Today’s guest post is from Bishop Bill.
I just finished listening to John Dehlin’s latest Mormon Stories Podcast. The podcast is an interview with a couple that left the church over LGBT issues, and their meeting with Elder D. Todd Christofferson. There were lots of interesting items that came up with the meeting with the Apostle, but the one that really jumped out to me was Elder Christofferson saying that personal revelation trumps doctrine. He even gave an example from the scriptures to back it up, using Nephi killing Laban (doctrine = do not kill, personal revelation = kill Laban).
He then said he could not share that with the general membership, as the church is a church of order.
I know this is second hand information, that the couple meeting with Elder Christofferson may have misheard him, or they may just be making it up. But let’s move that aside, and assume that Elder Christofferson really said that, and really believes it. What does this mean for the gospel if indeed personal revelation rules supreme?
I don’t think it changes the gospel much, but what is the repercussion to the earthly church?
- How could the church function if this was taught to the membership during General Conference?
- Do the Apostles believe this?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
The way I see it, it’s essentially an extension of God’s mercy.
In general, doctrine and personal revelation will not conflict. It’s only really in extraordinary cases that they should even come close to being in conflict. In such a case, if the person receiving the revelation is absolutely sure that what they are getting is direct revelation, then God will still bless them for their attempts to be obedient, even if they are ultimately wrong about the revelation.
However, it’s important to recognize that Nephi didn’t just come across Laban, get revelation and execute him without hesitation. Nephi recognized the conflict between the revelation and his understanding of doctrine*, and only moved forward with following the revelation after confirming to himself that it was actually revelation. He also did not use that personal revelation to move on to justifying a long chain of acts that continued to violate doctrine.
Keep in mind also that Nephi’s revelation was limited to the sphere of his responsibilities and callings (specifically, being tasked to bring back the brass plates). He wasn’t receiving revelation to direct others outside of that stewardship. He wasn’t using it as justification to tell Lehi that he was wrong, or to try and lead everyone away from those with the proper authority. He also wasn’t using it to set himself up over others (although Laman and Lemuel certainly thought so…).
In the same way, if a rare case comes up where personal revelation is dictating something different than your understanding of doctrine, the revelation should only take precedence over the doctrine after you follow a similar process. Question it. Verify it. And then obey it, if it checks out. But recognize that it is an exception, not the rule, and keep it limited to your own stewardship.
* There actually is some doctrinal basis for saying that Nephi killing Laban was not unlawful: For an example, see https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/was-nephi%E2%80%99s-murder-of-laban-legal
Of course it’s true. That’s why leadership interviews people prior to issuing a calling. Information leads to revelation.
You should check out “The Bible for Normal People” podcast with Ep. 2 featuring Richard Rohr, a liberal Catholic scholar and writer. He talks about a tricycle of faith, relying on personal experience (personal revelation) as the leading wheel, balanced by scripture and tradition (he uses the term to mean teachings of past leaders). Personal revelation leads, but if it is two far out of balance with the other two, it needs to be re-evaluated. As an aside, he has some material at the end about three boxes, order, disorder and re-order that blew my mind and should be required listening for every Mormon encountering difficult historical or doctrinal issues.
I agree with this idea in principle but I don’t believe it is exclusive. Even in the example of Nephi he used other rational principles to come to the conclusion to kill Laban. It was not just only a spark of personal revelation. Just because I feel spiritually impressed to do something I still need to balance that impression with a number of sources, my own ethical and moral leanings, whether it is against the law, whether there is some scriptural precedent before I would act on it.
If Nephi was really following the Spirit, he would have disrobed Laban first to keep the clothes from getting all bloody. Common sense, bro.
Personal revelation is for the person who received it, at that moment in time. It is not for other people, and it may not be intended as permanent truth. A person can learn to balance personal revelation with church doctrine, sustaining and giving meaning to both. It is unwise to try to use one to destroy the other.
