We were once Mormons and there was a classic joke.
“Catholics say the pope is infallible but don’t really believe it; Mormons say the prophet is fallible but don’t really believe it.”
A link to the old doctrine. Wikipedia on the topic.
Now that we are no longer Mormons the doctrine has evolved. The freedom to disagree with church leaders and the doctrine surrounding whether leaders are infallible have both changed.
Here is the new and most current doctrine:
There is a lot of nuance in this new doctrine. There are some great points — especially about not arguing or debating with others who have different viewpoints and recognizing that we do not know the fullness of the will of the Lord.
I have three questions related to this new instruction by Elder Oaks on Patterns of Personal Apostasy.
Given the flexibility of the original letter about steeples, speculation is probably misplaced but I’m curious how the patterns interact with doctrines disseminated by letters such as the following:
First, there has been much discussion in the press about the upcoming McKinney Texas temple. The LDS church wants a exemption for an extremely high steeple. Their argument is that the height of the temple is tied to doctrine and worship practices. This statement doesn’t answer the question of how doctrinal the doctrine of temple steeple height is and whether short steeple temples are apostate like many have claimed.
Second, in his teaching, Elder Oaks letter strongly infers that church leaders are infallible but that infallibility has a shelf life. There is no doctrine about how long a church leader can expect their religious positions to be honored, followed or canonized. The instruction is clear that old doctrines are readily discarded after a leader has died.
Third, and finally, the statement leads the reader to question what impact this statement will have on the relative doctrinal positions in Utah of the two presidents with a claim to being infallible. One is a spiritual leader. One is a political leader. How does a devout member of the LDS church decide who to follow? Former President Trump? Current Church President Nelson?
Not too long ago Utahans preferred President Trump to President Nelson as more infallible by 60% to 40% — but after this statement it should be interesting to see if the ratio changes.
What are your takeaways from this statement?
Wheat & Tares 
i saw this last week and there was a big discussion about on Reddit. The downside is that there is little room for nuance in it, but that’s only a problem if a person is inclined to take Oaks and what he says seriously. The upside is that the clock is ticking on when we will able to discard everything Oaks has said, after he is dead.
So is Oakes basically saying that doctrine is actually NOT eternal? And it’s my job to decide if someone else has enough faith in Christ and if it’s expressed appropriately? Also, steeples are part of worship? (But at least we know crosses aren’t!)
President Oaks successfully “lost me” at “abandoned”. To me, “apostasy” isn’t defined as “a loss of faith in God” or “a loss of faith in the restoration of the priesthood” [the implications of “priesthood = God’s organizational authority on earth” is how Oaks can link the 2 concepts together]. To chose that verb “abandon” signals to me that as far as President Oaks is concerned, “faith is a choice” in a “wrong/right choice” world.
Unfortunately, President Oak’s example reminds me of “Job’s Friends” who sat with Job in mourning for a while and then started victim-blaming Job, interrogating him as to whether he had made “wrong choices” that brought this fate on him before ditching him entirely. And the quote, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” comes to mind:)
Are we going to have to re-do the proxy work for all the people who were baptized, confirmed, ordained, washed and anointed, endowed and sealed in the steeple-less temples?
This direction from Oaks feels like leaning even further into a cult of personality with church leadership. But it’s nice to know that as soon as one of the 15 die, the new guys can throw out anything they ever said. For me, personally, the challenge here is the implicit idea that if the institution is not bound by history at all, every day I’m a member of an entirely new church. None of the 15 were apostles when I was born, though 2 were when I was baptized. If the church changes every time the current leader opens his mouth, who is apostatizing, me or the church?
I simply love the irony of using a quote from a prophet that’s been dead nearly 40 years to claim that we ought to focus more on living prophets. If this is important today, shouldn’t we have a statement from Nelson?
My superpower is partial infallibility.
