This morning I was studying the Isaiah passages in 2 Nephi, which as always for me is a process of trying to figure out where the Spirit has something to tell me through this text as opposed to where the text gives voice to human fear, or misunderstanding, or will to power. And at one point a little orthodox voice in my head demanded, “How can you just pick and choose what you like from the prophets’ teachings?” To be precise, the voice I heard belonged to one of the high councilors on the disciplinary council that excommunicated me, who asked me that question.
My quick, hopefully polite answer to the question is that I don’t see it as a matter of picking and choosing what I like; rather, I’m trying to use my mind and heart to discern the Spirit’s voice, which is by no means always self-validating. I trust my own light at any given moment—what else do I have to go by unless you’re asking me to live on borrowed light or practice blind obedience?—but I also operate on the assumption that as I continue to engage with the tradition, I may very well find that in the future I will hear the Spirit speaking to me where I’m not able to hear it now. In other words, I try to simultaneously practice integrity, humility, the use of my reason, and a search for personal revelation.
That, as I say, is the hopefully polite answer. But this morning, for some reason, I was feeling a bit cantankerous, and a more elaborate, somewhat more confrontational way of answering the question came to mind. At the risk of regretting it later—i.e., I may later decide this reflects too much of a spirit of contention—I thought I’d put this longer response “on the record.”
If your reaction to this blog is an outraged (or perhaps sincerely bewildered), “How can you pick and choose what to accept from the prophets’ teachings?” then may I suggest the following:
1. Go to the Journal of Discourses and read—actually read—what Brigham Young taught about the following subjects: the necessity for people to shed their own blood to atone for certain serious sins; God’s eternally decreed penalty of death on the spot for white people who mix their blood with the seed of Cain; the father of our spirits bringing one of his celestial wives down to earth so that the two of them could become Adam and Eve; and God the Father begetting Jesus via sexual intercourse with Mary. Also, if you’re someone who believes that God doesn’t progress in knowledge, read what Brigham Young had to say on that question.
2. Say whatever you need to in order to feel less threatened by these teachings: a prophet is a prophet only when speaking as such; only statements that appear over the signatures of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve are official church doctrine; the teachings of living prophets take precedence over those of dead prophets; the teachings of church leaders need to be measured against the teachings of the scriptures; these statements need to be understood as a product of their time; I don’t worry about these statements because I have a testimony; etc.
3. Imagine me looking at you in silence, waiting for you to recognize the irony, then turning around and walking away.
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4 comments:
Your assessment is right on. We all do the picking and choosing to some extent, even the most orthodox moment. I imagine that the rejoinder that someone might make to this would simply be a kind of hindsight bias- "Of course NOW we know that some of the things that BY talked about were not true, but our leaders don't talk like that anymore and must be completely infallible." What it comes down to is that when "I" (a hypothetical I), the orthodox upright Latter-day Saint, does this, it is called discerning the Spirit. When "you" (again a hypothetical you), the apostate, does it, you are speaking ill of the Lord's anointed, being a cafeteria Mormon, steadying the Ark, _____ (insert wicked-sounding metaphor here).
(By the way, this is Adam Laughton, Ariel Bybee Laughton's husband. We met when Richard Bushman visited Duke and UNC and later at BYU's reception at AAR/SBL this year.)
That should be "orthodox Mormon" not orthodox moment.
Hi, Adam! Great to hear from you. I think you're right--the line in the sand for LDS orthodoxy is questioning the current leadership. You can question the teachings of a prophet once he (she?) is dead: witness what goes on at FARMS or FAIR. Questioning the teachings of the living is what will get you into trouble.
The drawing the line at the living leadership is so unsatisfying to me. It takes an incredibly short and weak memory to forget that yesterday's living prophet will be tomorrow's dead prophet. You would think that people would be particularly sensitive to this since GBH just died. Does that mean we get to throw out the Proclamation on the Family? Two out of the three members of the First Presidency that signed that are dead, as well as two other apostles. You could look at it the other way too. The dead prophet whose teachings I ridicule now was in this time, the living prophet. I mean, to me, Brigham Young said a lot of wacky stuff, but he was, for my wife's ancestors, the living oracle of the Lord. So there has to be a more principled way of doing this. Picking and choosing among the teachings of the living prophets seems to me to be not only consistent with notions of agency, but compelled by it and the desire for a life of conscience and integrity.
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