like, but I will not charge our Savior with neglect or transgression in this or any other duty.
(Ibid, p.260)

But today, hardly a peep is said about this essential aspect of fulfilling all righteousness by obedience to the Plan of Salvation. And so it goes: swish, swish, swish when polygamy is a requirement of the gospel, the doctrine is taught. But should the requirement suddenly change – by say, Official Declaration 1 in 1890, for example – then swish, swish, swish it goes right into the dustbin. Thus the only certainty in Mormonism is that it’s sure to change. And into the rubbish bin goes what was once essential doctrine it lands in the pile marked “heresy.”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Six)

Posted: August 1, 2021 in Christ, Christology, Fred Anson, Jesus Christ, Lectures On Faith, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine, The Trinity, Theology

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the sixth in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

24) God has always been God.
Originally the gospel truth in Mormonism about God was that He was always God. Psalms 90:2 and Moroni 8:18 reflect this and Missionaries taught this truth about God for several years. For example, the 1835 Lectures on Faith, Lecture three clearly states:

The Lectures on Faith, Lecture 3
13. First, he was God before the world was created, and the same God he was after it was created…

15. Thirdly, he does not change, neither does he vary; but he is the same from everlasting to everlasting, being the same yesterday, today, and forever; and his course is one eternal round, without variation.

And the immutability of God was consistently still reaffirmed in the other unique Mormon scripture of the day. Specifically:

“God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.”
(Moroni 8:18)

“For behold, I am god; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
(2 Nephi 27:23)

“And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
(2 Nephi 29:9)

“For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever , and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?”
(Mormon 9:9)

“And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchanging Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.”
(Mormon 9:19)

“For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting, behold, he sent angels to minister unto the children of men, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in Christ there should come every good thing.”
(Moroni 7:22)

“The Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity…”
(Mosiah 3:5)

“By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them.”
(D&C 20:17, 1830)

“From eternity to eternity he is the same and years never fail…”
(D&C 76:4, February 16, 1832)

But this doctrine was dramatically changed by Joseph Smith in 1844 in both the King Follett Sermon and the Sermon Grove. Consider this excerpt from the former:

“God himself WAS ONCE AS WE ARE NOW, AND IS AN EXALTED MAN, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.”

“In order to understand the subject of the dead, for consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how He came to be so; for I AM GOING TO TELL YOU HOW GOD CAME TO BE GOD. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see.

These ideas are incomprehensible to some, but they are simple. It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that HE WAS ONCE A MAN LIKE US; YEA, THAT GOD HIMSELF, THE FATHER OF US ALL, DWELT ON AN EARTH, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did; and I will show it from the Bible”
(see “The King Follett Sermon”, Ensign magazine, April 1971; caps added for emphasis)

25) The superiority of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible over the KJV Bible.
It’s clear that Joseph Smith full intended his “inspired” translation of the Bible – known as “The Joseph Smith Translation” (JST) in the LdS Church – to displace the King James Version (KJV) when it was completed. And, yes, he did say that it was completed – not just once but twice. First, he wrote this in his personal journal, “I completed the translation and review of the New Testament, on the 2nd of July, 1833, and sealed it up; no more to be opened till it arrived in Zion” (History of the Church, vol. 1, p.324)

Then, in a letter dated July 2, 1833, signed by Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and F. G. Williams, the following statement is found: “We this day finished the translation of the Scriptures, for which we return gratitude to our Heavenly Father …”
(History of the Church, vol. 1, p.368)

Further, unique Mormon scripture is filled with commandment after commandment that exalts the JST over all other English translations of the Bible and stressing the importance of its publication and distribution:

“… I have commanded you to organize yourselves, even to shinelah [print] my words, the fulness of my scriptures …”
(Doctrine & Covenants, 104:58)

“…. the second lot … shall be dedicated unto me for the building of a house unto me, for the work of the printing of the translation of my scriptures … “
(Doctrine & Covenants, 94:10)

“…. hearken to the counsel of my servant Joseph,… and publish the new translation of my holy word unto the inhabitants of the earth”
(Doctrine & Covenants, 124:89)

Further, as late as the 1980s, Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie testified, the JST is “a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie”, ed. Mark L. McConkie, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989, p.289)

Finally, the JST translation published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka, “RLDS” now known as The Community of Christ, aka “CoC”) has been validated by LdS Scholars. Thus Brigham Young’s original claim that it was maliciously corrupted by Emma Smith and the RLDS has been completely discredited. This was the conclusion of LdS Church Scholars, Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews who were hand-picked by the General Authorities of the LdS Church. Robert J. Matthews, the head of the LdS Team stated in the April 1977 issue of the official LdS Church publication “New Era”:

“…research in the past few years with the original manuscripts has indicated that the Inspired Version of the Bible, published by the RLDS church, is an accurate representation of the sense of the original manuscripts prepared by Joseph Smith and his scribes. Furthermore, it seems to be increasing in use and acceptance in our church today.”
(“Q&A: Questions and Answers,” New Era, Apr 1977, p.46)

And elsewhere Matthews said:

“I have examined the original manuscript carefully, comparing every word with its published counterpart, and I feel that the printed editions by the RLDS church are correct and careful representations of the Prophet’s work.”
(Matthews, Robert J., “A Bible! A Bible!”, Ensign, January 1987; p. 90)

And yet despite all this, and in defiance of claimed commandments via revelations from God in their own scripture, the modern LdS Church continues to use the KJV Bible rather than the JST. This, despite the fact that other Mormon Denominations (such as the aforementioned RLDS/CoC) have made the JST their chosen, preferred translation for their churches. Still, into the dustbin, the JST goes! It makes no sense, does it?

Room in Johnson home where Joseph Smith worked on The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible

26) God’s uniqueness lowered.
Mormonism originally taught that there is only one true Lord Almighty God as the Bible does:

“And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God? And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God. Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And he answered, No.”
(The Book of Mormon, Alma 11:26-29)

“Fear ye not; neither be afraid. Have not I told thee from that time and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any.”
(Isa 44:8 Joseph Smith Translation)

“But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and an everlasting King; at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”
(Jeremiah 10:10-11 Joseph Smith Translation)

However, after the aforementioned King Follet Sermon and Sermon in the Grove, Alma 11:26-31 was changed to teaching that there are many, many, many Gods – an infinite progression of gods. This planet’s God, Elohim, even has Gods above Him.

Consider Mormon Apostle, Orson Pratt in 1854:

The Gods who dwell in the Heaven from which our spirits came, are beings who have been redeemed from the grave in a world which existed before the foundations of this earth were laid. They and the Heavenly body which they now inhabit were once in a fallen state. Their terrestrial world was redeemed, and glorified. and made a Heaven: their terrestrial bodies, after suffering death, were redeemed, and glorified, and made Gods. And thus, as their world was exalted from a temporal to an eternal state, they were exalted also, from fallen men to Celestial Gods to inhabit their Heaven forever and ever.
(Orson Pratt, “The Seer”)

And Mormon Apostle, Milton R. Hunter in 1945:

No prophet of record gave more complete and forceful explanations of the doctrine that men may become Gods than did the American Prophet, and, furthermore, he definitely pointed the course which men must follow. A small portion of his teachings is as follows:

Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power. . . .

They shall be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it? To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a God, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before. What did Jesus do? “Why; I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.”

So that Jesus treads in the tracks of his Father, and inherits what God did before; and God is thus glorified and exalted in the salvation and exaltation of all of his children. Thus we do not become Godlike in this world, nor Gods in the world to come, through any miraculous or sudden gift, but only through the slow process of natural growth brought about as a result of righteous living. Some people may think that when they die they will instantaneously get rid of all their bad habits and become purified. Such is not the case. We can become purified in this world, and the same holds true in the next life, only through repentance; that is, overcoming our faults and sins and replacing them with virtues. Charles W. Penrose sustains these thoughts in the following words: “Men become like God not by some supernatural or sudden change, either in this world or another, but by the natural development of the divinity within. Time, circumstances, and the necessary intelligence are all that are required.
(Milton R. Hunter, “The Gospel Through the Ages”, p.116, Deseret Book Company. Kindle Edition)

And, finally, Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie in 1966:

Commonly we are in the habit of considering man as a human being only and stopping there. Actually the gospel perspective is far broader. In the language of Adam, two of the names of God the Father are, Man of Holiness, and Man of Counsel (Moses 6:57; 7:35); that is, God is a holy Man, a Man who is perfect in counsel. All beings who are his offspring, who are members of his family, are also men. This applies to the pre-existent spirits, including those who rebelled and were cast out with Lucifer to suffer eternally as sons of perdition (Isa. 14:16); to embodied spirits living on earth as mortal men; to translated beings such as those who are awaiting the day of their resurrection; and to the beings whom we call angels, beings who either as spirits or having tangible bodies are sent as messengers to minister to mortal men.

Even mortal man has a higher status than a finite perspective sometimes gives him. Speaking of such earth-bound creatures the scriptures say: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” (Ps. 8:4-5.) The marginal reading, giving a more accurate translation, reads: “Thou hast made him but little lower than God [meaning Elohim].” Man and God are of the same race, and it is within the power of righteous man to become like his Father, that is to become a holy Man, a Man of Holiness.
(Bruce R. McConkie, “Mormon Doctrine (Second Edition, 1966)”, p.334)

“The Gospel Through the Ages” by Milton R. Hunter, pp.114-115 (click on image to zoom)

27) Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are/were Polygamists.
Once Joseph Smith lowered God the Father to be only an exalted human male, and that he ( Smith) could become also a god, it came as no surprise when Mormon leaders started teaching that God the Father was married to a Goddess. After Brigham Young’s public announcement in 1852 that the LDS were practicing polygamy, he defended their practice by teaching that even Jesus Himself was a polygamist. Not surprisingly Brigham endorsed the teaching that Heavenly Father was also a polygamist, and allowed several of his under officers and some others to teach such:

For example, on October 6, 1854, Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde stated,

How was it with Mary and Martha, and other women that followed him [that is, Christ]? In old times, and it is common in this day, the women, even as Sarah, called their husbands Lord; the word Lord is tantamount to husband in some languages, master, lord, husband, are about synonymous… When Mary of old came to the sepulchre on the first day of the week, instead of finding Jesus she saw two angels in white, ‘And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?’ She said unto them,’ Because they have taken away my Lord,’ or husband, ‘and I know not where they have laid him.’ And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.’ Is there not here manifested the affections of a wife. These words speak the kindred ties and sympathies that are common to that relation of husband and wife…

Now there was actually a marriage; and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. If any man can show this, and prove that it was not the Savior of the world, then I will acknowledge I am in error. We say it was Jesus Christ who was married, to be brought into the relation whereby he could see his seed, before he was crucified.
(Orson Hyde, “The Marriage Relations” Journal of Discourses 2:81-82)

And in the same year, Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt concurred:

“One thing is certain, that there were several holy women that greatly loved Jesus — such as Mary, and Martha her sister, and Mary Magdalene; and Jesus greatly loved them, and associated with them much; and when He arose from the dead, instead of showing Himself to His chosen witnesses, the Apostles, He appeared first to these women, or at least to one of them — namely, Mary Magdalene. Now it would be natural for a husband in the resurrection to appear first to his own dear wives, and afterwards show himself to his other friends. If all the acts of Jesus were written, we no doubt should learn that these beloved women were His wives”
(Orson Pratt, “The Seer”, p.159).

