I didn't realize that JFS & BR McConkie hijacked the Church

[TripletDaddy]

yea, it was in conference right? It was strictly on the savior/atonement.

The "I shall know no more then than I do now" talk?

I've always wondered about that comment...was he taking some license with that figure if speech or was he speaking literally (which is not uncommon in a testimony). His foibles aside, Bruce Redd is definitely one of the more compelling personas of the modern era LDS Church. And I have no doubt that the man loved the Church and the Gospel. The great irony is that the man that arguably spent more time than anyone else in the modern era promulgating doctrine to the masses is also responsible for the promulgation of much of the more common false doctrines that are still alive and well within the rank and file today. And in a further bit of bizarre coincidence, it was Bruce Redd that opined that those who teach false doctrine would lose their soul as a result.

I appreciate that we have moved away from the Apostles as specialists model and more towards Apostles as "general" authorities on basic gospel principles. Thus, we hear more from our leaders about faith than we do about how many years ago the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

[SeattleUte]

Many of you are likely Church history buffs. Smith and McConkie both circumvented the prophet in order to publish their opinions. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine was so rife w/ errors that McKay didn't want to correct it for fear of destroying McConkie's reputation. McConkie was so arrogant and prideful that he disobeyed the prophet and republished it.

Sad that a few of the hardest of hardliners were able to "create" doctrine and practices, especially when they weren't entitled to do so.

I didn't know McKay was such a timid wus. Sat by and allowed a popular apostle to misrepresent the Church's doctrine as horribly racist and didn't utter a peep.

It never made any sense to me that MD said what it did about African Americans when the LDS Church's record on civil rights related issues is otherwise so enlightened.

[Viking]

The "I shall know no more then than I do now" talk?

I've always wondered about that comment...was he taking some license with that figure if speech or was he speaking literally (which is not uncommon in a testimony). His foibles aside, Bruce Redd is definitely one of the more compelling personas of the modern era LDS Church. And I have no doubt that the man loved the Church and the Gospel. The great irony is that the man that arguably spent more time than anyone else in the modern era promulgating doctrine to the masses is also responsible for the promulgation of much of the more common false doctrines that are still alive and well within the rank and file today. And in a further bit of bizarre coincidence, it was Bruce Redd that opined that those who teach false doctrine would lose their soul as a result.

I appreciate that we have moved away from the Apostles as specialists model and more towards Apostles as "general" authorities on basic gospel principles. Thus, we hear more from our leaders about faith than we do about how many years ago the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

the veiled "i've seen jesus" statements are really annoying.

If you've seen the guy, man up, grow a sack and say it. Some of us might actually pay attention as opposed to now, which whenever i hear this stuff, i roll my eyes and say: "if they really saw JHC, then they would have said it."

[Jacob]

The "I shall know no more then than I do now" talk?

I've always wondered about that comment...was he taking some license with that figure if speech or was he speaking literally (which is not uncommon in a testimony).

I always thought he meant that the spiritual witness he had received was so strong that the knowledge is just as strong as actually seeing the resurrected Lord, which he had not done.

This is not an uncommon sentiment in the churhc. I believe it was Woodruff (among others) who made statements about how the confirmation of the Holy Ghost was stronger than the visitations of angels, or actually witnessing celestial beings.

I've been reading Varieties of Religious Experience, and this type of sentiment is also common in non-LDS religious experience.

Example:

The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.
My highest faith in God and truest idea of him were then born in me.

Or

God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person.

[TripletDaddy]

I don't disagree. In fact, I have had similar thoughts in thinking about that quote. In LDS layman's terms, he is basically saying, "I know beyond a shadow of a doubt..."

However, given that we have accounts of some Church leaders actually seeing Deity, there is also the option that BRM was speaking literally.

[wuapinmon]

However, given that we have accounts of some Church leaders actually seeing Deity, there is also the option that BRM was speaking literally.

Being a convert, that's how I always interpreted that talk.

[TexTechCoug]

I didn't know McKay was such a timid wus. Sat by and allowed a popular apostle to misrepresent the Church's doctrine as horribly racist and didn't utter a peep. It never made any sense to me that MD said what it did about African Americans when the LDS Church's record on civil rights related issues is otherwise so enlightened.

He actually wasn't an apostle at the time, although his father-in-law was. If you think the LDS Church's position on Civil Rights is enlightened you either don't know Church history or you have a different definition of the word.

McKay did everything short of publicly humiliate BRM, including having Deseret Books remove that crap from the shelves.

[Solon]

Being a convert, that's how I always interpreted that talk.

Just shooting from the hip here. One of the reasons that ancient church members didn't call more apostles after the original ones died off (the selection of Matthias to replace Judas aside) was that the apostles had personally known Jesus (which is why Matthias was eligible). Even Paul met the resurrected Jesus face-to-face. This requirement of personally knowing Jesus probably stems from an etymological understanding of an "apostle" as "one who is sent." If you've never met Jesus, how could he "send" you anywhere?

I suspect there is/was some element of this old requirement to be an "apostle" in the LDS church.

