As we roll over into 2023, we also roll over into a new curriculum year for adult LDS Sunday School. With the new Come Follow Me series of manuals, this is more than just the LDS Gospel Doctrine class that most readers are familiar with. LDS leadership has broadened the new curriculum and manuals into a family study program, more than just a Sunday School manual or course of study. I’ll comment on a few short topics, then list a few books that might enhance your study.
Come Follow Me, Round 3
The Internet tells me the newish Come Follow Me (“CFM”) curriculum started in January 2013. That means this is the third time around already for CFM New Testament. I imagine the Church will be following the traditional four-year-cycle for the foreseeable future, which is both good and bad. Good: at least the curriculum focuses on the scriptures and members are encouraged to actually *read* the relevant chapters. Bad: nothing new under the sun. You’ve had this lesson before, maybe twice.
What’s the verdict on the new CFM curriculum and manuals? Compared to the prior manuals, some improvement. Having all lessons available online (although you can get a hard copy manual if you want) means they can update material on the fly — although it is always frustrating that the Church updates online content with little notice of what has been updated and no access to earlier versions of the lesson or essay that is being updated. But compared to the ideal rather than the prior manuals, I think CFM is disappointing. This was a big opportunity to provide teachers and students with additional context and commentary. It was an opportunity to move towards a fact-based curriculum. Nope, didn’t happen. The manual is filled with GA quotes but with almost zero scholarly quotes or even references. If you’ve read it once, even laboring through the KJV New Testament, it’s unlikely you’ll actually learn anything about the New Testament in an LDS New Testament class.
What’s a Teacher to Do?
That’s a serious question, largely an ethics question. How is an LDS teacher supposed to approach and present one of these lessons? What is a person attending the class supposed to do? Here’s my personal view. If I attend a class, I will raise my hand an offer a comment in only two circumstances. First, as a class member, if I actually have something to say that adds to what the teacher said in a positive way. Second, if a commenter (or even the teacher) makes a claim or statement that misrepresents the LDS position or misrepresents facts about history in such a way as to harm or offend other class members who don’t know any better. That means I don’t raise a hand to correct every single misstatement or misinterpretation — there are simply too many. Just the serious ones merit a correcting response. And I don’t say, “Bro. Jones is completely wrong in his statement that X.” I’ll say something like, “More recent LDS leaders have not endorsed that view. In fact, …” Or, “there’s another way to look at that scripture. …”
Second, as a teacher I take the approach that I’ll teach what’s relevant to the scriptural material for that week’s lesson, but I won’t teach false or misleading material. So there is a lot of stuff in the manual I simply will not teach. I’ll have a hard copy of the manual prominently displayed on the table and make a reference or two to it — “in the manual it notes that …” — but I will just teach from the scriptural material and discreetly use scholarly reference material (LDS or non-LDS) when needed. I won’t use false or misleading material from the manual. Any teacher who would knowingly do so shouldn’t be teaching.
Courses of Study, Ranked
The worst LDS course of study is the Old Testament, given how badly the LDS treatment mangles the text. If the Hebrew Bible doesn’t say what LDS leadership wants it to say, they either just create their own scripture with a different or expanded treatment (hello, Pearl of Great Price and JST) or just speculatively make stuff up. The LDS approach is to pile LDS misreadings on top of Christian misreadings of the Hebrew Bible.
Book of Mormon and D&C/Church history are tied for next worst. The Book of Mormon year never really recovers from the early lesson about Nephi (our hero) killing the unconscious Laban in cold blood and all the justifications teacher, class, and manual offer for how this was a good thing, a righteous thing, a wonderful thing. And the Korihor lesson halfway through the year is always a clusterf*ck. I used to like the D&C/Church history year, but the more you read LDS history, the less you like the LDS curriculum treatment.
So that leaves the New Testament year as the least worst set of lessons and material of the four-year LDS curriculum cycle. Slow clap.
You Are Responsible for Your Own Learning
Remarkably, that’s the title for the first lesson in the New Testament curriculum: “We Are Responsible for Our Own Learning.” It’s almost like they are acknowledging, right up front, “don’t expect us to teach you anything,” mingled with encouragement to the student to go learn on their own. Strange intro for a class with a teacher and students. The lesson presents a feelings-based approach to learning, not a fact-based approach. In the section with the subtitle “What should I do when I have questions?” the most obvious response — go read relevant books and articles by scholars and experts in the field, including LDS scholars — is of course omitted. Instead, you are told to pray, act in faith, and keep an eternal perspective. Fine, but what about my questions?
