Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

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_Chap
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Chap »

Kishkumen wrote:I have a lot to think about.


It seems that so far as clarifying what the leadership's understanding of authority and apostasy really is, the thinking has already been done, by yourself at least.

Brigham Young, October 9, 1859
Intelligence, Etc.
Remarks by President BRIGHAM YOUNG,
delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, October 9, 1859.
Reported by G. D. Watt
Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, p.282-91

Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the vail in the great work of the last days. I can tell our beloved brother Christians who have slain the Prophets and butchered and otherwise caused the death of thousands of Latter-day Saints, the priests who have thanked God in their prayers and thanksgiving from the pulpit that we have been plundered, driven, and slain, and the deacons under the pulpit, and their brethren and sisters in their closets, who have thanked God, thinking that the Latter-day Saints were wasted away, something that no doubt will mortify them—something that, to say the least, is a matter of deep regret to them—namely, that no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith. From the day that the Priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding-up scene of all things, every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are—I with you and you with me. I cannot go there without his consent. He holds the keys of that kingdom for the last dispensation—the keys to rule in the spirit-world; and he rules there triumphantly, for he gained full power and a glorious victory over the power of Satan while he was yet in the flesh, and was a martyr to his religion and to the name of Christ, which gives him a most perfect victory in the spirit-world. He reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim—"Oh, that is very disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!" But it is true.


I remember reading this some time ago, and wondering why this kind of thing never seemed to get talked about nowadays. But as your analysis strongly suggests, this is no "Adam-God" weirdness, to be shuffled out of the way as just one of Brother Brigham's flights of rhetoric from those rough frontier days. It still seems to be a major basis for decisions today.

Surely it will be in an authorized manual somewhere? Can anybody locate it?
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_Maksutov
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Maksutov »

Chap quoting Brigham Young wrote:
Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the vail in the great work of the last days. I can tell our beloved brother Christians who have slain the Prophets and butchered and otherwise caused the death of thousands of Latter-day Saints, the priests who have thanked God in their prayers and thanksgiving from the pulpit that we have been plundered, driven, and slain,




What a lying sack of crap this great "prophet" was. At a time when the bones of the murdered at Mountain Meadows still littered the ground, he talks about the "death of thousands of Latter-day Saints" at the hands of gentiles. Great man? Great monster. And my ancestors trusted him. :redface:
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Kishkumen
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Kishkumen »

I found this interesting comment from the April 1971 General Conference:

A. Theodore Tuttle wrote:Anyone who has concern for the welfare of his eternal soul should give attention to this message. Every man who has lived since the days of Joseph Smith is subject to accepting him as a prophet of God in order to enter into our Heavenly Father’s presence.


Evidently, this quote appeared most recently in Church News. See the March 17, 2001 edition.

Watch the talk:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1971/04/the-message-of-the-restoration?lang=eng

The anti-Mormon website "Mormonism Research Ministry" has an entire page devoted to this issue:

http://www.mrm.org/salvific-role

According to this piece, the teaching of Joseph Smith's salvific role appeared in a manual in 1984.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Jun 10, 2015 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Kishkumen
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Kishkumen »

Consider this too: In the 1990 change to the endowment, the following (publicly available) language was added, albeit in a slightly different form:

Brigham Young wrote:Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, … and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell.


Shortly after the changes to the endowment, Elder David B. Haight recited this quote in General Conference (1992), in a talk on the temple:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1992/04/come-to-the-house-of-the-lord?lang=eng

So, every day there is a temple open, someone, in some language, is hearing this teaching about the endowment enabling the endowed to pass angels who stand as sentinels to enter exaltation in the kingdom of God.

Who are these sentinels? Well, according to Brigham Young, Joseph Smith is one:

Brigham Young wrote:If we can pass the sentinel Joseph the Prophet, we shall go into the celestial kingdom, and not a man can injure us. If he says, ‘God bless you, come along here;’ if we will live so that Joseph will justify us, and say, ‘Here am I, brethren,’ we shall pass every sentinel; there will be no danger but that we will pass into the celestial kingdom (Journal of Discourses 4:271).


So, this theology appears today in the LDS temple ritual, albeit in a sublimated form.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Kishkumen
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Kishkumen »

Then, of course, there is Joseph Smith himself:

Joseph Smith wrote:If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity over my sins, I will over yours—for charity covereth a multitude of sins.

