As I’ve taught various classes at church, I’ve been struck by the similarities between frustrations expressed by teachers in using the church-approved materials with the frustrations of the Protestant reformers 500 years ago.
One of the fundamental questions of the Protestant reformation was who should be reading and interpreting scripture: the clergy or the congregation. In Catholicism, the mass was recited in Latin, and the priests were responsible for instructing the congregation on what the scriptures said. This gave the church a high degree of message control. Throughout the years, many congregants were illiterate, which is one reason so many of the grand cathedrals use stained glass and other artwork to tell the Bible stories through pictures.
The Tyndale Bible was the first English Bible translated directly from the Greek and Hebrew texts which presented an interesting challenge to the Catholic church’s authority. Suddenly, congregants could read for themselves what scripture said rather than just being told by their priests. And scripture didn’t always say what they had been told it said.
Catholic officials, prominently Thomas More, charged that he had purposely mistranslated the ancient texts in order to promote anti-clericalism and heretical views.
Tyndale’s views were seen as pro-Luther.
Some radical reformers preached that the true church . . . is wherever true Christians meet together to preach the word of God. To these reformers the structure of the Catholic Church was unnecessary and its very existence proved that it was in fact not the “true” Church. When Tyndale decided that the Greek word ἐκκλησία (ekklesia) is more accurately translated congregation he was undermining the entire structure of the Catholic Church.
Tyndale was eventually strangled to death and burned at the stake. If he were a Mormon, it’s more likely someone would have tattled to the bishop that he was introducing information that wasn’t in the manual. I suppose being released from teaching is better than being actually martyred, but the sentiment, the desire to suppress scholarship and to censor interpretations other than the approved dogma, well, these feelings are still alive and well today. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is a human problem, and a fundamental religious question.
As a teacher, I sometimes noted that they can correlate the manual, but they can’t correlate the contents of my head. I am still interacting with the text, and we are taught to teach with the spirit. Teaching strictly from the manual can prevent this, particularly when the manual doesn’t line up with the source material.
Today evangelical religions evolve this idea of scripture before dogma[1] into a concept known as sola scriptura.[2] In essence, this means that scripture alone is authoritative and dictates the doctrines; you could say that in Catholicism, the church defines the scriptures, but in evangelicalism, the scriptures define the church. Setting aside that modern context, the underlying concept is an important question for church members today: the role of the church in interpreting doctrine.
I’ve taught gospel doctrine before and found the interpretation offered in the lesson manual to be implausible given the context of the scripture being studied, scholarly views on the scripture (e.g. questionable authorship or anachronistic meanings being applied), and plain and simply, the spirit.[3]
Who determines doctrine?
Mormonism puts us in a unique position. We seem to have one foot in each camp. On the one hand, we are encouraged to study our scriptures daily, to liken them unto ourselves. We aren’t supposed to be bogged down by scriptural literalism or the notion that interpretations don’t change over time. Our founder’s original religious experience was the response of an individual to a scripture he read, and that response resulted in a direct spiritual experience that told him to be wary of the religious orders of the day for their misinterpretation of scripture. Nearly 200 years later, our CES correlated materials are required for our Sunday School and seminary classes, and they often contradict (or simply ignore) scholarship. Many teachers, myself included, have been told that outside materials cannot be used in teaching. In my case, that includes cautions against using the original source materials in a lesson.
The idea that revelation can trump scholarship may be a noble principle, but a lot of our materials aren’t based on revealed information, just outdated opinions that have been in prior versions of manuals or General Conference talks that weren’t specifically researched, just given to address specific topics that aren’t related to these particular sets of scripture that we are studying in our lessons. The more topical our lesson manuals become, the more likely our scriptures are used to proof-text ideas that are currently in vogue in church doctrine. In other words, scripture study is not a serious endeavor in its own right, but merely a means to indoctrination. We’ve begun to sound more Catholic and less like the Enlightenment. Maybe institutional power inevitably erodes personal spiritual insight.
Mark Twain famously said:
A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.
