zeezrom wrote:I'm wondering if the word speech sounds too scholastic or something. The word "talk" has a sort of informal tone to it.
Why did I post about this? People are dying from starvation and I'm posting about the word "talk".
I think a liturgical history of Mormonism could be very interesting.
What little I know.
In some demonimations, the term "preach" has a very technical meaning and can only be done by someone who is ordained. The technical meaning was that a preacher could expound on scripture. In the liturgical churches (like Roman Catholics and Episcopalians) the scriptures are set and the preacher has to preach a "sermon" or "homily" from those texts.
During the Awakenings, it became OK for a lay person to speak at a religious gathering so they could "testify" to their receiving salvation. They could not take a scriptural text and expound on it as one might see in a liturgical church. Testify had a very technical meaning in Methodism, the most hierarchical of the two main evangelical religions in the 1800's the other being Baptists.
Among Methodists, a three tier system developed, preachers were ordained and preached a sermon from a scriptural text, exhorters were not ordained but were licensed and exhorted but could not do so from a specific scriptural text and lay people were never ordained or licensed but testified (again, not allowed to take a scriptural text).
I suspect that not everyone followed the technical rules (when has that ever happend). So I don't think passing references to Joseph Smith being an exhorter necessarily mean that he was officially a Methodist or that he was a licensed exhorter.
The not following the rules is important in women's history you see women with no formal authority testifying, but later they are exorting without a license and then taking a text which would be the formal definition of preaching. Then finally, a few are licensed to exhort and later ordained to preach.
So what happens when we get to Mormonism. The terminology gets a bit garbled. Elders are ordained (preach a sermon) but are issued licenses (exhorter language). In the D&C priesthood offices are to exhort (exhorter, license language) and to expound the scriptures (preacher, sermon, ordination language).
Now if you want to do something really interesting, take a look at what Emma was ordained to do. Exhort the church and expound scripture. Sounds like what an ordained Methodist preacher would do and a licensed Methodist exhorter. Mormon women came very close to having the "priesthood" at that point IMHO, and not withstanding Quinn's argument that they got it in 1842.
What was the question?
So when all the men are going to be ordained are they preaching, exhorting, testifying or talking. I don't know why we ended up with "talk."
If you want to have some more fun, line up the Mormon priesthood offices in the D&C with the Methodist ones of the day. You'll find that from deacon on up they line up pretty well with exhorter on up in Methodism.
So did I mention, Joseph Smith was an exhorter in Palmyra and a Methodist class member in Harmony. Emma was a Methodist from a devout Methodist family. They both knew what exhort and expound meant.
Somewhere in all of this, I think the answer to the question why do Mormons talk, is lurking around in Methodist history.