A Few Books
Santa brought me a few new books. First, the revised edition (blue cover) of Thomas A. Wayment’s The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints (Greg Kofford Books, 2022, rev. ed.). I used Wayment’s first edition (green cover) four years ago. I also use the New Oxford Annotated Bible in Kindle for reading and reference.
Second, Santa brought me Ancient Christians: An Introduction for Latter-day Saints (Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2022). There are lots of images and illustrations in the book, so it is printed on heavy glossy paper. It’s just a beautiful book. You know that new car smell you get with a new car? Just riff this book’s pages close to your face and you’ll get a new book smell. It smells like … victory.
Along the same lines, you really must get a copy of Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy (OUP, 2014). That’s easily the best book I’ve ever found on the LDS concept of the Great Apostasy. The key thing you need to know: “the Great Apostasy” is a doctrine, not a historical conclusion. It rests on the LDS conviction that if there is a Restoration, there must have been an Apostasy. It does not rest on historical fact. Not surprisingly (as presented clearly in the book) the LDS attempt to backfill facts into the Great Apostasy narrative has constantly shifted over the years. And while we’re at it, gird up your loins (it’s about a thousand pages long) and read Diarmaid MacCulloch’s A History of Christianity.
If you’re into (or want to be into) the Historical Jesus scholarship, here are a few titles. The Historical Figure of Jesus, by E. P. Sanders. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, by Bart D. Ehrman. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, by John Dominic Crosson. Each reviews the field but each also presents a different view of the historical Jesus.
Conclusions
Enough about me. Let’s hear from you.
- What do you think of the CFM series or the CFM New Testament in particular?
- What’s your approach to teaching LDS lessons or commenting in an LDS class?
- What’s your least favorite or most favorite LDS course of study, of the four?
- What New Testament translations and scholarly books do you use or find helpful for anyone who intends to follow the admonition of the manual and be responsible for their own learning about the New Testament?
Wheat & Tares 
I first started to dislike Come Follow Me as a primary teacher. The way that scriptures are interpreted (sometimes twisted) to point back to prophets, obedience, and temples started to bother me. I completely disengaged during D&C year. I just wasn’t in a place to handle church history. Last year, I was flabbergasted by the manual’s interpretation of things. Jacob’s vision of the ladder into heaven was interpreted as representing the “rungs we have to climb in temple ordinances” to get back to the temple and it came with a nifty coloring sheet for the kids. The lesson on Elisha visiting the widow of zaraphath had little to do with God’s love and mercy and everything to do with how vital it is to follow the prophet.
The lack of intellectual curiosity, scholarly accuracy, historical context, facts, etc. makes CFM mind numbing to me. It’s bland, watered down, and propoganda-like. And most members are EATING.IT.UP. Our first lesson in Sunday School was a 30 minute testimony meeting about how wonderful Come Follow Me is. We didn’t read a single scripture from the New Testament (we just read 2 from Doctrine and Covenants).
As far as what we will do? I’m living by the principle of “the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better” (Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward, 124). So my family and I will be following a similar reading schedule, but we are reading out of multiple translations. It’s been fun for my kids to see the difference between KJV and NIV. The version I have is colorful and full of historical information and commentary. We’ll be having Jesus-centered discussions, memorizing his teachings, and keeping the focus entirely on him. We’ll also be learning about early Christianity and taking our kids to various churches so they can learn about and respect how others worship Jesus.
I agree that the Sunday School classes, and curriculum are not very effective. Even the Seminary program is not allowed to cover important topics during the school year. This year the last week of the life of Christ and the whole book of Acts is during the summer, so they don’t get to study it.
But I think that one of the big problems with the Sunday School classes is that they are only every two weeks. Many times, the priesthood class are just a regurgitation of a conference talk. I think more would be gained with Sunday School every week. But that isn’t going to happen.
I agree with the notion that the NT is the least worst thing to teach in a COJCOLDS setting.
