After reading Bushman, I thought the moral of the story was two-fold:

Lucy Mack Smith would not let the doctor cut off Joseph’s leg and found a doctor willing to try (experiement) a new procedure. To me that took an incredible ammount of faith on her part. And that the Lord does preserve certain people to do His work. The WoW connection is a joke because Joseph drank wine and beer later in his life.

The acne story – Yes, the Lord takes away their agency, give them acne and none ever have mortality problems and no one get pregnant. That iswhat makes it so ridiculous. But, I’m afraid there are plenty of those type of faith-promoting stories still out there.

I always wondered about the moral of the Joseph near-amputation story. Joseph preternaturally knew the Word of Wisdom would be revealed later? The meaning I take from it now is that Joseph was one tough dude,that he and Hyrum had a very close relationship, and that his mom did not like the sight of blood…

Two quick stories. My Bishop’s daughter from our old ward told a story in Sacrament meeting when she was a Young Women about a young teenage girl who was so beautiful the Lord gave her acne to protect her from immorality. When she turned 21, it all miraculously disappeared and she lived happily, ever after. My wife and I just looked at each other and shook our heads.

The other one just happened last Sunday. I was looking through the Joseph Smith Lesson Manual as we were talking about lesson one. The story of Joseph’s leg surgery is in there. Most church members focus on the fact that he didn’t take alcohol as the main “moral” of that sotry. But according to Richard Bushman, there is much more to it. So what if he didn’t take alcohol. What 7 year would? and why is that so important? The Word of Wisdom?

Anyway, that is one of the story where most member miss the point and emphsize the wrong thing because it fits there beliefs.

Actually, Bruce, I am comfortable with speculation, just not always mainstream LDS speculation. The problem for folks like me is that the church culture, which spills over into priesthood authority, wants to treat alternative theories as apostate even though the popular theories have just as little support.

Bruce, kudos to you for being able to shed your prejudice. I am not into those kind of games. Although I like to enjoy religion and have fun with it, its something I take very seriously.

To Jeff’s point of being comfortable with not knowing, I am totally down with that partly because I think I have to be. What makes me uncomfortable is other people thinking they know stuff so surely that they should tell other people they have to accept it.

I don’t really have a strong personal opinion with the correlation committee, nor do I doubt their ability. Its just that committees are organized by men who have been assigned to that task, and can be formed of people who agree with the organizer. I’d feel more confident if there had never been examples in history of ranking church leaders discovering that indefensible things had been taught or promoted because other men had just been trusted to treat their charge appropriately. (baseball baptisms, original publishing of Mormon Doctrine, etc. etc.)

1archaic : teaching instruction2 a: something that is taught b: a principle or position or the body of principles in a branch of knowledge or system of belief : dogma c: a principle of law established through past decisions d: a statement of fundamental government policy especially in international relations e: a military principle or set of strategies

Umm, this doesn’t sound like what we talk about when we are talking about doctrine. What is the Mormon definition of doctrine? Do we say doctrine when we really mean “God’s personal view of the subject of baptism” or when we want to say “truth”? The dictionary definition of doctrine also doesn’t seem to match the usage on the Church’s PR page which Clay links to, which seems to imply something more like “God’s personal view of the subject.” In fact, it makes for entertaining reading of the Church’s “Approaching Mormon Doctrine” press release if you substitute “God’s personal view of the subject” every time you see the word doctrine. It flows amazingly well that way and produces a chuckle or two.

Clay, you mentioned the press release concerning doctrine. Here is one statement I pulled out that sums it all up for me:

“Some doctrines are more important than others and might be considered core doctrines. For example, the precise location of the Garden of Eden is far less important than doctrine about Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice.”

I think this is true. I think you can be pretty confident that the Gospel Principles Manual, which has been around for ages reflects Church Doctrine on those subjects. Moreso than Professor So and So at BYU’s book on the same subject. I infer from your words that you are not sure the “coorelation committee” can write a manual for the Church that is doctrinal? I share some concern having ran afowl of them myself a number of years ago. But, in this case, this manual is been fully vetted, I think. And we are talking about a subject that isn’t so controversial.