A parable: “The Strange Story of Max the Infallible Donkey,” by ex-Baha’i Brendan Cook:
https://web.archive.org/web/20151028174819/http://bahaisonline.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=2
Perhaps not the best analogy, but this reminds me of Calvinball from the the old comic strip Calvin and Hobbes where the rules of the game are always changing. I also thought it a bit funny to see Oaks quoting a deceased prophet in relation to disregarding doctrine from former prophets.
I think DaveW just pronounced my marriage invalid.
The saints in Mesa Arizona must be feeling pretty inferior right about now, given the complete absence of a steeple on their temple. But the steeple is a smokescreen. The Church thinks it has a 1st amendment right to do whatever it bloody well pleases and it just happens in this case to please a tall steeple. So the brethren make up whatever doctrine they need to get what they want.
Like with the McKinney Texas Temple, the Phoenix Arizona Temple also had a lot of objections from neighbors, but the response from the Church was radically different. To make peace with the neighbors, the Church completely redesigned the temple from top to bottom. Some of the changes that they made included:
And guess what? People loved it! It showed that the Church was earnestly listening to concerns and that they understood that they were making a lasting architectural investment in the community. So, I’m curious why the Church was more than accommodating for Phoenix, but not so much in McKinney.
There is something strange about this. Why is this formulation of apostasy so focused on members’ disagreement with prophets, rather than acceptance of Jesus and his gospel?
And if it’s all about disagreeing with prophets, why is the solution to increase faith in Jesus Christ?
If I have any disagreements with prophets, it would be because they are not teaching or acting in accordance with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Also, it seems like there must be some subtext here with his emphasis on present vs. past prophets. Is there some current controversy, where people are preferring a past prophet, that he is referring to?
your food allergy,
Yes. There is a sub text. It’s all about holding the maga and progressive elements of the church together. For instance RMN supported the COVID vaccine and masks which greatly tested the faith of maga members.
My more maga friends were holding regular sabbath meetings during the pandemic based strongly on conservative prophet ETB (mostly political teachings he snuck into meetings against the wishes of the rest of the brethren from before he rose to president).
Yes. The more conservative have to be told to follow the current prophet. And members like myself that have personal concerns about more progressive issues (LGBTQ, patriarchy, hierarchy, ethics, integrity, etc.) are being asked to hang in there too.
I actually think this is wise council for the church at this time. Oaks is recommending we don’t confront members we consider apostate. If we did confront members we consider apostate we run the risk of completely loosing any unity we have. We could end up losing many more members as well.
They refer to having faith in Christ because, for them, Christ and the church leadership are the same thing. That’s why they say it that way.
I issue my strongest possible condemnation to the idea that Church members must place Church leaders on a pedestal of infallibility. This is tantamount to worshiping Man, not God.
The modern trend of leader-worship is distressing. Everyone is entitled to a direct spiritual relationship with God, without having to go through a leader as an intermediary.
It is almost to the point that the leader-worship has become celebrity-worship. We are expected to worship leaders merely because they are popular. If we are to worship people based on their celebrity status, we might as well worship Dua Lipa herself, as she certainly has much greater youth and attractiveness than any Church leader.
if I am basing my disagreement with Pres Nelson on something Jesus said, rather than something a past prophet said, am I still apostate? Or is Pres Nelson? If I am still in apostasy because I am trying to follow Jesus rather than Rusty, how does increasing *my* faith in Jesus make Rusty correct?
On the steeple issue, I really haven’t been paying attention because to me it is just an argument over zoning laws. But if the church is going to start defining doctrine as requiring a steeple, well, it just strikes me as a stupid thing to change doctrine over. And it is a change because in the past there have been temples with no steeple. So, anytime the brethren start changing doctrine, they should have a better reason than a two year old demanding what they want or throwing a lawsuit at it. Sounds like something tRump would do.
lws329,
that is very helpful context and makes more sense out of what Oaks is trying to accomplish.
And wow, ETB nostalgia! I didn’t realize that was a thing.
Steeples are part of our worship? Since when? Does that word even appear in the NT? I know on “some” LDS blogs if I point out that this is news to me I’ll be gaslit how I was lazy in seminary and at BYU because there’s some New Era issue from 1966 that talks about the importance of steeples. It really gives me all the unfortunate emotions that instead of focusing on helping the less fortunate we instead spend time and money on steeples.
