“Mormon Matters is an exploration and celebration of Mormon culture from all sides of the ideological spectrum.”

If you are not a fan of Mormonism as a culture — then this site isn’t for you.

“Articles of faith are formal creeds, or lists of beliefs, sometimes numbered, and often beginning with “We believe…”, which attempt to more or less define the fundamental theology of a given religion and/or church. Articles of faith are common in both Christianity and Islam.”

Friends are non-creedal. Baptists are apparently explicitly non-creedal.

Is the purpose of this site to spread faith-promoting Mormon folklore?

“When we think of the Hindu religion, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to define Hindu religion or even adequately describe it. Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion of creed. It may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more.”

The LDS Articles of Faith are in essence a creed.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s a different church with a specific set of beliefs, a creed.

. . . sound familiar?

When Joseph F. Smith and B.H. Roberts nearly came to blows (I’m only partially kidding) over the existence of death before the fall and pre-Adamites, the first Presidency resolved the breech by… get this… declaring there was no official doctrine on the subject.”

Nicely said. My favorite is the sermon that went with D&C Section 77.

Its human nature to not see damage when you aren’t the one being damaged. Surely you’ve heard discussion at church where people start talking about other churches and the contrast between us. Or how gay people wanting to get married is proof that Satan’s influence is everywhere. Or if politics comes up at all someone usually gets to slip in an inference that Democrats are immoral, amoral, or attempting to destroy traditional families.

We have a fascination with the Last Days and have a sort of pride in facing the challenge of evil all around us. So often when we try to demonstrate that there are spiritual challenges around us, we use real human beings (i.e. children of God) as examples of evil. That is the kind of thing I’m talking about.

Yes, you are right, it’s not an “exchange” in the sense that they were saying “this is how I see it, how do you see it?” But let’s face it, that type of exchange is rare.

This is more typical: each side wanted to express their views and did so — and in a non-threatening way. And by that I mean they aren’t threatening each other. Stapley’s warning of what God might do is not a threat. It’s an explanation of his honest, but we know incorrect, world view. If Stapley honestly thought God was working to ensure segregation and did so by removing opposition, Stapley absolutely owed this warning to Romney.

We must not, using our modern knowledge and knowledge of the 1978 revelation, judge Stapley by our understanding. As I pointed out in my article, Stapley’s view was not the same as David O. McKay’s. While this was going on, Mckay (so saying Arrington anyhow) was actively seeking to remove the priesthood ban via prayer and seeking a revelation. He, in fact, modified it to weaken it. I’m going off what Leonard Arrington says here. Arrington is a pretty independent minded guy, so I have a trust level with him on this. You’ll have to read chapter 11 of Adventures of a Church Historian for yourself and tell me what you think.

My point being, Stapley’s view was no where near unanimous.

Happy to explain. Elder Stapley wrote George Romney and indicated in the letter that “no reply is necessary.” That indicates Stapley is interested in getting his warning out to Romney because, as a friend, he is genuinely concerned that something bad will happen to him as a result of his civil rights advocacy for black Americans, not to be persuaded that he is misapplying the words of Joseph Smith in the contemporary setting. The word “exchange” is the key for me here, not views. Romney’s views on the implementation of the Civil Rights Bill in Michigan were public knowledge.

I wish we had Romney’s (unsolicited) handwritten reply as well…

There is a difference between me giving a sincere warning, if that is my honest view, and an exchange of views? Please explain further. I think my preceptions of this somehow differ from yours.

Wow! I’m glad I don’t attend your ward! I’m glad I’ve never attended any ward like that!

>>> Huh? False faith-promoting stories are simply never mentioned again, not retracted.

If I said that, I’ll eat my computer screen.

This is why false faith-promoting stories do more harm than good. I bet many folks had their faith shaken when they found out Paul Dunn’s stories were “exaggerated” because they had thought they felt the Spirit when they heard the false story the first time around.

A local example: My wife and I were sitting in church right after 9/11, and a respected member of the ward and temple worker stood up in Sunday School and told us on good authority from the temple president that President Hinckley told all missionaries not to fly that day. This was believed by many members of the congregation and never retracted. When President Hinckley later said in General Conference that he had not foreseen the tragic events of that day, conversations we had with some of our friends indicated they were less willing to believe many other so-called faith-promoting temple stories this member previously and subsequently told.