Ah, I agree with what you are saying. We do indeed have to speculate to make sense of it all. I haven’t the slightest doubt about that at all. I think the only way in which I differ from you is that this doesn’t seem to make me the slightest bit uncomfortable and you feel less comfortable with it.

I don’t think a discussion like this posses a problem with faith at all, Clay. Keep it up. Now that you have explained yourself fully, I find myself agreeing with you.

Let me take a quick aside, clay, and admit my own prejudices here. To be honest, I thought that what you were doing was raising an issue that you plain well knew there was a strong explanation (or at least strong possible explanation) for. In other words, I thought you were intentionally being less than candid in your statements. But, I was willing to assume that I was wrong and answer you as if you didn’t know about LDS speculations on the millenium. (Though some things about the millenium, such as it’s existence, aren’t merely speculations.)

I can see that I misjudged you. You do in fact have an underlying concern. My apologies.

I do, however, think this misunderstanding on my part is somewhat reflective of the same sort of misunderstandings that take place between some members of this community and their concerns that the LDS Chrurch is being less than candid. The truth is… communication is harder than it seems.

Jeff says: “We don’t have all the answers. Some folks are so uncomfortable with not knowing that they have to speculate in order to find peace. One thing leads to another and it becomes accepted as possible truth.”

I agree. I actually see this as a good thing, however, in most circumstances. But it is possible for speculations to get out of control and take a life of their own.

The chapter on the Millennium is pretty interesting. I wish it would give more references, but I will concede that if you take what is produced by the Correlation Committee as the official position of the church then the question is answered. I’m confused where the manual would fall in light of this press release but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

We don’t have all the answers. Some folks are so uncomfortable with not knowing that they have to speculate in order to find peace. One thing leads to another and it becomes accepted as possible truth.

The problem I have personally is that it appears the answers to the problem are only found in folklore. The church does not give an answer with conviction that brings the issue to rest. You have to speculate in order to make sense of it.

I hope no one feels like I’m trying to break down faith on this topic. I am just presenting the issues that I think are healthy for every person to consider. Especially if you plan to evangelize your neighbor, at least be prepared to give fair respect to their concerns when they come.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=d7561b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=ea697befabc20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____

Unit Nine: The Second Coming of Jesus Christ

Chapter 41: Signs of the Second Coming 265
Chapter 42: The Gathering of the House of Israel 271
Chapter 43: The Second Coming of Jesus Christ 277
Chapter 44: The Millennium 282

Unit Ten: Life After Death

Chapter 45: The Postmortal Spirit World 289
Chapter 46: The Last Judgment 294
Chapter 47: Exaltation 301

That might be a good place to start.

Yes, totally agree. Do you understand what I am saying though? I’m not sure you do.

I’m saying that there is a possible answer to your question that in fact answers all your objections to ordinances for the dead. It doesn’t really matter to me if it’s true or not. The only thing that mattered was that the issues you raised are easily addressed in at least one possible way.

I support your right to hold your own beliefs and create your own religious views. Obviously we all do this to some degree.

But you weren’t explaining your own views, you were posing your views as if they were a problem for LDS doctrine. They aren’t.

The descriptions of the Millennium have always been something more like folklore than official doctrine in the sense that we all believe it and know its a Mormon idea, but not quite sure where the idea came from or what level of authority it actually has been given.

Its similar to the idea that God was once a man, although that one can be traced pretty clearly to Joseph at the King Follett Discourse, and then on to Lorenzo Snow’s famous quote. Yet, the modern church is distancing itself from that idea.

So I would actually be very curious to know how the picture of the Millennium, in its unique Mormon detail, came to be and if it truly has any official status today. Its a nice idea, but Mormons have this penchant for eating up speculative doctrine and calling it gospel. (Saturday’s Warrior, anyone?)

Correction. Was.

