Today’s guest post is by Shannon Flynn. After my Father’s recent passing I received a large amount of church related material and I found a copy of a talk that was given by Elder Bruce R. McConkie to a gathering of regional representatives April 2, 1982. The title of the talk is Holy Writ: Published Anew. I have seen snippets of a video recording of this talk two times over the years but was never able to see the whole talk or find a written version, so I was thrilled to actually get a copy of the text. The basis of the talk is an overview of the new (at the time) edition of the scriptures and Elder McConkie’s desire that the Regional Representatives use the new edition more and in better ways. He gives them a charge to become gospel scholars and instructs them to pass this information to stake presidents and bishops and “down to the last person on the row.” He begins by listing three things he considers
“that have happened in our lifetime which will do more than anything else for the spread of the gospel, for the perfecting of the saints and for the salvation of men.”
I find his three choices very interesting.
“1. The receipt of the revelation which makes the priesthood and the blessings of the temple available to all men without reference to race or ancestry.
2. The organization of the First Quorum of Seventy as the third great council of the Church; and
3. The publication if the Standard Works in their new format and with the new teaching aids that accompany them.”
These three things could probably engender a post by themselves as to their meaning, merit and what has happened since. Would they still rank as high today? Elder McConkie then focuses the rest of his talk on the third item. In the process, he makes some startling comments about the nature of the administrative structure of the church and posits some reasons for the administrative mindset that has become so pervasive.
“Our tendency – it is an almost universal practice among most church leaders – is to get so involved with the operation of the institutional Church that we never gain faith like the ancients, simply because we do not involve ourselves in the basic gospel matters that were the center of their lives.
We are so wound up in programs and statistics and trends, in properties, lands and mammon, and in achieving goals that will highlight the excellence of our work, that we “have omitted the weightier matters of the law”. And as Jesus would have said: These (weightier things) ought ye have done, and not to leave the other undone.” (Matt 23:23)
Let us be reminded of the great basic verities upon which all church programs and all church organization rest. We are not saved by church programs as such, by church organizations alone, or even by the Church itself. It is the gospel that saves. The Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation”. (Rom. 1:16)”
I would imagine his words came as something of a shock and were not received with universal joy and happiness, unless, of course, each hearer was thinking, I’m okay – but the rest of these guys are in trouble. I am confident Elder McConkie believed this applied up the administrative ladder also. Since he had served as a general authority since 1946 he had plenty of experience in working and becoming very familiar with other general authorities. Elder McConkie goes on to say on the next page,
“Faith is thus born of scriptural study. Those who study, ponder and pray about the scriptures, seeking to understand their deep and hidden meanings, receive from time to time great outpourings of light and knowledge from the Holy Spirit. This is what happened to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon when they received the vision of the degrees of glory.
However talented men may be in administrative matters; however eloquent they may be in expressing their views; however learned they may be in worldly things – they will be denied the sweet whisperings of the Spirit that might have been theirs unless they pay the price of studying, pondering and praying about the scriptures.”
While Elder McConkie may have intended this as an indictment and a warning, I now see in different terms, a powerful explanation. The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of the general church leadership -then and today- just don’t know the gospel very well. They are largely ignorant of the history of the church, they have very poor backgrounds in Old and New Testament scholarship and have spent relatively little time in analyzing modern day scriptures. I have no doubt they have read the Book of Mormon many times and spend some time in the other standard works, but I believe they have fallen into the trap of repetitive experience.
I heard the concept described this way once: a person can have ten years of experience or one year of experience repeated ten times. Most people I know are in the one year of experience repeated ten times category as far as reading and understanding the scriptures are concerned. Many members read the Book of Mormon over and over again but I have to wonder if they learn anything that is new or if it is just an exercise in confirming what they already believe. They simply are not willing to put in the hard work of real study, the kind you could get at graduate school or that type of environment, learning material that is new, challenging and complicated, learning how to deal with conflicts and contradictions, being willing to confront new information that goes against long established beliefs, making the tremendous time commitment that is required to gain a deeper understanding, and worst of all, reading all of the books – hundreds of books–that are available to aid in our study and understanding. I wonder how many of the current General authorities have read Understanding the Book of Mormon by Grant Hardy or By the Hand of Mormon by Terryl Givens, for example.
The sad truth is that no amount of blessings, ordinations, settings apart or public recognitions can replace the hard work. Each newly called General Authority does not magically have receptacles placed in his head where all gospel knowledge and understanding is simply poured in without any personal effort. I am sure most members believe that happens; it most surely is not the case. Any member has the continuous opportunity to learn and grow, General Authorities included. Some do; most don’t.
