The Church's Cardinal Sin of Blasphemy/Idolatry

There's a well-known Book of Mormon story in which a humble prophet named Abinadi engages alone in a hostile exchange with the corrupt, rich, and powerful institution consisting of King Noah and the religious leaders of his time (Noah's priest's.)  They thought that if Abinadi were a true prophet he'd bring the "glad tidings" that "all is well in Zion" so they could continue to congratulate themselves on the church/culture they had managed to establish for themselves.

But the true "glad tidings" happen to be that because of Jesus Christ we can repent! The grace of Christ--even if suffering must be endured to receive it--truly is amazing! Naturally, those who don't think they have anything of which to repent won't find this message to be one of "glad tidings." It's more likely they'd see the outspoken man crying repentance as being "overly critical" and negative. Far better to simply silence the voice and cast him out--his reputation burned--so they can continue on with their merry lives and the status quo.

Fortunately, the Book of Mormon was meant for our day and should be likened unto ourselves. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the true message of repentance is like a breath of fresh air. But when the simple suggestion that even an apostle can be "wrong" is met with a reaction of "blasphemy," our mortal servant leaders have indeed been elevated into the realm of idolatry. And if we're to learn anything from Abinadi (who didn't escape from his predicament alive), let it be this: Grace is our only hope for escape from this and many of our other problems too.

*blas·phe·my
noun
the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.
"he was detained on charges of blasphemy"

When the top brass of an institution become too sacred to question, the corporate culture stinks. Yet, to many lay members of the church, the fifteen mortal men running the institutional church have apparently become a sacred cow--"above criticism."

*sa·cred cow
noun
an idea, custom, or institution held, especially unreasonably, to be above criticism (with reference to the Hindus' respect for the cow as a sacred animal)

At the beginning of his excellent post, "Living with Fallibility", James Faulconer (a Richard L. Evans Professor of Religious Understanding at Brigham Young University and BYU philosophy professor) wrote about how "Mormons have a joke that is so old it has become a cliché: Catholic doctrine is that the pope is infallible, but they don't believe it; Mormon doctrine is that the prophet is fallible, but they don't believe it." The joke works because there's truth to it.

*fal·li·ble
adjective
capable of making mistakes or being erroneous.
"experts can be fallible"

(synonyms: error-prone, errant, liable to err, open to error;
imperfect, flawed, weak)

*in·fal·li·ble
adjective
incapable of making mistakes or being wrong.
"doctors are not infallible"
"an infallible sense of timing"
never failing; always effective

(synonyms: unerring, unfailing, faultless, flawless, impeccable, perfect, precise, accurate, meticulous, scrupulous)

We cannot have it both ways. We can't reluctantly acknowledge fallibility yet act as though we should expect infallibility. We can't acknowledge God uses the "weak" things of the earth to do His work (so that we'll put our faith in Him), but continue to act as though we can place our faith in "strong" mortal leaders. These words actually mean something. Unless we invent our own definitions, these ideas are not harmonious. Faulconer goes on to observe that the way Latter-day Saints have traditionally taught about their prophet-leaders has led many to believe in false assumptions that in turn have led to tragic consequences. Sadly, I see those tragic consequences every day. I cannot in good conscience bring myself to look away and ignore them.

Faulconer expresses my own feelings when he shares hope that the new church essays may signify an important change in strategy and gives "hope that they will help Latter-day Saints rethink what it means to recognize authority and to have a living prophet." The blunt problem is, the majority of people don't read the essays, and many of those that do don't allow what they read to change the status quo of their thinking or simply fail to grasp the implications. Notable internet exceptions, notwithstanding (thank you Julie Smith). Faulconer writes:

We have often been guilty of a kind of idolatry of our leaders, implicitly imputing the characteristics of God to them because we thought that is what it meant to be called by God. To my knowledge few of our leaders asked for our idolatry, but we fell into it anyway. Perhaps our new strategy will help us repent.

I can truthfully say that recent interactions with fellow Mormons (online and in person) have convinced me that most Mormons haven't even recognized the need to repent. Many apparently see nothing wrong with this idolatry, nor with the status quo. I sincerely appreciate Jim's thoughtful analysis and feel the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be better off by taking it seriously. But I also feel a sense of chagrin because his voice and others like him will largely go unnoticed. It doesn't appear that we're collectively anxious to rethink and repent.

Tradition resists change. From the lay member who thinks "all is well" to those hard at work at Church headquarters, to the apostle who declares essentially the same thing in general conference ("all is well"/"the Church has never been stronger!") it is clear that not everyone is on the same page with "the new strategy of making our story public even when we find it difficult to explain [to] help prevent the kinds of pain we see some people suffering now", as Faulconer writes.

I submit that if we're okay with Latter-day Saints believing in prophetic infallibility, we should continue to teach that our leaders cannot lead us astray and continue to print Ensign messages and sing primary songs about following the prophet as though that's a sure and safe infallible standard. Until Mormons are collectively ready to face the hard reality and own the actual historical record, we have an uphill battle to help Latter-day Saints rethink and repent.

It would be to our advantage to truly and thoroughly embrace the good news and the bad news of prophetic fallibility, sooner rather than later. Only then can we recognize what Faulconer so eloquently stated:

My hope is that the conversations the recently published materials create will help us learn that being called by God isn't an either/or. It isn't that either the person is called by God and never makes a mistake in their calling or he isn't called by God at all. I hope we will begin to see the falsity of that dichotomy, that we will develop a more mature understanding of our relationship to those who lead us, one in which we neither idolize the prophets nor assume that their humanity means we ought to no longer follow them.

