Is the LDS Church really led by prophets?

[Bernard Gui]

Something dramatic happened to the LDS Church after Brigham died: it became an organization, run by a bureaucracy, rather than a movement led by charismatic men.

What is a charismatic man, in your opinion?

Given the system of selecting the President of the Church (the senior member of the Quorum of the 12),

which LDS prophets lobbied, schemed, bribed, plotted, murdered, or planned their way into the Presidency?

Given your criticism of the leadership of the Church, do you know the manner in which a new apostle (and potential

President) is chosen?

Bernard

[Daniel Peterson]

Not one of your best posts (IMHO!)

Perhaps. I've written many brilliant posts, of course, and not every line of Shakespeare or of Homer is equally memorable. Such is life in this fallen, mortal state.

But it was perfectly adequate to the challenge.

Rob Bowman appears to believe that there is a specific frequency of revelation that one must receive in order to be a prophet. He doesn't inform us what the precise figure is, but seems to imagine that, while Jonah and the other minor prophets of the Bible qualify despite the brevity of their books (when they've even written books) and the paucity of their known revelations, Latter-day Saint prophets after the death of Brigham Young do not.

I think this is demonstrably false, at least if one uses the Bible (as Mr. Bowman presumably does) as one's standard.

[Rob Bowman]

stem,

You wrote:

Perhaps I've missed something but I don't think so. I would question whether your claim that LDS leaders claim to be Spirit-led, but act like bureaucrats except once very fifty years or so. It can very well be that they are acting like Spirit-led leaders as they claim, but you have failed to understand what a Spirit-led leader would/should act like? For one, i don't think you've defined, very well, anything between what you're calling bureaucrats and what would be Spirit-led leaders. It appears you have let your assumption of that Spirit-led equals something other than LDS leaders, drive your explanation.

Not at all. I have only assumed what Mormons routinely assume when championing Joseph Smith as marking the glorious return of ongoing revelation and living prophets. I am simply pointing out that the LDS Church hasn't had a "prophet like Joseph" since Brigham died (if we even count Brigham as one). Your response amounts to an admission of my point, while you insist that your presidents can be inspired prophets even though in terms of what they do outwardly they appear to be bureaucrats.

I had written:

"If God can do anything he wants, he can have the church led by apostles for its first generation and afterward have no more apostles, which is what God seems to have done at the end of the first century. I'm comfortable with that. Why aren't you?"

You replied:

I would be quite comfortable with that, if that is what happened. It seems more likely that the great falling away took place, awaiting restoration.

You've got a chicken-and-egg problem here. Did the falling away cause the loss of apostles and prophets, or vice versa?

In the NT, Christ appointed the apostles himself. He stopped doing this, and by the end of the first century the church had no living apostles. According to LDS doctrine, Christ stopped calling new apostles for 17 centuries, and then in 1820 he called Joseph. The "falling away" apparently didn't stop Christ from doing this in 1830, so I don't see why it would stop him from doing it in 130. Whereas LDS doctrine claims that Christ stopped calling apostles and prophets for 17 centuries, I simply claim he stopped doing it for 20 centuries (so far).

[Rob Bowman]

Dan,

I had written:

"Comparing LDS revelations since Brigham to non-LDS Christian revelations since Brigham is irrelevant; the point I made was that alleged revelation in the LDS religion slowed quickly from a flood to a trickle."

You replied:

I don't know that that's true. Do you? On what basis?

I refer to publicly disseminated revelations. We can review the history of the LDS Church's leaders' teachings and see the difference. I gave some evidence to support my conclusion.

I had mentioned that Pentecostals and charismatics have claimed numerous revelations in the past century. You replied:

I was, of course, talking about mainstream Christianity, not the fringe movements that you mention.

The LDS Church is even more of a "fringe movement" than the Pentecostals and charismatics. What's your point? That Episcopalians and Baptists don't claim to be led by prophets? This isn't news.

You wrote:

"I can tell you with absolute certainty," the then-third-ranking man in the Vatican personally told me in Rome some years ago (and I think I have his words pretty exactly accurate), "that no pope has ever received a revelation."

I agree, of course.

So do I.

You wrote:

You set up quite a straw man when you claim that Joseph claimed to receive such revelations virtually every day. He didn't.

Doctrine and Covenants 4, 12, 16, 40, etc. -- these are not vast, sweeping statements of cosmic doctrine.

Fair point. I concede that my statement was hyperbole.