History of the Church, 4:445.


Joseph Smith wrote:On my part, I am ready to be offered up a sacrifice in that way that can bring to pass the greatest benefit and good to those who must necessarily be interested in this important matter.

History of the Church, 5:159.


It is interesting to note that the same two quotes, albeit in the opposite order, appear on josephsmith.net under Martydom on a page of quotes from Joseph Smith:

http://www.josephsmith.net/article/quote-index?lang=eng#Martyrdom

If you consider their arrangement, they may be interpreted to suggest that 1) Joseph Smith sacrificed himself for us and 2) will lead us into heaven.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_BartBurk
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _BartBurk »

It will be a shock for Mormons if one of the sentinels is Joseph Smith III instead of Brigham Young.
_Fence Sitter
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Fence Sitter »

Kishkumen wrote:Thank you, consul. What fascinates me particularly is clear centrality of authority in Mormon theology coupled with the scandal of the same. In the early decades after Joseph Smith's assassination, he was very frankly portrayed as the deified man upon whom your salvation (won by Christ) was in some sense contingent. Reject Joseph and you will not be saved. These days, leaders and members seem/are scandalized and embarrassed by this theology. Yet, when it comes to the order of the priesthood and the terms of membership, the logic of this theology is still in force. Rejection of the authority of your leaders is apostasy in Mormonism.

One might say that the devil's bargain the leaders made is that in order to spread the gospel, increase the number of members, and go more mainstream, they soft-pedaled the brute facts of LDS theology. The leaders say, "it is important to obey," when what they really mean is, "you will not be saved without passing through the judgment of your leaders, who will judge your obedience to them in your lifetime." To say the former sounds dull and annoying, to say the latter seems nuts in today's world. The former message is the now the message. It worked, in that the LDS Church grew by leaps and bounds, but now many members are ignorant of this theology at best and functionally apostate at worst.

So members are puzzled by the leader "worship," focus on Joseph Smith, etc. They chafe at the idea that close alignment with the leaders is necessary for being in full fellowship. Instead, like the good Protestants many of them used to be, they focus on their own relationship with Jesus, are horrified by "Smithmas," and no one who really understands the truth can bear to be open about it. Those in the know divine, correctly, that the leaders they are obeying don't want them to be frank about it. So, they aren't.

This may be why apologists are always telling people their apostasy is their own fault for not studying sufficiently. They know that the public discourse is partial and that no one can cop to the real deal. It's a real catch 22, since to be frank about the real terms of membership is to be disobedient. So, yes, if you don't pick up from somewhere this theology and its full implications, all the dreary leader stuff will seem pointless and offensive. The ignorant members think, "why do we talk about Joseph Smith so much?" Or, "what is wrong with these leaders who think they can play God?" The truth is that the leaders know and are following the theology of priesthood and salvation in Mormonism.

This is all quite a stunning revelation to me. Oh, I have been vaguely aware of all of this intellectually for some time. But I don't think I ever fully internalized it. Now that I have started to internalize it, it disturbs me greatly. I have to admit, at long last and without a trace of irony, that I am an apostate. As an apostate, I have to confess to feeling betrayed by the Church's obfuscation of its real theology. Oh, sure, the evidence for that theology can be found here and there, if you know what to look for. Once you see it, you realize it was the snake that would have bit you.

But, I regret the fact that it was not promulgated sufficiently. It would have been so much easier to place myself properly had I only heard clearly from the pulpit on a more regular basis that my salvation depends on my leaders' approbation. Had I known and internalized the teaching that my eternal reward really was contingent upon the judgment of Gordon B. Hinckley, Joseph Smith, and Jesus, then I could have decided very easily what I thought about that and acted accordingly.

Do I deny hearing this before? I do not. I have heard this before from a temple president in a lecture in the temple. It was put to me as clearly as that too. At the time I was so emotionally besotted with the mysteries that this simply seemed logical, if somewhat odd. I thought at the time that I was listening to some elderly guy offering his interesting speculation--i.e., he was reasoning that it is in heaven as it is on earth, so to speak. I did not understand I was actually getting the real dope.