In light of this more "mature understanding", how should we "follow them?" Knowing what we now know about their past track record, how should we "trust" them in the present?  What should it mean to "trust" them in light of our "mature understanding?" We can start by recognizing that priesthood keys do not equate to any degree of holiness or infallibilty. We can still trust our prophet-leaders to be called of God and to receive inspiration in their calling. We can trust them to put our best interests at the forefront, and to even be prophets of God at the rare times when God actually does speak through them as opposed to the times when they simply give us good counsel. But we're not trusting them to be perfect. We're not trusting them to never make mistakes or to not be "wrong." Therefore, we should probably stop acting like they can't. We ought to repent of that notion--that idol of infallible leadership.

It takes hard work to follow prophets because you have to seek personal revelation/inspiration to discern when a prophet is acting as a prophet. Contrary to popular belief, the President of the Church is the president 24/7, but he becomes prophetic only when he becomes prophetic. "Prophet" is not an office--it's a gift. Regardless of whether or not those gifts are exhibited, we sustain 15 men and designate them as the only "prophets" for the entire church. We've become accustomed to constantly referring to Church presidents as "the prophet", and perhaps the semantics have unintentionally contributed to the idolatry. Conflating all-important obedience to principles with unquestioning obedience to persons will also likely lead to idolatry, among many more tragic consequences.

Adam Miller has done an admirable job trying to help us rethink what it means to recognize authority and to have a living prophet and to repent of our idolatry. But how many members of the Church have even heard of Adam Miller? It's nice that the Maxwell Institute has published his work, but the way the Ensign recycled an old CES message and added "Follow the Prophets" as a title to it for the First Presidency January 2015 edition convinces me we still have a ways to go. (It's hard not to sound condescending here, but many unthinking people will continue to see nothing wrong with this, because hey, isn't the Ensign also infallible?!)

Adam Miller:

It's a false dilemma to claim that either God works through flawless people or God doesn't work at all. The gospel isn't a celebration of God's power to work with flawless people. The gospel is a celebration of God's willingness to work today, in our world, in our lives, with people who clearly aren't. To demand that church leaders, past or present, show us only a mask of angelic pseudo-perfection is to deny the gospel's most basic claim: that God's grace works through our weakness. We need prophets, not idols. Our prophets and leaders will not turn out to be who you want them to be. They are not, in fact, even what God might want them to be. But they are real and God really can, nonetheless, work through their imperfections to extend his perfect love.

If the gospel is about God's perfect love (and it is), particularly embodied in Jesus Christ, why in the world do we insist on making this into the church of the prophets? Wasn't Abinadi's point to get the priests to look past the prophets themselves and to land their sights squarely on Christ and His atonement? It has always been so easy for God’s people to misread the scriptures and focus on the lesser law/lesser things. Prophets (like Abinadi who in turn quotes Isaiah to make the point even more explicit) give their lives to get us to remember the central focus of the scriptures is the atonement of Christ--not the authority of the religious leaders!

How we have allowed ourselves to go down this "authority" path so long as though it were so literally essential is beyond me. It completely misses the boat to make the main message about the boat, or the crew of the boat. Rather, the main message should be God's perfect love, because God is love, and love fulfills all the laws and the prophets. Since only God is perfect, we can trust the prophet to do his best to seek God's will, but not to never be wrong. Maybe we should have an Ensign message about that.

If I were in charge (thank goodness I'm not!) I'd put a stop to the practice of standing in reverence while leaders enter the room. Even things intended to be respectful can unintentionally be taken too far. But since I'm not in charge (fortunately) I suppose I should just be glad that at least we're not bowing down on the ground before them. Hugh Nibley once wrote: "It is quite inconceivable that the gospel should ever be under condemnation, though the Church has been from time to time. They are not the same thing. The one is a teaching; the other, an organization to foster that teaching."

I have serious reservations about the way the church organization presently fosters gospel teachings. Gospel teachings of following Christ are too frequently substituted for messages of following prophets. I'm not a betting man, but I'd be willing to wager we're still under condemnation. Too many Saints have trouble even making a distinction between the church and the gospel. And too many ecclesiastical leaders have trouble making a distinction between an actual "apostate" and a concerned disciple who prioritizes placing their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ over their faith in a church organization.

We've allowed ourselves to turn the 24/7 office of "President of the Church" into a synonym for "prophet", even though Joseph Smith taught that "a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such." One could be forgiven for wondering whether the Latter-day Saints have indeed placed an additional mediator between us and God. At times it seems as though it's not enough to follow the Savior--the Mediator between us and the Father. Apparently it's becoming expected that we now make "the prophet" into a mediator between us and the Mediator. We must repent of this idolatry--this cardinal sin of blasphemy.

On the one hand we have these wonderfully nuanced essays that should cause us to re-evaluate our paradigms of what to expect--and what not to expect--from prophets, helping us to "see that prophets don't usually get definitive answers to their questions, and even when the answer is definitive, they don't often, if ever, get definitive directions for how to put into practice what they have been told." On the other hand there are some who clearly want to double down on the old paradigm. How long shall we halt between the two? We can't acknowledge in our historical essays that even our prophet-leaders can be seriously wrong and then continue to spread the message in the Ensign that you don't need to think for yourself, but just do what you're told and you'll be "safe."

This life wasn't meant to be safe--it comes with great risk. Life wasn't meant to be easy, as though God were a GPS system telling us how to avoid the pitfalls and the detours. He doesn't even do that with prophets. He gives them the keys and then trusts them to get the church to safety in one piece without taking over the steering wheel. Every once in awhile the prophets take longer-than-necessary detours or swerve so hard some are made to feel like throwing up. But we're in it for the experience. And we learn most from the hard experiences. If we're wise we'll learn from our mistakes in order to make the trip better in the future. We won't deny nor condemn others for their mistakes, rather we're to "give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest" to us those mistakes and imperfections, so "that [we] may learn to be more wise than [others] have been" (Mormon 9:31.)

While it's not my place to grab the steering wheel (not even God coerces the driver), I still have a responsibility to love and help the driver as best I can. I believe our prophet-leaders are entitled to our sympathy, our support, and our suggestions. We're not lemmings just along for the ride. We're free agents. It would be easier to just sit back and trust the authorities. But we've seen what happens when we go down that path. (And that path starts looking a lot more like Satan's plan than God's plan.)