What I read in the snippet about personal apostasy is the church does not want members engaging with those of us that take issue with church things. This is the same reason the church no longer follows the D&C regarding church courts where the entire high council is present and now only wants the SP to attend. Because the more members listen to the disaffected, the more members become disaffected. This feels like circling the wagons.
My initial impression is that the initial definition of apostasy is in direct conflict with the given examples of “patterns of apostasy” to the point that it doesn’t make sense at all to me.
The first sentence says:
So far, this seems to mostly make sense. I will note that there is a huge omission of exactly what religious beliefs are so fundamental that their abandonment constitutes apostasy. Two examples are given: belief in God and belief in the restoration of priesthood authority. However, the wording seems to make it clear that those are not the only beliefs whose rejection constitute apostasy. Leaving this undefined is fraught because it will lead to highly inconsistent application of apostasy by various local (and general) leaders around the world (“leadership roulette”). What if you get a bishop who thinks temple worship is super important? Would he find a member of his ward an apostate if that member wasn’t wearing garments 24/7?
The failure to define the fundamental beliefs whose rejection constitutes apostasy isn’t the only problem. 4 examples are given of the “patterns of apostasy”, yet I contend that none of the 4 examples are normally associated with the provided definition of apostasy. That is, most of the time when someone in the Church is involved in one of the 4 patterns of apostasy, they aren’t abandoning what I (and I think most Church members) would consider to be fundamental and basic Mormon beliefs. Let’s consider each of the 4 given patterns of apostasy:
1. Focus on past prophets’, instead of the current prophet’s, teachings. All prophets have been consistent on belief in God and the restoration of priesthood authority, so there can’t really an issue with relying on past prophets’ statements on the only 2 basic beliefs cited in the opening definition of apostasy. What are some examples of people relying on past prophets over current prophets? Well, polygamy is a big one. We still have some members arguing the Church should practice polygamy based on the teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, etc. Is monogamy/polygamy a “fundamental” or “basic” belief in our Church, though? I am personally disgusted by the Church’s history with polygamy, yet I wouldn’t classify the monogamy/polygamy question as a “fundamental” religious belief. In fact, most (all?) of the beliefs that come to mind where people would tend to quote past prophets over present prophets would not make it on my list of fundamental religious beliefs.
2. Claiming the positions of Church leaders are wrong because they don’t align with science or political correctness. Sure, if someone publicly states their strong belief that there can be no God because there’s no scientific proof for His existence, that would fit Oak’s definition of abandoning a fundamental religious belief, so yeah, that’s probably apostasy. However, I think most usages of this “pattern of apostasy” in practice won’t be something like this. It seems to me like advocates for LGBTQ and women’s equality in the Church would fit into this pattern. While I consider equality for LGBTQ people and women in the Church to be extremely important, this also doesn’t seem to me to fit under the definition of a “fundamental” religious belief.
3. Claiming one has special knowledge that the Church should adopt. A lot of fundamentalist Mormons (Snuffer, preppers, etc.) certainly have their own set of revelations that they hold up as authoritative. Again, though, while I consider most of these beliefs to be wacky, I don’t think that they normally represent an abandonment of “fundamental” Mormon beliefs.
4. Persisting to teach on subjects where Church leaders say they lack revelation. Examples of this could be Heavenly Mother on the left and the date of the Second Coming on the right. Neither of these (or most anything else I can think of normally happens in practice), constitutes an abandonment of fundamental Mormon beliefs.
