I know its true that they say that. Been there dun that a long time ago…
That doesn’t mean I believe that they mean what they say, rather the interpretation is something other than the “surface reading.”

That said, George, I think Kent’s suggestion that other PBs of deceased individuals may promise transfiguration is probably true to some extent, and worth pursuing.

Granted, but premillennialist facts were left out, such as the year 2000. This was always understood, but I think early Mormons tended to ignore it because they wanted to be the inheriters of the Second Coming.

(4) Lincoln – you’re expressing traditional amillennialist though. To think that our culture and economy can’t change drastically, I think you’re wrong. We are so much more vulnerable then in past times. Global economies have ensured that we have very little on the grocery shelf. If we have a serious disruptions of transportation and trucks can’t get to grocery stores, we have starvation. If we have nuclear holocaust, again, everything you know and hold dear–gone. Of course, I may be wrong

(7) “By the same token, I trust that the Lord will protect me and my family from the Apocalypse if we live righteously, but I stock up on all the food, water, guns, ammo and ham radio equipment that I’ll need to take care of myself. (kidding)”

I’m not. We have a little bit of shame if we are prepared because we don’t people to think we’re kooks, but I consider it no different than having health insurance or a retirement. If our society breaks down, even without any religious change in entropy, it would be wise if we could be prepred to reorganize in new societies.

(10) “Until I see a temple go up in New Jerusalem and a temple go up in Old Jerusalem, I ain’t going to hold my breath.”

Most serious studiers of Mormon eschatology believe that we will have serious economic disruption prior to that ocurring, but again, they may be wrong Again, even from a secular perspective, preparedness is smart.

(13) Kent, I got the joke. George, Kent’s tongue was firmly in cheek.

Well, you can smack it however you like. Sounds like you have no faith in any PB’s anyway. I have faith that PB’s end up meaning whatever the proper interpretation are for them, and whenever one PB says something that isn’t true on some surface/shallow interpretation, then it wasn’t interpreted right to begin with anyway. I have absolute faith that there are spirits living on the moon that need preaching to. I have absolute faith that the spirit speaks through all PBs and that somethimes the meaning isnt really what it says. Call me idealistic on this issue. Call me idolatrous. It doesn’t bother me, but its another cheap shot. I think that the meaning of everything is to be gleaned through revelation, not through a surface reading.

That is why I said to begin with that you can pass all that off as misinterpretations when the true meaning was to rise in the resurrection to see it happen, and why there will be a certain number of them that really mean what they say, and a certain number that don’t mean what they say.

I’m going to plant cherry trees. Until I see a temple go up in New Jerusalem and a temple go up in Old Jerusalem, I ain’t going to hold my breath.
Perhaps mormon matters should do a poll of everyone whose patriarchal blessings tell them they will live into the millennium and their relative ages, and we could get some idea of the range it may be in. For example, it’s unlikely that most people would live more than 80 years old. If we have a group of people in their 50′s right now who were promised to live into the millenium in their PB’s then perhaps the likelyhood is that the timing of the second coming would be within 30-40 years from now. I know a number of people personally within the 30-40 year old range whose blessings do say indeed exactly that, but its hard to say whether these are flukes, or more representative of a bigger trend. And if there are just a few of them out there, then you could pass them off as really meaning that they will die and be resurrected to see the day. But if they are numerous, then I think we really have something.

Actually, a pretty small percentage of the church has a year’s supply (>15%) and about 25% say they have any at all. I also have a feeling that the supply that is out there is pretty old. Our wheat, for example, is more than 26 years old. I helped a sister get rid of some that was over 50 years old at the time.

I think we skirt around this issue and sometimes have a talk or two about being prepared for the millennium. But I think most members are busy worrying about the here and now.

John H. (#6). Thanks for solving a mystery I’ve been trying to answer for years. So THAT’S why Martin Harris’ was also known as “Lefty” post-1836. I also like the reference to “Mormonites.” I hereby officially adopt it as my own.

I DO HEREBY ASSERT and declare that in four years from the date hereof, every sectarian and religious denomination in the United States, shall be broken down, and every Christian shall be gathered unto the Mormonites, and the rest of the human race shall perish. If these things do not take place, I will hereby consent to have my hand separated from my body.

and

WITHIN FOUR years from September 1832, there will not be one wicked person left in the United States; that the righteous will be gathered to Zion [Missouri] and that there will be no President over these United States after that time.

It was going to happen quick! [Martin Harris's Kirtland, by Ronald E. Romig (ed.), p. 29]

The food storage issue is tricky since for many people the issue is money and space. But the fact that so many do have a year’s storage is simply amazing. Further most preparedness is still viewed in millennial terms even if we talk about unemployment and local disasters like Katrina.

One also can’t discount the upsurge in millennialist thinking with 9/11 in America. I think there had been a lull in the 90′s when the end of the cold war made nuclear apocalypse as an instantiation of prophecy much less likely. Now that we’ve gone so long without a serious Al Queda attack folks are getting complacent again. But I think Katrina helped keep the issue of a kind of practical eschatology in the background of Mormon thought.

This is the same sentiment that has been expressed by groups of Mormons since the beginning of the church. As Grant Underwood concluded in The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism, Mormons today “are free to pick and choose their way into modernity” precisely because of their belief in a living prophet and continual revelation (p. 142). Thus groups like the Neo-Fundamentalists can exist in relative harmony with mainstream Mormons less concerned with eschatology because both groups pick and choose which prophetic pronouncements and scriptural passages best fit their worldview.

Another great post! I grew up with this stuff in my ward so it’s always been of interest.

As the Church has internationalized, do you think neo-fundamentalism has followed, to places like Mexico, Brazil, Chile, the Philippines, Tonga, Samoa, and other places of relative Church strength? Or is this an American, and maybe even western American, phenomenon?