“We have now clearly shown that God, the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus His First Born… We have also proved most clearly that the Son followed the example of his Father, and became the great Bridegroom to whom kings’ daughters and many honorable Wives to be married.”
(Ibid, p.172)

A few years later on July 22, 1883, future LdS President, Wilford Woodruff recorded the words of Joseph F. Smith in his journal. At the time Woodruff was an LDS apostle while Smith was a member of the First Presidency serving as the second counselor to President John Taylor. Woodruff wrote:

Evening Meeting. Prayer By E Stephenson. Joseph F Smith spoke One hour & 25 M. He spoke upon the Marriage in Cana at Galilee. He thought Jesus was the Bridgegroom and Mary & Martha the brides. He also refered to Luke 10 ch. 38 to 42 verse, Also John 11 ch. 2 & 5 vers John 12 Ch 3d vers, John 20 8 to 18. Joseph Smith spoke upon these passages to show that Mary & Martha manifested much Closer relationship than Merely A Believer which looks Consistet. He did not think that Jesus who decended throug Poligamous families from Abraham down & who fulfilled all the Law even baptism by immersion would have lived and died without being married.
(Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 8:187, July 22, 1883, spelling left intact as cited on the Mormonism Research Ministry website)

28) Mormonism’s early Trinitarianism
The Book of Mormon does indeed state plainly that One God consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – that is, the Book of Mormon teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, albeit with a strong modalistic skew. Here are some key passages with caps added for emphasis:

“And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, UNTO THE FATHER, AND UNTO THE SON, AND UNTO THE HOLY GHOST, WHICH ARE ONE GOD, in a state of happiness which hath no end.”
(Mormon 7:7)

“And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, THIS IS THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST, AND THE ONLY AND TRUE DOCTRINE OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST, WHICH IS ONE GOD, WITHOUT END. Amen.”
(2 Nephi 31:21)

“And after this manner shall ye baptize in my name; for behold, verily I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT THE FATHER, AND THE SON, AND THE HOLY GHOST ARE ONE; AND I (Jesus) AM IN THE FATHER, AND THE FATHER IN ME, AND THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE.”
(3 Nephi 11:27)

“And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for THERE IS A GOD [notice: singular not plural], and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.”
(2 Nephi 2:14)

“For behold, by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, IF GOD [again, notice: singular not plural] being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure?”
(Jacob 4:9)

…Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. AND THE HONOR BE TO THE FATHER, AND TO THE SON, AND TO THE HOLY GHOST, WHICH IS ONE GOD. Amen.
(Testimony of Three Witnesses)

And then there’s this from an official LdS Church publication from 1832:

“Through Christ we understand the terms on which God will show favour and grace to the world, and by him we have ground of a PARRESIA access with freedom and boldness unto God. On his account we may hope not only for grace to subdue our sins, resist temptations, conquer the devil and the world; but having ’fought this good fight, and finished our course by patient continuance in well doing, we may justly look for glory, honor, and immortality,’ and that ‘crown of righteousness which is laid up for those who wait in faith,’ holiness, and humility, for the appearance of Christ from heaven. Now what things can there be of greater moment and importance for men to know, or God to reveal, than the nature of God and ourselves the state and condition of our souls, the only way to avoid eternal misery and enjoy everlasting bliss!

“The Scriptures discover not only matters of importance, but of the greatest depth and mysteriousness. There are many wonderful things in the law of God, things we may admire, but are never able to comprehend. Such are the eternal purposes and decrees of God, THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, the incarnation of the Son of God, and the manner of the operation of the Spirit of God upon the souls of men, which are all things of great weight and moment for us to understand and believe that they are, and yet may be unsearchable to our reason, as to the particular manner of them.”
(Joseph Smith, Jr. (Editor), “The Evening And Morning Star”, Vol. I, INDEPENDENCE, MO. JULY, 1832. No. 2. page 12, caps emphasis mine)

But today’s LdS Church denounces any form of the Trinity in the loudest, most strident terms. Consider this from Mormon Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie:

“This first and chief heresy of a now fallen and decadent Christianity—and truly it is the father of all heresies—swept through all of the congregations of true believers in the early centuries of the Christian era; it pertained then and pertains now to the nature and kind of being that God is. It was the doctrine, adapted from Gnosticism, that changed Christianity from the religion in which men worshipped a personal God, in whose image man is made (Gen. 1:26-27; James 3:9; Mosiah 7:27; Ether 3:15; D&C 20:18; Moses 6:8-9), into a religion in which men worshipped a spirit essence called the Trinity. This new God, no longer a personal Father, no longer a personage of tabernacle (D&C 130:22), became an incomprehensible three-in-one spirit essence that filled the immensity of space. The adoption of this false doctrine about God effectively destroyed true worship among men and ushered in the age of universal apostasy”
(Mark L. McConkie (Editor), “Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie”, pp.69-70)

1830 Mormonism v. Modern Mormonism.

29) “Divine Investiture” is well buried, as in never clearly identified as “The Doctrine of Divine Investiture.”
Here’s an explanation of this doctrine from a Latter-day Saint source:

Neal A. Maxwell summarizes the concept:

Divine investiture is defined as that condition in which –in all His dealings with the human family Jesus the Son has represented and yet represents Elohim His Father in power and authority. … Thus. .. Jesus Christ spoke and ministered and through the Father’s name; and so far as power, authority and Godship is concerned His words and acts were and are those of the Father.”

The concept was first explained in a 1916 First Presidency message drafted by James Talmage: “The Father and the Son’: A Doctrinal Exposition of the First Presidency and the Twelve”. It was “subsequently championed by Joseph Fielding Smith and, to a much greater extent, by his son-in-law.”

It is well known that the 1916 doctrinal exposition “came about as a response to questions about the Godhead.” Members were confused about conflicting views of God between the Lectures on Faith, the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and later important sources of doctrine. The doctrine of divine investiture is seen by non-Mormons as an effort to account for the modalism of the Book of Mormon, wherein the person of the Father is indistinguishable from the person of the Son, as well as to account for tension heightened by the Elohim/Jehovah distinction, a convention which, like the divine investiture concept, was created in 1916. That the Son, being Jehovah in the Old Testament, demands and accepts prayer and worship, would be awkward for LDS theology, since the Father is the one who is to be worshiped and prayed to.

Mormons Ari D. Bruening and David L. Paulsen (BYU professor) both admit this was a new doctrine, although both disagree that it was needed to reconcile Book of Mormon passages:

“None of these doctrines, excepting perhaps divine investiture of authority, was new at the time [1916]. Divine investiture of authority is the process by which the Father allows the Son or the Holy Ghost to speak in his name, as if the Son or the Holy Ghost were the Father. This doctrine provides an interesting explanation through which to understand the apparently modalistic verses in the Book of Mormon, but it certainly is not a necessary explanation; the Book of Mormon itself describes Christ as creator (see Mosiah 3:8) and as father of those who abide in the gospel (see Mosiah 15:10–11). Thus, the principle of divine investiture of authority was a new doctrine, but it was certainly not a doctrine needed to reconcile ‘contradictory Book of Mormon passages.'”

Mormon Jeffrey D. Giliam writes:

“This principle [of divine investiture] was obviously invented (at least partially) to help harmonize the doctrine that Christ is Jehovah. Thus Christ can call himself the Father whenever he wants. This doctrine has been taken to the extreme wherein we now say that all revelation since the fall of Adam has come through the Son and not the Father. If the Father wants to reveal something, He send[s] Jesus to do it (again). If the Father appears to someone, it is only to introduce Jesus and let him take over.”
(MormonWiki, “Divine Investiture”)

In other words, the doctrine was originally developed in Mormonism as an attempt to reconcile Joseph Smith’s original modalistic trinitarian with the hedonistic polytheism which came later, and then that historic reality was denied. And what better way to deny it than to just sweep it in the dustbin? So there it goes into the dustbin and right down the memory hole as if it never happened at all.

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Five)

Posted: September 29, 2019 in Fred Anson, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine, Theology

An early 20th Century Postcard of the Baptismal Font in the Salt Lake City Temple.

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the fifth in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

21) Doctrine &Covenants 20:37’s explicit and hard requirement of repentance from sin as a prerequisite to baptism.
Mormonism claims Doctrine & Covenants (D&C) Section 20 as its great mandate from Christ as to how His restored Church was to be structured and organized. As the section header for this revelation states:

Revelation on Church organization and government, given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at or near Fayette, New York. Portions of this revelation may have been given as early as summer 1829. The complete revelation, known at the time as the Articles and Covenants, was likely recorded soon after April 6, 1830 (the day the Church was organized). The Prophet wrote, “We obtained of Him [Jesus Christ] the following, by the spirit of prophecy and revelation; which not only gave us much information, but also pointed out to us the precise day upon which, according to His will and commandment, we should proceed to organize His Church once more here upon the earth.”

Included in this revelation, in verse 37 it is stated that one must repent prior to baptism:

And again, by way of commandment to the church concerning the manner of baptism—All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church.
(D&C 20:37, bolding added for emphasis)

In Early Mormonism, it was explicitly taught that one must fully repent prior to baptism as the Book of Mormon explicitly states:

But, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me.
(2 Nepi 31:14, italics and bolding added for emphasis)

Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.
(Alma 7:15, italics and bolding added for emphasis)

And the teachings of Mormon leaders tightly reflected this pattern:

If you have been righteous from your birth up, and have never committed known sins and transgressions, be baptized to fulfil all righteousness, as Jesus was. If you can say you have no sins to repent of, forsake your false theories, and love and serve God with an undivided heart
(Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p.159; bolding added for emphasis)

Has water, in itself, any virtue to wash away sin? Certainly not; but the Lord says, “If the sinner will repent of his sins, and go down into the waters of baptism, and there be buried in the likeness of being put into the earth and buried, and again be delivered from the water, in the likeness of being born—if in the sincerity of his heart he will do this, his sins shall be washed away.” Will the water of itself wash them away? No; but keeping the commandments of God will cleanse away the stain of sin
(Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p.159; bolding added for emphasis)

But oddly, in modern Mormonism water baptism has morphed from something that one does after one has already repented to becoming the actual act of repentance itself resulting from remorse over past sin. Just consider these quotes from modern Church Leaders and literature:

Each ordinance and requirement given to man for the purpose of bringing to pass his salvation and exaltation is a covenant. Baptism for the remission of sins is a covenant. When this ordinance was revealed in this dispensation, the Lord called it “a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.” This covenant was given in the beginning and was lost to men through apostasy, therefore, when it was revealed again, it became to man a new covenant, although it was from the beginning, and it is everlasting since its effects upon the individual endure forever. Then again, whenever there is need for repentance, baptism is the method, or law, given of the Lord by which the remission of sins shall come, and so this law is everlasting. (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:152)

In addition to recognizing our sins, we must feel sincere sorrow for what we have done. We must feel that our sins are terrible. We must want to unload and abandon them. The scriptures tell us, “All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and … have truly repented of all their sins … shall be received by baptism into his church” (D&C 20:37).
(“Repentance”, “Gospel Principles (2011 edition)”, ellipses in original, bolding added for emphasis.)