In summary, I think the opening definition of apostasy is truly incompatible with the ways in which the 4 given patterns apostasy are typically applied to members of the Church. I don’t see how even Oaks can claim this makes sense in most apostasy cases in the Church. That is, unless “Current Church leaders are always infallible” is to be considered a “fundamental belief” of Mormonism. If that’s the case, it’s only fair to list this as a fundamental belief along with “belief in God” in the definition. However, Oaks knows very well that he can’t get away with that. In practice, I believe that most Church leaders are going to completely ignore the given definition (abandonment of fundamental beliefs) and go with the 4 patterns when determining if they have an apostate on their hands that they need to excommunicate (or whatever it is they’re calling excommunication nowadays). Note that I’m not saying that the Church shouldn’t deal with some of the behaviors described in the 4 patterns of apostasy. I’m simply saying that most real cases of violations of the 4 patterns don’t constitute what I believe to be fundamental Mormon beliefs. This definition of apostasy needs more work!
@your food allergy, I have a fellow ward member who is big into QAnon, MAGA, book banning, “chem trails”–you get the picture. She is constantly quoting ETB to support her religious and political views. ETB is a right-wing Mormon hero.
The general membership usually does not dare ask questions that infer infallibility. In my family and my in-laws, we hardly ever talk about anything doctrinal around the dinner table. Most talk of the church is matter-of-fact. “There is a new temple, I am giving a talk on Sunday, my son just turned 8 and will be baptized.” Occasional talk of matters doctrinal or discussion of ideas are exclusively in praise, and often in criticism of skeptical narratives. Discussions of doctrine at church are regurgitation. There is nothing of substance shared in Sunday School lessons and comments or in a Sacrament Meeting talk. And I think that this is by design. The leaders simply don’t want members talking too much. Have them talk a little bit, but in no way that would explore larger questions, let alone the more damning matters of church history or that would question the integrity of any one of the leaders.
Tying this into the infallibility question, it almost seems taboo to bring up the question of whether or not leaders are infallible. If it is brought up, well then the answer is supposed to be, “of course every makes mistakes, of course they’re not infallible.” But then it is left there. For how dare we venture into ways that the leaders might be fallible. Hey maybe they rose their voice at their spouse once. That is the extent that most members are really willing to go with this question. Cultural members are willing to go further. The PoX was extremely wrongheaded on the part of President Nelson. Jeffrey Holland was stepping out of line with his “musket fire” talk. Perhaps you might get members to talk about these subjects. I do remember discussing the “musket fire” talk with my wife’s brother’s spouse, and we both disapproved. But I wouldn’t fancy ever getting a member to entertain how ex-Mormons often speak of the issue of infallibility. Well, I should correct myself. Most people who are willing to even entertain the ex-Mormon arguments, just entertain not even fully accept, are likely to leave the church. A handful of them will stay as cultural believers and apologists. But the cognitive dissonance that can stem from entertaining ideas that Joseph Smith is a libidinous conman or that Brigham Young was an extremely racist tyrant, when there appears to be good evidence of such, can be extremely hard to swallow. Modern infallibility such as financial malfeasance on the part of GAs and apostles and the general church can also be hard to swallow.
There is comfort to be found in treating the leaders as infallibles, all the while saying “oh, no one’s perfect,” and then just ignoring the issue.
I like President Oaks’ answer to the question of what to do with persons who are in apostasy. His answer is one of patience, along with an admission that we (they) don’t know the full will of the Lord. Patience, charity, brotherly kindness, and so forth is the right answer. Direct confrontation is not advised.
Brad D brings up an important point: fallibility is nothing more than a theoretical possibility until leaders are willing to talk about a specific example in which a leader erred. The most clear and obvious one in our past would be our denial of priesthood and temple based on race, and yet the church still hasn’t even been willing to talk about that one. They’ve opened the door by disavowing the proposed reasons for the ban, but nobody has been willing to walk through that door and disavow the ban. As long as the official position is “we don’t know why God did it” rather than “God didn’t do it”, they don’t actually believe in prophetic fallibility, or they are simply too afraid of the consequences of talking about it.
Regarding the letter about the temple steeple, after reading it I don’t actually see the word “doctrine” in it. I think they know better than to try to claim there is doctrine regarding steeple height. What I do see in the document is an appeal to the First Amendment, with phrases like “religious practice”. I think they are taking the view that if the architect proposes a tall steeple, the US constitution says they should get to build it and local authorities shouldn’t get to stop them. So they want the local members to suddenly discover that there’s a whole lot of meaning to them that the temple has a steeple. I don’t think anyone in church leadership sees this as doctrine.