Well, we are taught that we need to use personal revelation to get confirmation on all doctrine, from praying if the Book of Mormon is True, to praying for confirmation to obey the latest thing from the prophet, so according to doctrine, personal revelation trumps doctrine. Otherwise it is blind obedience, which there are several good quotes from general authorities saying that blind obedience is not a good thing.
I’ve come to conclude that nephi invented the ‘spirit told me’ story. The rationale just doesn’t add up. It would be just as easy for the spirit to say ‘nephi, I’ve caused Laban to go into a slumber for two weeks so put on his clothes and get the plates.’ That way the nephites get their scriptures but labans probation isn’t cut short.
The truth is that Nephi was ticked that Laban stole their stuff, did what he thought he had to do to obey his dads commandment, and then made up the spirit story afterward when challenged by his conscience/brothers/descendants.
In Bruce Hafen’s book The Broken Heart he says in one place that counsel received behind closed door can be very different than from the pulpit!
I think the Church would be a much healthier place if Elder Christofferson taught personal revelation trumps doctrine. That would be an awesome talk., I would love to see in Conference.I would love to see the faces of the other brethren behind him. I would hope they would not make him come back in a few weeks and redo it .
Elder Christofferson was teaching the same principal that Elder Oaks taught in his Dating vs. Hanging Out talk in 2006.
Revelation always trumps. Nephi’s revelation trumped the general commandment not to kill. The revelation that comprises section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants trumped the “until death do you part” or “as long as the you live” part of the marriage ceremony. The revelation to Lorenzo Snow ending the practice of polygamy trumped that portion of section 132 but left the sealing power intact. The 1978 revelation ending the priesthood ban trumped Brigham Young’s pronouncement. All of those were revelations given to people who had been called as leaders of their groups or organizations.
Whenever a person claims a personal revelation he or she must needs ensure that it is indeed a revelation from the Lord and not the product of personal feelings and bias.
I am always a bit skeptical of reports of General Authorities confiding esoteric facts or knowledge to a chosen few that for some reason cannot be shared with the general membership, yet somehow it becomes shared.
Glenn
I know what you mean. It reminds me of the secret revelation of John Taylor to the fundamentalist polygamists.
What the church tells LGBT people is not consitent with this teaching. The way BYU operates (expulsion for following your conscience) is very inconsistent with this teaching. Is this an example of more gaslighting from church leaders?
A huge problem within the LDS Church is the near inability to distinguish between doctrine and policy.
This is a tough area for me because if I’m being honest, I always think my personal revelation beats whatever policy or doctrine it runs counter to but I hesitate strongly to apply that to someone else’s. In other words, I’m comfortable letting my own inner voice guide because I’m relatively certain I’m not crazy, so the odds of me going off the rails and serial killing in the name of revelation are comfortingly low. But then I remember how often how often truly deranged people believe they are acting on God’s will and I think, “ya doctrine definitely has a place here…”
In Elder Oaks’s talk “Two Lines of Communication,” he says that the priesthood line (the official line–doctrine) trumps the personal line (personal revelation). Not in so many words, but he says if they’re out of line with each other, it’s the personal line that’s wrong. Really, I’m not a fan of this way of thinking, but it seems pretty standard in the Church. The only acceptable personal revelation is personal revelation that confirms doctrine. If you get a personal revelation that tells you that the Book of Mormon is God’s word, that’s acceptable personal revelation. On the other hand, if you get personal revelation that tells you that Church’s anti-gay work is evil, it doesn’t qualify as personal revelation. It means you’re wicked. So the personal revelation line is pretty much irrelevant, if it is only meaningful when it confirms what the Church already says.
I recall Joseph Smith’s quote:
I don’t know how accurate a reflection of his actual words those are. I believe that the quote comes from an 1842 or 43 (?) John C. Bennett article which quoted a letter from Joseph, but I don’t think that Joseph ever repudiated it. In any case, it seems perfectly in character for him.