I pointed out that most of the LDS "revelations" in the post-Brigham era look like pragmatic decisions, not revelations. You replied:

And yet you presumably regard the vision that Peter received, and that is described in Acts 10, as a genuine divine revelation. Peter recognizes that God cares about non-Jews. And you call that a revelation?

Huh? Peter was acting against his Jewish culture's beliefs; they thought of Gentiles as dogs (back when dogs were not typically household pets!). The revelation opening the priesthood to people of color was a concession to the culture. Peter swam against the current; Kimball swam with the current.

You wrote:

I find it amusing that you dismiss President Hinckley's claim of a revelation directing the construction of small temples, while, at the same time, you almost certainly venerate the excruciatingly detailed description of the Tabernacle given in the book of Exodus as part of the inerrant Word of God.

What does the level of detail in the Exodus text have to do with anything here? Dan, you are missing the big picture, as others here are also doing. My point was that such revelations as giving blacks the priesthood and deciding to build smaller temples are the best examples of LDS revelation you can find from the past century. In reply, you are selecting out from the revelations of the Bible examples that superficially look similar to the alleged LDS revelations. This would be a valid argumentative strategy only if those biblical texts were also the standout revelations of their time, which of course they were not.

You wrote:

You dismiss John Taylor's revelation calling Elders Grant and Teasdale to the Twelve as unworthy of being termed revelation, and yet, I assume, you believe that God spoke to Moses, as recorded in Exodus 4, and directed him to call Aaron as his spokesman before Pharaoh.

Same problem, second verse. If we simply accept both the LDS and biblical historical claims at face value, I have mighty good reasons to think Moses was a prophet (the plagues, parting the Red Sea, receiving the Ten Commandments, etc., etc.), but slim evidence indeed for regarding Taylor as a prophet. Again, Taylor's calling Grant and Teasdale to the Twelve is apparently your best example of a prophetic revelation to Taylor.

[Rob Bowman]

Ahab,

You wrote:

I think Rob simply needs to be taught, rather than expecting him to come up with the right answers all by himself.

I'm always open to learning something new. Fire away.

You wrote:

A prophet of God is someone who receives revelation from God, even if all God is revealing is what is true on an issue. And No, the truth God reveals to a person doesn't have to be something that nobody else but God knows, as some people erroneously believe. To receive revelation from God simply requires receiving revelation from God, about whatever God is revealing to a person, and what God reveals will always be true, every time, regardless of who receives that revelation from God.

Okay, by this definition, I am a prophet. God has given me revelation in Scripture, and I have received it.

[Rob Bowman]

Senator,

You wrote:

Woe...back up the mule!

So are you claiming you believe the early LDS church was once led by prophets?

No, I am saying that even if I concede that Joseph Smith was a prophet, the evidence shows that the presidents of the LDS Church at least since the death of Brigham Young have been PINOs (Prophets In Name Only).

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

Your response assumes that I hold to the view that God's people always need to have living prophets and continuing revelation. I don't. Your review of biblical history illustrates the point that God sometimes has living prophets issuing new revelations or writing new scriptures and sometimes, even for very long periods of time, he doesn't. Prophets in the Bible appeared whenever God chose to reveal himself to someone; it was unpredictable and the timing was irregular. Prophets in the LDS Church since Brigham Young died have been appointed through a quite regular, bureaucratically run process. The difference is quite clear.

Thanks for the support for my case.

Actually, by biblical standards, modern LDS prophets and apostles stack up pretty good.

How many revelations did Joshua or Aaron have compared to Moses? Over the course of 600 years of Israelite history (1000-400 BC) we have less than two dozen prophets whose revelations were worth preserving. And the next four hundred years there were none! Compare the fact that the Pentateuch as a whole is about 3/4 the size of all the other prophetic writings in the OT combined. Why the front-loading of revelations in the Mosaic age?

How many overt revelations did Peter have? Less than half a dozen? How many revelations are recorded for Christ's twelve apostles? Is choosing an apostle by lot revelation? Is the book of Acts a revelation? How many apostolic letters include revelatory claims. (Many are in fact, generally quite similar to conference talks.) Are 3 John and Jude and Titus really the best reveled writings produced by any of the early apostles? How many Gospels actually expressly claim to be revelation? Why do we have Gospels by Mark and Luke rather than Timothy or Nathaniel, or some other apostle? Why didn't Jesus personally record all his revelations?

So, LDS revelatory output is, in fact, overall quite comparable to that of the biblical period. I smell a whiff of the standard Evangelical double standard operating here.

[cdowis]

"If God can do anything he wants, he can have the church led by apostles for its first generation and afterward have no more apostles, which is what God seems to have done at the end of the first century. I'm comfortable with that. Why aren't you?"