Elder McConkie doesn’t ignore the need for the institutional church. He says,
“But the Church and the priesthood administer the gospel. There must be an institutional church so there will be order and system in all things. There neither is nor can be salvation without the Church. The Church is the service agency, the organization, the earthly kingdom which makes salvation available to men.”
What becomes obvious is that anyone inclined to see the temporal needs of the church above the spiritual needs of the individual has more than ample opportunities to become so involved in the administration of the church that anything else is largely ignored. And it is so consuming that they may feel fully justified in doing so. From their perspective, their days and weeks are completely full with all of their assignments. All that remains is, to tell each other, over and over again that the gospel is simple and is just love and service. They may not know everything, but they know enough.
My point is not call them out for this shortcoming or to lobby for change, since I don’t believe that we will see any significant shifts in the near future. What is important for us to is to recognize the world for what it is and them deal with it from there. We need to realize that the Sunday school manuals are not very good, and are written to accommodate a very low level of understanding. The whole system is repetitive by design. Sometimes General Authorities will come to a stake conference and give a really bad talk that incorporates some false doctrine. General Conference will never be a place for deeper doctrinal understanding and enlightenment. One of the most aggravating assertions I hear all the time is that if the General Authorities thought we needed more than the same ten or twelve talk themes they would give them to us. The underlying assumption is that the General Authorities know all church issues incredibly well, but they just give us the basics because that is all we lowly members can understand. It is pretty obvious that the General Authorities speak and write to the level of their own viewpoint and understanding.
General Conference has been for a long time centered around three themes: counsel, comfort and encouragement–not doctrine or difficult issues. In my view, Conference has devolved into two days of psychological advice, motivational speaking and basic commandment review. There is nothing inherently wrong with this so long as one realizes that is all there is, and there “ain’t” no more. There are notable exceptions, Elder McConkie’s April 1985 talk, which was his last, and Elder Uchtdorf’s talk, Come, Join with Us (Oct. 2013) come to mind quickly. I am sure there are others that individuals have found noteworthy or exceptional; in my view those are the exception, not the rule. However, I do see one reason that General Conference follows the general theme that it does. I believe the members of the Q15 are acutely aware of tendency to chase after current political trends and they make efforts to avoid substituting a temporary political excitement for core doctrine. My personal sense if that first and foremost they see themselves as the keepers of the flame.
I find it helpful to know the how and why of current church administration and as a result I find I am less upset when I see things go awry. Is there a way to mesh an individual’s desire for more or better doctrinal content with a system that is geared toward the simple and repetitive?
The complete talk by Elder McConkie at the link below. It is heavily marked up because it passed through a few people’s hands prior to me getting it.
McConkie Regional Rep Talk 1982
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Thanks for the original posting! I appreciate it.
Thanks for a good post. This really hit the nail on the head for why conference and Sunday School are so hard to take.
There may be a simple reason for the amount of repetition: the mindset of General Authorities. It seems more and more that the General Authorities see their function primarily as maintaining the church, not innovating. The innovators (B.H. Roberts, Talmadge, etc.) have been largely silenced by the sheer force of numbers (J.F. Smith, Jr., for example). Thus, we don’t see forward-looking proposals to prepare us for the next fifty years. We see reactions to current problems only, and those reactions are usually delayed. As a result, the Church finds itself twenty or thirty years behind the societal pace of dealing with issues (civil rights for African-Americans, women’s rights, etc,).
When we lose the sense of innovation, revelation for the future goes out the window also. Protecting the past ways of organization becomes more important than looking to the future. Revelation comes to remedy the past, but not to prepare for the future, because the past is where the receiver’s focus is. I do what want to blame the General Authorities. I think that they are largely good people trying their best. However, the inherent mindset is in the past and that dictates, unconsciously, their current actions.
One of Joseph Smith’s greatest contributions was a complete lack of respect for the past. When He needed to, he jettisoned his past beliefs and practices in light of new revelation. His revelations and discourses are filled with thoughts of the future and preparing for the future. We need that spirit again in the church.
I apologize for the rambling entry. This post brought some of these ideas into greater focus.
That is an interesting set of thoughts.
Fits in with the changes in church administration that have developed.