The easy path is to let someone else do all the thinking for you. It's harder to follow prophets when you have to seek revelation/inspiration for yourself to discern when a prophet is acting as a prophet, discerning if the counsel is inspired and/or applies to your circumstances. If all we do is tell people to sit down and shut up in the proverbial boat, we're no longer expecting people to exercise freedom of the mind and think for themselves, seeking their own spiritual confirmation. Or is the expectation to be told what to do, just obey, and get in line and don't rock the boat? If so, Hugh B. Brown is probably rolling in his grave.

Obviously there's an extreme line somewhere that I wouldn't want to cross in becoming that annoying back-seat driver. I want to always remain loving and respectful, but I feel I have a duty to alert the driver of dangers I may see out my window, especially if the drivers attention is so focused on the road ahead that he doesn't see what the passengers in the back seat may see. Of course it would be extreme if all someone did was ride along in order to criticize your driving. But there's another extreme of actually having an insight that might help the driver out but failing to speak up because of fear it's not your place. And it would be an extreme driver indeed that was too stubborn to listen to suggestions. I believe in trying to navigate the healthy middle ground between the extremes.

Likewise, I sustain the President of the Church. If you don't like the transportation analogies, perhaps you like a musical analogy. The president is like the head violinist in the orchestra. We all have our notes to play but he's in an important seat. I don't pretend he can't flub a note, and I have no desire to constantly criticize, especially when I'm struggling to focus on my own music. I desire for all to feel welcome in the orchestra and to make unique contributions, even in our imperfections. Orchestra's are better when their leadership isn't above receiving feedback from the rest of us. Healthy organizations designate appropriate time and space for feedback (not just conducting occasional surveys) so people can be heard. One place the church might start with is adding a suggestions box somewhere at each stake center, and perhaps at church headquarters too. My first suggestion would be to stop pretending the institutional church can never be "wrong" and thus above sincere apologies.

In my post "On Being Seasick While Staying in the Boat", I write that I don't personally stay onboard this ship because of the crew, and I get very seasick when the voyage is made to feel more about our loyalty to men than our loyalty to Christ:

Joseph Smith once said the people were depending too much on the prophet and "hence were darkened in their minds". Notwithstanding, before long emphasis/focus began to be placed on following the mortal church leaders even more than on following the perfect Savior. Maybe there's a healthy and mindful balance, but I'm pretty sure we're out of balance when it's assumed that by following certain mortals in certain church callings we're automatically following Christ. Autopilot substitution of the former for the latter creates an idol, and some Latter-day Saints turn our prophets into idols without even realizing it. Is it any wonder some of us are getting nauseous? The scriptures warn about trusting in "the arm of the flesh," yet how many equate "trusting LDS priesthood authority" with "trusting God?" 

I can trust that God is perfect, but my trust in prophets is different. I can trust the prophet to have inspiration when acting as a prophet, and I can trust that prophets are doing the best they can in their unique stewardship and have our best interests at heart. But I'm not trusting them to be infallible. The pseudo-doctrine that prophets "can't lead us astray" exists in tension with their expressed fallibility and leads some to mistakenly believe that prophets are perfect in the administration of the things of God. I get seasick when we oversell expectations for prophets, even to the point that some Mormons forget that it's not the (false) fourteen fundamentals of following the prophet that constitute the fundamental principles of our religion, but rather the atonement of Christ.

This isn't to say that I don't respect the crew. They have a unique job and it's not an easy one. I love and sustain them. But I'm not on board because of the crew. Moreover, if the fundamental principle of our religion is the atonement of Jesus Christ, then it's definitely not fundamental that I agree with or even like everything coming from the crew, regardless of how many times I'm told they won't lead the boat "astray". It puzzles me how often that word is used, and yet I'm not convinced we're all on the same page as to what "astray" is even supposed to mean. Some assume this is a "promise" that the ship will never be guided wrong, and some assume it was the Lord who made such a "promise" in the first place. It's clear that we need to work through some tensions that inevitably come from living with fallibility.

If I'm not on board this particular ship because of the crew, can we please stop hearing so many messages about the crew? Can we please hear more messages about Jesus Christ? Other boats do this quite well. If we're humble, perhaps we could learn a thing or two from them. If we even paid more attention to our own history we could learn a thing or two:

"Our inspired prophets sometimes make mistakes
Never blindly follow, caution we must take
It is up to us to know how to discern
In our search for truth we still have much to learn!"

The Purpose of the Book of Mormon

From Mark Brown's "On Re-reading Scripture":

"The title page announces that the purpose of the book is to convince its readers to believe in Jesus Christ. It seems to me that this obvious point nevertheless gets overlooked, even by believing latter-day saints. The book can be understood in many ways, yes, but the more time we spend looking for modern day parallels to the Kingmen, for instance, the more we will miss the message of Christ’s grace and the hope and redemption that he offers.

That is the central message and it is so huge that everything else must be seen as something of a sideshow. Sideshows can be interesting and instructive, but they can also be distracting. The book consistently seeks to persuade us to believe and repent, and we just as consistently want to talk about something else. We cannot blame other Christians for missing the point of the Book of Mormon when we Mormons often seem intent on missing the point, too."

Accounting For The Book of Mormon

Jeffrey R. Holland's recent sermon and testimony has put a spotlight back on the Book of Mormon. It was a powerful and moving address. Three great commentaries on the talk can be found here at Mormanity, Dave's Mormon Inquiry, and Life on Gold Plates.

While his primary audience obviously consisted of believers in the truthfulness of Book of Mormon, it once again piqued my curiosity about how non-believers account for the Book of Mormon. I've been curious enough to try and step into others' shoes to see how they account for it. And while I often find myself being able to empathize with their position, I also repeatedly find their explanations frustratingly insufficient. Perhaps that sentiment goes both ways.

