The Grand Fundamental Principles Of Mormonism

[DonBradley]

Perhaps the artical should be entitled "One mans view of what he thinks the grand fundametals of Mormonism are"

Absolutely. The man in question, btw, is Joseph Smith, who coined the term "grand fundamental principles of Mormonism" and applied it to specific principles. You may be interested to see what he had to say.

Don

[DonBradley]

I don't think Don is lamenting the loss of the principles per se, but rather the lack of emphasis placed on this particular summation of Mormon beliefs. Contrasted with, say, the Articles of Faith--which every child learns in Primary--I think Don's statement that "one can attend ward meetings and read works by LDS authors for a lifetime without ever becoming aware of this summation of the faith's foundations" is fairly self-evident.

I would have thought so....

But then, I would also have thought that if the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism, as articulated by Joseph Smith, are so great--which I think they are--then a call to remember that they are the faith's grand fundamental principles would be welcomed. Go figure.

Anyway, I think it's a great essay.

Thank you, Nevo. Coming from you, this means a great deal to me. I also greatly appreciated the encouragement you gave me after Scott Kenney's withering critique of the symposium version.

I've been wondering how you're doing, and have tried e-mailing or private-messaging you a couple times over the past year, but with no success. Drop me a line if you get a chance.

Don

[DonBradley]

All,

I appreciate the positive comments on my paper "'The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism': Joseph Smith's Unfinished Reformation."

I wrote this paper out of a love for the very principles whose 1843 declaration it explicates. When I was active in the church and believing--as I am now not--I reveled in the fact that my faith was founded on such expansive principles. I did not, however, find that expansiveness to be well refected in the LDS culture around me. While Latter-day Saints are, in my experience, unusually service-oriented, our ideals far outstripped our performance even here, and decidedly more so in applying the principles of openness to all truth and universal, ecumenical friendship.

To my mind, pointing out such an apparent distance between ideals and practice offers, not offense, but a helping hand. Who among us lives his or her ideals perfectly? Who among us could not benefit from seeing more clearly where that gap exists, and from being exhorted to fill it?

My paper was decidedly not meant to cut down, as I think a careful and open-hearted reading will show; rather, it was meant to build up--to look for the best in Mormonism, and use it to inspire and encourage others to live up to the faith's remarkable potential.

If in attempting this, I have fallen short, I hope my own failing will be viewed charitably, and attention focused instead on the grand principles of the Latter-day Saint faith.

Don Bradley

[DonBradley]

Charity,

In the midst of debating your objections to my paper, I overlooked your compliment on the basic soundness of its historical analysis.

Thank you.

Don

[Tribunal]

Great essay! I wonder what the Church would be like with a king, priest, and prophet. How would such an organization work? Can anyone explain this to me?

[DonBradley]

Great essay! I wonder what the Church would be like with a king, priest, and prophet. How would such an organization work? Can anyone explain this to me?

Sure, Tribunal. (And thanks for the compliment on the essay.)

Joseph Smith never had a chance to complete his reformation and set up the full structure as he envisioned it (hence the subtitle of the essay); so, we don't know 100% how it would have looked or functioned.

However, to the best that we can glean, he envisioned three tightly interlocked structures--the church, the temple establishment, and the kingdom. The church is quite familiar. The temple cultus, or establishment, would work, I think, rather like the temple priesthood of ancient Israel, and be headed by a high priest. Finally, the kingdom was a political organization, with a governing "council of 50" and a theocratic "king." A good deal has been written about the Council of 50, so you can probably find good info there. There have been several BYU Studies papers on it over the years, and Mike Quinn's The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power addresses it in great detail.

The most mysterious organization, really, is the one headed by the high priest--what I have been calling the temple cultus or temple and temple establishment, and Joseph Smith apparenty called "the Anointed Quorum." This group functioned only secretly and without a temple during his lifetime, and, like the political kingdom, was never fully organized. We will have to glean its anticipated outlines from the clues left in the historical record.

Another mystery was exactly how the three officers--prophet, priest, and king--were expected to interact.

Thanks for your interest,

Don

[Tribunal]

Did ancient Israel run by a similar method of church, temple, and kingdom? How did the three systems within ancient Israel interact?

[DonBradley]

Did ancient Israel run by a similar method of church, temple, and kingdom?