My own faith crises was kicked off when accepted a calling to an early morning seminary teacher a few years ago. And around that time they decided that the seminary curriculum should also follow (loosely) that of CFM. So I ended up teaching BoM and the D&C. As an academic in my 30s I had kind of left behind ‘personal scripture study’ years ago, because grad school required all of my ‘study’ energy.
Now that I was a seminary teacher and had to actually read scriptures in detail again, I approached it with more critical study skills I had learned by virtue of having to do research at an academic level. And boy howdy, was that a jarring experience. It became all too easy to see the connections between the themes and plotlines of the BoM and contemporary issues/worldviews of JS’s day. It became harder to see the BoM as what it claims to be.
Then we switched to the D&C and I, doing what anyone else outside the context of the church would assume to be due diligence, would go look up the historical circumstances of the various circumstances and found that the narrative of early church history that I was most familiar with (that presented in the Prophet of the Restoration movie), didn’t quite square with the historical record, even in terms of the overall “vibe”.
I was dreading have to teach the Old Testament, as it requires a lot of cognitive dissonance to try and link the some of events and themes of the OT with modern Church doctrine (especially all the divinely sanctioned genocide or other mass murder events). Luckily I was released, because my spouse got a high-maintenance calling.
But I think I would’ve enjoyed the teaching the NT, more opportunities there for actual positive and faith-building learning experiences based on doctrines and principles that I would actually agree with.
On the other hand, an interesting situation here, is that, in some respects, the Church at present seems the MOST divorced from the gospel as presented in the NT, compared to other scripture. It will be interesting to see how that plays out this year in sunday school and seminary classes around the world.
^lots of typos in my previous comment, sorry!
I believe in the basic Gospel teaching principle of “line upon line”, but not “repeat the 4th grade every year for the rest of your life”. That’s not what I signed up for.
It is quite possible that the pronoun “me” in Come Follow Me is actually Russell M. Nelson referring to himself.
The best thing to do with CFM is to relegate the the format and materials to the circular file, in other words to the garbage can. Bart D. Ehrman has said about the the the knowledge that many of his students have about the NT comes mainly from Sunday school. Which means based on my own observations that people know little of any real substance about the NT. I have started reading Ancient Christians book previously referenced. I have also been reading The JEWISH ANNOTATED NEW TESTATAMENT second edition, edited by Mark Zvi Brettler and Amy Jill Levine. The editors used the NRSV for their work and it is done with an eye towards of making the Jewish origins of the NT available to Christian readers well as making the NT accessible to Jewish readers as well. This book has really opened up a window into the NT for me. This book has reinforced to me that idea that if you really want to understand the NT you need need to understand the OT. Which means that most people sitting in LDS Sunday school classes don’t know anything about the Holy Bible in general.
While I was getting my history degree, there were two formats for the classes that I took: lectures and seminars. In lectures, a professor talked endlessly about any topic, with countless students zoning in and out of consciousness. On the other hand, seminars were active discussions, with the professor guiding the flow and direction of the conversation. Since seminars were limited to students (a dozen or fewer) with similar majors, there were more opportunities for students to have in-depth discussions. I enjoyed seminars FAR more than I ever did lectures. I enjoyed being surrounded by people with similar passions in history. Rather than looking forward to the perspective of one professor, I was looking forward to the diverse perspectives of other students, which made my experience in these seminars even more enriching.
From what I can tell, the Church has been moving away from a lecture-based format to a seminar-based format. Since the Church doesn’t have professional clergy or theologians, I think this is for the best. Instead of having a self-entitled instructor dominating the lessons, more people are given an opportunity to share their thoughts and perspectives about the scriptures. We all have something to give, and I think Come Follow Me can better facilitate shared revelation in a group setting.
I admit that it can be frustrating at times to teach or learn a CFM lesson that’s intentionally vague. Still, I would much rather hear a lesson that allows some wiggle room in interpretation and student contributions than a lesson that’s micromanaged by Church headquarters.
Minor point – 2023 marks the start of the second cycle of Come Follow Me – so we have only done New Testament once prior, in 2019. There were previously and mainly lessons for the youth programs but I think those were mostly topical. Sept 2021 I gave a Sac Mtg talk about “prophets” and tried to downplay all the BS including that Nelson created Come Follow Me because Covid was coming – I pointed out the details in my first sentence here above and quoted a church news article about focus groups and pilot programs.