The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. It begins with faith in Christ. We believe in Him, trust Him, and depend on Him. Such faith leads us to repent—to stop doing things that are wrong and continue doing things that are right. Our faith in Him also makes us want to show our love by keeping His commandments, including baptism.
(“Lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ,” “Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service (2018)”)

“… Sincere repentance will lead to the waters of baptism and forgiveness; but the need for repentance will continue while life lasts. Through baptism we may obtain forgiveness for past sins but it does not guarantee against future folly. Repentance is a vital requisite to the growing life. …”
(Hugh B. Brown, “Eternal Quest”, p.102, quoted in “Chapter 14: Repentance,” Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual (2000)”, ellipses in original, bolding added for emphasis.)

Granted, in modern Mormonism, this can all be a bit fuzzy with Mormon authors sometimes seeming to refer to the Early Mormon doctrine of repentance as a hard prerequisite for baptism and other authors seeming to refer to baptism as the evidence of the act of repentance but the fact remains that there has been a subtle, but distinct shift away from the former. What used to be hard black and white is now gray and gooey. One can’t wonder if modern Mission Baptism quotas and other such pressures to generate baptisms – which didn’t exist in the much looser Early Mormon Mission system – aren’t at least in part responsible for sweeping the clear words of D&C 20:37 and the Book of Mormon regarding repentance as a hard prerequisite for baptism into the dustbin.

22) Baptism for health.
Are you sick? Do you need to be healed? What should you do? Why go to the Temple and receive a Baptism for Health of course! Being baptized for health was started by Joseph Smith in the early 1840s and ended in 1922. Here’s an account of the practice:

“SHORTLY AFTER HER HUSBAND returned home from a British mission in 1890, thirty-six-year-old Eleanor Cannon Woodbury Jarvis entered the St. George Temple font. This mother of eight sought a miracle. She remembered: “In the spring of 1884 my health failed and I had very poor health for the next 17 or 18 years. I was very near death’s door several times, but by the power of Faith my life was spared. . . . I was taken to the Temple in a wheelchair, was carried into the Font, baptized for my health & walked out & dressed myself, the first time for six months.”’
(Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, ‘“They Shall Be Made Whole”: A History of Baptism for Health”, The Journal of Mormon History, Fall 2008, p.69)

At its popularity baptism for health was the most common and popular form of Mormon Baptism. The practice quietly ended in the early 1920’s:

“The ultimate demise of healing by immersion was a top-down phenomenon, originating among the upper echelons of Church leadership. Early Mormons lived in a dynamic period of literal restoration: new scripture, charismata, a biblical exodus, and the return of the healing pools of old. As their healing liturgy became separated from the temple, Latter-day Saints did not completely forsake the curative nature of these edifices but sought the temple as a place of spiritual, not physical, healing and renewal. Although not part of modern LDS praxis, baptism for healing is an integral feature of Mormon history and played an important role in the development of the modern Church’s rituals and conceptualizations of healing. It was born of Mormonism’s charismatic restoration, received Joseph Smith’s revelatory support, and was promoted by generations of Church leaders. Although it was ultimately eliminated from the lexicon of the faithful, it provides an illuminating window through which historians can view the health, life, and death of Mormon men and women.”
(Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, ‘“They Shall Be Made Whole”: A History of Baptism for Health”, The Journal of Mormon History, Fall 2008, p.112)

Today this practice has simply been swept into the dustbin.

23) Church members in good standing being rebaptized for the remission of sin and/or the renewal of covenants.
This was a practice that Joseph Smith started:

In late 1839, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (by an 1838 revelation) was relocated to Nauvoo, Illinois. Many who were already baptized members of the church, were rebaptised either to show a renewal of their commitment to the movement or as part of a healing ordinance.
(“Rebaptism (Mormonism)”, Wikipedia)

That small precedent developed into a widespread ordinance under Brigham Young:

After the death of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, in 1844, rebaptism became a more important ordinance in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), as led by Brigham Young. Young led his group to the Great Basin in what is now Utah, and most of his followers were rebaptized soon after arriving as a sign that they would rededicate their lives to Christ. During the “Mormon Reformation” of 1856–57, rebaptism became an extremely important ordinance, signifying that the church member confessed their sins and would live a life of a Latter-day Saint. Church members were rebaptized prior to new covenants and ordinances, such as ordination to a new office of the priesthood, receiving temple ordinances, getting married, or entering plural marriage.
(“Rebaptism (Mormonism)”, Wikipedia)

Finally, the First Presidency deemed such widespread use of rebaptism improper, so in 1893 they changed it – although under extenuating circumstances it lingered on for a while before it finally tickled down and dried up. As a result, today about the only time you see a Latter-day Saint rebaptized is when somebody already known to have been previously baptized in accordance with LDS doctrine is excommunicated or rejoins the church.

Other than that, Mormon rebaptism has been brushed right into the dustbin – or, if you prefer, has gone down the drain and then straight down the memory hole to never be seen again.

A contemporary photo of the Baptismal Font in the Provo City Center Temple.

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Four)

Posted: August 4, 2019 in Fred Anson, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine

Banksy, “Sweeping it Under the Carpet”, Mural, Chalk Farm, London England

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

compiled by Fred W. Anson
The Church of Jesus Christ claims, “The gospel has been known throughout eternity, and its principles have been preached among men and women from their beginnings on this earth.” (Robert L. Millet, “The Eternal Gospel”, Ensign, July 1996) and “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a divine and perfect plan. It is composed of eternal, unchanging principles, laws, and ordinances which are universally applicable to every individual regardless of time, place, or circumstance. Gospel principles never change.” (Ronald E. Poelman, “The Gospel and the Church”, Ensign, November 1984).

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the fourth in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

“It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God.”
(Joseph Smith, “Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, p.345)

17) Adam-God Doctrine
I’m still stunned at the number of Ex-Mormons who have never heard that Brigham Young taught that Adam was God. But I’m not nearly as stunned as they are when they find out that he did. The following summary is from Wikipedia:

The Adam–God doctrine (or Adam–God theory) was a theological doctrine taught in mid-19th century Mormonism by church president Brigham Young, and accepted by later presidents John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff, and by apostles who served under them in the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Although the doctrine is rejected by the LDS Church today, it is still an accepted part of the modern theology of some Mormon fundamentalists.

According to Young, he was taught by Joseph Smith that Adam is “our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do.”

According to the doctrine, Adam was once a mortal man who became resurrected and exalted. From another planet, he then came as Michael to form Earth. Adam brought Eve, one of his wives, with him to Earth, where they became mortal by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. After bearing mortal children and establishing the human race, Adam and Eve returned to their heavenly thrones, where Adam serves as God and is the Heavenly Father of humankind. Later, Adam returned to the Earth to the ancient prophets and to become the literal father of Jesus.

During the 19th century and the early 20th century, the Adam–God doctrine was taught in some LDS Church meetings, sung in church hymns, and featured as part of the church’s endowment ceremony. However, the doctrine was startling to Mormons when it was introduced and remained controversial. Other Mormons and some breakoff groups, the most notable being apostle Orson Pratt, rejected the doctrine in favor of other theological ideas. Eventually, the Adam–God doctrine fell out of favor within the LDS Church and was replaced by a theology more similar to Pratt’s, as codified by turn-of-the-century Mormon theologians James E. Talmage, B. H. Roberts, and John A. Widtsoe. In 1976, LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball stated the LDS Church does not support the doctrine. Most Mormons accept Adam as “the Ancient of Days,” “father of all,” and “Michael the Archangel” but do not recognize him as being “God the Father.”
(“Adam-God Doctrine”, Wikipedia website)

722px-God_judging_adam_blake_1795_EDITED

William Blake, “God Judging Adam” (1795)

18) The original (pre-Adam-God) Elohim/Jehovah/Adam naming distinctions
It surprises many Mormon to learn that in Early Mormonism, Elohim was identified as Jesus Christ and Jehovah as Heavenly Father – the exact opposite of today’s Mormon teachings. The following is from Boyd Kirkland’s, watershed, “Jehovah As Father: The Development of the Mormon Jehovah Doctrine”, Sunstone Magazine essay on this subject:

Today in Mormon theology, Jesus Christ is considered to be Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets.

Elohim is considered to be God the Father, the father of Jehovah (or Jesus Christ) and of the human race. The Church promotes this point of view in all of its current lesson manuals, periodicals and literature.¹ While there is a natural tendency to assume that this current theology has been the position of Mormonism from 1830 to the present, actually several divergent views have been held…

Other Mormon writers during the 1830s followed this same pattern. They most often used Jehovah as the name of God the Father, and only occasionally used the name Elohim. They evidently also considered the Father to be the god who appeared in the Old Testament. For example, the following was published in the Times and Seasons as the Mormon belief in 1841: “We believe in God the Father, who is the Great Jehovah and head of all things, and that Christ is the Son of God, co-eternal with the Father.” [Times and Seasons 3 (15 November 1841): 578.]

During the Nauvoo period of Church history (1839-44), Joseph Smith’s theology of the Godhead once again changed dramatically. He began to denounce and reject the notion of the trinity. He emphasized that God the Father, as well as the Son, both had tangible bodies of flesh and bone (D&C 130:22). He also began to teach the plurality of gods and the related concept that men could become gods. God himself had a father upon whom he depended for his existence and authority. The Father had acted under the direction of a “head god” and a “council of gods in the creation of the worlds.” The plurality of creation gods is dramatically depicted in the Book of Abraham, chapters 2-5, which Joseph translated in 1842. All of these ideas were summed up by Joseph in April, 1844, in perhaps his most famous sermon: The King Follett Discourse.