From section 84:
36 For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me;
37 And he that receiveth me receiveth my Father;
written by a man that wanted people to follow him
Surely local planning voting against an unusually tall building is grass roots democracy at work? I’m baffled as to how this works as a position for the church.
Mesa Arizona, Cardston Alberta, Paris France are spireless, and maybe more. I am surprised that a stake presidency would affix their names to a statement about steeples being part of our “Religious Observance” (not sure why capitalized). Can one not observe one’s faith in a steeple-less temple? Are spireless edifices second-rate temples? Maybe a spire is nice, but it isn’t necessary.
When Paul taught in Berea, the Jews there compared Paul’s teachings about Christ to what the scriptures (what we now call the Old Testament) said, and Luke commended this practice. So do I.
One pattern of apostasy is “Persisting in teaching subjects on which the Lord has not chosen to give more revelation at this time.” Would this include Jos. Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie, among others, giving all kinds of reasons why Blacks could not and would not receive the priesthood? Reasons which we now wholly reject?
I agree with Pres. Oaks that arguing with apostates does little good. Actually, who is an apostate? The Lord’s tent is (I hope) large enough to encompass many beliefs. I do not believe all things as I did 30 years ago, and I have changed (or grown) in how I look at many things. That does not mean that I was wrong then or now. People change with experiences, and that is often good. Our faith, and our church, should be built upon invitation and not upon contention.
“Apostasy refers to a person’s…focusing on past prophets rather than the living..”. Then why did the Church have us study Teachings of the Prophets (all dead) for 18 years in our weekly Sunday meetings?
The more these guys (Oaks & Nelson) say things, the more I am reminded of a story someone shared about a District Leader on their mission. This DL complained in a district meeting that they were “speaking ill of the Lord’s anointed,” to which they said, “What are you even talking about?” The DL got very agitated, jumping up and shouting, “Not speaking ill of the Lord’s anointed means you guys can’t criticize me and you have to do what I say!” To quote Jim from the office (about Dwight): “Never has so little power gone to somebody’s head before.”
I have no doubt that Oaks believes that he’s infallible in his role. That’s why he is linking apostasy specifically to “priesthood restoration” which is the basis for his role in the Church. And partly that’s just how psychology works; if we were capable of knowing when we are wrong, we wouldn’t be wrong anymore because knowing you are wrong changes your belief. If you asked Oaks (or anyone, really) to make a list of all the things he/they are wrong about, that list would be empty. Well, that’s not entirely true. I think those of us with an ounce of humility (often linked to having less power, funnily enough) are at least willing to concede that we don’t know everything. For example, if you asked me about nuclear physics or the etymology of Hungarian language, I can only get you so far. That’s doubly true of opinions about things like politics or religion. My views are a byproduct of my life experience and temperament which is not the same as other people’s. But I know that and readily admit it.
Leaders who eliminate any dissenting opinions from their followers seem to be de rigeur in the GOP right now, and the Church is basically just an arm of the GOP.
The church leaders can be ignored. To me they are irrelevant old, out of touch men, who we can follow or not.
What is the appeal of trump?
There was a discussion about abortion on times and seasons, where I am banned from commenting, the inference from the right wing commenter was that democrats approved abortion, so you must vote for Trump. But there are fewer abortions in America under democrats 25% reduction under Obama, and 9% increase under Trump. Democrats encourage real sex education, and affordable birth control, so people prevent unwanted pregnancies. And then there is the Mexico city programme, where when republican presidents are in the whitehouse they tie overseas aid to abortion, resulting in 20 million more abortions, and 10,000 maternal deaths.
He is not basically a good man, adulterer, crook, wants to destroy democracy, remove respect for women, remove reproductive rights, make fighting climate change impossible, change the world order in favour of the dictators.