I am a closeted non-believer serving as 1 of 2 adult SS teachers in our ward – the other teacher is a devout grandmother formerly of Utah County. I am trying to drop more nuance into the lessons and avoid all the questions/discussions about obedience and other problematic areas (i.e. the lite version of Masonry we still practice). I did lead the fluffy intro NT discussion at church two days ago and quoted the church handbook which allows for personal bible study using versions that are not the KJV.
When I taught the OT lesson about Jonah I stated that whether true or not, we can make application, “just as we can with Star Wars or Harry Potter.” No complaints that I am aware of. I have only had the calling for a year but I am dreading a discussion next year of BOM and the lost 116 pages and also how the book was “translated.”
Chet, any time you can reference Star Wars or Harry Potter in GD class is a great day!
Just to back up Chet, the churchwide “Come, Follow Me” program was announced in the 2018 October general conference and implemented in 2019.
For the first half of 2015 (until we moved), I taught the old NT curriculum for Gospel Doctrine. At that point, the Church had just updated its NT institute manual, and I still view it as a valuable resource. Definitely an improvement over the previous decades-old manual. It helps to pull scholarly stuff from a church-produced manual if you have class members skittish about using outside resources.
Oof, I have strong feelings on this.
What do you think of the CFM series or the CFM New Testament in particular?
I think it’s awful proof-texting, indoctrination, and shoe-horning of scripture passages into rules and obedience topics that often bear little resemblance to the passages themselves and are often IMO the opposite of what the scriptures actually mean. I think they are legitimately awful.
What’s your approach to teaching LDS lessons or commenting in an LDS class?
I teach and I base my lesson on whatever topics the text actually presents that seem relevant to the group I’m teaching. Honestly I ignore CFM and stick with the scriptures.
What’s your least favorite or most favorite LDS course of study, of the four?
They are equally bad IMO. I don’t give the NT a pass because the manual so twists and manipulated and contorts Jesus’s teachings that it drives me absolutely nuts. In fact, round 1 of CFM and the NT was a massive shelf-breaker for me because I saw how different what the church says Jesus said actually was from what Jesus said …
What New Testament translations and scholarly books do you use or find helpful for anyone who intends to follow the admonition of the manual and be responsible for their own learning about the New Testament?
Last time around I just used the internet. This time around I have the Wayment translation, the Borg version (which presents the books in the order they were written in), and another modern translation. I also got the new History of Christianity for Mormons book you reference above. And I loved Borg’s “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” and “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.” I will check out the others mentioned in the post.
I had the privilege of teaching SS in 2015 and 2016 when it was NT and BoM before moving on to other callings. I feel really lucky these are the two books I got to teach out of the four as I felt there was a lot to work with outside the manual.
I’m a hack and I planned all of my NT lessons from Julie Smith’s “Search Ponder and Pray” book and all my BoM lessons from James Faulconer’s “The Book of Mormon Made Harder” book and the class ate it all up. 10/10 would highly recommend.
I cannot stand the D&C. Particularly the fact that God would talk to JS several times about mission calls and yet here we are wondering when we can get further light and knowledge on how to treat the marginalized. This worldview stopped working for me a long time ago.
In closing let’s also remember that Sunday School is not in fact school but is more akin to ritual. For some that’s great, for others not so much.
One of the best reference works I’ve ever encountered regarding Apostle Paul is a thin book of essays by Krister Stendahl, “Paul among Jews and Gentiles” (Fortress Press, 1976). It’s sadly out of print and hard to find, but its most important chapter/essay is available online and still regarded by many scholars as THE seminal explanation of who Paul was and how he’s been misunderstood for centuries.
Here’s a link to a PDF of “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” (If this doesn’t work for you, just do a web search.)
Click to access 01Stendahl.pdf
Jack Hughes: FTW! I could not have said it better myself.
Elisa: I agree completely that our manuals bear little resemblance to the actual scriptures. The problem is kind of like what happens when you make too many photocopies of a photocopy. It’s pretty clear that the people creating the manuals know what they’ve been told the scriptures say but haven’t actually engaged with the text in any meaningful way, and honestly, the biggest problem I see is that people do not know how to read. They may be literate, capable of recognizing written communication, but they don’t know how to read for actual comprehension, how to ask basic questions about the text, how to interpret things that are contradictory. People in general, not just at Church, are really bad at this. There’s an authoritarian orthodoxy expectation that flies in the face of actually reading it.