In connection with these ideas, the Prophet began to use the title Elohim as the proper name for the head god who presided at the creation of the world. He also taught that Elohim in the creation accounts of Genesis should be understood in a plural sense as referring to the council of the gods, who, under the direction of the head god, organized the heaven and the earth. Once the earth had been organized, “the heads of the Gods appointed one God for us.” From the context of Joseph’s discussions of this head god, it is apparent that the Prophet considered this being to be a patriarchal superior to the father of Jesus.

The gods involved in the creation were designated in Joseph’s temple endowment ceremony as Elohim, Jehovah, and Michael. Joseph had previously identified Michael as “Adam the ancient of days” (D&C 27:11). Whether he identified either this Elohim or Jehovah to be God the Father as he had previously used these titles is unclear. We have seen that he used the title Elohim in various modes, none of which included Jesus, and he also used the name Jehovah to refer to the Father. Given all of these possibilities, to Joseph’s endowment ceremony, then, did not seem to include Jesus among the creation gods. This is a curious situation, since many scriptural passages previously produced through Joseph, as well as the Bible, attribute a major role in the creation to Jesus. Unfortunately, Joseph Smith was killed before he was able to elaborate further on these newer, more esoteric ideas…

The theological problems concerning the Book of Mormon’s identification of Jesus as the Father, the identity of Jehovah, the God of Israel, and the roles and identities of the temple creation gods as connected with the Adam-God doctrine were all finally “resolved” in a carefully worked out statement written by James E. Talmage. This statement was submitted to the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve for their approval on 29 June 1916. It was corrected and then issued the following day as “A Doctrinal Exposition by the First Presidency and the is Twelve” on “The Father and the Son.” This exposition minimized the sense in which Jesus is called the Father in the Book of Mormon through harmonizing techniques. These same techniques were used to support the position that Jesus Christ was Jehovah, the God of Israel, and that Elohim was his father. Little biblical support for these ideas could be given, as the exposition was mainly dealing with problems inherent in the early LDS scriptures and the theology of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Achieving harmony was the chief goal of the 1916 doctrinal exposition. It therefore contains no historical, critical analysis and understanding of the problems it addresses. Its definitions of Elohim and Jehovah still remain the official position of Mormonism.

Today, Mormons who are aware of the various teachings of LDS scriptures and prophets are faced with a number of doctrinal possibilities. They can choose to accept the Book of Mormon theology, which varies from biblical theology, as well as from Joseph Smith’s later plurality-of-gods theology. Adding to this confusion is Brigham Young’s Adam-God theology with its various divine gods using the names Elohim and Jehovah interchangeably. Finally, they are left to resolve the teachings of current General Authorities who identify Jesus as Jehovah with former-day General Authorities who spoke of Jehovah as the Father. While most are blithely unaware of the diversity that abounds in the history of Mormon doctrine, many Latter-day Saints since 1916 have, despite the risk of heresy, continued to believe privately or promote publicly many of the alternative Godhead theologies from Mormonism’s past.
(Boyd Kirkland, “Jehovah As Father: The Development of the Mormon Jehovah Doctrine”, Sunstone Magazine, Vol.9, No.2, Autumn 1984)

“Jesus Takes the Scroll”, an image from The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society Online Library. Unlike Mormonism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus Christ is God – be it Jehovah, Elohim, or otherwise.

19) The First President’s 1916 doctrinal statement “The Father and The Son,” as authored and defined by James E. Talmage
Yes, the doctrinal content of this watershed statement is most certainly taught, but without ever referencing its origin – this doctrinal statement. Thus, Mormons wrongly assume that the teaching of that relationship is given by revelation, when it was, in fact, authored by Talmage, then approved by the First Presidency. This treatise had to be written to remediate the confusion and infighting that Brigham Young’s aforementioned disastrous Adam-God doctrine had wrought, as well as other problematic theologies that had crept into Mormonism over the years. This exposition was published as a “Gospel Classic” in the official LdS Church periodical Ensign in 2002. Here is the link.

The Father and the Son (Ensign, April 2002)

While this watershed doctrinal exposition itself is rarely discussed today, at the time it represented a seismic shift in Mormon Theology, this as one commentator on a Mormon Studies board explained, using the Third Century Council of Nicaea as a point of comparison:

One way the 1916 [vote to sustain the “The Father and the Son” as official LdS Church doctrine] event was all the more worse than the actual Council of Nicaea is that soon after it the Mormon Church removed a part of its own scripture, the Lectures on/of Faith.

So they reversed prior Mormon theology, they rejected the teaching of their founding prophet, they voted on their own Mormon theology, and then they subsequently removed some of their own Mormon scripture. And it wasn’t ~292 years after the death of Christ. It was 1,883+ years after the death of Christ. And members or representatives from wards or stakes didn’t even get to practically participate in any meaningful public debate with higher leaders at their Conference. Like other Conferences members voted to accept the statement largely out of submission to and trust of the leadership, not through any helpful, serious member-driven scrutiny or vetting.

All that within a theological framework that traditionally teaches we sinners can become Almighty Eternal Everlasting Most High Gods of our own 40 billion spirit children expecting our own prayer and worship.

That makes the Council of Nicaea look relatively angelic. Even more so once you learn that many of the LDS assumptions about Nicaea are false.
(Aaron Shafovaloff, “2009 Gospel Principles criticizes the “pagan beliefs” of those “called Christians” in “false Christianity”’, comments section February 15, 2019, Mormon Coffee, blog site)

1899 Edition of The Articles of Faith by Talmage_EDITED

An 1899 First Edition of Talmage’s, “The Articles of Faith”.

20) The original 1899 version of James E. Talmage’s “The Articles of Faith”
The reach and scope of Mormon Apostle James E. Talmage’s book, “The Articles of Faith”, is hard to overstate. As the Encyclopedia of Mormon explains:

The canonization of the Wentworth Letter as part of the Pearl of Great Price in 1880 reflected and assured its undisputed priority. And when James E. Talmage was asked by the First Presidency in 1891 to prepare a work on theology for use as a textbook in Church schools, it was to these Articles of Faith that he turned for the outline of his volume. First published in 1899 and still in use today, Talmage’s Articles of Faith greatly elaborate on the themes of Joseph Smith’s Wentworth list. In twenty-four chapters, Talmage provides extensive commentary and scriptural references regarding each of the concepts mentioned in the thirteen articles, plus sections on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and resurrection (as in Flanigan’s listing), and finally a section on practical religion (benevolence, tithes and offerings, consecration, social order within the Church, eternal marriage, sanctity of the body, and keeping the Sabbath day holy).
(David J. Whittaker, “Articles of Faith”, The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1992)

But today if you went down to Deseret Book or onto the official LdS Church website and started reading Mormon Apostle, Jame E. Talmage’s classic book, “The Articles of Faith” you would no longer be reading the same book that Mr. Talmage wrote and published in 1899. The current edition was heavily edited and abridged by unknown parties (the correlation committee at work perhaps?) in 2009. And earlier editions were modified by Talmage during his lifetime and unknown parties afterward. Here is one of many examples that one with find if you take the time to look:

1899 Original Edition
It is reasonable to believe, in the absence of direct revelation by which alone absolute knowledge of the matter could be acquired, that, in accordance with God’s plan of eternal progression, advancement from grade to grade within any kingdom, and from kingdom to kingdom, will be provided for. But if the recipients of a lower glory be enabled to advance, surely the intelligences of higher rank will not be stopped in their progress; and thus we may conclude, that degrees and grades will ever characterize the kingdoms of our God. Eternity is progressive; perfection is relative; the essential feature of God’s living purpose is its associated power of eternal increase.
(pp.420-421)

1919 Edition
It is reasonable to believe, in the absence of direct revelation, by which alone absolute knowledge of the matter could be acquired, that, in accordance with God’s plan of eternal progression, advancement within each of the three specified kingdoms will be provided for. But if the recipients of a lower glory be enabled to advance, surely the intelligences of higher rank will not be stopped in their progress; and thus we may conclude that degrees and grades will ever characterize the kingdoms of our God. Eternity is progressive; perfection is relative; the essential feature of God’s living purpose is its associated power of eternal increase.
(pp.420-421)

1990 Edition
It is reasonable to believe, in the absence of direct revelation, by which alone absolute knowledge of the matter could be acquired, that, in accordance with God’s plan of eternal progression, advancement within each of the three specified kingdoms will be provided for; though as to possible progress from one kingdom to another the scriptures make no positive affirmation. Eternal advancement along different lines is conceivable. We may conclude that degrees and grades will ever characterize the kingdoms of our God. Eternity is progressive; perfection is relative; the essential feature of God’s living purpose is its associated power of eternal increase.
(p.371)

By the way, special thanks to Latter-day Saint Scholar, Scott Woodward, for the above example, which the reader can find here in its original form and format on Mr. Woodward’s website. That said, please notice how not only have Talmage’s words changed here, the doctrine has changed too. We’ve gone from being able to progress within and between the three posthumous Mormon Kingdoms of Glory in the original edition, to only limited progression within the Kingdoms in later editions. No doubt, the 1919 change was done by Talmage himself for the 1919 edition as near the end of his life his position was aligned with that view:

The Lord has told us of places prepared for those entitled to salvation. He has told us that those who will keep all the laws and commandments of God can come where he is and shall be heirs of celestial glory and power. And he has told us of lesser degrees unto which others who have failed to rise to the occasion of laying hold on the blessing of eternal life, in its fulness, shall come; and concerning the last of these kingdoms of glories, known to us as the Telestial, the Lord has said that it excels all that the human mind can conceive in glory, and yet the one in the Telestial Kingdom is condemned so far as his actions have rendered him incapable of attaining to the higher glories and blessings which mean power and advancement.
(Elder James E. Talmage, “Conference Report, April 1930″, p.96, underlining added for emphasis)

However, the author of the change in the 1990 edition is unknown.

Now Talmage’s 1899 original is still available if you look for it, but the only one being published by the LdS Church today in paper and its website is the “annotated” version with the abridgments and changes. But not to worry, here’s a link to the eBook edition of the original 1899 edition back from the dustbin (click here ). And here’s where you can buy a paper edition of the same (click here). And you really, really, really want to read the paper edition of the most current edited and abridged “annotated” version you can buy a copy here (click here).

And with that, Mr. Talmage’s classic is now dustbin fodder, along with all the other items listed in this article, the ones that preceded it, and the ones that will soon follow. Happy sweeping LdS Church – if you keep sweeping, we’ll just keep growing the list!

Yeah . . . it’s kinda like that, ain’t it?

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Three)

Posted: July 7, 2019 in Fred Anson, LdS Temple Theology, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine

A painting by C.C.A. Christensen of the original Nauvoo Temple burning after being set to flame by an unknown arsonist on October 9, 1848.