As for racism and apostles, I stumbled on this Harold B. Lee gem last week. Lee was called as an apostle in 1941. He produced the following in 1945:

To impress the grave consequences and the seriousness of intermarriage as between those of different races and particularly with reference to intermarriage with the seed of Cain, President Brigham Young made this remark in an address before the legislature: "...that mark shall remain upon the seed of Cain until the seed of Abel shall be redeemed, and Cain shall not receive the priesthood until the time of that redemption. Any man having one drop of the seed of Cain in him cannot receive the priesthood . . . ." (Wilford Woodruff, page 351) Surely no one of you who is an heir to a body of more favored lineage would knowingly intermarry with a race that would condemn your posterity to penalties that have been placed upon the seed of Cain by the judgments of God.

It might not be amiss likewise to urge upon you the most serious consideration of any question of your possible intermarriage with individuals of any other race than your own. No one of you with safety can defy the laws of heredity and the centuries of training that have developed strong racial characteristics and tendencies among the distinctive peoples of the earth and then expect to find a happy, congenial family relationship from such a union. The wisdom of experience fully demonstrates the importance of marrying those of your own race and those with a similar background of customs and manners.

Harold B. Lee, Youth and the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1945), 171-172. Lee originally delivered the bulk of these little essays as radio addresses in the "Sunday Evening Radio Hour" from January to June 1945.

[Aside: In a different address, Lee also suggested that having few or no children was closely connected to divorce.]

[BlueHair]

Just shooting from the hip here. One of the reasons that ancient church members didn't call more apostles after the original ones died off (the selection of Matthias to replace Judas aside) was that the apostles had personally known Jesus (which is why Matthias was eligible). Even Paul met the resurrected Jesus face-to-face. This requirement of personally knowing Jesus probably stems from an etymological understanding of an "apostle" as "one who is sent." If you've never met Jesus, how could he "send" you anywhere?

I suspect there is/was some element of this old requirement to be an "apostle" in the LDS church.

As for racism and apostles, I stumbled on this Harold B. Lee gem last week. Lee was called as an apostle in 1941. He produced the following in 1945:

[Aside: In a different address, Lee also suggested that having few or no children was closely connected to divorce.]

That quote turns my stomach. One drop of the seed of Cain disqualifies you from the priesthood? The racism was even worse than I thought.

[Donuthole]

That quote turns my stomach. One drop of the seed of Cain disqualifies you from the priesthood? The racism was even worse than I thought.

As mad as I want to be at HBL for making a statement like that, it was not a mentality that was unique to the Church in 1945.

[byu71]

As mad as I want to be at HBL for making a statement like that, it was not a mentality that was unique to the Church in 1945.

If God through his living prophets told me that some race are good people, treat them kindly, but they shouldn't be marry your daughters and they can't
have the Priesthood. I can either think the brethern are racists or those we speak off are lesser for some reason. Should I believe they are prophets, I can't myself be considered a racist can I.

[Solon]

As mad as I want to be at HBL for making a statement like that, it was not a mentality that was unique to the Church in 1945.

That's true. The most vocal proponents of racial purity in 1945 were Germans wearing swastikas.

Lee acknowledges as much in the beginning of this little talk, but notes that the Germans have a false idea of master-race in comparison with gospel lineages and eligibility for priesthood.

It's a pretty uncomfortable juxtaposition, IMO.

[ERCougar]

As mad as I want to be at HBL for making a statement like that, it was not a mentality that was unique to the Church in 1945.

I couldn't care less if this was a common mentalitot for the time. These are mouthpieces for the Lord addressing (albeit indirectly) what is perhaps the most important moral issue of the twentieth century. We should expect better. Or they should relinquish the claim.

So yeah...turns my stomach too.

[Viking]

I couldn't care less if this was a common mentalitot for the time. These are mouthpieces for the Lord addressing (albeit indirectly) what is perhaps the most important moral issue of the twentieth century. We should expect better. Or they should relinquish the claim.

So yeah...turns my stomach too.

Prop 8 was part II of the LDS church's sordid history with racism and bigotry, though the exclusion of blacks is a stunning horror to contemplate.

How is it that the Church can make any claim on truth when they missed such a basic, fundamental issue of human rights? Who cares what the prevailing mentality (in the south, that is) in the country?? These are supposedly men who speak with God.

They did not. I doubt they do now otherwise I have a feeling God would say: "you better issue an apology and get the record straight--you screwed up big time".

[Donuthole]

I couldn't care less if this was a common mentalitot for the time. These are mouthpieces for the Lord addressing (albeit indirectly) what is perhaps the most important moral issue of the twentieth century. We should expect better. Or they should relinquish the claim.

So yeah...turns my stomach too.

I just think it's so easy for us to look at a statement nearly 70 years after the fact and think "what on earth were you thinking!? How could you say that!" when it's very possible that we would have been nodding our heads in the congregation at the time the statement was given.

I know we like to look back and think that the church should have known better. In retrospect, it should have. But retrospect is retrospect; it assumes a viewpoint through a lens which just wasn't available at the time.

I am not condoning the statement in any way, and I disagree vehemently with its assertions. But I can understand how someone could say something like that in 1945 without feeling like it was a morally-reprehensible statement. After all, it would be another ten years before "separate but equal" was found unconstitutional (after 60 years of implementation).