The steady exhortation of Church leaders to follow the commandments as widely known and written doesn’t mean they’re “gaslighting” us, ydeve. There’s a general case, and then there are individual, localized, specific, one-time exceptions, given to individuals by the Spirit, by personal, individual revelation. To imply that every moral decision is essentially neutral and subject to the individual’s judgment/experience/inspiration/revelation is quite a different thing, and it may be that this isn’t discussed over the pulpit because leaders despair of making the fine distinctions clear, and fear that we would misunderstand and take it as a license to be “inspired” to do all kinds of undesirable things.
I disagree with Ziff, although his is a pretty typical reaction and he’s always an astute commenter. In this matter, Nephi’s account is in fact very instructive. Nephi understood the commandment, balked at breaking it, and received very clear direction to do so before he proceeded. He did not say, “Well, whacking him would sure be convenient, and it’s up to me anyway.” There are times and places in which specific rules can and should be broken in specific instances, just that once, “as [one is] moved upon by the Holy Ghost.” The next time a similar situation comes up, the assumption is observance of the commandment, absent another specific direction to act differently.
Thus, LGBTQ* rights are a red herring in this context. You can have a personal revelation that your own extramarital gay relationship and marriage is acceptable to God, but you don’t get to have that revelation for the rest of the world. That kind of revelation comes in a different way. (Probably years after it should, after much agitation, and reluctantly, is what I think we’ll see, like in 1978 – but that’s a different post.) That’s why it’s called personal revelation.
Finally, Glenn’s comment is a timely warning for us all: Whenever a person claims a personal revelation he or she must needs ensure that it is indeed a revelation from the Lord and not the product of personal feelings and bias. My personal feelings may be right, my biases may (like the arc of history) bend toward justice, but I am only justified in acting if I have a certain confirmation from the Spirit. Again, Nephi’s story is a great example of this.
@Hawkgrrrl – forget about taking Laban’s clothes off before cutting his head off. Why not just choke him. No blood. No mess. It might have even left everyone thinking that Laban wasn’t murdered. He just got so drunk she stripped down and took a walk and just died from alcohol poisoning.
Iconoclast – How can a church claim that personal revelation and our relationship with god is important, and then go and excommunicate an entire demographic for valuing their relationship with god and following sacred revelation? We aren’t trying to lead people out of the church. We’re just trying to live our own lives according to God’s will. It is clear hypocrisy to claim that personal revelation matters and then turn and excommunicate people who are following that revelation. They pretend to say that one should follow their personal relationship with God, and then disfellowship those who actually do so. How is that not abusive? (An abuser doesn’t have to be aware of the abuse to be abusive.)
New Iconoclast, those words were written/spoken by Joseph Smith when he was attempting to marry 19 year old Nancy Rigdon. (Yes Sidney’s daughter.) She refused, and Sidney did not approve. As such, it seems like the words Joseph spoken/penned were highly manipulative, and I’m not much of a fan of that quote given the context in which he used it. It wasn’t exactly a General Conference sermon, and shouldn’t be considered a quality quote IMO.
ydeve, I don’t disagree that the church’s actions are manipulative. I’m saying that personal revelation is irrelevant to “an entire demographic.” I’m not discounting your personal witness, as I think I mentioned. I believe and hope that the church’s current stance will change, as I think I mentioned (and as it eventually did in 1978, for a similar issue). If you’re thinking that I’m supporting the church’s stance, you were not reading carefully.
If your question was simply rhetorical, well, you’re preaching to the choir.
MH, thanks for the context on the JS quote. Coming from Bennett, it’s suspect even though Joseph never spoke out against it, but by that time he probably had much bigger fish to fry. I do think that the sentiment is both consistent with Joseph’s thinking and consistent with scripture, but I agree with you that it’s not that weighty. (Come to think of it, I probably don’t always regard GC sermons as Carved on Stone from Mount Sinai, either. 🙂 )
The Nephi killing Laban story is a complete fabrication, concocted by someone not very familiar with killing animals (a farm boy like young Joseph should have paid better attention during butchering time) and especially not familiar with murdering humans. And someone with a primitive understanding of God.