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

compiled by Fred W. Anson
The Church of Jesus Christ claims, “The gospel has been known throughout eternity, and its principles have been preached among men and women from their beginnings on this earth.” (Robert L. Millet, “The Eternal Gospel”, Ensign, July 1996) and “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a divine and perfect plan. It is composed of eternal, unchanging Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Three)principles, laws, and ordinances which are universally applicable to every individual regardless of time, place, or circumstance. Gospel principles never change.” (Ronald E. Poelman, “The Gospel and the Church”, Ensign, November 1984).

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the third in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

10) The original 1835 D&C 101
The following is an excerpt from the LDS periodical, Times and Seasons dated Saturday, October 1, 1842 (3:939). This edition included section 101 (CI) from the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, plus an addendum denouncing John C. Bennett’s “secret wife system.” The date is significant because by October 1, 1842, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was already “married” secretly to several women.

ON MARRIAGE.
According to the custom of all civilized nations, marriage is regulated by laws and ceremonies: therefore we believe, that all marriages in this church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, should be solemnized in a public meeting, or feast, prepared for that purpose: and that the solemnization should be performed by a presiding high priest, high priest, bishop, elder, or priest, not even prohibiting those persons who are desirous to get married, of being married by other authority.-We believe that it is not right to prohibit members of this church from marrying out of the church, if it be their determination so to do, but such persons will be considered weak in the faith of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Marriage should be celebrated with prayer and thanksgiving; and at the solemnization, the persons to be married, standing together, the man on the right, and the woman on the left, shall be addressed, by the person officiating, as he shall be directed by the holy Spirit; and if there be no legal objections, he shall say, calling each by their names: “You both mutually agree to be each other’s companion, husband and wife, observing the legal rights belonging to this condition; that is, keeping yourselves wholly for each other, and from all others, during your lives.” And when they have answered “Yes,” he shall pronounce them “husband and wife” in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him: “may God add his blessings and keep you to fulfil [fulfill] your covenants from henceforth and forever. Amen.”

The clerk of every church should keep a record of all marriages, solemnized in his branch.

All legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled. Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again. It is not right to persuade a woman to be baptized contrary to the will of her husband, neither is it lawful to influence her to leave her husband. All children are bound by law to obey their parents; and to influence them to embrace any religious faith, or be baptized, or leave their parents without their consent, is unlawful and unjust. We believe that husbands, parents and masters who exercise control over their wives, children, and servants and prevent them from embracing the truth, will have to answer for that sin.

[This is where D&C 101 ends]

We have given the above rule of marriage as the only one practiced in this church, to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett’s “secret wife system” is a matter of his own manufacture; and further to disabuse the public ear, and shew [show] that the said Bennett and his misanthropic friend Origen Bachelor, are perpetrating a foul and infamous slander upon an innocent people, and need but be known to be hated and despise. In support of this position, we present the following certificates:-

We the undersigned members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and residents of the city of Nauvoo, persons of families do hereby certify and declare that we know of no other rule or system of marriage than the one published from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and we give this certificate to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett’s “secret wife system” is a creature of his own make as we know of no such society in this place nor never did.

S. Bennett, N. K. Whitney,
George Miller, Albert Pettey,
Alpheus Cutler, Elias Higbee,
Reynolds Cahoon, John Taylor,
Wilson Law, E. Robinson,
W. Woodruff, Aaron Johnson.

We the undersigned members of the ladies’ relief society, and married females do certify and declare that we know of no system of marriage being practised [practiced] in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save the one contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and we give this certificate to the public to show that J. C. Bennett’s “secret wife system” is a disclosure of his own make.

Emma Smith, President,
Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Counsellor [Counselor],
Sarah M. Cleveland, Counsellor [Counselor],
Eliza R. Snow, Secretary,
Mary C. Miller, Catharine Pettey,
Lois Cutler, Sarah Higbee,
Thirza Cahoon, Phebe Woodruff
Ann Hunter, Leonora Taylor,
Jane Law, Sarah Hillman,
Sophia R. Marks, Rosannah Marks

(the above write up and analysis is courtesy of our friends at Mormonism Research Ministry)

11) Pre-1990 Temple Endowment Blood Oaths
On May 4, 1842, Joseph Smith instituted the endowment ritual in Nauvoo, Illinois. At three different stages of the endowment, participants were asked to take an oath of secrecy regarding the gestures of the ceremony (Kearns 1906, p. 8). The participants promised that if they were ever to reveal the gestures of the ceremony, would be subject to the following:

Stage 1: “my throat … be cut from ear to ear, and my tongue torn out by its roots;”
Stage 2: “our breasts … be torn open, our hearts and vitals torn out and given to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field;”
Stage 3: “our body … be cut asunder and all your bowels gush out.”

Each of the penalties was accompanied by gestures known as the “execution of the penalty” which simulated the actions described in the oath (Kearns 1906, p. 8).

Stage 1: The participant placed his or her right hand palm-down with the thumb extended and the tip of the thumb just under the left ear. The execution of the gesture was made by drawing the tip of the thumb swiftly across the throat until the thumb was just under the right ear, then dropping the hand and arm quickly to the side of the participant’s body.
Stage 2: The participant placed his or her hand in a cup form over the left breast. The execution of the gesture was made by pulling the hand-cup swiftly across the breast, then quickly dropping the hand and arm to the side of the participant’s body.
Stage 3: The participant placed his or her right hand palm-down with the thumb extended and the tip of the thumb on the left of the torso, just above the left hip. The execution of the gesture was made by drawing the thumb swiftly across the stomach until the thumb was just above the right hip, and the hand and arm were quickly dropped to the side of the participant’s body.
(source: “Penalty (Mormonism)”, Wikipedia website)

A side-by-side comparison of the pre and post-1990 ceremonies can be found by clicking here.

12) Pre-1927’s Temple Endowment Oath of Vengeance
The Oath of Vengeance that was used in the in the Temple Endowment Ceremony until 1927 went as follows:

You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.

The Oath of Vengeance against the American people and the Government for the death of Joseph Smith was a very important part of the temple ceremony for many years. Because of this temple ceremony vow of vengeance upon this nation, a protest was filed in 1903 in the United States Senate to have Reed Smoot, a Mormon Apostle who had been elected a Senator from Utah, removed from office on the grounds that he had taken this treasonous oath in the endowment ritual. It became the subject of a United States Senate Investigation.

The complete record of this episode was published in U.S. Senate Document 486 (59th Congress, 1st Session) Proceedings Before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to hold his Seat. 4 vols. [1 vol. index] Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906).

John Hawley, a former Mormon, made these statements in his Congressional testimony concerning the Smoot investigation:

I went to Salt Lake City in 1856. They gave the endowments of washing and anointing, and then there was an oath taken in Utah to avenge the blood of the prophet… In taking the endowments at Salt Lake there was the oath required, and the oath that was required was to ‘avenge the death or blood of the prophet.’ We were made to swear to avenge the death of Joseph Smith the Martyr, together with that of his brother Hyrum, on this American nation, and that we should teach our children and children’s children to do so. ‘The penalty for this grip and oath was disembowelment,’ I would not have discussed the method of these endowments when I was a member of the Utah Church. The penalty for revealing or disclosing these secrets was disembowelment. The grips and tokens of the priesthood were what we were not to disclose… I kept the obligation while living in Salt Lake City.

However, and bizarrely, despite this seditious oath being publicly exposed during the Reed Smoot hearing the LdS Church still continued to use the vow of vengeance in the Temple Endowment Ceremony until 1927 after which it was dropped.

13) Blood Atonement
In Mormonism, blood atonement is a controversial doctrine that taught that some crimes are so heinous that the atonement of Jesus does not apply. Instead, to atone for these sins the perpetrators should be killed in a way that would allow their blood to be shed upon the ground as a sacrificial offering.

The doctrine is no longer accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), but it was significantly promoted during the Mormon Reformation, when Brigham Young governed the Utah Territory as a near-theocracy. Sins that Young and other members of his First Presidency mentioned as meriting blood atonement included miscegenation [the mixing of different racial groups through marriage], apostasy, theft, murder, fornication, and adultery.

Young taught that the doctrine was to be a voluntary choice by the sinner, and only to be practiced under a complete theocracy (which has not existed in modern times). Young considered it more charitable to sacrifice a life than to see them endure eternal torment in the afterlife. In a full Mormon theocracy, the practice would be implemented by the state as a penal measure.

The blood atonement doctrine was the impetus behind laws in the territory and state of Utah allowing capital punishment by firing squad or decapitation. Though people in Utah were executed by firing squad for capital crimes under the assumption that this would aid their salvation, there is no clear evidence that Young or other top theocratic Mormon leaders enforced blood atonement for apostasy or non-capital crimes like miscegenation. There is, however, some evidence that the doctrine was enforced a few times at the local church level without regard to secular judicial procedure. The rhetoric of blood atonement may have contributed to a culture of violence leading to the Mountain Meadows massacre.
(source: “Blood Atonement”, Wikipedia website, bracketed text added for clarity.)

14) Pre-1978 OD-2 Black Priesthood Ban
Beginning in the late 1840s, individuals of black African descent were prohibited from ordination to the LDS Church’s priesthood—normally held by all male members who meet church standards of spiritual “worthiness”—and from receiving temple ordinances such as the endowment and celestial marriage (sealing). The origins of the policy are still unclear: during the 20th century, most church members and leaders believed the policy had originated during founding prophet Joseph Smith’s time, but church research in the 1960s and 1970s found no evidence of the prohibition before the presidency of Brigham Young…

On September 30, 1978, during the church’s 148th Semiannual General Conference, the following was presented by N. Eldon Tanner, First Counselor in the First Presidency:

In early June of this year, the First Presidency announced that a revelation had been received by President Spencer W. Kimball extending priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy male members of the Church. President Kimball has asked that I advise the conference that after he had received this revelation, which came to him after extended meditation and prayer in the sacred rooms of the holy temple, he presented it to his counselors, who accepted it and approved it. It was then presented to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who unanimously approved it, and was subsequently presented to all other General Authorities, who likewise approved it unanimously. [Official Declaration 2, Doctrine and Covenants, a standard work of the LDS Church]

On that day, the general conference unanimously voted to accept the revelation “as the word and will of the Lord.”

Following the revelation, black male members were allowed to be ordained to the priesthood. Black members and their spouses regardless of race were allowed to enter the temple and undergo the temple rituals, including celestial marriages. Black members could be adopted into a tribe of Israel through a patriarchal blessing. Black members were also allowed to serve missions and hold leadership positions. Proselytization restrictions were removed, so missionaries no longer needed special permission to teach black people, converts were no longer asked about African heritage, and marks were no longer made on membership records indicating African heritage.
(source: “1978 Revelation on Priesthood”, Wikipedia website)

The 1978 Official Declaration 2 revelation also sent the 1949 and 1969 First President’s statements on race to the dustbin. Here they are in full:

First Presidency statement (President George Albert Smith)
August 17, 1949

The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: “Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to.”