Let's see how Paul answered that question.

Eph 4 [11] And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

[12] For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

[13] Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

[14] That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Paul tells us about the organization of the church, with apostles and prophets, and why they are necessary and how long we can expect to find them in the church.

Hopefully you will understand and follow the words of the prophet and apostle Paul. You may not accept the prophets and apostles of the LDS church, but it is clear that we will find them in the true and living church of Christ.

[cdowis]

If we simply accept both the LDS and biblical historical claims at face value, I have mighty good reasons to think Moses was a prophet (the plagues, parting the Red Sea, receiving the Ten Commandments, etc., etc.), but slim evidence indeed for regarding Taylor as a prophet. Again, Taylor's calling Grant and Teasdale to the Twelve is apparently your best example of a prophetic revelation to Taylor.

I think we could compare JS with Moses, that flood of revelation. And if you look at the book of Joshua, you will find a parallel to our prophets today.Again, your view of a prophet is a fortune teller, but Joshua was a prophetic administrator to the people of Israel.

For example:

Joshua 1 [5] There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

[6] Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.

[7] Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

[8] This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

[9] Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

[10] Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,

[11] Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the LORD your God giveth you to possess it.

[12] And to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh, spake Joshua, saying,

[13] Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, The LORD your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land.

Sounds alot like a talk in General Conference. Pres. Monson may not be a Moses, but he is certainly a Joshua.

When it was necessary to receive revelation, he was a seer and revelator, but most of the time he spent his time giving counsel, keeping them on the correct path through inspiration and his authority as prophetic leader.

It was unnecessary to repeat the revelations that they received thru Moses.

[Senator]

Senator,

You wrote:

No, I am saying that even if I concede that Joseph Smith was a prophet, the evidence shows that the presidents of the LDS Church at least since the death of Brigham Young have been PINOs (Prophets In Name Only).

This is a very weird angle from which to make an argument.

I mean, you've laid out for us a hypothetical "what would be", but yet is not, concerning your conversion and subsequent apostasy from the LDS faith.

Even if what you say is true, is there value in adhering to a "remnant" religion? I mean, after all, you adhere to one, right? Is the remnant religion still valuable?

[erichard]

...The dirty little secret is that the contemporary LDS Church has replaced prophets with bureaucrats

[Rob Bowman]

Senator,

I have never been LDS, so I never converted to it nor apostatized from it. I am an evangelical Protestant. My argument is intended to show that LDS criticisms of a closed canon of Scripture and their claims to continued revelation ignore the dramatic changes between the days of Joseph and Brigham and the rest of LDS history.

This is a very weird angle from which to make an argument.

I mean, you've laid out for us a hypothetical "what would be", but yet is not, concerning your conversion and subsequent apostasy from the LDS faith.

Even if what you say is true, is there value in adhering to a "remnant" religion? I mean, after all, you adhere to one, right? Is the remnant religion still valuable?

[Rob Bowman]

Charles,

You wrote:

A prophet's job is not to be a common fortune teller.... You are the one missing the big, overall picture. The role of the prophet is not the fortune teller, but to use his priesthood authority and keys to administer to the church.

Since I do not and did not suggest that a prophet's job is to be fortune teller, your reply to my argument misses the mark.

[Bill Hamblin]

Bill,

Your response assumes that I hold to the view that God's people always need to have living prophets and continuing revelation. I don't. Your review of biblical history illustrates the point that God sometimes has living prophets issuing new revelations or writing new scriptures and sometimes, even for very long periods of time, he doesn't. Prophets in the Bible appeared whenever God chose to reveal himself to someone; it was unpredictable and the timing was irregular. Prophets in the LDS Church since Brigham Young died have been appointed through a quite regular, bureaucratically run process. The difference is quite clear.

Thanks for the support for my case.

How very unbiblical of you. (Num 11:29; Amos 3:7; 1 Mac 14:41; 1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11)

At any rate, is your new argument that it is legitimate for God to reveal his will to biblical prophets on his own irregular timetable, but he can't reveal things on his own timetable to his modern prophets? No double standard there.

But, of course, we don't have to meet your imaginary Bowman standard on the frequency of revelation to prophets. If we compare the quantity and frequency of revelation to contemporary prophets with the quantity and frequency of revelation to New Testament prophets, the contemporary prophets certainly make the grade.

PS If prophets must produce a certain quantity of revelation to meet the Bowman standard, what are we going to do with poor old Obadiah?

[Kenngo1969]

Keep an eye out for she bears.

Bernard

Best.

Post.

On.