BINGO! There's the question. I think the Israelite system is the model for Joseph Smith's reformation. (Of course, Royal Arch Masonry appears to serve as a prompt as well. But the Royal Arch model is similarly based on the Old Testament.) In the Old Testament, it's quite clear that the offices of prophet, high priest, and king are (overwhelmingly) separate and distinct.

How did the three systems within ancient Israel interact?

Another good question, and one I'm less qualified to answer. I have some ideas, based on my reading of the Old Testament; but perhaps one of our resident biblical scholars should take a crack at this one.

Don

[Tsuzuki]

I wrote this paper out of a love for the very principles whose 1843 declaration it explicates. When I was active in the church and believing--as I am now not--I reveled in the fact that my faith was founded on such expansive principles. I did not, however, find that expansiveness to be well refected in the LDS culture around me. While Latter-day Saints are, in my experience, unusually service-oriented, our ideals far outstripped our performance even here, and decidedly more so in applying the principles of openness to all truth and universal, ecumenical friendship.

If you don't mind my asking, is your current inactivity related to the inability of many members to live up to the ideal? And if so, could you make a difference for the better by returning to activity? In your article you mention that it's up to the individual members to employ these fundamental principles. Wouldn't it be great if you made yourself an example of that?

[DonBradley]

If you don't mind my asking, is your current inactivity related to the inability of many members to live up to the ideal? And if so, could you make a difference for the better by returning to activity? In your article you mention that it's up to the individual members to employ these fundamental principles. Wouldn't it be great if you made yourself an example of that?

Fair questions, Tsuzuki.

Yes, my frustration at the relative lack of emphasis I found on these principles certainly affected my desire to attend ward meetings. And had I seen the community thriving on these principles, it would have been hard to stop going.

I agree with you that a member seeking to apply and emphasize these principles in the context of a local LDS community would do more to promote them than would a member who did not attend.

However, my alienation runs deeper than just a disappointment, however profound, with the application of the grand fundamental principles. Whatever my attachment to such profound moral and spiritual principles, I have stopped believing the foundational historical and theological claims of Mormonism. Were to here review my reasons for not believing, this would be taken as, at best, an invitation to debate, and, more probably, as an attack. So, I won't do that. Suffice to say that I see far stronger reason to not believe these claims than to believe them, and that it would probably be most accurate to refer to me as now no longer Mormon, or as what one might call a "secular Mormon."

If others with faith in the foundational claims are frustrated also by what they perceive as a lack of emphasis on the grand fundamental principles, and other similarly expansive principles of Mormonism, I would encourage them to stay involved in church, to try to practice the principles in their own lives, and to occasionally drop a quote in church that expresses one of these principles.

I just don't see that as my own path.

Don

[Paul Ray]

In a nutshell, Don seems to be another person who has left the Church simply because the Church doesn't meet his expectations of what he thinks the Church is or should be as the true church of Jesus Christ.

Or to put it even a little more simply, he didn't like what he saw, so he left.

... and all this does for me is help me to understand Don's personal opinion.

It doesn't change what I know the (LDS) Church truly is, and it doesn't distract me from helping the Church become perfect.

I already know the Church is filled with some imperfect people in it. If we were perfect, I think we would all be translated... unless maybe our Lord wanted us to stick around here a little longer to try to help others to become as perfect as we know we should be.

[DonBradley]

I don't what "Don" you are referring to Paul, but your comments certainly don't put "in a nutshell," or even represent with remote accuracy, why I no longer believe in the foundational historical and theological claims of Mormonism. I purposely ommitted a discussion of my reasons for nonbelief, in order to avoid endless debate, but I didn't anticipate that someone would debate my reasons without knowing them. I don't see what positive purpose is filled by this kind of tendentiousness.

And, at the risk of repeating myself...the paper is not about my personal frustrations or level of faith, it is about Joseph Smith's documented, but little known, declaration of the "grand fundamental principles" of the faith he founded. I would be surprised if many believing Latter-day Saints would be troubled by the material covered in the paper, and, indeed, I expect that many would be edified, and perhaps inspired. Rather than seek to brush off the content of the paper because you have a problem with the person who wrote it, why not apply one of Joseph Smith's "grand fundamental principles of Mormonism" by, to use his words, "receiv[ing] truth, let it come from whence it may," even if that includes this ornery old apostate?