Clearly, not everyone, literate or not, is going to really read their scriptures with the level of interest that will result in personal insight or new understanding. Plenty of people simply don’t like to read, and others, despite being functionally literate, have never really learned how to comprehend well. Lots of people just don’t want to be bothered to engage in the scriptures beyond the standard Sunday School answers. [4]
Part of making scripture more accessible was creating the Book of Common prayer, a liturgy written in English to make Anglican meetings more accessible and more uniform. From an article in Christianity Today:
Cranmer wanted the literate to read the Bible thoroughly and faithfully, and for the illiterate to hear it read every day.
This next part will sound familiar to all Mormons who’ve been through the four-year scripture study for Gospel Doctrine:
In making his prayer book, Thomas Cranmer wanted to make sure that the people of England were constantly exposed to Holy Scripture in a language they understood, working through the whole of the Bible regularly and the Psalms every month, while following a calendar that rehearsed in every church year the whole story of salvation starting with the Fall and culminating in Christ’s unique sacrifice
Cranmer sounds like the prototype for a one-man correlation committee:
Thomas Cranmer wanted one book and one liturgical “use” for one country. He wanted English folk to be able to go into any church in England on any given day and experience the same worship service in the same words.
So what started as a way to level the playing field, to encourage individuals to engage with religious texts directly, can quickly evolve into a requirement to come to one uniform conclusion about a text rather than allowing for multiple personalized viewpoints.
Given these inherent tensions, where do you think Mormonism fits in the spectrum?
[poll id=”542″]
Discuss.
[1] texts before sects?
[2] Sola scriptura in our day is a phrase that also connotes total literalism in interpreting the Bible and is one reason that most evangelicals reject the Book of Mormon, as they take Revelation 22:18 as an injunction against adding to the books of scripture: “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.”
[3] For example, the manual referred to Saul as a “king” in a more modern sense of the word king: a guy with a crown and a court. The actual text doesn’t aggrandize or legitimize his kingship in this way, and most historians agree that he barely merits the name “king,” and that “mafia kingpin” or “clan leader” is closer to reality. Another example, some of the Pauline epistles are likely not written by Paul, and other parts of scripture are demonstrated to be later additions, not part of the books they are currently in.
[4] I mean, ponderizing?? Come on.
Wheat & Tares 
If anybody does not take the time to look at hawkgrrrl’s footnotes are missing out!
Well done as always Hawkgrrl.
Big fan of proof texting here. Not that I necessarily agree with the proof-texts of correlated Mormonism, but I believe that seeking for original intent is a lost cause, as our cultural understandings are so foreign. 99.999% of all the past is forever lost and unrecorded anyway. That we imagine we could impartially understand that past based on a few scraps of written documentation is a profound delusion. History is a creation of the present, and since impartiality is impossible, I think we should at least be honest about it.
Scripture in particular does not lend itself to impartiality. Rather scripture should be useful for the present, as a doorway into a spiritual realm, not a doorway to the past. Mormonism uses scripture in this way, as a useful buttress to modern paradigms given to us by living prophets.
Nate, not a big fan of prooftexting here, though many scriptural figures also relished in prooftexting (especially NT users of OT scriptures, including Christ). I disagree that the attempt to understand scriptures in their original context is futile. In many cases, understanding the setting which led to prophecy or instruction (where possible) makes the concepts more understandable and can also lead to inspiration.
The newer NT institute manual has incorporated more recent scholarship in addition to tying in quotes from current leaders. One of my favorite GD teaching experiences was teaching John 5 where Christ chides the Jews for assuming that the scriptures provided eternal life. The new institute manual had a prooftexting angle associated with a general authority’s talk (Jesus told us to seek the scriptures, because they have eternal life), but it also had the scholarly angle which contradicted the prooftexting (eternal life is found in Christ, not in faith in dead prophets. Scriptures are valuable only because they lead us to faith in Christ, but we should not be like the Jews who couldn’t see the forest for the trees.). The class was familiar with the prooftexting interpretation, but they were not as familiar with the reading in context, and both interpretations held value. I wouldn’t have been able to get away with contradicting a GA’s interpretation, though, without the authority of a church-approved manual backing me up. At other times, even comparing the NT prooftexting interpretation of OT scripture to the more likely meaning of the OT scripture in original context was putting me on shaky ground with some.