Nevertheless, for those who do not believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God, explaining it away presents a serious and difficult challenge. Most do not step up to the challenge at all, and dismiss it far too easily. Those who so quickly dismiss it never seem to convincingly articulate why, or at least how they do account for it. It's one thing to question various pieces of a puzzle, but to dismiss this puzzle without examining so many significant and important pieces seems reckless and irresponsible.

After examining any and all of these alternative explanations, it's still more improbable for me to believe that Joseph Smith, and those witnesses who saw and felt the plates, were lying the whole time. Not that people don't lie; people lie all the time. But in this case, look at what was at stake! And what would have been the motive for even attempting to pass off a "19th century hoax" as a sacred record and ancient witness of Jesus Christ? These are not unreasonable questions. And I think they demand good and reasonable answers, especially if I were to be persuaded to change my mind regarding the Book of Mormon--that it truly is what it purports to be.

I most certainly would need someone to do much better in making a case than regurgitating the same explanations that have already been brought forward. That Joseph thought it would be fun to get involved with magic, produce a hoax, and then live the unrelenting and persecuted life he lived in defending that lie--even eventually giving his life for it--just doesn't work for me.

As Elder Holland recently pointed out, why would Joseph and Hyrum turn to a fabricated hoax for spiritual strength and comfort right before they were killed? Meanwhile, there still cannot be found a reasonable and good explanation for how it was fabricated in the first place. Either Joseph was a genius who wrote it himself or he improbably got help from some other ghostwriter(s). And if the best someone can do is connect a few verses of Alma 40 with similarities from the 32nd chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith, or say that Joseph just copied from some other manuscript, then an explanation has been attempted for only a small portion of the book. But how was the rest of it written? What of the rest of Alma, or Mosiah, or the vast majority of the rest of the Book of Mormon? Certainly there are many other complicated books which have single authors (J. R. R. Tolkien comes to mind), but what of the Book of Mormon's powerful, moving, and convincing witness of the divinity of Christ, our Redeemer? After all, Christ is the central character and focus in the Book of Mormon from beginning to end. Was Joseph Smith really capable of that?

So far the "best" explanation I've been given by a thoughtful critic of the Book of Mormon is that it's simply a "hodge podge of various common 18th century themes, sources, and religious controversies combined into an imaginative and compelling story." But even this explanation doesn't give the entirety of the Book of Mormon and all it represents the amount of thought that it demands. And besides, didn't Alexander Campbell already say essentially the same thing while calling Joseph an impostor back in 1831? Such a flippant explanation does indeed seem a little pathetic for someone familiar with the totality of the Book of Mormon, let alone the abilities of Joseph Smith or the unbelievable help (aka: vast conspiracy) Joseph would have needed to pull off such an amazing scam.

It's actually harder for me to believe these alternative explanations than to simply believe that God and angels were involved. And as crazy as that can sound to a non-believer, it shouldn't be that crazy for any believer in the Bible, which also describes angelic visitations. Knowing what I know, it would require a greater "jump of reason" for me to conclude that the Book of Mormon wasn't brought forth by the "gift and power of God".

The Book of Mormon continues to be a marvel to me. I continue to be amazed at its relevance in my life today, as well as the great wisdom and power I find in its pages. And while I'm open minded about the actual translation process and even the presence of seeming anachronisms, those points all seem to miss the point. The Book is of God. I feel similar to Blake Ostler, who recently wrote on another blog: "The Book of Mormon is like breath to me. I love its teachings and passages so much that they are like a part of my soul."

And even I fail at fully accounting for all that it has meant for me.

True Christians and Grace

I recently came across this gem from Blake Ostler:

The Book of Mormon is a great place to go to find the LDS doctrine of grace. However, we often butcher it beyond recognition. The notion that we are saved by grace “after all we can do” is often translated into “we must do all that we can do first in order to be saved by grace.” Of course, such a reading eviscerates the text of any notion of grace at all. What it really means, it seems to me, is that by the grace of God, through Christ’s atonement, we are made free to choose for ourselves. Herein lies the difference between LDS and at least Calvinist evangelicals (and we shouldn’t lump together Arminians with Calvinists since they are two very different way of elucidating grace).

Here is the issue. The Book of Mormon teaches that we are free by grace to choose for ourselves. We are made free to repent of our sins and to turn to Christ in the act of repentance (which I think is based on the Hebrew term for “repent,” shuv, which means merely to turn around). However, if we must do something to receive the grace, then Calvinist evangelicals will reject it as a gospel of works (just as they reject Arminianism for the same reason). However, the Calvinist view of grace faces insuperable problems. According to them, because of original sin we are utterly incapable of choosing or repenting for ourselves. Therefore, if we are saved, it must be God who makes the choice as to whom is saved and who is damned. We arrive that easily at the doctrine of predestination which is entailed the Calvinist notion of grace. If we have no say in accepting grace, then it must be all up to God and predestination follows. If we have some say, then it won’t count as grace for many evangelicals.

In my view, I love the re-orietation of the doctrine of grace in LDS scripture. I view justification, the act of being born again, converted or “saved by grace” as the equivalent of entering into relationship with the Father through Christ. He accepts us into relationship without any conditions attached in pure love (we could call it ‘unconditional love’ except for the apostate and misbegotten view that uncondtional love is not a part of the gospel of Christ that has infiltrated our doctrine). We are thus accepted into relationship with God through sheer grace alone without works of any kind. All that we can do is accept the gift of love, the gift of the Son, that the Father offers to us unconditionally. However, once in the covenant relationship (entered through baptism), we must abide by the commandments to remain in the relationship and grow in in the process of sanctification toward glorification and exaltation. However, these commandments are not heavy burdens but merely ways we are taught that loving people treat each other. “Works” are always “works of love,” the works that follow from abiding the law of love that summarizes all of the commandments.