Don

[Paul Ray]

Tsuzuki asked for thoughts concerning your article, and I then shared what I thought, in summary.

I saw, and still see, no reason to wait for you to see the positive purpose of Tsuzuki's question before I share my thoughts with him and others on this thread.

If you don't want to discuss anything concerning what you said in your article, I suggest that you refrain from responding to our comments.

[Hyrum Page]

Paul,

I can't see how your thoughts are related to Don's article as much as they are related to matters he refrained from sharing about his personal beliefs. How you presume to conjure up the latter in order to interpret the former is baffling to me. Don has been generally responsive to reactions to the paper, and he has been, understandably, unresponsive to the kind of ill-founded dismissal of his work as evidenced in your assumptions. For you to accuse him of being unresponsive is further baffling, and I really don't see how this represents what we have been reading.

Cheers!

Tsuzuki asked for thoughts concerning your article, and I then shared what I thought, in summary.

I saw, and still see, no reason to wait for you to see the positive purpose of Tsuzuki's question before I share my thoughts with him and others on this thread.

If you don't want to discuss anything concerning what you said in your article, I suggest that you refrain from responding to our comments.

[DonBradley]

If you don't want to discuss anything concerning what you said in your article, I suggest that you refrain from responding to our comments.

Paul, if you want to discuss anything I said in my article, feel free. But please be aware that my article says nothing about why I don't believe or attend church; so, comments on that topic are actually off the topic of Tzusuki's question.

BTW, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the content of the paper.

Don

[wenglund]

Fair questions, Tsuzuki.

Yes, my frustration at the relative lack of emphasis I found on these principles certainly affected my desire to attend ward meetings. And had I seen the community thriving on these principles, it would have been hard to stop going.

I agree with you that a member seeking to apply and emphasize these principles in the context of a local LDS community would do more to promote them than would a member who did not attend.

However, my alienation runs deeper than just a disappointment, however profound, with the application of the grand fundamental principles. Whatever my attachment to such profound moral and spiritual principles, I have stopped believing the foundational historical and theological claims of Mormonism. Were to here review my reasons for not believing, this would be taken as, at best, an invitation to debate, and, more probably, as an attack. So, I won't do that. Suffice to say that I see far stronger reason to not believe these claims than to believe them, and that it would probably be most accurate to refer to me as now no longer Mormon, or as what one might call a "secular Mormon."

If others with faith in the foundational claims are frustrated also by what they perceive as a lack of emphasis on the grand fundamental principles, and other similarly expansive principles of Mormonism, I would encourage them to stay involved in church, to try to practice the principles in their own lives, and to occasionally drop a quote in church that expresses one of these principles.

I just don't see that as my own path. Don

Hi Don,

I, for one, appreciate your desire to avoid saying things that may be viewed as an attack or an invitation to debate your loss of faith, and I will return that respect by not pressing you to much on that issue.

However, I have had some lengthy discussions with former members and unbelieving members on another board, who are of the opinion that the Church has lied about what it claims to be, is a fraud, and has not acted in good faith. They also have experienced no small measure of anger and grief upon coming to that conclusion, and feel justified in publically venting that anger and grief.

So strong is their opinion, that they are quite surprised to learn when some former members and unbelievers are not angered or grief-stricken even though they may have come to the same conclusion.

Even more so, they question the very existence of unbelievers or former members who don't go so far as to uncharitably view the Church as a fraud, liar, and as acting in bad faith, but who simply don't believe in the Church, but can respect that Church leaders and members are good and honorable people who have, and do now, firmly believe in the verity of their faith and that authenticity of the Book of Mormon as an ancient religious record.

I have offered them some anecdotal eveidence of the existence of such people (I have mentioned close relations, and friends, and former Ward members that I have been acquaited with, which fit well within the latter category), but that didn't seem to suffice (i.e. they didn't trust me).

My reasons for mentioning this is, if I have been reading you correctly, I got the impression that you may fit this latter category, and if so, this thread and your article may act as documentation in support of the existence of such people. Do you fit in the latter category?