These are not things that you can ignore, they will damage all our futures. Increase the poverty and suffering in the third world.
What is he promising that outweighs the above that would cause a moral person to vote for him? We know he is sincere on immigration, Biden had a bill that would help being agreed to by republicans, until Trump said no, what will I have left if you help him with that. Leave it as a problem we can use it against him. I certainly won’t be visiting America if Trump is president again.
the “don’t fight with apostates” thing is intriguing, no one would’ve said that even just 10 years ago I think
the motivation is simple though, they’ve realized that cracking down on apostates is the fastest way to get people to leave and never come back, the rate of membership decline must be pretty acute if they’re willing to say that
I’ll betcha that in a few decades, when membership numbers start getting critically low, the church leadership will transition towards being a lot more tolerant of diverse ideas and doctrines and whatnot, just to keep people in the door
at a basic level, the mission of every organization is to perpetuate itself, so as the decades go by, we’ll get these rising and falling tides of orthodoxy enforcement
Some random thoughts.
2. The definition of apostasy keeps changing. So do the supposedly unchanging doctrines. And that doesn’t include the brand new doctrines that spring up unannounced such as the height of a temple’s steeple shows how it points the way to God and heaven.
3. Since when did God begin to allow and encourage idolatry in the church? All we’re missing is the command to kneel and genuflect whenever a member of the Q15, especially the FP3, enters a room or to kiss their hand or feet if we meet them in the flesh. Perhaps we will be encouraged buy and have portable statues of the FP3 and the Q12 that we can set into little religious shrines in our homes for personal worship.
Seriously, I’m a late Boomer and I don’t ever remember the the type and level of fawning over and worship of our leaders, especially SPs and the callings above them going on up until during Monson’s tenure (about the time that Monson became non compos mentis). Has anyone else ever noticed that the red velvet chairs look more like thrones than they used to? Shades of the Rameumpton!
The Q15 and Q70 could learn a few lessons in humility from Pope Francis and the Dali Lama who are noted for their humility and their plain style of living. Plus, both of these men actually go outside of their places of work to serve, visit with and love the poor. In Rome the Pope set up showers, laundries, places to get a nutritious meal, lockers for people to store their worldly goods in and free medical and dental care. The Dali Lama has also helped to develop programs that help the poor and homeless. Our leaders are hoarding $200 billion plus for “when Jesus comes”. I’m so thoroughly ashamed.
3. Weren’t we taught clear back starting as Sunbeams that we were to unconditionally love others as Jesus loves us with no caveats accepted? Now we’re encouraged to only love those who look and act like us, who are straight, white, male and Republican. Everyone else isn’t worth our time and attention.
4. God’s grace has to be earned, and if we’re not technically perfect we’re not worthy of His/Their love. We are no longer encouraged have a relationship with Deity. Rather, we have to continually perform for Them in the hope that our performance is “good enough”. So much for those scriptures in the Epistles of John that say that our Heavenly Parents loved us first and because of Their tender love and care we love them in return. That sacred relationship has been replaced with an ever increasing list of rules that we “must” obey that have nothing to do with a change of heart for the better on our part and everything to do with virtue signaling regardless of what we do or don’t actually believe.
5. We’re told from an early age that the Holy Spirit will always help us discern between good and evil, virtue and vice if we listen to the Still, Small Voice. If that’s so why didn’t Joseph listen when the Spirit told him that polygamy was a social construct, not a religious doctrine, and that there are no happy stories about polygamy in the scriptures. Wouldn’t he also hear the Spirit whisper that lying is an abomination before the Lord? What part of “The Lord is no respecter (doesn’t have favorites) or persons.” did Brigham Young not understand? Why don’t DHO, RMN and other leaders understand the Second Great Commandment to love others as we love ourselves? What about Christ’s injunction to “Sell all you have and give it to the poor.”? What about the many members who cheer for, support and vote for a man who is the complete and utter antithesis of the example that the Savior set for us and is easily the most evil person in American history? The spirit of discernment is either not real or else we’ve had and continue to have too many leaders and members who don’t actually listen to the Spirit and think that what they want must be what the Spirit wants too regardless of whether or not it follows Christ’s teachings and the laws of the land. I think that too often we’ve substituted getting our own way for listening to the Spirit and our own consciences.