I have always done what you do–use the text, ignore the manual, and let the discussion flow logically from what it actually says. I had an 80+ year old class member come up to me after one of my lessons (she was a former school teacher), and she said “Wow, the scriptures really did not say what the manual said they said.” While I hadn’t made that point overtly, she caught it out, just like I did.
“With the new Come Follow Me series of manuals, this is more than just the LDS Gospel Doctrine class that most readers are familiar with.”
thor_is_it_though.jpg
“I believe in the basic Gospel teaching principle of “line upon line”, but not “repeat the 4th grade every year for the rest of your life”. That’s not what I signed up for.”
In a world where the Church does absolutely zero missionary work, I think this statement would make sense. But as a missionary 20-22 years ago, few things bugged me more than watching investigator eyes glaze over in meetings that went far too deep. I’m not underestimating the power of someone new to the Gospel to grasp greater concepts, mind you, but there were far too many first Sundays to Church that unnecessarily became last Sundays, likely in part for the reasons just listed.
I’ve said it before, but Covid taught me that I go to Church largely out of concern for others, not for myself. If I need to go deeper, I’ve got the tools and abilities to do so.
I’m going on my third year teaching the older youth. I started with the tail end of BOM. I personally think CFM is good overall. Adults long familiar with the Church may want more than just application. They’re welcome to look beyond it. But application seems to be what youth crave most. And for all the faults we tend to ascribe to CFM, the manuals do encourage the teachers to ask and think outside the manual from time to time. I’ve always felt that was an interesting move for a Church that’s supposedly super controlling. The best lessons inspire me to learn on my own, and since my journey is as much or more a personal one than an Institutional one, I find that appropriate. I do go down some strange paths from time to time, but ones I still walk as a mostly orthodox member.
@eli, I get that, but honestly my issue isn’t that I want some deep complicated doctrine like how far is Kolob.
My issue is that the manuals do violence to the text and, as Angela said, actually prevent us from engaging with scripture.
I think you can present material in a way that is digestible to a range of backgrounds in a way that still allows people to encounter scripture on its own terms, explore possible meanings, and applications to our lives. Instead, we are encouraged to view scripture as simply reinforcing a set of rules no matter how modern those rules may be.
Apropos of nothing, here’s NYT health piece today:
3. You can feel better about that morning coffee.
“Researchers found that people who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee per day, even with a teaspoon of sugar, were up to 30 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who didn’t drink coffee — another reason to justify reaching for your first (or second, or third) mug.”
Nine Nutrition Tips for the New Year NYT
1/3/2023
My strategy as a teacher both for conference talk lessons and for Sunday school was to divide the board into four quadrants:
1. Scripture references including more cross references
2. Doctrines to discuss
3. Analogies, parables, supporting stories and experiences
4. Application/Actions
Then depending on the lesson material first fill out the board for what material was to cover in the class and overview of doctrine and supporting stories from the manual or conference talk. The rest of the lesson then is discussion or more in depth material I had prepared and I would keep notes on each quadrant depending on where the class went and comments. Last few minutes focus on last section about application.
We left the church almost two years ago but this was the only way I could make conference talk of come follow me manuals work for me. Sometimes the lesson material is basically over in just a few minutes because it is a fluffy and superficial program. But then any other direction the discussion goes it is in context of the lesson and i felt like i did the job.
I also highly recommend the Yale New Testament courses that are AB’s salable for free on you tube. I learned more in those than any Sunday school. There also is a new class on Ukraine history that is fascinating.
Currently reading “The World of the New Testament.” It’s a fascinating collection of essays that look at the diverse Greco-Roman and Judean worlds that the early Christians lived in. I have wished for years that the Church would include work by scholars like these to contextually situate New Testament writings.
I would attend SS if there was depth to the New Testament lessons. But there won’t be. I love history. So the NT lessons placed in some context would be exciting. Somehow the Mormon Christ has devolved from a defender of the downtrodden to a conservative Republican (even MAGA supporter). The Pharisees have taken over.
The Yale open courses are also available on the Yale University website:
https://oyc.yale.edu/courses
I have only listened to the first 2 sessions of the New Testament course, but so far it’s very accessible for nonspecialists.