Interpretations by later prophets are clearly seen as superior to anything which could be gleaned independently by analysis of the original context. Hence the significance of the gospel topics essays – a codification of the current view leaders have towards past events and/or doctrine. The “appropriate” lens that members should use. It’s frustrating that many members feel a need for church permission before getting comfortable with alternate interpretations, but that’s where our culture is right now.
I think there should be 2 poll questions. The first is fine as is, “what does the Church think….” and the second should be “What do you think….?” I think people would answer quite differently.
“Many teachers, myself included, have been told that outside materials cannot be used in teaching. In my case, that includes cautions against using the original source materials in a lesson.”
That is absolutely insane. They told you not to use the actual scriptures that the lesson is based on in teaching the lesson? How can they justify that?
JKC, because the purpose of the class is to feel uplifted, learn about Christ, or learn how the particular message of a story can help us in our position today. Words of general authorities are considered scripture for our time, so they are seen by many as more useful, especially since they are easier to understand. Focusing on the scriptures as historical documents or trying to view the scriptures in context is seen by some as a detraction. The lesson manual often glosses over the text or uses a particular verse to teach a concept unrelated to the context of the scripture. You are then left with a choice – teach the assigned scriptures or teach the assigned lesson. Depending on the bishop or SS President, you may not have a choice.
I just read the following in the comments section of a circulating blog post on “The Science behind ‘Feeling the Holy Ghost.'” I thought it was sarcasm, and when I realized it wasn’t, it scared me:
“Mormon do not interpret scripture. The LDS prophet seeks, receives and declares doctrine received form the author, God. There can be no interpretation, argument or misunderstanding caused by differences in opinion or by doctrine derieved by committee or mass agreed interpretation.”
Many general conference talks pull in sources outside the curriculum to support or enhance interpretations. I don’t get complaints when I do it in class unless it is controversial.
I love when teachers show me what scriptures really mean rather than what I’ve assumed they mean, that is what class is for.
As a teacher, I am there to deliver the lesson message in the manual, not hijack it with my personal agenda.
Part of the exercise of studying the scriptures is interpreting it and resolving interpretations with others, including church leaders. How important is it to require one interpretation for all things? Why not allow multiple interpretations that lead to many uplifting thoughts? I can accept the church’s correlated view while allowing my mind to wander into meaning for me personally without confusing others intentionally.
The process and discussion of revealing scripture meaning is the important exercise.
Those dead prophets never had any authority to receive revelation for us. Thus, the only way that any passage actually amounts to scripture is to the extent that living prophet legitimize it as such. The idea that living prophets equally legitimize all passages equally, or all interpretations or even the best supported academic interpretation of any passage is bogus.
Joseph Smith’s translation sure didn’t follow the “original meaning” of the dead prophets, nor should our own understandings of the scriptures. Studying the scriptures is a process of getting in line with what living prophets teach, not what dead ones did, since the former are the only legitimate source of scripture at all. (In this sense, Mormonism strongly endorses a modified version of the “author is dead” mentality of post-modern literary criticism.)
Of course a teacher can be inspired to bring in outside material…. but to think that doing so it the norm against which “sticking to the manuals” is to be measure is exactly backwards.
As Jeff said of the JST, it is not exactly a “translation” but more prophetic commentary. I think Jeff and I have more of the “Catholic” approach to church authority, it comes not by virtue of ancient scripture, but modern revelation, and the authority to declare it, which trumps all. (Not that it is infallible, but it must be understood to be “authorised,” thus commanding more emphasis in the curriculum, no matter how stupid it might seem.)
Mary Ann, I agree that it is useful to study what original intent might have been. There can be many insights that come from this approach. But I don’t think original intent should be the ultimate goal.
The problem is that many of the leadership and conservative membership don’t have any idea that they are actually proof-texting. They think they have some kind of historical purity by virtue of these modern revelations, which would never say something that wasn’t perfectly factual. I seem to recall an anecdote that President Packer once got called out for proof-texting a passage, so he changed his interpretation, because he actually aspires to historical accuracy.