To those who complain that repenting as a condition of salvation reinstates a gospel of works, I reply that repentance merely means giving up those behaviors and ways of being that alienate us and keep us from accepting of the gift of love that is offered to us. When a person holds out his hands to accept a gift it is not a “work” in the sense that earns the gift, but merely the willing acceptance of a gift. Here is the key difference in my view: the gift offered is a loving relationship — and a person who loves another always leaves the other free to choose whether to enter into relationship and whether to maintain it. Love, by its very nature, is freely chosen. That is why the evangelical (Calvinist) view of grace is actually the opposite of grace, for it doesn’t leave the beloved free to accept or reject the loving relationship that is offered.

One final comment. Whereas salvation or being freed from sin is a matter of grace, the reward that we receive is always a matter of judgment of the works done while in this mortal life. If we confuse these two, then we will confuse the scheme of grace and works. We will be judged and receive according to our deeds. Works relate to the life we live after we learn to love and accept the loving relationship which saves us in Christ. However, these works are not done because commanded (although they are part of the love commandment), they are done because we love one another. And by these works of love we know who the true Christians are.

-Comment #10 on God’s Plan of Grace (/of Love/of Happiness/of Salvation)

Blake Ostler on the Book of Mormon

I absolutely love the Book of Mormon. My testimony of the Book of Mormon is that it is authentic. However, I’m very intrigued by Blake Ostler’s theory about it being a partial modern expansion of an ancient source. I haven’t studied his theory out completely to see how far he takes it, so I can’t say how much I agree or disagree. I’ve only read Updating the Expansion Theory, but I definitely think he may be onto something. It seems to fit well with what I understand about the translation process of the Book of Mormon. This is his final statement:

“I believe that the Book of Mormon is precisely what it claims to be: a book translated by the gift and power of God that tells us about the record of an ancient people. However, translation by the gift and power of God isn’t translation based upon an isomorphic rendering of an underlying text into English based on a knowledge of the ancient textual language; rather, it is a revelation from God which involves necessarily the limitations of vocabulary, conceptuality and horizons of God’s servant chosen to render it into English for us.”

A Witness for the Book of Mormon: Elder Holland's “Christ and the New Covenant”

While on my mission several years ago, my mission president let me borrow Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's book "Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon". It was a autographed copy, as my mission president was Elder Holland's brother-in-law. I quickly realized I needed to have a copy of my own. The entire book is a classic, but particularly in the final chapter, Elder Holland bears powerful witness of the Book of Mormon. In light of a recent conversation with several critics, I decided to type out a significant portion of that witness and post it here. It's definitely worth reading:

"In my lifetime I have had a thousand spiritual witnesses—ten thousand of them?—that Jesus is the Christ, the Everlasting Son of the Everlasting God. In that lifetime I have also learned that the gospel of Jesus Christ, once lost to mankind through apostasy, has been restored to the earth and is found in its fullness in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is the one church on the face of the earth that Christ himself has restored, authorized, and empowered to act in his name. With a commission that could not have been imagined in the days of my youth, I myself am now called as a witness of these facts, a special witness ‘of the name of Christ in all the world.’

"In that role as witness I wish to declare that the spiritual experiences and holy affirmations I have had regarding the Savior and his restored church first came to me as a young man when I read the Book of Mormon. It was while reading this sacred record that I felt—again and again—the undeniable whispering of the Holy Ghost declaring to my soul the truthfulness of its message. To those first convictions have been added, one way or another, all of the other quickening moments and sanctifying manifestations that now give meaning to my days and purpose to my life.

"I know with undeniable, unshakable certainty that the Book of Mormon is a record of ancient origin, written by Israelites called of God to do so, protected and delivered by the angels of heaven and translated in our time by a modern prophet, seer, and revelator, Joseph Smith, Jr. I know that he translated it as he said he did—‘by the gift and power of God’—for such a book could not have been translated any other way.

"No other book has so affected my view of God and man, my view of mortality and eternity. No other book has stirred within me so many emotions. No other book has had such an impact upon my personal, family, educational, professional, and now apostolic life. Because I know that the Book of Mormon is a true witness—another testament and a new covenant—that Jesus is the Christ, I know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God. As my great-great-great grandfather said of his own conversion in the earliest days of the Restoration, ‘No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.’ That is emphatically my own assertion more than a century and a half later. And this magnificent book was translated when Joseph Smith was barely a boy, a lad still coming of age. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, ‘Some boy. Some book.’…

"I am suggesting that one has to take something of a do-or-die stand regarding the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the divine origins of the Book of Mormon. Reason and righteousness require it. Joseph Smith must be accepted either as a prophet of God or else as a charlatan of the first order, but no one should tolerate any ludicrous, even laughable middle ground about the wonderful contours of a young boy’s imagination or his remarkable facility for turning a literary phrase. That is an unacceptable position to take—morally, literarily, historically, or theologically.

"As the word of God has always been—and I testify again that is purely and precisely what the Book of Mormon is—this record is ‘quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, to the dividing asunder of both joints and marrow’. The Book of Mormon is that quick and is that powerful. And it certainly is that sharp. Nothing in our history or our message cuts to the chase faster than our uncompromising declaration that Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. A recent critic said that our account of and devotion to the Book of Mormon and, by implication, Joseph Smith’s role in producing it, is ‘the most cherished and unique Mormon belief’. I could not agree more, so long as we are allowed to maintain that is so because the Book of Mormon affirms our yet higher and more sublime belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world.

"Consider the withering examination the Book of Mormon and its admittedly extraordinary claims have withstood. Has anyone presently reading these words ever tried to write anything of spiritual, redeeming, genuinely inspiring substance? With university degrees and libraries and computers and research assistants and decades of time, have you ever tried to write anything that anyone could read without tedium or apathy? And if one could produce even a few such inspiring pages, would that slim volume be anything anyone would want to read more than once, to say nothing of scores of times—marking it and pondering it, cross-referencing and quoting it, taking thousands of public sermons and a heart full of personal solace from it? Would it be good enough for people to weep over, to say it changed their lives, or saved their lives, or became something they were willing to give up fortune and future for—and then did just that?