President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: “The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have.”

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.

The First Presidency

(Statement of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, August 17, 1949, Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City)

First Presidency statement (President David O. McKay)
December 15, 1969

To General Authorities, Regional Representatives of the Twelve, Stake Presidents, Mission Presidents, and Bishops.

Dear Brethren:

In view of confusion that has arisen, it was decided at a meeting of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve to restate the position of the Church with regard to the Negro both in society and in the Church.

First, may we say that we know something of the sufferings of those who are discriminated against in a denial of their civil rights and Constitutional privileges. Our early history as a church is a tragic story of persecution and oppression. Our people repeatedly were denied the protection of the law. They were driven and plundered, robbed and murdered by mobs, who in many instances were aided and abetted by those sworn to uphold the law. We as a people have experienced the bitter fruits of civil discrimination and mob violence.

We believe that the Constitution of the United States was divinely inspired, that it was produced by “wise men” whom God raised up for this “very purpose,” and that the principles embodied in the Constitution are so fundamental and important that, if possible, they should be extended “for the rights and protection” of all mankind.

In revelations received by the first prophet of the Church in this dispensation, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the Lord made it clear that it is “not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.” These words were spoken prior to the Civil War. From these and other revelations have sprung the Church’s deep and historic concern with man’s free agency and our commitment to the sacred principles of the Constitution.

It follows, therefore, that we believe the Negro, as well as those of other races, should have his full Constitutional privileges as a member of society, and we hope that members of the Church everywhere will do their part as citizens to see that these rights are held inviolate. Each citizen must have equal opportunities and protection under the law with reference to civil rights.

However, matters of faith, conscience, and theology are not within the purview of the civil law. The first amendment to the Constitution specifically provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affecting those of the Negro race who choose to join the Church falls wholly within the category of religion. It has no bearing upon matters of civil rights. In no case or degree does it deny to the Negro his full privileges as a citizen of the nation.

This position has no relevancy whatever to those who do not wish to [p.223] join the Church. Those individuals, we suppose, do not believe in the divine origin and nature of the church, nor that we have the priesthood of God. Therefore, if they feel we have no priesthood, they should have no concern with any aspect of our theology on priesthood so long as that theology does not deny any man his Constitutional privileges.

A word of explanation concerning the position of the Church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owes its origin, its existence, and its hope for the future to the principle of continuous revelation. “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”

From the beginning of this dispensation, Joseph Smith and all succeeding presidents of the Church have taught that Negroes, while spirit children of a common Father, and the progeny of our earthly parents Adam and Eve, were not yet to receive the priesthood, for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully known to man.

Our living prophet, President David O. McKay, has said, “The seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God….

“Revelation assures us that this plan antedates man’s mortal existence, extending back to man’s pre-existent state.”

President McKay has also said, “Sometime in God’s eternal plan, the Negro will be given the right to hold the priesthood.”

Until God reveals His will in this matter, to him whom we sustain as a prophet, we are bound by that same will. Priesthood, when it is conferred on any man comes as a blessing from God, not of men.

We feel nothing but love, compassion, and the deepest appreciation for the rich talents, endowments, and the earnest strivings of our Negro brothers and sisters. We are eager to share with men of all races the blessings of the Gospel. We have no racially-segregated congregations.

Were we the leaders of an enterprise created by ourselves and operated only according to our own earthly wisdom, it would be a simple thing to act according to popular will. But we believe that this work is directed by God and that the conferring of the priesthood must await His revelation. To do otherwise would be to deny the very premise on which the Church is established.

We recognize that those who do not accept the principle of modern revelation may oppose our point of view. We repeat that such would not wish for membership in the Church, and therefore the question of priesthood should hold no interest for them. Without prejudice they should grant us the privilege afforded under the Constitution to exercise our [p.224] chosen form of religion just as we must grant all others a similar privilege. They must recognize that the question of bestowing or withholding priesthood in the Church is a matter of religion and not a matter of Constitutional right.

We extend the hand of friendship to men everywhere and the hand of fellowship to all who wish to join the Church and partake of the many rewarding opportunities to be found therein.

We join with those throughout the world who pray that all of the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ may in due time of the Lord become available to men of faith everywhere. Until that time comes we must trust in God, in His wisdom and in His tender mercy.

Meanwhile we must strive harder to emulate His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose new commandment it was that we should love one another. In developing that love and concern for one another, while awaiting revelations yet to come, let us hope that with respect to these religious differences, we may gain reinforcement for understanding and appreciation for such differences. They challenge our common similarities, as children of one Father, to enlarge the out-reachings of our divine souls.

Faithfully your brethren,
The First Presidency

By Hugh B. Brown
N. Eldon Tanner

(source: FAIRMormon website)

15) Male-to-Male Adoptive Sealings per “The Law of Adoption
The law of adoption was a ritual practiced in Latter Day Saint temples between 1846 and 1894 in which men who held the priesthood were sealed in a father–son relationship to other men who were not part of nor even distantly related to their immediate nuclear family…

Brigham Young had been sealed by the law of adoption to Joseph Smith, and in January and early February 1846 (before leaving for the Rocky Mountains on 15 February 1846), Young was sealed to 38 young men by the law of adoption in the Nauvoo Temple.[Brooks, Juanita (1992) [1961], John Doyle Lee: Zealot, Pioneer Builder, Scapegoat, Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, p. 73, ISBN 0-87421-162-X, OCLC 42329435] On 23 February 1847, Young “went to see Joseph” in a dream and Young said that he spoke with Smith about the law of adoption.[Manuscript History of Brigham Young, February 23, 1847]

On April 6, 1862, Young said of the law of adoption: “By this power men will be sealed to men back to Adam, completing and making perfect the priesthood from this day to the winding up scene.”[ Journal of Discourses, volume 9, page 269.] It is reported by Young’s grandson, Kimball Young (chairman of the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University) that Brigham Young stated in a letter that there will be a future time “when men would be sealed to men in the priesthood in a more solemn ordinance than that by which women were sealed to men, and in a room over that in which women were sealed to man.”[Young, Kimball (1954), Isn’t One Wife Enough?, New York: Holt, pp. 278–280, OCLC 837920]…

In a church general conference address on 8 April 1894, Wilford Woodruff stated that “I have not felt satisfied, nor has any man since the Prophet Joseph Smith who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt there was more to be revealed on this subject than we have received … and the duty that I want every man who presides over a Temple to see performed from this day henceforth, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is let every man be adopted to his father.”[Irving, Gordon (Spring 1974), “The Law of Adoption: One Phase of the Development of the Mormon Concept of Salvation”, BYU Studies, 14 (3), p.312]

Thus, as of 1894, the practice of the law of adoption ceased in the LDS Church.
(source: “Law of Adoption (Mormonism)”, Wikipedia website)

(click to view full image)

16) Polyandry: The Practice of One Woman Being Married to More Than One Husband
The gospel/church sealing ordinance of polyandry created and practiced by Joseph Smith was discontinued after the Nauvoo Illinois period according to Mormon apostle John Widstoe (“Evidences And Reconciliations”, p. 343).

Mormon researcher and apologist Brian Hales claims that fourteen of Joseph Smith’s known polygamous wives were still married to living husbands:

My research supports that fourteen of Joseph Smith’s plural wives had legal husbands. It could be that in Joseph Smith’s history, polygamy is the most difficult thing to understand. Within polygamy, Joseph Smith’s sealings to legally married women, is the most difficult. So we’re talking about a pretty tough subject today. And I can tell you already, that if it were easy, someone would have already explained it decades ago. But I think we’ve got it figured out.

Now there are two questions: “Why did he do it”, and “Did the women really have two husbands?” Answering the question of why he did it requires us to introduce some new topics. Joseph taught that marriage can be eternal and that everyone must be sealed to be exalted. These are not new to us, we’ve all heard these. But outside of Mormondom, these are kind of new ideas. Emmanuel Swedenborg had talked about eternal marriage and he died in 1772. But really, nobody talked about eternal marriage. The idea that you had to be married to get the highest salvation, that’s still a really new and somewhat different teaching.
(Brian C. Hales, “Joseph Smith’s Sexual Polyandry and the Emperor’s New Clothes: On Closer Inspection, What Do We Find?”, Proceedings of the 2012 FAIR Conference”, August 2012)

Why polyandry was practiced in Nauvoo is a mystery just as much as to why it was discontinued after the Saints left Illinois. It is an odd and unusual anomaly that now lays in the dustbin.

The charred remains of the Provo Tabernacle after it was gutted by a fire on December 17, 2010.

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Two)

Posted: February 17, 2019 in Fred Anson, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the second in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

7) The United Order
Joseph Smith’s February 1831, Book of Commandments Chapter XLIV revelation established the United Order as “a covenant and a deed which can not be broken” (BoC 44:26). Mormon Historian, Fawn Brodie (the niece of LdS President, David O. McKay) explains the backstory and history:

Joseph Smith set up an economic order in his church which followed with a certain fidelity the life history of the typical communistic society of his time. When he first arrived in Kirtland, he found Rigdon’s tiny “community” in chaos. “The disciples had all things in common,” wrote John Whitmer, “and were going to destruction very fast as to temporal things; for they considered from reading the Scriptures that what belonged to a brother belonged to any of the brethren; therefore, they would take each other’s clothes and other property and use it without leave, which brought on confusion and disappointment. . . .”

Before long Joseph issued a revelation setting up the United Order of Enoch. “Behold,” said the Lord, “thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which thou hast unto me, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken, and they shall be laid before the bishop of my church.” Private property became church property, and private profit a community spoil.

Production was kept on an individual basis. Each convert, after “consecrating” his all to the church, was given back certain property “sufficient for himself and family,” over which he acted as a foreman or “steward.” The system was thus more akin to farm tenancy than to the true communal agriculture practiced by the Shakers and New Harmonists. Upon the death or disaffection of the steward, the land reverted to the church, which permanently held the title.

Whatever surplus the steward exacted from the land, or whatever profit the mechanic derived from his shop, was contributed to the church storehouse and treasury, the convert keeping only what was “needful for the support and comfort” of himself and family. The spirit of true Marxian communism — “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” — was implicit in the whole system.”
(Fawn M. Brodie, “No Man Knows My History (Illustrated): The Life of Joseph Smith”, Arkosh Publishing, Kindle Locations 2410-2426)

Brodie also describes the demise of the United Order:

On April 10, 1834 the Kirtland council dissolved the Order. Dividing the community property was a thorny business. Tired of quibbling and recrimination, Joseph finally resorted to a revelation to parcel out the real estate, deeding himself the temple lot, Rigdon the tannery, Cowdery the printing shop, and most of the other leaders the lots on which they were then living. In 1835, when the time came tor print this curious document in the Doctrine and Covenants, he substituted fictitious names to avoid any unpleasantness — Ahashdah for Whitney, Olihah for Cowdery, Pelagoram for Rigdon, Mahemson for Harris, and Gazelam for himself. He even used code names for the industries — Laneshine house for the printing shop and Ozondah for the store. Except for a few leaders who knew better, the Mormons believed these to be the names of people living in the days of Enoch.

