The Wonderful, Marvelous, Official Adam-God Doctrine

[_Runtu]

Here is this instance of the McConkie Mulligan quoted from the FAIR wiki, so you know it's true:

Yes, President Young did teach that Adam was the father of our spirits, and all the related things that the [polygamous] cultists ascribe to him. This, however, is not true. He expressed views that are out of harmony with the gospel. But, be it known, Brigham Young also taught accurately and correctly, the status and position of Adam in the eternal scheme of things. What I am saying is that Brigham Young, contradicted Brigham Young, and the issue becomes one of which Brigham Young we will believe. The answer is we will believe the expressions that accord with the teachings in the Standard Works.

It certainly must be difficult for Adam-God deniers to require Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be lying just like the anti-Mormons about Brigham Young really teaching this.

Well, if there are multiple Adams and, according to McConkie, multiple Brigham Youngs (one teaching the truth, the other falsehood), maybe there can be multiple McConkies.

By the way, the FAIR wiki is wrong about the Adam-God doctrine. From the same entry:

Regardless of which approach the reader prefers to accept, the Church's official position on Adam-God is clear: as popularly understood, Adam-God (i.e., "Adam, the first man, was identical with Elohim/God the Father") is not the doctrine of the Church.

As BYU's digital scans of the longest-running official church publication show, Brigham Young did NOT teach that Adam was Elohim. He taught that Elohim was another personage who was in effect our Heavenly Grandfather, while Adam was Heavenly Father (you know, the one we say prayers to).

That's what he appears to have taught, despite what the deniers would have us believe.

[_Dwight Frye]

It certainly must be difficult for Adam-God deniers to require Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be lying just like the anti-Mormons about Brigham Young really teaching this.

In addition to Bruce R., ol' Gordon B. "Isn't it wonderful?" Hinckley himself acknowledged Young's Adam-God craziness. What's more, you can actually see him toss it up on his "shelf"!!! LOL

Said he, "Brigham Young said if you went to Heaven and saw God it would be Adam and Eve. I don’t know what he meant by that... I’m not going to worry about what he said about those things." - 'Lives of the Saints,' The New Yorker, 21 January 2002 [I enthusiastically recommend reading the entire piece, by the way. It's wonderful, as some might say.]

[_Gentile Persuasion]

Why does any discussion of Mormon doctrine make my head hurt?

[_Jason Bourne]

If I recall correctly, the Adam-God theory was taught as doctrine in the lecture at the veil in the temple for many years. I suppose bcspace will tell us now that what is taught in the temple is not doctrine.

Yes it was taught at the St George Temple.

Darth this is really spot on. And my prophecy is BC will ignore this thread and in the future will say AG was never doctrine and BY when he taught was talking about Adam Sr and Adam Jr.

[_stemelbow]

Why does any discussion of Mormon doctrine make my head hurt?

that's the Spirit telling you its true. Just relent and go get baptized as soon as possible. there's no fightin it.

[_sock puppet]

Why does any discussion of Mormon doctrine make my head hurt?

that's the Spirit telling you its true. Just relent and go get baptized as soon as possible. there's no fightin it.

Sounds more like a stupor of thought to me.

[_stemelbow]

Sounds more like a stupor of thought to me.

It does a little, doesn't it?

Oh well if I were you and wore those emo pants like kids do these days, but put them on backwards like those kris kros boys did back in the early 90s (I believe) I'd probably conclude it was a stupor of thought rather than the spirit's influence too. But I ain't. It must be the spirit telling him its true. I got to keep telling myself that.

[_sock puppet]

Sounds more like a stupor of thought to me.

It does a little, doesn't it?

Oh well if I were you and wore those emo pants like kids do these days, but put them on backwards like those kris kros boys did back in the early 90s (I believe) I'd probably conclude it was a stupor of thought rather than the spirit's influence too. But I ain't. It must be the spirit telling him its true. I got to keep telling myself that.

Wow, maybe Nightlion is right. Despite being BIC, going on a mission, etc, maybe I never was a real Mormon. Whenever my head hurt, I interpreted it to be a headache, took a couple of aspirin and was fine in 30 minutes. I never considered my head hurting to be the HG telling me I should be paying tithing to the COB. Well, still not willing to go there and assign that meaning to my headaches, so I must be a hopeless evil spirit.

But, I learned today that not everybody considers a hurting head to be a headache. Some think it is god telling them to be a COTPOTCOJCOLDS member!

[_Darth J]

Why does any discussion of Mormon doctrine make my head hurt?

It's because you have to realize the three uses that Latter-day Saints have for "official doctrine:"

1. For chapel Mormons, it is to be the ward know-it-all, as if you are some sage upon the mountain heights for knowing what your church teaches. If you can develop this reputation to the point where Sunday school teachers defer to you about what is "official doctrine," you have mastered the Pharisaical chapel Mormon view of "official doctrine."

2. For cafeteria Mormons, it is to define down what you "have to" believe or obey, in order to maximize loopholes so that you can justify rejecting instructions from church leaders that do not fit your personal tastes (like watching rated R movies, for example).

3. For apologists, it is used to make LDS teachings a constantly moving target so that nothing can be falsified or questioned. It is also used to justify apologetic theory conflicting with the teachings of church leaders. If an apologist needs something to be so for a particular apologetic theory to work, but that something is contrary to what church leaders have indisputably taught, then invariably the something at issue will be declared not to be "official doctrine."

In none of these cases is the rubric of "official doctrine" used for the purpose of teaching, clarifying, or explaining anything.

[_consiglieri]

Thought I would include this post from MAD here:

_____________________

Although most of Brigham Young's Adam-God Theory has been relegated to the dustbin of Mormon Theology, certain aspects of it continue to crop up here and there.

Such as the idea that God had physical relations with Mary to produce the man-god child, Jesus.

Elder McConkie believed this and wrote about it in the typical equivocating way first mastered by Elder Talmage.

The irony is that when Elder McConkie said it, he meant "God" as in Elohim.

When President Young said it, he meant "God" as in Adam.

That which we shoved out through the front door came in through the back.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

P.S. The current and almost universally received LDS doctrine that Jesus is our elder spirit brother was also part and parcel of Brigham Young's Adam-God Theory, and it is possible that it is within that context it first was systematically promulgated.