"What if your literary piece created enemies for you? What if it were left in the public arena, open to the criticism of your most hostile and learned opponents, for more than 150 years? What if it were pulled apart and minutely examined and held up to the light of history, literature, anthropology, and religion with no other purpose than to discredit it and denounce you? Could what you have written be that good? Would you still be willing to say that it was an inspired piece of wok, let alone hold to your assertion that it was divinely revealed and that its contents were eternally important—that in a very real sense the whole future of the world was linked to your little volume? By this time would either you or your piece still be standing? Would anyone still be reading it?

"If Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon as a work of ancient origin, then I would move heaven and earth to meet the ‘real’ nineteenth-century author. After one hundred and fifty years, no one can come up with a credible alternative candidate, but if the book were false, surely there must be someone willing to step forward—if no one else, at least the descendents of the ‘real’ author—claiming credit for such a remarkable document and all that has transpired in its wake. After all, a writer that can move millions can make millions. Shouldn’t someone have come forth then or now to cashier the whole phenomenon?

"And what of the witnesses, the three and the eight, who forever affixed their signatures to the introductory pages of the Book of Mormon declaring they had, respectively, seen an angel and handled the plates of gold? Each of the three and several of eight had difficulty with the institutional Church during their lifetimes, including years of severe disaffection from Joseph Smith personally. Nevertheless, none of them—even in hours of emotional extremity or days of public pressure—ever disavowed his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon.

"Late in his life David Whitmer said ‘as sure as there is a God in heaven,’ he had indeed seen the angel Moroni and did know the Book of Mormon was true. Fifty years after the experience, he could still readily identify the month, the year, even the time of day (“It was approximately 11 A.M.,” he said) when the angel appeared in ‘a dazzingly brilliant light’ and brought ‘a sensation of joy absolutely indescribable’.

"Martin Harris was asked in the last year of his life if he ‘believed the Book of Mormon was true.’ He answered ‘No,’ then reassured his initially surprised interrogator that he ‘knew’ the book was true, which was greater than belief. ‘I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen, and I have heard what I have heard,’ he said. ‘I saw the angel and the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated and heard the voice of God declare it was translated correctly.’

"Oliver Cowdery, who served as scribe as well as witness in this remarkable translation process and whose unique role in the early years of the Church is all the more poignant in light of his later fall from such sacred and significant responsibilities, said (while excommunicated from the Church), ‘I wrote with my own pen the entire Book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of the Prophet, as he translated it by the gift and power of God…I beheld with my eyes, and handled with my hands, the gold plates from which it was translated…That book is true.’ Thirty-seven years after Oliver called his family to his deathbed to yet once more bear his testimony of the Book of Mormon, his wife Elizabeth wrote, ‘From the hour when the glorious vision of the Holy Messenger revealed to mortal eyes the hidden prophecies which God had promised his faithful followers should come forth in due time, until the moment when he passed away from the earth, he always without one doubt or shadow of turning affirmed the divinity and truth of the Book of Mormon.’

"No other origin for the Book of Mormon has ever come to light because no other account than the one Joseph Smith and these witnesses gave can truthfully be given. There is no other clandestine ‘author,’ no elusive ghostwriter still waiting in the wings after a century and a half for the chance to stride forward and startle the religious world. Indeed, that any writer—Joseph Smith or anyone else—could create the Book of Mormon out of whole cloth would be an infinitely greater miracle than that young Joseph translated it from an ancient record by ‘the gift and power of God.’

"On occasion this young prophet dictated his translation at white-hot speed, turning out as many as ten present-day pages in a sitting and ultimately producing the whole manuscript in something less than ninety working days. Those who have ever translated any text will understand what this means, especially when remembering it took fifty English scholars seven years (using generally superb and readily available translations for a starting point) to produce the King James Bible at the rate of one page per day.

"It is not insignificant that Joseph Smith did virtually all of this work in the midst of seemingly endless distractions and in the face of sometimes open hostility. Nevertheless, following those breaks in the translation effort he apparently never looked at the previously dictated material nor had any portion of it read back to him for context or continuity. Furthermore, he was never known to have consulted any reference book of any kind during the whole of the translation experience…

"I have read a reasonable number of books in my life, and I hope to read many more. I am not steeped in scholarship, but I can recognize profundity in print, especially when I see it page after page. In a lifetime of reading, the Book of Mormon stands preeminent in my intellectual and spiritual life, the classic of all classics, a reaffirmation of the Holy Bible, a voice from the dust, a witness for Christ, the word of the Lord unto salvation. I testify of that as surely as if I had, with the Three Witnesses, seen the angel Moroni or, with the Three and the Eight Witnesses, seen and handled the plates of gold.

"The Book of Mormon is the sacred expression of Christ’s great last covenant with mankind. It is a new covenant, a new testament from the New World to the entire world. Reading it was the beginning of my light. It was the source of my first spiritual certainly that God lives, that he is my Heavenly Father, and that a plan of happiness was outlined in eternity for me. It led me to love the Holy Bible and the rest of the Standard Works of the Church. It taught me to love the Lord Jesus Christ, to glimpse his merciful compassion, and to consider the grace and grandeur of his atoning sacrifice for my sins and the sins of all men, women, and children from Adam to the end of time. The light I walk by is his light. His mercy and magnificence lead me in my witness of him to the world.

"As Mormon said to Moroni in one of their most demanding times, so I say to the family of mankind, who must prepare for the coming of our King of Kings: ‘Be faithful in Christ; and may…[he] lift thee up…May his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and longsuffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever. And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in the heavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his power…be, and abide with you forever.’”