From this moment Joseph began to efface the communistic rubric in his young theology. Since most copies of the Book of Commandments had been burned, it was easy for him to revise drastically the revelation on the United Order when it was republished in the enlarged Doctrine and Covenants in 1835. The Lord no longer demanded consecration of a man’s total property, but only a donation of his “surplus” over and above living expenses. In reprinting the first twelve issues of the Evening and Morning Star, Joseph revised most, though not all, of the descriptions of the original Order and commanded his missionaries to destroy the notion abroad that the church had ever been a common-stock concern.

Although Rigdon repeatedly urged a restoration, Joseph made only one effort to revive the Order after 1834. This was a greatly revised consecration program that he launched in Missouri in 1838. It collapsed at the end of the year when the Mormons were driven out of the state altogether. Thereafter the prophet was content to let the United Order be translated to the plane of abstract ideals, where it was destined to remain. Years after his death, experiments with communal living were tried in the desert isolation of the Great Basin, but these also disintegrated because, it was said, the Mormons proved as yet unworthy to live the higher law of God.”
(Fawn M. Brodie, “No Man Knows My History (Illustrated): The Life of Joseph Smith”, Arkosh Publishing, Kindle Locations 3184-3206)

So despite the fact that D&C 104:1 claims that the United Order is supposed to be, “an everlasting order for the benefit of my church, and for the salvation of men until I come” the United Order no longer exists in the LdS Church.

8) The Original Law of Consecration
Those members who might feel that the 10% mandatory tithe of the modern LdS Church is high should consider themselves lucky. In Early Mormonism, you were encouraged to give 100% of your estate to the Church. From Wikipedia:

As practiced by the Latter Day Saints in Smith’s day, the law of consecration was for the support of the poor and to ensure that all members would be “equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs”. Adherents were asked to voluntarily deed, or consecrate, their property to the Church of Christ, and the church then would assign to each member a “stewardship” of property “as much as is sufficient for himself and family”. If consecrated property became more than was sufficient for the assigned steward, the “residue” was “to be consecrated unto the bishop” kept for the benefit of “those who have not, from time to time, that every man who has need may be amply supplied and receive according to his wants.”

Under Smith, members attempted to implement the law of consecration through the establishment of the United Order, but it was never fully instituted due to conflict and disagreements.
(Wikipedia, “Law of consecration”)

An echo of the original Law of Consecration can still be found in the Temple Endowment Ceremony which contains the following rite:

THE LAW OF CONSECRATION
[Peter, James, and John return to the Terrestrial Room.]

PETER: A couple will now come to the altar.

We are instructed to give unto you the law of consecration as contained in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, in connection with the law of the gospel and the law of sacrifice, which you have already received. It is that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion.

All arise.

Each of you bring your right arm to the square.

You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the law of consecration as contained in this, the book of Doctrine and Covenants [he displays the book], in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion.

Each of you bow your head and say, “Yes.”

That will do.
(“The Terrestrial World”, LDS Endowment website)

Each of the 10 companies of Mormon handcart pioneers was accompanied by a wagon train that carried supplies, and sometimes had room for an ill, injured or simply worn-out walker to ride along the trail for a short distance. Painting by William Henry Jackson. – Courtesy NPS.gov, William Henry Jackson Collection, Scotts Bluff National Monument.

9) Gathering to Zion
Just as it’s very name implies, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was originally an apocalyptic cult. As is the case with all such cults, the idea was that the Lord was gathering the faithful together in anticipation of Christ’s return to set up His Kingdom on earth. So if you’ve ever wondered why the Early Mormons moved en masse from New York, to Ohio, to Missouri, to Illinois, to Utah, now you know. If you’ve ever wondered why an estimated 85,000 people immigrated from Europe to America to join the “saints in Zion” during the 19th Century now you know. If you ever wondered how the culture of food hoarding and Mormon triumphalism developed, now you know. As then Apostle (later to become LdS President) Joseph F. Smith explained in 1877:

In this dispensation there is a principle or commandment peculiar to it. What is that? It is the gathering the people into one place. The gathering of the people is as necessary to be observed by believers, as faith, repentance, baptism, or any other ordinance. It is an essential part of the Gospel of this dispensation, as much so, as the necessity of building an ark by Noah, for his deliverance, was a part of the Gospel of his dispensation. Then the world was destroyed by a flood, now it is to be destroyed by war, pestilence, famine, earthquakes, storms, and tempests, the sea rolling beyond its bounds, malarious vapors, vermin, disease, and fire by the lightnings of God’s wrath poured out for destruction upon Babylon.
(Joseph F. Smith, ‘Arrival in Salt Lake City—The First Principles—The Question of Authority—The Ordinances—Education of Our Youth—Plural Marriage, Etc.—“Mormonism” Immortal’, September 3o, 1877, Journal of Discourses 19:192)

Just consider the Apostle’s words above in light of the fact that this was imperative not just a nice idea or some type of nebulous ideal that one could choose or not choose. The Gathering to Zion wasn’t to be taken lightly, it was a requirement of joining the Latter Day Saint faith back then, not an option. You got baptized, you started tithing, and you gathered you and yours to Zion as soon as you could. Period.

So what happened? Why has the Gathering been quietly been swept into the dustbin? Mormon Scholar Kathleen Flake explains that around the turn of the 20th Century there was a subtle but significant shift in Mormonism:

Instead of being admonished to do the works and receive the blessings of Abraham, the Latter-day Saints were encouraged aged to manifest Yankee virtues and Progressive Era values. Exhortations to missionary work overtook the other elements of nineteenth-century millennialism; growth, not gathering to Zion, became the rallying cry. During Joseph F. Smith’s tenure, immigration to Utah was officially ended, and the church began to build centers of membership abroad.
(Kathleen Flake, “The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle”, Kindle Locations 1690-1693, Kindle Edition)

Then in the mid-Twentieth Century, the Gathering to Zion was quietly phased out during the David O. McKay administration. As Greg Prince, the biographer of David O. McKay explains:

David O. McKay brought this church into the 20th century, even though he got started halfway through that century. We were a church that still was insular. We brought people to Salt Lake. He said, “Let’s reverse that. Stay where you are. Grow where you’re planted. Make the church a vital force throughout the world.”
(Greg Prince interviewed in the PBS Documentary “The Mormons”, Part Two. Quote from official show transcript.)

Thus, today, having someone immigrate to Zion as part of the Gathering to Zion is the exception, not the rule. The Gathering to Zion doctrine is now, it’s explained, a spiritual, not a physical gathering. And the LdS Church is trying to send the original Gathering to Zion doctrine down the Memory Hole by rewriting its own history so that it reads like this:

Why did so many faithful members leave their home countries in those early days of the Church? Many reasons can be named: to escape persecution, to help build the Church in America, to improve their economic circumstances, to be close to a temple, and many more.
(Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “First Presidency Message: Developing Christlike Attributes”, Ensign, October 2008, p.7)

So down the Orwellian memory hole goes real history! It’s 1984 all over again, “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” (George Orville,“1984”, Kindle Locations 1053-1054, Pandora’s Box. Kindle Edition) And thus, modern Mormons are given misinformation to cover up the hard reality that the only constant when it comes to Mormon Doctrine is constant change. Tomorrow’s LdS Church will be very different from today’s church. Tomorrow’s “eternal gospel” will be very different than the Mormon gospel that’s taught today. And, as it has always been, Mormon Leaders will have to lie in order to give members the illusion that nothing has changed, all is well in Zion, and the gospel is as it has always been.

But this is the problem with dust-binned, man-contrived, bad theology, isn’t it? It still leaves carnage in its wake. It leaves a mess. And by forcing good men to lie to cover up the truth it has left a trail of incriminated dust behind Mormon Leaders since Joseph Smith onward, hasn’t it?

By their fruit, you shall know them indeed.

Bales and bales of shredded paper and cardboard waiting to be converted into paper-mash and then reformed into new paper products. The original will then, of course, be lost to the Memory Hole.

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part One)

Posted: August 5, 2018 in Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Fred Anson, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

by Fred W. Anson
The Church of Jesus Christ claims, “The gospel has been known throughout eternity, and its principles have been preached among men and women from their beginnings on this earth.” (Robert L. Millet, “The Eternal Gospel”, Ensign, July 1996) and “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a divine and perfect plan. It is composed of eternal, unchanging principles, laws, and ordinances which are universally applicable to every individual regardless of time, place, or circumstance. Gospel principles never change.” (Ronald E. Poelman, “The Gospel and the Church”, Ensign, November 1984).

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. More will follow in the articles in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

1) The 1830 Book of Mormon
The original 1830 edition was obsoleted by the 1837 revised edition and they’ve been changing it ever since. For a book Joseph Smith claimed to be “the most correct of any book on earth,” it is suspicious that the text has undergone nearly 4,000 changes. Most of the changes, Mormon apologists argue, are small grammatical or punctuation fixes. But consider this change between the 1830 and 1937 editions.

“… These last records … shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father and the Savior … “ (Book of Mormon, 1830 edition, page 32)

“… These last records … shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior …” (Book of Mormon, 1837 edition, 1 Nephi 13:40)

The change, of course, reflects Joseph Smith’s post, Book of Mormon shift from a form of modalistic Trinitarianism to Tri-Theism. And because other changes in the 1837 were equally significant, it’s not unfair to say that as of 1837 the original 1830 Book of Mormon was displaced by a new book. Please see the Encyclopedia of Mormonism for a list of Book of Mormon editions up to to the encyclopedia’s 1992 publication date.