I follow the CFM schedule, trying to study the reading that will be discussed in Gospel Doctrine. I read through the lesson outline so that I know what topics it is suggesting. I will look into those topics, but mostly I study where my interests and research take me. So CFM provides my study calendar and is the jumping off point for personal study.
Elisa wrote “ my issue isn’t that I want some deep complicated doctrine like how far is Kolob.”
I get that as well, but I wasn’t even talking that complicated. I served in a largely agnostic nation. God was an abstract concept at best. The Savior was largely associated with Christmas and little more. Things I took for granted growing up was foreign material for others. Part of me would love to see the Church adapt a little more nation by nation, but I also understand the need and appeal of standardization.
“My issue is that the manuals do violence to the text and, as Angela said, actually prevent us from engaging with scripture.”
I try not to be clueless when it comes to the manual, but I really don’t think the problem goes that far. And maybe I just luck out living in all the right wards, but with few exceptions, I don’t think we’ve had any problem truly engaging with scripture either. Still, I suppose there is always room for improvement. Heck, I’ve come a long way as a teacher, but I’ve still got a long way to go.
My last calling while I was still attending church was as one of the four GD teacher teaching the NT. We had two separate classes and rotated each week. (Well I guess there was a few weeks of teaching the BoM before Covid hit, but by the time we started church back up many months later, I had opted out. )
I loved the discussions we had when I was teaching, but I probably can partially blame that year of in depth NT study for my shelf breaking. (Among many other things.)
When I accepted the calling a couple of years before, I told my friend that was the bishopric member making the call that I would only do it if I didn’t have to really use the manuals. He was okay with that, so I just used them to identify what the scriptural text for the two weeks were and then went to work. I used the Wayment version in class (gave all the official disclaimers and made it clear that people could read from whatever version they preferred if we read some verses and if they read the KJV and it was hard to understand, I would just say how some of the other versions approached the translations.)
I tried to focus our discussions on how the text challenged our thinking and prejudices, what they found surprising as they looked at the text with fresh eyes, what Jesus was demanding of us that was uncomfortable and how that played into our lives. I think we had some really meaningful discussions that grew pretty organically from the text. Given that a large number of our ward are academics or such, we had a lot of ward members who were heterodox in their approaches to Mormonism. The NT seems really relevant to the challenges we were each facing in our lives.
Besides the Wayment version of the NT, I also used Amy-Jill Levine’s wonderful book on the parables and other available texts that I could find from Protestant and Catholic scholars for commentary. I would always try to state what the background of any commentary author was, so people wouldn’t feel like I was tricking them by saying this was the LDS take. Some of my friends that had previously lived in the ward went to Vanderbilt Divinity school, so I would try to tap into their knowledge.
But of course, if you read enough of that sort of stuff, you start to wish you belonged to a church that would treat the NT text as something worth wrestling with and learning from, instead just as a proof-text. And prioritize what Jesus prioritized. So when Covid came and our services shut down for months before starting again, it was natural to start virtually attending local Protestant churches. And I found that their weekly exploration of NT (mostly) much more spiritually nourishing. And that, along with their pro -LGBTQ and pro-women and anti-racist approaches pretty much ended my desire to remain LDS.
So be careful if you stray from the CFM version, you might find The Way more enticing than the Covenant Path!
Pretty sure the authors of the CFM manual put it together based on things they wanted taught, and not based on what the scriptures actually say. I taught GD during the OT year and one of the lessons was on temple worship. Of course the authors of the CFM manual had to really stretch to make the connection between current temple worship and the language of the selected chapters in the OT. It wasn’t an honest reading of the OT text. So I based the lesson on the OT text instead, and mostly ignored the CFM manual. Some of the better-prepared class members, who had come to class expecting a lesson on temples, weren’t happy.
That being said, I don’t think the CFM manuals are a complete disaster. I sometimes found useful discussion questions or sources. But my first step in preparing a listen was to always read the relevant scripture chapters.
My parents, TBMs, have switched from reading the scriptures to reading the CFM manuals for their daily scripture study. I think that’s widespread. It’s certainly a troubling development.
10AC, ten billion likes for this:
“So be careful if you stray from the CFM version, you might find The Way more enticing than the Covenant Path!”
I will be chewing on that for a while. Particularly why LDS leaders feel they need to invent new concepts to supplant what Jesus said.