Angels, Gold Plates, and Miracles

It struck me quite unusually today. I have a testimony of angels, gold plates, and miracles. And because I believe in the gold plates and the Book of Mormon, I believe in a truly awesome God; a God who reaches out to bless us and help us. In my view, the Book of Mormon is really one of the most remarkable miracles in the history of the world. I realize that from the outside, angels and gold plates must seem like pure madness. But on the inside, it makes complete sense. To quote Richard Bushman, I "find God in its pages", and I'm inspired every time I read it. And believing in angels and gold plates isn't really any more unusual than believing that a man rose from the dead. And for the record, the Book of Mormon confirms that miracle too. It's true, and it is powerful. That's my testimony. Simple really. And quite miraculous.

The Power of The Book of Mormon in My Life

It's hard to put into words something that is so dear to your heart--something that has so frequently blessed your life and filled it with excitement, exhilaration, and power. And yet that is exactly what the Book of Mormon does for me. I'm not one to ever minimize my testimony of the Holy Bible, but it's just that the Book of Mormon is so unique to this dispensation of time. It's an unparalleled powerful witness of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. It builds faith. Faith in Christ. Faith in the Restoration. It teaches simple, plain, and powerful truths that thrill my mind, heart, and my soul every time I read or teach from the book. It brings the Spirit into my life and I'm able to see things so clearly--"things as they really are, and of things as they really will be" (Jacob 4:13)--and my vision centers on the Redeemer of the World. The Book of Mormon is a message of hope--hope in Christ, through His atonement, and it leads to a pure love of Christ. My heart turns--repents--and begins to trust more in God. I feel a humble gratitude that I can be filled with such goodness and partake of so much wisdom. It's simply incredible.

A Bottle of Wine and a Book of Mormon

I just might have made history! I have possibly become the first person to have given away a bottle of wine and a Book of Mormon at the same time to the same person! Looking back on my experience today actually seems a little bit funny and ironic at the same time.

We had a very nice, humble, Christian man come to our house to install new ceiling fans. He's come before and we enjoyed conversing with him, as well as the fact that he's very reasonable in terms of pricing. So we called on him again.

Well, long story short, we've had this bottle of Chardonnay sitting in our pantry ever since our anniversary. When the folks at the Marriott found out it was our anniversary, they very graciously surprised us in our room with chocolate covered strawberry's and an ice cold bottle of Chardonnay wine. We called to thank them for the gesture, and gently explained that we actually don't drink, so perhaps they would like to take the bottle back. (We thought maybe they'd switch it out for sparkling cider.) They just said, "Oh, that's okay, take it home with you and give it away". So we packed it away and enjoyed the strawberries.

Today as we conversed with our ceiling fan installer he mentioned something about he and his wife drinking wine, and we realized that here was the perfect person to give away the one and only bottle of wine to have ever graced our home! I thought he'd especially appreciate it since he was already giving us such a great deal on the installation of the ceiling fans. Plus, it wouldn't cost me any extra!

Well, an hour or two later he brought up the topic of religion. He asked if I was Christian (presumably because of all the pictures of the Savior hanging in our home). That got us started on another great conversation and I enjoyed learning about his experience with finding a church, but lamented with him about how he still feels confused. I took the opportunity to share some thoughts and some of my beliefs with him--specifically how we can go to God directly in prayer and the method of how God answers us. His faith has been growing as he's experienced this kind of prayer. I shared some thoughts that Alma shared in chapter 32 of the Book of Mormon about how we can experiment with certain aspects of the gospel, like prayer (or with the scriptures), and how our faith begins to grow, helping us to be less confused and to have a more sure knowledge. He was genuinely intrigued with comparing the word to a seed, trying the experiment to see if it is a good seed, and then how, if we nourish it, it begins to grow; then we know that it is a good seed. I realized that here was somebody who would be open and happy to receive a Book of Mormon.

He also agreed that it made perfect sense that Christ would have had prophets among other lands to teach His gospel to His "other sheep". He asked me to show him that scripture in John 10:16 after I quoted the Savior and explained that the people in the Book of Mormon were among His "other sheep". So I got out my Bible as well. It felt so good to have somebody interested in what I had to offer instead of not being interested at all, or interested only in debating! Here we were standing in the kitchen talking about Jesus and about our beliefs--and it was great!

As he gathered his things up to leave, I paused to take in the funny picture of a bottle of wine, a Book of Mormon, and his cash payment sitting together along with his tools. He's one of the most humble, nicest, and most interested guys I've met here. The ceiling fans work great, and today he went home glad and with a little bit more than he expected. And I have to smile as I think of the Spirit that was there--along with a bottle of wine and a Book of Mormon.

Are you telling the truth about the Bible?

Someone not of our faith recently asked me a question I was glad to answer. He was under the impression that LDS people believe the Bible had been corrupted and wanted to know "just exactly how the Bible has been corrupted". I appreciated him for asking the question and for having the chance to respond.

My response is based off of my New Testament class notes with Stephen Robinson while I studied at BYU several years ago. He was a master teacher and his areas of expertise were Biblical Studies (New Testament, Christian Origins, History of Christianity), as well as LDS studies. He reads Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic, and Coptic—so he’s done his homework. Based off that class I learned some things about the Bible I didn’t know previously—some of which I used to try to answer the question and clear up any misunderstanding.

Our present New Testament dates back to about 367 A.D. when the books of scripture were organized. Sometime between 50 A.D. and 100/175 A.D. some “plain and precious” things were taken out. They were NOT edited or altered (corrupted?). They were just lost. Comparing the books of scripture to a file cabinet—some files were just taken out and lost completely. They weren’t edited—just lost. (For example, 1st Corinthians 5:9—that epistle was lost. Try to picture a letter to Loudicious, or a letter .5 to the Corinthians, versus the first letter that we know of.)