I apologize for the rant. This has been an especially difficult week with regard to the church. It has become something that I barely recognize as the church that I once loved. Now I’m both angry and saddened by what I see happening on almost a weekly basis. Sometimes I wonder what my ancestors who left homes and families in Northern Europe in the 19th century to join the church and come to America would think if they could see what has become of the church that they sacrificed so much for. Personally, I think that they’d be very angry and weep. I’m grateful for W&T being a safe place to express our feelings and concern about the church and for you good people who challenge me to truly follow Jesus.
This recent instruction by Oaks on apostasy is another exhibit of an a priori presumption that plagues the church: the church as an institution is immune from apostasy. That presumption is necessarily true when “apostasy” is conveniently defined by that same institution as deviation from the general church leadership’s current positions. But it’s true only as a hollow tautology that tells us little, if anything, about the gospel’s actual substance.
Especially as the “Follow the Prophet!” rhetoric has ramped up considerably under the Nelson-Oaks regime, I’ve too often had the disquieting sensation of being prodded onto an obey-the-leaders conveyor belt that frequently turns out to be a hamster wheel instead because so much of what the leaders talk about is…following the leaders. And round and round and round we go ad nauseum, exhausted, without getting to anything of real substance, spiritual or otherwise. I’m incredulous of any implication that the heart of the gospel is merely authority based on ecclesiastical office. That kind of authority is, at best, a means to an end, not an end in itself. And we have a word for the confusion of means for ends: Idolatry. Perhaps in the context of this OP, we could talk about the idol of prophetic infallibility.
It’s revealing, I think, that “apostasy” invariably seems to be framed by church leadership as an individual matter, e.g., patterns of PERSONAL apostasy. But why should it be inevitable and incontrovertible that it is the institutional church that will roll forth undeterred like a stone cut out of the mountain without hands until it fills the whole earth? This sort of triumphalism smacks of the proverbial pride that comes before the fall. And didn’t the Lord say that it would be the meek who would inherit the earth? And, for instance, wouldn’t openness to “the latest discoveries of science” and hopeful and imaginative musings on “subjects on which the Lord has not chosen to give more revelation at this time” constitute the sort of meekness that yearns for greater knowledge of and participation in Creation and not the sort of hellbent actions against Creation that constitute apostasy in an intuitively primeval sense?
Maverik’s treatment of the attribute of meekness brings these verses from Moroni 8 to my mind:
25 And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth remission of sins;
26 And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God.
I find it interesting that meekness and lowliness of heart precedes the reception of the Holy Ghost. In like manner meekness must precede the reception of counsel from the Lords servants. And as such, it should come as no surprise that many of those who refuse to receive the counsel of living prophets are simply not meek enough to receive instruction from the Lord or his anointed.
That said, I’m not suggesting that all who have difficulty following the living prophets are failing to humble themselves. Sometimes there are difficult questions that don’t have simple answers–and I believe that some folks who have difficulty with certain pronouncements from the apostles are honestly striving to find answers that make sense within the scope of their faith.
Even so, let’s remember that the meek will inherit the earth, not because of meekness per se, but because by being meek they are humble enough to receive all things in the manner that the Lord has prescribed. And that includes all of the blessings, gifts, counsel, and commandments that we receive through his servants.