2) The 1833 Book of Commandments
This was intended to be a bound collection of Joseph Smith’s published revelations (which had appeared intermittently in the official church newspaper, Evening and Morning Star) as well as some previously unreleased revelations. However, before it could be completed and distributed, a mob attacked the print shop where the Book of Commandments was being printed and destroyed the printing press. This was the end of the Book of Commandments which was obsoleted by the 1835 Doctrine & Covenants. However, even though Doctrine & Covenants contained many of the same revelations there were numerous, material revisions. For example, the apostles Peter, James, and John imparting Joseph Smith Jr. with the Priesthood is in section 27 of D&C, but is missing from the Book of Commandments. Another example is this one:

“…and he has a gift to translate the book and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift.”
(Book of Commandments, 4:2)

This passage refers to Joseph Smith in the third person. However, in the re-numbered Doctrine and Covenants the same revelation reads:

“…and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you; and I have commanded that you should pretend to no other gift until my purpose is fulfilled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.”
(Doctrine and Covenants, 5:4)

So in the revelation in the Book of Commandments Smith was only to translate the Book of Mormon and claim no other role or gifting. However, in the Doctrine & Covenants version Smith is given far greater roles, callings, and ecclesiastical power over and above simply translating the Book of Mormon. This is just a small sampling of the numerous changes between the 1833 Book of Commandments and the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. Of course, the logical question is, “Why did God change His mind on so many matters in just 2-years?”

The Lectures On Faith today: Decanonized and a stand-alone book

3) The Lectures on Faith
Approved by Common Consent in 1834, “stealth” de-canonized in 1921. From Wikipedia:

“Lectures on Faith” is a set of seven lectures on the doctrine and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, first published as the doctrine portion of the 1835 edition of the canonical Doctrine and Covenants, but later removed from that work by both major branches of the faith [that is, the LdS Church and the RLDS Church]. The lectures were originally presented by Joseph Smith to a group of elders in a course known as the “School of the Prophets” in the early winter of 1834–35 in Kirtland, Ohio…

The LDS Church removed the lectures from the Doctrine and Covenants in the 1921 edition, with an explanation that the Lectures, “were never presented to nor accepted by the Church as being otherwise than theological lectures or lessons”. (See Introduction, 1921 edition.) This is in contrast to the remaining pages of the original Doctrine and Covenants, which are officially recognized by nearly all Latter Day Saint denominations as divine revelation given specifically to the church.”
(“Lectures on Faith”, Wikipedia article)

4) The Journal of Discourses
The 19th Century version of today’s Ensign magazine. The Journal of Discourses was considered one of the “Standard Works” (scripture) during its time of publication:

“The Journal of Discourses deservedly ranks as one of the standard works of the Church, and every rightminded Saint will certainly welcome with joy, every Number as it comes forth from the press as an additional reflector of ‘the light that shines from Zion’s hill.'”
(President George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, Preface, Volume 8)

Yet today the LdS Church disavows and distances itself from the Journal of Discourses:

“The Journal of Discourses is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a compilation of sermons and other materials from the early years of the Church, which were transcribed and then published. It included some doctrinal instruction but also practical teaching, some of which is speculative in nature and some of which is only of historical interest.”
(Gospel Topics article, “Journal of Discourses”, Official LdS Church website)

5) Bruce McConkie’s “Mormon Doctrine”
Bruce McConkie’s classic book “Mormon Doctrine” is one of the single most cited Latter-day Saint works outside of scripture. As Wikipedia explains:

“Mormon Doctrine (originally subtitled A Compendium of the Gospel) is an encyclopedic work written in 1958 by Bruce R. McConkie, a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It was intended primarily for a Latter-day Saint audience and is often used as a reference book by church members because of its comprehensive nature. It was not and has never been an official publication of the church, and it has been both heavily criticized by some church leaders and members, while well regarded by others. After the book’s first edition was removed from publication at the instruction of the church’s First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, corrections were made in subsequent editions. The book went through three editions, but as of 2010, it is out of print.”
(Mormon Doctrine (book), Wikipedia article)

And as Mormon Researcher Bill McKeever observes:

Many Mormons who currently wish to distance themselves from McConkie and his teachings ignore both the impact he made on the LDS Church when he was alive and the statements made by colleagues after his death. When he died in 1985 after a long struggle with cancer, church leaders took turns giving his eulogy. An article written on McConkie’s life (“Elder Bruce R. McConkie: ‘Preacher of Righteousness,” Ensign, June 1985, pp. 15ff) concluded this way: “Because of his life and testimony, our faith has been strengthened and our hope for eternal life is brighter.” Several of his colleagues praised him for his personal piety while others took note of his ability to teach and understand LDS doctrine.

Ezra Taft Benson, then a fellow apostle, noted in his remarks that whenever a doctrinal question “came before the First Presidency and the Twelve,” it was Bruce McConkie “who was asked to quote the scripture or to comment on the matter. He could quote scripture verbatim and at great length.” According to Benson, McConkie “provided the entire Church with an example of gospel scholarship. He could teach the gospel with ease because he first understood the gospel.”

Mormon Apostle Boyd Packer spoke of McConkie’s uncompromising attitude he had toward his obligation to speak the truth. “It was not granted to Brother McConkie to judge beforehand how his discourses would be received and then to alter them accordingly. Nor could he measure what ought to be said and how it ought to be said by ‘what will people think?’”

Gordon Hinckley, then a member of the First Presidency, was the concluding speaker. In his comments he stated, “I felt like a little puppy trying to keep up with McConkie as he took his long measured steps…So it has been with most of us in keeping up with the stride of his mind in scholarship in the gospel” (Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley, p.418).

Given the high regard these LDS leaders had for McConkie, why do so many members today seem to have such a low respect for this man?”
(Bill McKeever, “Bruce McConkie: Respected General Authority or Theological Hack?”)

Polygamy wedding cake

6) Mortal Polygamy
The fact that Mormons used to practice mortal polygamy (aka, a man being married to more than one living wife at the same time during his lifetime) is a secret to no one. It’s one of the most commonly known and distinguishing characteristics of Mormonism in the public’s mind. The subject is complex, deep, and wide so I can hardly do it justice in a paragraph or two.

What’s far more interesting, however, is how after its demise was announced to the public in 1890, it still continued privately among the leaders until 1904. As the official LdS Church website explains:

The [1890 Official Declaration 1] Manifesto declared President Woodruff’s intention to submit to the laws of the United States. It said nothing about the laws of other nations. Ever since the opening of colonies in Mexico and Canada, Church leaders had performed plural marriages in those countries, and after October 1890, plural marriages continued to be quietly performed there. As a rule, these marriages were not promoted by Church leaders and were difficult to get approved. Either one or both of the spouses who entered into these unions typically had to agree to remain in Canada or Mexico. Under exceptional circumstances, a smaller number of new plural marriages were performed in the United States between 1890 and 1904, though whether the marriages were authorized to have been performed within the states is unclear…

At the April 1904 general conference, President [Joseph F.] Smith issued a forceful statement, known as the Second Manifesto, attaching penalties to entering into plural marriage: “If any officer or member of the Church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage he will be deemed in transgression against the Church and will be liable to be dealt with according to the rules and regulations thereof and excommunicated therefrom.” This statement had been approved by the leading councils of the Church and was unanimously sustained at the conference as authoritative and binding on the Church.

The Second Manifesto was a watershed event. For the first time, Church members were put on notice that new plural marriages stood unapproved by God and the Church. The Second Manifesto expanded the reach and scope of the first. “When [the Manifesto] was given,” Elder Francis M. Lyman, President of the Quorum of the Twelve, explained, “it simply gave notice to the Saints that they need not enter plural marriage any longer, but the action taken at the conference held in Salt Lake City on the 6th day of April 1904 [the Second Manifesto] made that manifesto prohibitory.”
(“The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage”, official LdS Church website)

That’s all well and good, except for the fact that polygamy is a requirement for Celestial Exaltation (being granted eternal life in the presence of Heavenly Father and being deified as a god) as Doctrine & Covenant 132 explains in coded “insider” language – “covenant”, “everlasting covenant” meaning “polygamy”; “glory” meaning “celestial exaltation”.

Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
(verses 3-4)

Then shall they [the couple sealed for time and eternity] be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.
(verses 20-21)

(click to zoom)

So does this mean that Celestial Exaltation has been impossible since the two Manifestos? The answer is, “No.” Thanks to the magic of Latter-day Saint dustbin dynamics, the requirement for polygamy simply disappeared and now, one needs only be sealed in an LdS Temple to one’s spouse for “time and eternity”, fulfill all the other requirements of Celestial Law and according to modern Mormonism, you’re good to go. In fact, modern Mormons are now taught that the insider language in D&C 132 has always meant that. So right into the dustbin goes polygamy!

Or does it? What has never gone away is what’s known as “Celestial Polygamy”. Celestial Polygamy is when a man is widowed by a wife who he was sealed to in the Temple “for time and eternity” and then goes on to also marry one or more wives in the Temple “for time and eternity”. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

Though the LDS Church had disavowed polygamy, it is still enshrined in Mormon scripture (Doctrine & Covenants 132) and some believe it will one day be re-established, if not on Earth, at least in heaven. In his quasi-official 1966 book Mormon Doctrine, which remains in print, the late LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie wrote that ‘the holy practice will commence again after the Second Coming and the ushering in of the millennium.’ And by policy, men can be ‘sealed’ for eternity in LDS temple rites to more than one wife, though women are permitted only a single sealing. Three of the church’s current apostles, for example, were widowed and remarried. Each will have two wives in the eternities”
(Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Modern-day Mormons disavow polygamy”, Salt Lake Tribune, April 20, 2008)

At the time that this article was written, three Mormon Apostles qualified as Celestial Polygamists: Dallin H. Oaks, L. Tom Perry, and Russell M. Nelson. All three men are widowers, and all three men have since been “sealed” to a second wife. L. Tom Perry has since died (in 2015), leaving only Oaks and Nelson.

Sadly, this dust-binned version of polygamy still wreaks havoc in Mormon culture as well known Latter-day Saint poet Carol Lynn Pearson found out when she asked active Mormons and Ex-Mormon to talk about how they feel about the subject via a social media survey that she did in March 2014. Pearson claims that on the first day, more than 2,400-people responded, and within four weeks the number had surpassed 8,000 total survey responses which included comments like these:

“I live in constant fear that I will die before my husband and he will be sealed to a second wife, meaning I will live in a polygamous relationship for eternity. I’ve told him if this happens I will choose hell over heaven and he believes me. This is hard on our marriage.”

“A nice Mormon guy hung up the phone when he found I was a sealed widow. He said ‘Why would I want to love someone in this life and then turn her over to her first husband for eternity?—along with the children that came from my very own DNA and now belong to him?’”

“When I was a teenaged boy, I thought it was cool to look forward to lots of sex with my circle of wives in heaven. Now the idea of eternal polygamy disgusts me. No way do I want my wife to feel like I have all of her and she doesn’t have all of me. Crazy stuff, this doctrine.”
(Carol Lynn Pearson official website)

And this is the problem with dust-binned, man-contrived, bad theology, isn’t it? It still leaves carnage in its wake. It leaves a mess. By their fruit, you shall know them indeed.

“Sawdust” photograph by Chris Jordan. This is literally a mountain of sawdust.

Beggar's Bread

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Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Eight)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Seven)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Six)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Five)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Four)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Three)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Two)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part One)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

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