Now, in the copying of the copies of the biblical manuscripts, accidental scribal mistakes were made--that's just historical fact. Also, according to Dr. Bart Ehrman, "scribes occasionally altered the words of their sacred texts to make them more patently orthodox and to prevent their misuse by Christians who espoused aberrant views." Most of these alterations were relatively minor and did not affect fundamental Christian doctrine.

We ought to be thankful the monks preserved that which we have. That which we have (our present Bible) is largely correct—and apostolic. We testify of the miracle of the Holy Bible.




The second century church Hellanized the Bible. (They tried to make it fit into Greek theory). Now there are over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. No two are alike. And there is no such thing as “the original Greek”, only scholarly reconstructions of what we think Paul must have written.

Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, and Greek as a second language. (One side note that I find interesting is that the word always translated “carpenter” in Greek means “architect, builder, contractor”. The Greek “Tekton” means builder. Thus, the “Builder” of the Universe was a builder by profession. (Jesus would have worked in wood and stone).

But the Bible as we know it today is largely correct. The truer LDS understanding is that there were completely lost books--like a file was just deleted from the computer and never was included in the Bible that we have today. Now certainly there are a few things that got changed up in the translations and in the copying of the original scripts, but the truth is we can’t know for sure how much or how many. So I thank God that we have what we have in the Holy Bible--I love the Bible--as well as the further “plain and precious” things contained in the Book of Mormon.

A "Works Based Gospel"? You're badly mistaken.

There seems to be a huge misunderstanding. Actually, there are many misunderstandings, but this post highlights a major one; that we believe in a works based gospel, based right off of 2nd Nephi 25:23. My response is:

"You're misinterpreting how "we" interpret 2nd Nephi 25:23. The heart of it is saying that we are saved by grace NOTWITHSTANDING all we can do. Or in other words, "after all is said and done, or after all we can do (which isn't much)--we are saved by the grace of Christ." This is much more in line with LDS teaching and with all the other scriptures in the Book of Mormon, which eloquently states the doctrine of salvation by grace.

I would guess that there are some Church members who perhaps misunderstood our own doctrine/scriptures and think of the gospel as a gospel of works. They are wrong to do so and have not understood our own doctrine. When through our faith in Him we enter into a covenant relationship with Him through baptism, we turn ourselves over to Him. However, just like a husband and wife who enter into a marriage covenant are expected to be faithful to each other, He expects us to be faithful to Him and love Him more than we love anything or anyone else. Hence the scriptural analogy with Christ as the groom and the Church (and its members) as the bride.

Paul's definition of faith I believe includes "faithfulness". James' definition of faith is more like "belief"--hence the need to add "faith without works is dead". They're just defining faith differently. It's two sides of the same coin. Both were apostles. Both were right. Both taught that Christ expects us to give him our all--but no matter how much or how little that "all" is--it's insufficient to save us without the Savior Jesus Christ.

The Book of Mormon clearly teaches, “Since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself” (Alma 22:14). “There can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world” (Alma 34:12; see also 2 Ne. 9:7; Alma 34:8–16). “Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; … he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law” (2 Ne. 2:6–7). Consequently, “there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Ne. 2:8). And so we “rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ … that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Ne. 25:26).

I quote from Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles:
“These teachings obviously stand in opposition to the belief or assumption of some mortals (perhaps even some members of our Church) that they have no need of Christ because they can think they can save themselves by their own works.

“As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we testify with the Book of Mormon prophet-king Benjamin that “there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.

“For behold … salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ” (Mosiah 3:17–18).

And so we say to all, in the words the prophet Moroni wrote as a conclusion to the Book of Mormon:

“Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ. …

“And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot” (Moroni 10:32–33).”

This is fundamental! This is our doctrine! I've personally felt the power The Book of Mormon has to bring us to Christ and rely wholly on His merits, mercy, and grace (and not our own.) By continuing to perpetuate the myth that we believe in salvation by works would be disingenuous and dishonest--the very thing you have accused us of in times past."

When you think about it, it is "all we can do" to repent of our sins and trust in Jesus.

Reasons Why I Love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

There have to be a million reasons to love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here's my feeble attempt to list some that stand out to me, although not necessarily in order of importance. Naturally, the list is not all-inclusive, so please feel free to add your own:
1. Jesus Christ himself restored the Church [Try to top that one! :)]
2. The pure Gospel of Jesus Christ that is taught, leading us to partake of the Atonement, and thus have true joy.
3.. Imperfect people make up the entire membership of the Church, thus providing us with lots of opportunities to practice living Christ's teachings and putting the gospel into practice!
4. The Spirit. The simple, sweet, whisperings of the Holy Ghost confirming the truth of all things.
5. The Scriptures. They never cease to amaze and edify. In addition to the Bible, we have the restoration scriptures known as The Book of Mormon (another testament of Jesus Christ), the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price--each giving greater light and knowledge and each centered on the Redeemer of Mankind.
6. Prophets and Apostles (past and present)--they bless our lives in ways too many to list.
7. General Conference
8. The fact that the Church's humanitarian efforts reach out and bless the needy of the world regardless of race, politics, and religion.
9. Blessings of the Priesthood
10. We're all volunteer's. Nobody gets paid to preach. That means we each have a contribution to make and can all help "grow the Church" in more ways than one. (Although, now that I think about it, I certainly wouldn't refuse a little cash for teaching seminary every morning at 6am!)
11. Emphasis on eternal families. "Our family can be together forever!"
12. The hymns, the Tabernacle Choir, and other great music.
13. There's something for everyone, and there's always something new to learn and experience--always.
14. And there's something about the controversy, which has always accompanied the Church, that gives us a pretty unique legacy and keeps things interesting. (It's like living in the eye of a storm: calm on the inside and turbulence swirling about). At least we're never at a loss with things to discus!
15. Direct Revelation from God, both personally and for the Church collectively. It guides our personal lives, and it guides the life of the Church too. We can't get too messed up before God turns us in the right direction!