Excellent commentary Shannon. It used to be that General Conference was a place to build up spirituality, rather than dumb it down. I know there are advantages to dumbing it down–it is easier to proliferate among non-English speakers, but a diet of milk only does not make for spiritually healthy people. I did a transcript of an (in)famous Mormon scholar several years ago, complaining about Gospel Doctrine manuals where he said
See https://mormonheretic.org/2011/11/26/daniel-peterson-talks-candidly-about-correlation/
I actually think you answered your own question. It is very likely that the brethren simply do not know anything beyond what is in the manuals. If that is the case how are they to teach anything differently? BRM had no problem just making stuff up when he did not know something. Look at the problems that has created. I do think the brethren are aware of this and I would bet the council is to just stick to the basics. The weight their office carries with the members and the prophet worshipping culture that we have fostered has to weigh on their minds before they make any bold declarations.
It has not always been this way. During GD last week the lesson was on the plan of salvation. I got bored of the five circles on the chalk board and started reading J Stapley’s Splendid Sun. He did an excellent blog on BY thoughts on the spirit. BY taught that spirits are not eternal. They are created and can be destroyed by God. This is in direct contrast to what JS taught on the subject. Orson Pratt then chimed in with some spiritual atomism bs where we have always existed but in some different form. First as spiritual grass that was eaten by some spiritual animal then ended up in a God when that animal was eaten and then yada yada we were created.
It struck me that If we had a lesson that delved into that it would be worse than the five circles on the chalkboard. We simply do not know what is truth and what is not. Even BY and JS disagreed, so which one would we teach?
The bad thing is that what we end up with is some dumbed down plan of salvation that really sounds exactly like what every other Christian church is teaching.
I think Elder McConkie affected Pres. Packer, as he taught something similar two years later at the same venue, about making usre leaders and future leaders know the Lord through the scriptures and other experiences.. I’m sure Elder McConkie would have been in attendance, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1985/03/principles?lang=eng
Thank you for the nice comments. I agree with the sentiments that it could be dangerous to let people go wild in lessons. I have been in classes like that and some of the subjects covered were stupid. I once sat through an Elder’s quorum lesson that was completely centered around Jonathon Livingston Seagull, complete with Neil Diamond music. However, I wonder if there couldn’t be permission given through the General Handbook of Instructions to allow a Gospel Doctrine II class. Participation is voluntary, it may or may not follow the current outline, be released from schedule constraints. If a subject needs two or three or four weeks, that time could be taken. The most critical part is to find a competent teacher. The right teacher can inspire discussion, teach the c;lass members to disagree, agreeably and guide students to read during the week. It would be small and sporadically placed at first, but members of the class could learn to prepare themselves to become teachers. If there are only 5 or 7 or 10 in the class, that is okay. In the case Zach described, talk about Joseph’s ideas and Brigham’s ideas and let the members decide which they believe and why. I have faith in people, I believe we have many smart members who want to be taught. We have many plow horses who only want to plod along. I say leave them alone, but we also have many fine thoroughbreds how want to run. Let’s unshackle then and let them run.
“Faith is thus born of scriptural study. Those who study, ponder and pray about the scriptures, seeking to understand their deep and hidden meanings, receive from time to time great outpourings of light and knowledge from the Holy Spirit. This is what happened to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon when they received the vision of the degrees of glory.
However talented men may be in administrative matters; however eloquent they may be in expressing their views; however learned they may be in worldly things – they will be denied the sweet whisperings of the Spirit that might have been theirs unless they pay the price of studying, pondering and praying about the scriptures.”
The way I see this is, you have to put in the time in order to get the “outpourings of light and knowledge from the Holy Spirit” and if you don’t sacrifice for this direct connection with heaven, then you will more than likely rely on the church handbook of instructions or the manuals for your knowledge and inspiration. Why is it that man almost always falls short of connecting with Heaven? Why would you want to settle for something that was man-made when you could get something directly from God with just a little more effort?
Elder McKonkie was a mind boggling mass of contradictions.
I don’t see any evidence in the material quoted above that McKonkie was even a Christian. He doesn’t mention Christ once in all the quotes above. He doesn’t focus on Christ but frames his message with vague concepts like “the gospel” which are easily hijacked back to the centrality of the institutional church. He went on a tirade at BYU and stamped out anything that vaguely resembled evangelical Christianity. He alienated many great minds among the youth of his time and sacked some of the more progressive professors at BYU. His only bedrock conviction was “the church is true” no matter what it is teaching now. Once an apostle , his opinion was truth by definition. He was wrong so many times that some of his works have aged into nothing less than anti-Mormon material.
To his credit I remember what I think was his last appearance in GC when he was near death from colon cancer where I think he gave his best and clearest testimony of Christ. I think his lasting legacy will be his one rather ominous song, ” I believe in Christ, ” he is credited with writing but I think he only wrote a rough draft of the lyrics. So I give him credit where credit is due.
