During the late 1820s, a group of people come together who are seeking new revelation from God and an outpouring of divine power. They desire to be instruments in bringing about the consummation of God's purposes, which they understand in terms of proclaiming the gospel in its purity, building up the kingdom, redeeming Israel, establishing Zion. They ask, and as God has promised, they receive; they seek, and they find. Through gifts of the Spirit, God speaks to them according to their weakness and their desires, in language they can understand, while at the same time constantly seeking to draw them into greater understanding and more perfect love. The movement attracts new adherents, and thus the Latter Day Saint tradition is born.
From the beginning, however, the Saints have been prone to conflict and division. There are various reasons for this: sincere differences of belief and interpretation, blinding prejudices, psychological insecurities, pride, abuse of power, love of authority, lack of teachability, jealousy, selfishness, parochialism, dogmatism, intolerance, fear of the other. The result is that the Latter Day Saints—the "people of the Restoration," to use a phrase from the Community of Christ D&C that struck me—have been divided and scattered into multiple communities, multiple denominations, living out different understandings of the Restoration.
If we accept the principle that all who ask will receive, and if we have the charity to assume that adherents of all the different Latter Day Saint movements are sincerely seeking to discern God's will, then it follows that the Spirit is at work among all these movements, in one way or another, to one degree or another. They all have spiritual gifts; they all have spiritual failings. I wouldn't say they're all on equal footing: I definitely believe some expressions of the Restoration come closer to God's ideals than others. But I'm prepared to adopt an ecumenical outlook that understands the various Latter Day Saint communities as belonging to a single "people of the Restoration," whom God calls to learn from one another that all may be edified.
So from that perspective, here's how I'd like to study the Doctrine and Covenants the next time around. Here's a plan for an "ecumenical" D&C study. Rather than approach the D&C as a single volume, of which different groups have "their version," I've been trying to reconceive the D&C as an evolutionary tree, showing not only where Latter Day Saints have parted ways with one another, but also to what extent different groups have held certain revelations as a common scriptural heritage. Something like this:
My plan, then, for an ecumenical D&C study would be to work my way up the tree, from roots to branches. I'd start with the 1835 D&C, though in my fantasy I have a well-designed critical reader's edition that makes it easy to see where the 1835 revelations have been revised from the Book of Commandments—those revisions being the reason that Hedrickite groups like the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) reject the D&C. The 1835 D&C was organized topically, not chronologically, and I'd want to read the revelations in that topical order, asking myself what it would mean for the Saints to encounter the latter-day canon in that particular way. I would also want to study the Lectures on Faith, since they formed part of the canon at that stage of the tradition. Next, I'd study the revelations that were added to the 1844-1846 editions of the D&C following Joseph Smith's death. What does this layer add to the Latter Day Saint tradition's understanding of God, God's purposes, and our role in bringing them about?
Then I'd follow the LDS branch of the movement, reading the various revelations added to the 1876 D&C. I haven't been able to figure out what edition of the D&C the FLDS and other Mormon fundamentalists use, but I presume that the 1876 edition constitutes a shared heritage between those groups and the LDS. If I could get reliable texts, I'd also like to read the 1882 and 1883 revelations to John Taylor that were published in some foreign language editions of the D&C—a kind of LDS Septuagint, as it were. Last of all on this branch of the tree, I'd study the revelations added to the LDS D&C since the Manifesto (O.D. 1-2, D&C 137-138).
Then I'd back up to follow the Reorganized branch. The first "layer" of my reading here (I'm mixing archaeological and genealogical imagery) would be sections 114-144, the revelations of Joseph Smith III, Frederick M. Smith, and Israel A. Smith. After that point, different groups on the Reorganized branch part ways regarding what they accept as canonical. So my next "layer" would be sections 145-163 of the Community of Christ D&C. And then perhaps I'd read the sections that the Remnant Church has added to its D&C; I confess I'm not really thrilled about that, but it would test my commitment to the principle of listening to all (D&C 88:122).
Between now and the end of the year (more precisely, between now and the beginning of Advent), I plan to reflect on my readings in the Community of Christ D&C. If there turns out to be time, perhaps I'll back up and read the Lectures on Faith. I might even reread earlier sections of the D&C in the 1835 order. But if there isn't time for all that this year, I'll save this plan for another year.
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