As mentioned above, studying the NT closely was a real shelfbreaker for me too. Caveat emptor!
I relate to Chadwick’s comment:
“I cannot stand the D&C. Particularly the fact that God would talk to JS several times about mission calls and yet here we are wondering when we can get further light and knowledge on how to treat the marginalized. This worldview stopped working for me a long time ago.”
Polygamy was the immediate issue for me (not to go off on too much of a tangent). Polygamy was/is allegedly an eternal institution, vital to our exaltation, the way of future universes, etc.
But nuts and bolts of how to practice it-nothing. Guidelines, nil. Accountability to each wife and all the children, zilch. Minimum age for females taking on adult roles, empty. How to prevent the resulting numbers skewering, so that all men will have the opportunity to find a spouse, naught.
The tiny bit that was addressed in Section 132, that a man needed the first wife’s agreement, was ignored before and after its inclusion. In fact, it damned her if she didn’t go along with her husband’s desires.
In the D&C, God micromanaged all kinds of things, but couldn’t be bothered to provide instructions so that this *vital*, but *really difficult* commandment to practice might have a possibility of success.
@Tim
One might wonder if reading the CFM manual instead of the actual scriptures might be the implicit goal here on the part of the Church. I think more people nowadays are more are (even if subconsciously) that what the scriptures actually say doesn’t always square with what the Church curriculum says that they say.
One strategy to hide this, which has been more obvious, is to talk less about the scriptures in general. Even my TBM parents have noticed that in GC, scriptures aren’t used as much as they used to be, stories and examples from the scriptures have given way to stories and examples from the contemporary Q15’s lives (especially RMN). And I suppose this isn’t necessarily unwarranted because, in Mormonism, conference talks theoretically have the same weight as ancient scripture.
But it is troubling that the direction this is going seems to be that of “you don’t need to read the scriptures, just trust us that what we’re telling you is what they say”, which, to me, seems like a devolution back to medieval Christianity in which only the professional clergy could actually read the bible and the peasant masses just had to take their word for it. It’s scary to think that we might be approaching a situation like that.
I also highly recommend The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Besides the excellent commentary, there are loads of great essays in the back which cover virtually all aspects of the New Testament world. I have never left the NT since the first time round in 2019 and this has been my faithful companion 🙂
Also check out another from Amy-Jill Levine and Warren Carter, The New Testament: Methods and Meanings. Again a great commentary on each book with many thought-provoking questions that wrestle with the text and are pertinent to living the Christian life today. Also a great introduction into different interpretive approaches to the bible for those (like me) who don’t have a grounding in biblical criticism.
Finally, OUP have a great series of accessible volumes called Essentials of Biblical Studies, which can be found here:
https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/e/essentials-of-biblical-studies-ebs/?cc=gb&lang=en&
I have read a few and would highly recommend New Testament Christianity in the Roman World, Sin in the New Testament, and Women in the New Testament World.
Enjoy…and whatever your poison, just read, read, read!
Sasso, that is such an excellent point. God is down in the weeds on so many topics in the D&C, but for polygamy, this dramatic change, he can only be bothered to make one rule (that as you well point out, was then totally ignored) and warn Emma a few times that she’ll be destroyed if she doesn’t accept it? Seems pretty suspicious.
I would recommend a book I read a few years ago: Misreading Scripture through Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards. I learned quite a lot of interesting ways to understand the context of the New Testament.
For years I have taken private comfort in remembering that the class is called “Gospel Doctrine.” Not “New Testament”, “Old Testament,” or even “The Book of Mormon.” The class teaches what Correlation considers to be “doctrine,” using the scriptures as quote books to make the point of the manual.
One problem of the CFM manuals is that they are used for everyone, regardless of age or experience. As Eli points out, the manuals are okay for the youth, and for families with young children. But if you want to study the scriptures, you have to look elsewhere. Several of you have made good suggestions. I am also a fan of Ben Spackman, who is generous with sharing his faithful scholarship.
From the OP: “This was a big opportunity to provide teachers and students with additional context and commentary. It was an opportunity to move towards a fact-based curriculum. Nope, didn’t happen. The manual is filled with GA quotes but with almost zero scholarly quotes or even references. If you’ve read it once, even laboring through the KJV New Testament, it’s unlikely you’ll actually learn anything about the New Testament in an LDS New Testament class.”