Maybe an apologist will say that I have once again blown it. Ole looney Kish is spreading false apostate doctrine once again. In a sense, they would be right because I am surely sharing a message that is out of line with the message of the Brethren. But, from another perspective--that of Mormon history and the dynamics of the organization, I don't think so. Too many things come into crystal clear focus once the significance of this theology is recognized. This *is* the theology of priesthood and salvation. This is why obedience to authority is so crucial to Mormons. I now see clearly why these excommunications are happening. I understand why it is that my apostasy was so clear to others while being confusing for me. Now I see why cafeteria Mormonism only works inasmuch as the leaders set the buffet and tell you what you must eat.

I have a lot to think about.

Very insightful post Kishkumen. Thanks for sharing.

I think there is another critical element to what defines apostasy within the church, that goes hand in hand with disobedience to leadership, one that is emerging to the forefront with social networking, and that is, a public expression of dissent. As an anonymous coward, I can say pretty much what ever I want on the internet or even within the confines of my own circle of friends. But dare I publicly express any opinion which challenges the authority of a leader or established protocol within the church hierarchy, I run the risk of excommunication. In every one of the recent excommunication cases each defendant was asked to just shut up as a primary condition of retaining their membership.

It is interesting that you mention a devils bargain. It seems to me that focus on obedience to authority as the primary requirement for salvation was a plan the LDS rejected long ago in the spirit world. How ironic is it that those very same people who were supposed to have rejected such a plan in the pre-existence, now embrace it and enforce it here?
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
_Chap
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Chap »

O....K .....

I am normally a rather cautious chap in expressing judgements about the applications of words that define boundaries between one kind of thing and another. I think that applies generally to the use of the word "Christian": some groups that identify themselves as "Christian" seems to set up their own most cherished beliefs as a criterion for deciding whether other groups who also profess themselves to be Christians are in fact "real Christians". An example is the insistence of some evangelical groups on the claim to have been 'born again'. The boundary shifts in accordance with who is using the word.

Faced with that situation, I tend to advocate terminological anarchy: anybody who wants to say they are Christian can go right ahead and call themselves Christian. No harm done: after all, that word isn't commercial property like "Hoover" or "Google".

But now I do feel a little uncomfortable when I think about the feature of Mormon belief that Kishkumen has highlighted on this thread. Is there, I have to ask, any group of self-styling Christians of any significant size and historical persistence apart from Mormons who claim that after death our ultimate fate will be decided by anybody other than Jesus?

I can't think of one. And it is a difference at a very crucial point in belief structure, perhaps none more crucial: how, to put it crudely, are we to get into heaven?

I still refuse to say "Mormons aren't Christians" on the grounds set out above. But if Mormonism is Christianity, Jim, it seems that it may not be Christianity as any other significant Christian group knows it.

(Even if most Mormons nowadays haven't noticed it, because the leadership doesn't tell them.)
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_Kishkumen
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _Kishkumen »

Chap wrote:Is there, I have to ask, any group of self-styling Christians of any significant size and historical persistence apart from Mormons who claim that after death our ultimate fate will be decided by anybody other than Jesus?

I can't think of one. And it is a difference at a very crucial point in belief structure, perhaps none more crucial: how, to put it crudely, are we to get into heaven?

I still refuse to say "Mormons aren't Christians" on the grounds set out above. But if Mormonism is Christianity, Jim, it seems that it may not be Christianity as any other significant Christian group knows it.

(Even if most Mormons nowadays haven't noticed it, because the leadership doesn't tell them.)


Well, this is an interesting question, Chap. It is obviously one that has attracted the interest of anti-Mormon ministries. But, as you say, it is not exactly the stuff of Sunday School lessons in the three-hour block. I think an apologist would say that Joseph Smith must be obedient to his priesthood superiors, which are ultimately Elohim and Jehovah. The problem here is that the involvement of Joseph Smith begins to look redundant. If Christ is really the judge, then why have Joseph Smith there at all? I don't have an answer to that question. I can say that this theology looks really odd when placed beside the usual Christian theology.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_suniluni2
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Re: Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

Post by _suniluni2 »

So let's get some apostates who's only beef is to questioned the divine calling of the leadership and see what happens. It would be reasonable to question, since the church has, for instance, already admitted they don't know why blacks were denied the priesthood. This implies the leadership during that time were following a policy that was not divine.
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