But this position becomes untenable the moment one starts digging deeper into the historical record. Then overwhelming doubts about Joseph Smith’s prophetic accuracy threaten testimonies. The only way forward is to embrace proof-texting as a time-honoured prophetic tradition, which it absolutely is, and to embrace the supremacy of the present, rather than worship the past. The past must serve the present, not vice versa. They have had their moment. We’re stuck with the world they left us. Now its our turn in the sun. That is the true spirit of Mormonism.
That sounds about right, Nate. I fully agree that Mormonism is much closer to Catholicism than to Protestantism in a lot of ways.
Studying the original meaning, context, etc. might be a nice little FYI…. but FYI is not what the church, the prophets and SS teachers are called to give us.
I completely disagree. Joseph Smith learned Greek and Hebrew in an effort to understand scripture in it’s original context. The restoration of the priesthood, the vision of the degrees of glory, the revelation on Christ’s mission to the Spirit World – all were instigated by scripture study. Those revelations came to the living prophets out of their study of the words of dead prophets. The declaration by leaders of the church that prophets speak as such when aligned with the standard works makes no sense if their interpretation is the only thing that matters. Then it’s the words of living prophets being compared with their own interpretation of scripture.
Nephi declared that his people were having trouble understanding the words of Isaiah because they lacked *context.* They did not understand the manner of prophesying among the Jews, they did not know the lands round about Jerusalem. If we have been similarly instructed by Christ in 3rd Nephi to feast on the words of Isaiah, why shouldn’t Nephi’s statement apply to us as well? We are even further removed from the time and culture of Isaiah than Nephi’s people.
Or do the scriptural words of Christ even matter? They were recorded by dead prophets, and the words of dead prophets are of no value today according to your argument. Why shouldn’t we just toss the standard works and depend on General Conference addresses – that’s all we need, right?
“Or do the scriptural words of Christ even matter? They were recorded by dead prophets, and the words of dead prophets are of no value today according to your argument. Why shouldn’t we just toss the standard works and depend on General Conference addresses – that’s all we need, right?”
You misunderstand. Of course the scriptures have value…. that is derived by the validation that living prophets impose upon (rather than derived from) them. I never lived within Moses stewardship so, by the very logic of Mormon doctrine, he never had the authority to receive revelation for me. Living prophets, however, do have the authority to say that Moses revelations to, in fact, apply to me. In this way, the living prophets justify scriptures rather than the other way around.
While justification goes from living to dead prophets, it is also the case that the dead prophets causally influence and structure our understanding of living revelation. Put differently, our own interpretation of living prophets and personal revelation is itself very much structured – but not fully determined – by our shared reading of the scriptures. In this way, living prophets are (for better or worse) constrained by the past in an almost Burkean fashion.
Thus,
1) the scriptures structure our personal revelation, which in turn
2) (in)validates our allegiance to living prophets, which in turn
3) selectively draw our attention to and legitimize various writings of the dead prophets as scripture.
I think it is interesting that in Packer’s famous (or infamous) speech on listening to authority, he talks about how he listened to scholars and took some proof texts out of a talk he was going to give so t hat he would be closer to the meaning of the scriptures.
Hawkgrrrl, I’ve had discussions with some of my family…and their honest reaction about some things is that they simply don’t really care enough to want to get into it. They are interested in the spirit of the messages, the main point to be made that fits the truth, an uplifting message and something that inspires them.
The’re really not so interested in the intellectual approach to it.
A stained glass window, and an appeal to authority, seems good enough.
I have some personal interests and curiosities to dig. But I find others don’t. I don’t even think they’re lazy, they are super active. Just kind of get disillusioned by swirling conjecture.
A stained glass window, and an appeal to authority, seems good enough.
I wish this wasn’t true, but this sentiment is so true.
Jeff G, Don’t we believe the Book of Mormon is speaking to us in our day? Isn’t it Moroni who writes he has seen us and the things we are doing? He certainly wasn’t compiling the record for his day.
Having taught the Adult Class in Sunday School and now the YSA class ( both for many years) I think
Hawkgrrrl’s contribution raises many important major issues. I too have been ‘moved on’ for teaching a little more!
