LDS Leaders often frown on popular speakers. Why is that? In our next conversation with Dr. Margaret Toscano, we’ll talk about how popular speakers create a problem for leaders who might not be so charismatic. She thinks this lack of charisma leads to other movements, such as Denver Snuffer’s movement that has broken off from the mainstream LDS Church over the past few years.
Margaret: One of the big problems in any organization, and the church basically has done this by kind of downplaying the charismatic. You see this in the church, I don’t know how this is manifest now, but I remember when I was young, which is long time ago, that they were always afraid of the popular church speaker. George Pace. Remember George pace at BYU? Did you ever know about that?
GT: No, I don’t think so. Paul Dunn is the one that comes to mind.
Margaret: Yes, but he was a church leader. But even so, that’s frightening. What if you have somebody who’s more interesting and spiritually powerful than the Prophet of the church?
GT: That’s a problem.
Margaret: It’s a problem. So let’s not encourage that. Most of your listeners probably don’t know. We’ll get into this little tangent. George Pace was a very popular religion teacher at BYU. He emphasized having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and spiritual experiences and transformation. The church saw him is very dangerous. He had a huge following. He wrote a book. At church education, he was the most popular speaker. Everybody wanted to hear him. Well, Bruce McConkie, who is sort of the predecessor of Boyd Packer, did not like that and gave a talk. He did two things. I’m not sure I have my facts right, but he did something to curb–basically, I think that Pace was threatened, of losing his job if he didn’t sort of walk away from all of that.
GT: Start speaking poorly?
Margaret Or not speak, and not publish. [It was] kind of what I was threatened with, not publishing, not speaking. You can lose your job. He’s not the only one that happened to, again this. There’s a lot of history lost, right? Then Bruce McConkie got up and he gave a talk about the danger of having a personal relationship with Christ, which of course, on one level, you kind of laugh and think, how can that be bad?
What are your thoughts about popular speakers? Do you agree with Margaret?
We will also try to tackle the question as to whether the Relief Society was intended by Joseph Smith to be a priesthood quorum. Margaret describes an answer to prayer, in which she found historical records describing Joseph Smith starting the Relief Society and organizing the women as a quorum of priestesses. She describes how Joseph Smith’s theology of priesthood are larger than we have today. We also discuss the Community of Christ revelation in 1984 in which women were ordained, just like the men. Is that what Joseph Smith had in mind?
GT: Do you think that Joseph would have advocated for women to be ordained as a Priest, Teacher, Deacon, Elder, Apostle, Bishop? Is that what his plan was?
Margaret: I mean, who knows? I think that his theology justifies that. I want to go back to the Relief Society. So in those speeches in Nauvoo, he told the women that he wanted the Relief Society organized according to the order of the ancient priesthood, and that their organization was a priesthood organization, they were essential for the church being in the right order. The church could not be in the right order without the Relief Society as a priesthood organization. I think he says that clearly. I mean, you can always argue whether it’s clear or not. But that’s my interpretation.
Do you think Joseph intended the Relief Society to be a quorum? Has the Relief Society’s spiritual growth been stifled?
Wheat & Tares 
When my family discusses Mormonism, we often wind up talking about the ideas of Adam Miller or Terryl Givens, not those of high-ranking church officials. I would like to be a fly on the wall when the Brethren discuss the contributions of those individuals. It does appear the Givens have been given a significant platform.
Independent speakers have many things going for them that the Fifteen do not. They’re, generally speaking, younger and have more energy and are, therefore, more engaging as speakers. They’re not locked into the “company line” and an independence of thought gives them reign to explore new themes, enlarge on what’s attractive about the BOM and Mormon culture and to avoid or challenge what’s lacking, shaky or unpalatable. And, importantly, they have no News Room to hide behind so they stand center stage taking all the responsibility for their opinions — good and bad. Summing up, in other words, they’re real and accessible and transparent.
A friend of mine and a former mission president is now employed by the church to train new mission presidents and missionaries. But he became a more popular speaker than the senior church officials who traveled with him on various training assignments. Soooooooo (wait for it) they clipped his wings. He now spends more time at his desk in SLC and less time interacting with mission presidents and missionaries.
His superiors told him that since they outranked him, then what they had to say simply had to be more important. I think this is what is known as “ipso fatso” reasoning.
A few other obstacles:
1) Earning a living equals priestcraft. Popular LDS speakers can become so busy that it becomes a full-time job, and in Mormon culture automatically become priestcraft. John Bytheway and Hank Smith have somehow avoided this. The Q15 have a living stipend, but somehow this isn’t considered priestcraft. Somehow, we’ve managed to disregard both King Benj.’s discourse on paying your own way as a church leader, and D&C 42 where it says bishoprics should be paid. Hmmm.
2) The Church Handbook strongly discourages any speakers or music from outside the ward (Book 2, Sec. 21.2.20 “The bishop’s approval is required before guest speakers or instructors may participate in any ward meeting… The stake president’s approval is required for such participation in stake meetings.)
I suspect that these reasons are why the Church ditched the “Know Your Religion” series a few years back.
On another note, the Pace/McConkie feud is fairly well documented. McConkie’s response (a BYU devetional speech) can easily be found on Google by it’s title “The Seven Deadly Heresies.”
Just thought of another one.
They get to think for themselves. They don’t have to satisfy a whole committee and water ideas down to the lowest common denominator before they can share their conclusions.
Popular speakers are fun and interesting to listen to, but they carry no priesthood authority. I grew up listening to John Bytheway. I watch or listen to Don’t Miss This. I strive to find charasmatic and academically rigourous LDS writing and speaking (which can be pretty challenging). But in the end, the words that carry the most weight for me are those spoken by those appointed by priesthood power.
In a sense, I see this as what has happened to Pres. Uchtdorf. He was always everyone’s favorite apostle. Our family still looks forward to his conference talks more than anyone else’s. But it sure seems like he’s been shuffled to a situation where he’d almost never in front of an audience anymore.
I am so sorry for the way the institution has treated Sis. Toscano: her contributions to the Gospel outweigh the efforts of those who persecuted her.
Yes, Relief Society is a quorum. I think some of the confusion about priesthood inside the church has to do with generations of Masonic fraternal culture, and the misgiving that priesthood is “male.”
Priesthood is the Holy Spirit. If there is no Spirit, there is no priesthood. Every so-called “power“ and “authority” associated with priesthood is contingent upon the Spirit.
The Spirit does not discriminate gender. Neither does priesthood. The institution is still learning what-priesthood-is. Leadership still thinks priesthood is something like Masonry…
There is always YouTube