Thread.

I thought it should get its due. Hell hath no fury like a she-bear ... Um, well, never mind.

(Although, to be fair, Mr. Bowman is not mocking the prophets for their coiffures, or for their lack thereof. )

[Thunderfire]

This is a comment I read today on facebook which I found interesting:

"There were prophets in the old testament that were shocked if anything significant happened without them foreseeing it." - Rick Joyner

This caused me to pause and think about the prophetic ministry we see around us today. In Mosiah we find Ammon speaking of the difference between a prophet and a seer. He says, "A seer can know of things which have past, and also of things which are to come. By them shall all things be revealed, or rather shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them. Also, things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known..."

So a seer is a revelator and a prophet. But a prophet is not necessarily a seer or revelator.

In Amos (3:7) we have that well know verse stating, "Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets..."

So with scripture as our guide, the prophet does not necessarily reveal the secret/hidden things. They herald what God is about to do for the benefit of all mankind. So the LDS can have prophetic ministry by what they have brought forth. The problem is that we many times interchange these terms proclaiming a prophet a seer when they are not.

Now with the above quote as our guide, are the prophets in our day shocked when anything significant happens without them forseeing it and proclaiming it to the people?

[ERayR]

In another thread, Charles Dowis argued (as he often does) that orthodox Christianity made a serious mistake by replacing

[ERayR]

Dan,

Hi there. I am honored that you took time to comment.

Comparing LDS revelations since Brigham to non-LDS Christian revelations since Brigham is irrelevant; the point I made was that alleged revelation in the LDS religion slowed quickly from a flood to a trickle. But if you really want to do the comparison, you should consider all of the alleged revelations that various Pentecostals and charismatics have claimed to receive in the past century. The number probably runs into the thousands. Of course, I don't put any stock in the prophetic claims of such men as Kenneth Hagin or Benny Hinn, either. The issue is whether such claims are true, not merely whether they are being made.

Just curious but how much time do you think elapsed between major revelations in the Bible? You seem to think they came in a contioious flow.

[ERayR]

Ahab, I'm not putting down seniors. I'll be one myself in a few years. My point is a much more serious one.

You are right it is very serious that God is not doing things the way you think it should be done.

[ERayR]

It would be out of place for me to say, since I am not LDS.

However, the Proclamation has frequently been referred to as an example of modern revelation. Boyd K. Packer called it a revelation in his recent conference address, but in the published address this was edited so as to refer to the proclamation as a "guide". Add to this the fact that Daniel Peterson did not include the proclamation in his list... I thought I would ask where it ranks.

Being a guide and being a revelation are not mutually exclusive.

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

You wrote:

How very unbiblical of you. (Num 11:29; Amos 3:7; 1 Mac 14:41; 1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11)

Just what is it that you claim these texts teach that I supposedly do not accept?

(By the way, I wouldn't include 1 Maccabees in the canon of Scripture.)

You wrote:

At any rate, is your new argument that it is legitimate for God to reveal his will to biblical prophets on his own irregular timetable, but he can't reveal things on his own timetable to his modern prophets? No double standard there.

But, of course, we don't have to meet your imaginary Bowman standard on the frequency of revelation to prophets. If we compare the quantity and frequency of revelation to contemporary prophets with the quantity and frequency of revelation to New Testament prophets, the contemporary prophets certainly make the grade.

Your assumption that I have altered my argument to some "new argument" is incorrect. The argument is the same. Irregularity of new revelations, by itself, is not the premise of my argument. It is part of a larger picture that you are apparently either not seeing or not wishing to acknowledge.

You wrote:

PS If prophets must produce a certain quantity of revelation to meet the Bowman standard, what are we going to do with poor old Obadiah?

Another proof that you are attacking a straw man of my argument instead of the real deal.

[Daniel Peterson]

The LDS Church is even more of a "fringe movement" than the Pentecostals and charismatics. What's your point? That Episcopalians and Baptists don't claim to be led by prophets? This isn't news.

Precisely.

And since neither you nor I hold any brief for the Pentecostals and charismatics -- unless I'm mistaking your position -- I see no reason to discuss them here. I don't judge whether somebody is a prophet by the crude measure of Frequency of Claimed Revelations, though it seems to me that you are perilously close to doing so.

Huh? Peter was acting against his Jewish culture's beliefs; they thought of Gentiles as dogs (back when dogs were not typically household pets!). The revelation opening the priesthood to people of color was a concession to the culture. Peter swam against the current; Kimball swam with the current.