But he did more than his share to move Mormonism far away from a worship and gospel centered in Christ and far down the path into the correlated desert we face today. Ironically, his most devote fans seem to forget his final message, or at least have not been very good at its application.
I have to ask , do they believe in Christ?
The Mormon “plan of salvation ” only sounds exactly like what every other Christian church is teaching if you’re not actually paying any attention to what every other Christian church is teaching.
Thank you for this excellent post! I especially like how you describe General Conference. I have had very, very mixed feelings about General Conference for a long time, and your description helps me untangle why my feelings have been so mixed. Thank you for that–it is very helpful.
I also really like the “study for 10 years” versus “have the same year of study ten times” comparison. It is also very helpful. I often think about the idea of studying the scriptures with different experts. Reading the Book of Mormon, for example, with Grant Hardy (via the book you mentioned) is an excellent, excellent way to read the book. Reading the Bible with excellent LDS and non-LDS Bible scholars is also uniquely rewarding. These rich practices contrast sharply with what might be far too common Gospel Doctrine classes, classes where repetition instead of genuine learning seems to be the goal and highest virtue.
One suggestion I’ve been thinking of is related to the Gospel Doctrine 2 idea. I could be something like “Out of the Best Books,” where we use books like Hardy’s and others to learn about the scriptures and about God. This could really encourage learning. But I actually don’t like that idea. Over time, I’m seeing Gospel Doctrine and pretty much every church class and meeting as less about learning and more about community. When I have taught Gospel Doctrine, I have done all I could to create a safe, inviting place where participants could share insights, struggles, and experiences. I have tried to build love and community via the scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It can feel repetitive, but when people share experiences or challenges, and thereby allow us to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort, it feels like time well spent.
Now the place where I really, really think that genuine learning should happen is in Institute. Institute really seems like a place for the Hardys, the Givenses, the David Bokovoys, the Joe Spencers, the Adam Millers, et al of the church.
I have mixed feelings on this. While I agree with the importance of scripture study, I look at someone like my next door neighbor and other like her. She is the first to serve and reach out to others. She is not a great scholar of the scriptures but is so full of the spirit because of her great love for God and others. Isn’t love the weightier matter of the law?
Whilst I find both church and conference incredibly boring, and the standard of teaching often lamentable, I’ve come to think this is my trial, and that I need to love the individual, and the community , for what it is. I’ve had enough dreadful experience to need comfort rather than conjecture, and since no-one can be certain about the issues over which I have concerns, I’m largely happy to co-operate with what is basically useful and constructive. I remember gospel doctrine lessons that just became a dispute over doctrinal stuff that really made no difference to my life one way or another, but I hated being caught in the crossfire when all I needed was a safe place to acknowledge and be reminded of the purposes of God.
I’m happy to take responsibility for my own gospel study if it avoids others who are at their weakest having a distressing experience, and I wish we just stuck to worship in many ways. I’ve decided that if I’m bored I can always read my scriptures or take delight in the beautiful children in sacrament meeting. I have trouble enough dealing with the crazy stuff we make of what we have.
Shannon, there are some wards that do as you suggest. For many years Hugh Nibley taught GD in the Provoo 10th ward. His lessons were standing room only and were often crashed by outsiders, including a certain Dallin Oaks when he was president of BYU. But not everyone loved his esoteric, adventurous lessons; believe it or not, some people wanted the typical manual-based experience. So they ran a second GD class, which would be indistinguishable from pretty much any other GD class in the church.
The 1981 publication of the LDS Standard Works, featuring the Triple Combination, copious footnotes, etc., had a major impact on my approach to reading and studying in general. To this day, I love cross-referencing. However, when I went through my faith crisis in the late 90s, my “sticks” proved inadequate to plug the holes in a leaky testimony.
For me at least, McConkie’s belief in their power to strengthen members proved to be wishful thinking. It certainly was not my experience, and seems to not have been the experience of many others, that a concerted study of the LDS scriptures leads to greater faith in the Church’s theological claims—at least, not if that study ventures anywhere beyond the most current edition.
Though I stopped practicing Mormonism around 2001, I do remember the cultural tension discussed in this post. Speaking as one who has also explored Protestantism and Catholicism, I think one can learn to get the best of both devotional and deep study approaches. You may not get them in the same place, or at the same meeting, but you can certainly have both in your life. The people I have the greatest trouble getting along with are the either/or absolutist types. If you only want light devotional material, or only enjoy deep doctrine discussions, we’ll have to part company sooner than later.
Say what you will about McConkie, but this talk is a diamond in the rough.