While I agree that learning about the books themselves with regard to the facts surrounding their provenance and original intent and meaning and so forth can be illuminating–that is not the primary goal of the church’s Sunday School curriculum. The church is more interested in teaching the gospel and fortifying the saints in their efforts to live it than it is in making them knowledgeable about related facts having to do with the many disciplines involved in unpacking an ancient text. It’s more interested in helping the members become saints than scholars.
Having said that, I’m not suggesting that the two must be mutually exclusive. I certainly believe that there is a time and place for doing deep scholastic dives into the scriptures. Even so, the church — with good reason IMO — will always prioritize preaching the gospel from its own platform over scrutinizing it with the tools of the academy.
So, Jack, what do you think of James McConkie’s discussion of 12 verses in Mark in his October 2022 GC talk? In his notes, McConkie cites many references including Encyclopedia of Christianity, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, and The New Testament in Its World. He includes historical information along with scriptural analysis. He states that we should learn about Jesus “as He really was and is,” and consider “the world He lived in.” The end purpose of McConkie’s talk is to teach of Christ by using a specific miracle, but note the ways he gets there. In my comments I wrote, “This is how the scriptures should be taught in EVERY setting.” If a GA can take 10-15 minutes to review 12 verses, all teachers (including at home) and readers should wake up and at least consider doing the same and how that will benefit everyone. It’s hard to live the scriptures if you don’t understand them, and it’s hard to understand them if you can’t place them in context (an important reason, IMO, for using modern translations). Interestingly, the Church did this with CFM for the D&C, with frequent links to both “Saints” and “Revelations in Context.”
NYAnn,
My sense is that the church lays out (in the manual) what it feels is essential for the lesson–and then allows a little wiggle room for the instructor to shape the lesson as per the needs of the class. And so, I have no problem with the teacher importing materials that will be beneficial for the class as a whole. Theoretically every class should be a bit different because of the differences in challenges that the members may be experiencing from one class to another. And so, basically, we take the lesson as a guide with respect to the teachings that the church prioritizes–and then we shape it according to the needs of the class as per the Holy Ghost.
With respect to the conference talk the you reference–I’m all for it. As I said in my previous comment–I believe there is a time and place for such teaching. Even so, if we take the whole of conference as an example of gospel teaching–vis-a-vis content–what we’ll find is a general pattern that looks like what I believe the church would like to see in our Sunday School classes.
I should clarify: that’s what the church would like to see (IMO) with respect to making sure the saints are taught the gospel. So long as that basic commitment is in place I see no problem with “outside” elements being brought in to help get the lesson across–especially when guided by the spirit.
The post led me pick up a book we’ve had sitting around for a few years – Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman. I’m thinking it could be interesting. If anyone has read it please let me know what you thought?
I don’t really plan to return to SS after giving in-person church a longer break than many may have. My last calling prior to the pandemic was teaching Primary and I found that the CFM manual was fairly adequate for that age, especially considering class time was only about 20 minutes long, but also thought it very much like white bread.
In a recent teachers council, we had a disagreement about how to use CFM to teach, especially regarding questions. One teacher said that the questions asked in CFM were not only not meaningful to them, but they disagreed with many of the questions. Another teacher responded that the simple questions in CFM were very meaningful and shouldn’t be left out of the lesson. I was mediating the council, and suggested that the teachers should teach using questions that were relevant to the scriptures covered and meaningful to them. I suggested that people are more likely to feel the spirit if the teacher is teaching using questions that they have had spiritual experiences with. I told them about the CFM lesson on Job, and how, for me, Job didn’t answer or sometimes even address the CFM questions, and that I taught about how my spiritual experiences pondering Job and questions it prompted me to ask rather than questions it answered.
My personal thoughts on CFM is that it picks out a few verses and uses phrases in those verses to teach a lesson. My approach, is to first look at the message of the book as a whole. CFM doesn’t help with this so I turn to the scriptures themselves, and other non-lds resources (e.g. I like the Bible Project). This is usually the most spiritual part of lesson prep for me. Then I look at CFM and see if there is overlap, and decide how to craft my lesson. If there isn’t much overlap, I tend to give summary lessons supported by scripture readings I choose, object lessons, and games (for youth).