That little joke referenced in the title about supposed prophetic/papal infallibility has been around for a long time. But now, it seems we are in an era in which the current senior leaders (Nelson, Oaks, probably Bednar too) truly believe in their own infallibility, as if their mantle of authority makes it impossible for them to be wrong, even when they are. This kind of thinking is also evident in other certain totalitarian-leaning leaders, like Putin and Dick Cheney. Trump’s entire legal defense in his various indictments is built on this premise too (interpretations of supposed presidential immunity). It is evident in the rising tide of well-deserved opposition to temple building in multiple areas at once. I recall a generation ago, reading about temple construction projects and often finding cases in which the Church was willing to listen and compromise with local residents, often moderating their proposed designs in an effort to be good neighbors. When the San Diego temple was built, for example, the Church also purchased a large plot of land down the street from the temple and turned it into a public park as a conciliatory gesture to the neighborhood. The Church I grew up in was not perfect, but usually made efforts to be good neighbors, always enter through the “front door”, and stay away when they aren’t welcome. The Nelson/Oaks approach to temple building, by contrast, has been shown to involve bullying communities into submission, underhanded legal tactics, ignoring genuine community concerns, and making up fake doctrine about spire height and such. It’s pure arrogance and ego that drive it. Deep down in their infallible prophetic hearts, they believe that these communities absolutely need a temple (whether the residents know it or not) and that temples are more essential to the common good than hospitals or fire stations.
Ultimately, though, the joke will be on the Church; once these temples are dedicated, they will likely be impossible to properly staff, seldom used and mostly vacant.
With regard to meekness, rigid resort and adherence to Latter-day cliches like “the mantle is (far, far) greater than the intellect” spawns an arrogance that obstructs the gospel aspiration, reflected in temple symbolism, to circumscribe all truth into one great whole. Last time I checked, the scripture did not proclaim, “The glory of God is authority.” If the Latter-day Saints are now being discouraged from engaging in the search for and gathering together of all truth, come from where it may, come from whom it may, can we really claim to be meek and repentant (in the sense of being willing to change our minds and hearts when we are presented with new knowledge, experiences, and relationships), or are we merely comfortably compliant with what we may discover to be moth-eaten mantles if we’ll actually employ our God-given rationality to seriously examine them?
I know that this church is true and is the only church with the high steeples in the true order of God and that are tall enough to bring us back to His presence.
I know that sometimes when there has been great opposition, the Lord has allowed His people to built temples without tall steeples, even though this was a victory for Satan. I am so grateful that we have a true and living prophet whose opinions are God’s will until he dies and for the ongoing revelation he receives such as the importance of having a tall steeple for our correct Religious Observance. It makes such a difference in my life when I see that tall steeple on a small temple that is like a stairway to heaven.
it makes me sad that there are some of our brothers and sisters who once had a testimony, but that now cling to the past teaching of former leaders of the church like Jesus Christ instead of following the new and living prophet who has revealed important new truths such as that God’s love is conditional and that there will be empty chairs in heaven. But I have faith in our prophet’s wise counsel not to contest their apostasy in believing that loving your neighbor is not a contradiction to loving God.
Cardston and Laie Hawaii also have no steeples.
we too are apparently in architectural apostasy.
Also- how does one see about submitting a guest post on here?
@Southern Saint
Responding to your musing: “So, I’m curious why the Church was more than accommodating for Phoenix, but not so much in McKinney.”
This baffles me the most out of the whole situation. The Church has a long, long, long history of accommodating temples to the local community – I can think of at least a half dozen off the top of my head – and I don’t get why they’ve suddenly abandoned a technique that has been so demonstrably successful in the past of not only getting temples built, but getting them built with the full support and goodwill of the locals. I fear this new strategy of apparently just pushing through temples willy-nilly without compromising to the community breeds nothing but hostility and ultimately makes temples take even longer to build.
Again, I’m simply baffled.
Canadian Dude—on the “about” tab on this website you will find info about submitting guest posts. I find your comments and perspective meaningful and hope you submit one!
10ac, you made my day. I’m impressed that you have the Mormon speak revelation language honed to perfection. It was just as silly as is the idea of a 16 story steeple acting as a stairway to heaven. Cue the Led Zeppelin classic at this point. Perhaps this would be the perfect time to petition the FP and Q12 to pay the necessary royalties with their mega bucks in order that we can sing “Stairway to Heaven” instead of the terribly lame and saccharine “I Love to See the Temple”. That would be a hymn that any congregation would be thrilled to sing full throttle!🎵🤣