That depends upon which "current" you're focused upon. The currents within Mormonism are not precisely the same as those in the world beyond Mormonism. In any event, whether a purported revelation "swims" with or against the current says nothing at all directly, and very little indirectly, about the question of whether or not it's genuine.

What does the level of detail in the Exodus text have to do with anything here?

Your infallible Bible, which you invite all to venerate as the Word of God, concerns itself with the minutiae of the wood used for the furniture in the Tabernacle, and revelation to Moses, recorded in that Bible, directs him to call his brother to serve as his spokesman, and yet you dismiss recent Mormon revelations calling men to positions and authorizing smaller temple designs as too insignificant to be taken seriously?

If that's not a double standard, I've never seen one.

My point was that such revelations as giving blacks the priesthood and deciding to build smaller temples are the best examples of LDS revelation you can find from the past century.

And I'm not sure why you think there's some sort of minimum level of profundity or cosmic significance, beneath which communications from God are to be ruled non-revelatory. Have you excised "Thou shalt not seethe a [goat] kid in his mother's milk" (Exodus 23:19] from the Bowman Bible? What about the instructions in Numbers 15:4 concerning "a meat offering of a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of oil"? Such things could be multiplied indefinitely (I chose these two specimens by opening the Pentateuch at random). Do they meet your quality standard, or have you rejected them as non-revelations?

Anyway, Joseph F. Smith's vision of the redemption of the dead was revealed to him late in 1918. That's within the past century. You dismissed it too, of course, but I'm not at all clear as to the grounds for your dismissal.

[Rob Bowman]

DeepThinker,

You wrote:

I don't know the details of the process for selecting Church leaders and I don't know about any of their personal spiritual experiences - and I'm sure you don't either.

I know this: LDS Church leaders are selected by other LDS Church leaders. I also know this: testimonies of having personally seen the risen Christ are not prerequisites for becoming an apostle in the LDS Church. That is all I really need to know.

You wrote:

When you say "the big lie", you're saying you have knowledge that you simply don't posess. The best you could honestly say is that you have doubts , suspicions, or simply don't know. Calling the process 'the big lie" is a lie - and deserves sarcastic criticism.

I reviewed the whole thread, and I never used this language. Where are you getting this?

[Rob Bowman]

TAO,

You wrote:

Ah yes, perhaps you remember, that Brigham himself always felt bad that he wasn't receiving quite the same revelation as Joseph had. However, he realized that much had already been revealed, and that much else could not be spoken of. Yes, there are mysteries they know, which they cannot tell.

I don't see how the above comments in any way refute my point.

You wrote, regarding knowing whether an alleged prophet's revelations are true:

Well um... isn't it obvious how your supposed to know if they are true... by the Spirit?

Yes, but it is not obvious how the Spirit provides the knowledge by which we determine if an alleged prophet's revelations are true. You and I will in fact have very different views on that question.

You wrote:

You need to look again - revelation isn't always received in blinding visions and massive miracles. Look at personal revelation for example. Not blinding, nor massive. Simply personal. God choses to revel himself in the way he does for some pretty good reasons, so I'd suggest you ask him what those reasons are before you say "those aren't revelation".

This is all beside the point. Evangelicals believe in some sort of personal divine guidance, though we have differing views on exactly what is involved. The issue is publicly disseminated revelations that function as authoritative guidance for the whole people of God. Mormons make a big deal about having living prophets and claim this gives them something evangelicals don't have, but in fact these living prophets are simply administrators. There's nothing wrong with administrators -- they can be spiritually gifted to do what they do -- but they aren't prophets.

You wrote:

Your forgetting - it was always KNOWN that African Americans would eventually receive the priesthood. We just didn't know when.

Apparently, someone forgot to give Bruce R. McConkie that memo. What is your basis for saying that people of color (the restriction was broader than African-Americans) were always promised that they would eventually receive the priesthood?

You wrote:

Just a few years before, several AAs wrote a letter to the prophet, but he told them that it wasn't the time - in fact, he didn't know it was the time until it was. And it was unexpected and glorious. Now I'd call that revelation.

I have a different take on the matter. It wasn't time because the LDS Church culture wasn't ready for it.

You wrote:

God's time isn't your time, remember. It doesn't matter if 1870 was the right time for you, it wasn't the right time for God, and that is plenty good enough.

If I had some reason to think God was behind the revelation at all, I would happily yield to God's timing. But absent any such evidence of divine inspiration, the timing is suspiciously convenient from a human, pragmatic perspective.

[Rob Bowman]

Bernard,

A brilliantly funny bit of irrelevance.

Keep an eye out for she bears.

Bernard