First the instructional materials. There are a number of incorrect interpretation in the Sunday School Adult manuals and the cringing lack of History in the Adult Classes poorly titled Doctrine and Covenants and Church History. etc etc
Second, Herber 13 raised a valid point about the ‘intellectual’ approach….my experience is that a number of our people are not interested in this approach which actually means a little background or other views or interpretations. I personally actually require it in my learning. The problem may be how we deliver such information but usually many people find such things irrelevant.
Third, the Church cultural approach which again is tightly oriented in the Wasatch approach…..which is do it as outlined or don’t do it…..even it’s it wrong or poorly explained ……..pragmatism at its worst.
Having been in education for all my working life I think the Church with its recourses could do a ‘revolutionary’ ( can’t believe I used this word) job ……with some imagination ( another difficult word) in re structuring and reorganising the Church curriculum .
This could include the use of Church leaders commentary, academics, including church and non church academics…new and instructive information. With new technology there could be snippets from videos,maps with commentary, historical commentary to put and explain issue in context…..particularly in things like the Old Testament ( Jewish culture and history) and our own sanitised history ( polygamy, BoM translation etc). The ‘manuals’ could be downloaded with all this information …..even have levels of information to cater for differing levels and interest……people will find their level of interest .
This might in some way address the differential between those who want to come to church for the ‘warming ‘experience only and those who want that and more. A truly creative mix of technology ( iPads , phones etc) and access to thoughtful information form a wide variety of sources seems to me an exciting prospect.
( by the way the Ensign needs to be ‘ burnt at the stake’ and completely revamped and it too could play a part in informing instead of boring us to tears)
There is always this dichotomy between keeping a ‘ pure’ doctrine as it has been defined by the General Authorities ( some may remember the ‘classic’ Mc Conkie v BYU conflict) and the individual study of the scriptures by members. The problem for me is that reading some conference talks are insightful others less so. Some GA’s as we all know have made some incomprehensible and even wrong explanations of doctrines. We had a GA visit recently and his wife spoke and told us all that if we teach our children the gospel correctly they will not leave the church…..what, did she tell Adam?
Indeed this is true for some of our academics …another ‘classic’ was in regard to explaining the Priesthood and the Blacks issue recently from a BYU professor which caused shudders everywhere!
Again I am not assured that a culture dominated by a very tight view of almost everything is ready for us finding out what is really true other than a very western sanitised view of our beliefs ….our personal revelation may just be that left at home…..we will see…..but thanks Hawkgrrrl’.
James Kugel in “How to Read the Bible” writes about how ancient interpreters of the Bible all shared four basic assumptions. These were:
1. The Bible was a fundamentally cryptic text: when it says A, it often means B, and it’s up to the interpreters to figure that out.
2. The Bible is a book of lessons directed to readers in their own day, rather than being primarily relevant to the people alive at the time they were written.
3. The Bible contained no contradictions or mistakes but was perfectly harmonious. Also, the Bible perfectly aligned with the interpreter’s religious beliefs and practices. The interpreter’s task was to harmonize seeming contradictions and correctly understand the Bible so as to remove all heretical implications.
4. The entire Bible was a divinely given text in which God speaks directly or through His prophets.
These assumptions are apparent in the way that the New Testament uses the Old Testament. They are also apparent in the Book of Mormon’s treatment of Isaiah. Even the 8th Article of Faith supports these assumptions, signaling that any imperfections in the Bible are the result of translators but that there existed at some time in the distant past a perfect, divine Bible.
These assumptions serve the purpose of giving a religion divine authority, because God’s word is interpreted as supporting the religion. When we abandon these assumptions, by allowing that not everything written in them was meant to apply to our day, that there are contradictions, that they contain the philosophies of men mingled with scripture, and that they mean what they say, it weakens the authority of the religion. But it also empowers the individual to learn from the scripture itself, rather than the authoritative interpretation.
I would note that with the new policy change, it was mostly more liberal critics who pointed to LDS scripture to argue that the policy was wrong. But that didn’t matter to many more conservative members. Because they were operating under the assumption that scripture perfectly aligns with LDS teachings (and new policies), as long as you correctly interpret them.