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Unless you know how and practice (e. g. Japanese samurai) it is extremely difficult to behead a person. It would require hours of patience and a cold heart to figure out how to do it. Many a murderer has tried it and failed.
Blood is sticky, like paint and around a gallon of it is going to run out when a head is removed. Imagine a road show scene, where a gallon of red paint is dumped on someones head and then another person by themselves removes the blood soaked sticky clothing and wears it undetected.Not plausible. Even in a driving tropical rainstorm, blood stains fabrics, even if most of it gets washed away.
When a person is intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness, they are not far from death from the toxic effects of alcohol on the heart and the brain driving breathing. (This is important for young people who go to frat parties to know, if a person drinks to the point where they pass out, call 911. Many have and will recover without medical attention but some will not and YOU CAN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE! You may save their life.) A middle-aged man with plenty to eat like Laban (who probably was obese) likely already had at least some element of underlying heart disease. A simple and even expected cardiac event would do the trick.
And come to think of it, Nephi didn’t even need to kill Laban. Just steal his outer cloths and snooker Zoram and snatch the brass plates and escape into the wilderness. Laban wakes up the next day in the streets of Jerusalem (or hell) and wonders what the heck happened. God doesn’t need Nephi to do His killing if it needs to be done. Doctrine wise, the story is filled with contradiction.
And herein lies one of the fundamental flaws of Mormonism, not giving God the respect He deserves (because he is only just a man, exalted, but more like us than like the classic concept of God). What kind of a bumbling God would sit back and not take Laban out with a cardiac event? Or not tell Nephi to just take the cloths? Instead of putting young, innocent and future prophet Nephi into a position where he has to commit the sin next to murder, wait a minute, the sin of murder? Certainly not a sovereign God characterized by omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc. Putting this back on God instead of on Nephi makes God, well, sort of a inept demi-god at best.
If this exact crime was committed in the streets of Salt Lake City today, and the Nephi-like perpetrator was arrested, and his excuse was God told me to do it after much premeditation without rage and his motive was burglary which he successfully completed (and possibly kidnapping?), he would and should be charged with first degree murder and he would be in jeopardy of getting the death penalty. Nephi was a murderer by modern legal standards.
Nephi later is reported in the account to make more swords and kill his nephews and other relatives. Perhaps that was justified as a fratricidal war over religion, but if not he becomes a serial killer.
The bigger problem for me is when logic, reasoning, common sense, good judgment, etc.., is set aside for either doctrine or personal revelation, as is demonstrated by this ridiculous story. I submit when this happens the devil rejoices.
How could I forget this account of Personal Revelation?
(I wish to give space for repentance and forgiveness, so I do not include actual names)
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Kim was my age and I still remember her well in school after nearly half a century. She was a bright, cheerful and friendly girl in my ward and school class. She was not particularly over-zealous but she was not the least bit wild, ranting around using drugs or screwing guys either. She married a return missionary in the temple while in college, I will call Tom. They had a baby an appropriate span of time later. They seemed like every other solid young LDS family.
I will never know all the stress they felt, but their outward circumstances were not unusual for that time. It was rumored that Tom desperately wanted to be a seminary teacher, but that field was difficult to enter. Not so much because of academic competitiveness, but due to nepotism and favoritism which he did not possess.
They believed this teaching of Joseph Smith: “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” (It remains on the LDS website). This was the key to everything including career success, the willingness to sacrifice all things. And they were familiar with the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son as it was taught to all of us frequently.
They attended the temple every week and did all their church callings with diligence. They prayed and studied scriptures very day and sometimes they put on their temple cloths and prayed privately together after a manner done in the temple as did many others at that time. They were checking every box required to be a Saint in the best of standing.