Falsehoods end up doing more harm than honest doubts in the long run…

It applies to any conversations. Just ask the September Six, or the BYU professors who lost their jobs or did not get promoted, etc. But there are lots of other stories even lower profile than those. What matters is if people are listening to you.

I agree though that church is probably not the place for really exploratory discussion which might be damaging to some. What I’d like is for church not to be so much of a place where orthodoxy is promoted by ignoring reality. I wish church discussions focused more on the central and crucial ideas of the gospel, like learning how to love each other. There are times when that happens and I love it. But a lot of the time church seems like a support group for people to vent on people who live differently (gays, secularists, other Christians, liberal mormons, Democrats, etc.)

This could be a blog post in and off itself. It seems to me that it would be inappropriate for a person that has doubts about Joseph Smith to proclaim them during the 3 hour block. But it also seems to me that outside of the 3 hour block we should expect them to express their doubts in a thoughtful and respectful way and we all need to adjust to the idea that a good member of the church won’t necessarily believe everything.

>>> The position of the church today is that you can believe whatever heresies you want and retain your membership, as long as you keep your mouth shut. If you believe the official doctrines of the church, and even faith-promoting folklore, you are encouraged to open your mouth to everyone around you.

But this makes sense to me, actually. Lame faith promoting folk lore doesn’t disrupt attempts at zionish unity nor sow doubt amongst those that are striving to believe, though it might have it’s own issues and problems. (Again, I’m thinking inside the 3 hour block here, not outside of church conversations.) Not that I’m in favor of faith promoting folk lore… but it’s certainly not going to cause the same sort of problem as someone disrupting things via sowing doubts.

I also disagree with the word “encouraged” here. Obviously the real issue is the difficulty of fact checking. If a story is known to be false, it would generally get corrected, even if it was ‘faith promoting.’

Actually there is a Mormon creed. Both Brigham Young and Joseph F. Smith acknowledged it. The Mormon Creed is:

‘Mind your own business’.

I’m not kidding, look it up.

With a church that believes in Modern revelation, we must be somewhat open ended in our beliefs. Remember, God will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Hopefully these future revelations will not force any of us into to much of a paradigm shift.

At the same time I see so much in the story of the first vision that is a condemnation of contention. I really don’t think God likes to be at the center of so many wars and conflicts through the ages. It is an all too human tendency to take the traditions of our fathers and use them as the defining point between good and bad, us and the other.

I love the Universalist strain in Mormonism. I have to believe that with so few of us, we are going to be outnumbered in the CK in the end (with of course post-mortal embrace of truth.) I feel that to truly follow Joseph’s direction, eveb we members of the church will need the humility to discard our incorrect “folk” traditions of our fathers after this life to move on.

Richard Bushman, in Rough Stone Rolling, details the anti-creedal beginnings of the LDS Church. Something I wish we had stuck to more closely or understood more because we do seem to have so many points of doctrinal alignment that we have to adhere to.

Bravo again.

This is a great follow-up to your first post.

I am ambivalent on this creed issue. I love Joseph’s statement which you quote at the beginning. As such I prefer to think of the temple recommend interview as the best creed we have, light on doctrine but heavy on good behavior to God and our neighbor.

At the same time, I wonder how much our reluctance to take positions on issues like evolution, the age of the earth, when human life begins, etc. stems from the fact that our theology has sealed itself off from contact with any secular conversation partners, especially in the sciences. John Widtsoe’s book Joseph Smith as Scientist was the last attempt by a General Authority to connect some kind of secular relevance to anything in our theology, and that was published in the 1940s.

I also have to say that you slightly mischaracterize the threat contained in Elder Stapley’s letter to Romney. Stapley insinuates at some length that early death has come to politicians who aid black people. Stapley considers himself the messenger, not the executioner, to be sure, but his letter is sent as a warning, not an exchange of views. This kind of soft, friendly warning laden with hints of divine retribution is common in Mormon culture. I have heard it from mission presidents, seminary teachers, home teachers, and General Authorities.