She wasn’t a member when she had the experience. She isn’t a member today. There was just a period in the middle where she was.

Many of her ideas are quite beautiful. Many of the specifics go against the word of God in scripture. I do not believe the specifics can be resolved as they are mutually exclusive. But I always see this underlying truth in what she says.

While I doubt that God really does send a person down to the world to be a drunk so that others can learn to give to him (an assertion of Betty’s) I suspect that the idea that his soul was a beautful angel worthy of respect was completely true. In other words, I think the underlying through she was getting at was right even while the specifics were dead wrong.

1. Baptism of Holocaust Victims – Bruce is right that we can do the work for our own relatives who perished in the Holocaust. Victims that have been previously baptized whose names were extracted are still baptized, endowed and sealed, their names were removed from the IGI. This was done in the spirit of religious harmony not doctrine. I have very strong feelings about the hypocrisy of the folks who requested the removal.

2. Betty Eadie – Loved the story but had a problem with that fact that she had a much longer, deeper experience than any other recorded experience. A coincidence that her experience so closely aligned with LDS thought on the subject. Of course, she is a member of the Church. She supposedly gained knowledge that no Prophet of the Church ever spoke of. I always wondered why she was entitled to it.

I wouldn’t call her crazy, but I wouldn’t equate her experience with Joseph’s vision.

Don’t we all.

Clay, I respect where you are coming from. I suspect we know very little on this subject. However, your specific questions have long since been answered adequetly from an LDS point of view. There is this thing called the millenium where the heavens will communicate with earth and temple ordinances will be done for 1000 years by, eventually, a very very large population of believers.

There will be no issues of those that don’t want the work done nor issues of constraints of numbers.

Incidently, the church does do ordinances for holocaust victims if it’s a family member doing it.

I’ve always liked Betty’s account of the after life, though I don’t think she nailed it. I do believe she had a very real experience, however. But she likely filters it through her own lens and thus I doubt many of the specific details.

I expected that someone would bring up ordinances for the dead. I acknowledge that is the answer from LDS doctrine that tries to solve the problem of divine equity. But what about all the people who refuse to do proxy work (holocaust Jews, for example)? Or just the sheer numbers of persons who have lived without the priesthood? How much time would it really take to do work for them all?

For some reason, ordinances seem like temporal things to me. They feel like the gestures you make in a temporal world to demonstrate your commitment. The idea of heaven to me is a place where communication is transcendent of the weaknesses of our vocabulary. Who has read Embraced by the Light, the near death experience book? (btw, if someone says that woman is crazy, I am going to hold up a picture of a boy digging some gold plates out of the ground with an angel hovering nearby) I read it many years ago when I used to travel for work and I was always struck by how logical and comfortable her descriptions of the afterlife seemed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Eadie#NDE_account (read the “After” section, too, to get how its relevant to this discussion)

The requirement of baptism by immersion by those who are in authority, which is found in the New Testament and was not formulated for the first time by Joseph Smith, need not make God less worshippable because of the billions of good people who live out their lives more or less living according to the principles taught by Christ in different churches or religions. Your criticism actually holds true for the creedal Christian view of this — or rather the view held and promulgated by many creedal Christians and their pastors — under which all those billions are in fact damned and separated from God.

As you know, Latter-day Saints diverge from creedal Christians on this point, believing as we do in baptism for the dead and other vicarious ordinances, thus bringing the power of this necessary and exclusive priesthood authority into the reach of all those who did not have an opportunity to make use of it during their lives. I would argue that this extends past merely those who never had a chance to hear about the Restored Gospel during their lives to those who, as you mentioned above, chose not to join the Church because of legitimate concerns associated with the temporal nature of the Church itself at the time they heard of the Gospel (concerns which, as you noted above, might be attendant to the Church but not the Gospel).

I included several quotes from General Authorities about how much truth and goodness there is in other faiths–some quotes might even surprise you.

Paradoxically, when properly understood, I think our claim to be the true church does not mean everyone else is wrong.