Tom received a revelation and was moved by the spirit to test his faith, as God had tested Abraham. They must demonstrate their willingness to sacrifice all things by re-enacting the sacrifice of Abraham. Kim had the revelation confirmed to her. One Saturday evening after hours of prayer in their temple cloths, they sacrificed their baby to the Lord on the kitchen table by slowly lowering a knife into the infant’s body. If I remember correctly the baby was a boy, 11 months old.
In one version Kim told the police but later denied, they both had their hands on the knife when it went into the baby. Other versions had either one of them doing it and the other restraining the infant. No angel showed up to stop them. They continued to press forward with steadfastness and pray with increased faith.
The baby did not die quickly. At some point after the stabbing, the home teachers were summoned to give the baby a blessing. The praying and blessings with the home teachers went on for 2 hours. One remembered Tom had quite a bit of blood on his cloths and was told that the baby had a little bloody diarrhea (which might have been true if the blade passed through a segment of bowel or the baby had a severe infection).
The baby died many hours later. Early that Sunday morning Kim called an undertaker (whose son a few years younger than us was one of the home teachers). She told him the baby had died of crib death and had him come and pick it up. Investigation of infant deaths was not as robust then as it is today. The undertaker had not talked to his son yet and did not think much of it, that the baby didn’t die in the hospital or that the police or the EMT’s were not involved. Why should anyone be concerned over a family with their sterling reputation?
When the undertaker undressed the baby to wash it and prepare to embalm it, he noticed a band aid covering a small incision that entered deep into the abdomen and became concerned. But he didn’t call the police, rather he did what any good member of the LDS church does when faced with a perplexing problem. He called the bishop who was in bishopric meeting (and my dad was in the bishopric). The bishop didn’t think there was any cause for concern and neither did anyone else in the meeting, except a clerk who happened to be a pediatrician and my dad who saw horrible things in WWII and had a more generally dark and negative view on people. They told the bishop they would call the police regardless of the needless trouble it might cause, even if he didn’t.
The police were notified and various statements were given which proved to be inconsistent. The home teacher later said Tom confessed to him what had happened that night while the baby was still alive and crying. A long and thorough investigation dragged on for months. The confusion gradually but not entirely became untangled.
Tom disappeared for some hours that Sunday to go to the mountains to pray and showed up in the emergency room with numerous self-inflicted stab wounds to the neck. His life was saved by a good surgeon. After that he stayed in the psych ward in Salt Lake. A neighbor witnessed Kim bury a kitchen knife in the garden at dawn. She was not arrested for a long time and then was out on bail.
Eventually Tom plead guilty to murder by reason of insanity. He spent 1 year in a state institution where he was a model inmate and then it was determined he could be released as long as he took certain medications. Kim rolled the dice. She stood trial for first degree murder which riveted the small Mormon town and probably made national news briefly. She took the witness stand and her defense was that her husband had her under his control by virtue of his priesthood. She was not responsible for it and she was so stressed she really couldn’t remember what happened.
They had the evidence and tangled confessions and her defense could plausibly blame her husband for the actual stabbing. It probably helped that the jury was entirely peers of her parents and all devoted members of the LDS church. And the prosecuting attorney also lived in the stake (a close relative of my dad). And that the trial was timed so that Kim was visibly pregnant with their next child.
Nobody wanted to see Kim go to prison. The verdict was not guilty and Kim was free. Their marriage survived this ordeal and they moved away shortly after that, to where I do not know. They could be living in your ward and would have time to have raised several children to adulthood by now.
Sources: Memory, accounts of many, some who sat through the trial, gossip and newspaper articles. I have no access to primary documents (which might not be entirely accurate either).
Regardless of the details enough is known for this event to clearly demonstrate the danger of over-zealous personal revelation. I didn’t want this story to kill the discussion but since it appears to already be dead, and this is too long, maybe nobody will read it anyway.