The point in all of this is to demonstrate that there are alternitive ways of dis-believing and alternitive ways of reacting to one's loss of faith. Some ways lend themselves to greater amounts of mutual hurt, anger, grief, divisiveness, etc., and other ways that may lend themselves to lesser amounts of the same. I just want people to know that they have a choice, and that the mutual suffering is not necessary.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Paul Ray]

Paul,

I can't see how your thoughts are related to Don's article as much as they are related to matters he refrained from sharing about his personal beliefs.

Okay, so how can I help you? I think my thoughts of Don and what Don said in his article are the thoughts I have about Don and his article.

And btw, Don has been responding to some comments from some people on this thread, so I haven't been limited to only reading his article.

I have tried, and will try, to share my thoughts with you and others about Don. As far as I know, that's the only way that I know of to help you... unless, of course, God and Don also help you to see what I see.

[Paul Ray]

Paul, if you want to discuss anything I said in my article, feel free. But please be aware that my article says nothing about why I don't believe or attend church; so, comments on that topic are actually off the topic of Tzusuki's question.

I wasn't limited to reading only what you said in your article. You made some comments to some people in this thread. And in one of your comments you shared why you have left the Church, so my thoughts of you also come from that comment.

BTW, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the content of the paper.

I believe many of my thoughts are in harmony with Joseph's thoughts:

With uplifted hands I say to you:

Art thou a brother or brethren? I salute you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in token or remembrance of the everlasting covenant, in which covenant I receive you to fellowship, in a determination that is fixed, immovable, and unchangeable, to be your friend and brother through the grace of God in the bonds of love, to walk in all the commandments of God blameless, in thanksgiving, forever and ever. Amen.

and some of your comments in that article:

"While advocating Christian unity, however, Joseph clearly did not envision the institutional unification of Christendom, the merging of all Church structures into one. He continued to maintain Mormonismâ??s exclusive claims to perform ordinances or sacramentsâ?¦ But Joseph averred that he would not use his authority to press others to follow his beliefs and revelations, nor would he condemn them for failing to do so."

...

â??If I esteem mankind to be in error shall I bear them down? No! I will lift them up. & each his own way if I cannot persuade him my way is better! I will ask no man to believe as I do.â?

...

â??I donâ??t care what a manâ??s character if heâ??s my friend. â?? a friend a true friend. I will be a friend to him. Friendship is the grand fundamental principle of Mormonism.â?

â??I see no faults in the Churchâ?¦ I do not dwell upon your faults and you shall not upon mine.â?

And while I wonder why you have chosen to leave the Church and this bond of friendship, I respect your right to make your own decisions.

[DonBradley]

Wade,

I think I do fit into your second category, and will try to explain where I'm coming from on these issues.

I have no illusion that the leaders of the church are part of a conspiracy to dupe the masses. A careful look at the structure of the church will show that the top leaders are drawn from a pool of mid-level leaders (i.e., former bishops, stake presidents, mission presidents, and presidents of church universities), and these, in turn, are drawn from the "rank-and-file." If the rank and file are sincere in their belief--as the former LDS themselves presumably were, then why would they suddenly become insincere when called as bishops, stake presidents, and the like? And would these sincere leaders suddenly become insincere when called to even higher positions of leadership? When do they let them in on the Big Secret? And how come nobody ever breaks ranks, and let's the cat out of the bag? Why aren't there even very many rumors about how some GA told his wife, niece, cat, journal, or whomever that it's really all a scam? If it is a secret conspiracy, it's the most successful one in human history, since no one has ever let the secret slip.

While I see the LDS leaders as entirely sincere, I think Joseph Smith has to be treated as a special case--either the religion is what it purports to be, or Joseph Smith, to one degree or another, consciously deceived. He brought something down from that hill wrapped up in a frock and claimed it was the ancient gold plates, and if it wasn't that, he was deceiving people about what it was. So, if one doesn't believe in Mormonism's foundational claims, I think one is stuck with the unattractive idea that Joseph Smith, whether for self-serving reasons or pious ones, used substantial deception in inaugurating his religious career.

IOW, Joseph Smith seems to me a necessary and unfortunate exception from my general view that LDS leaders are absolutely and entirely sincere.

As to the claim by some ex-LDS that current believers are perfect dupes, what would that make them when they were LDS? If anyone should be able to understand believers it in Mormonism, it is those who have been such believers themselves. Yet, you're right, those of us who've stopped believing often paint those who still believe as arrant fools, deceivers, and the like. I imagine this is partly because of an inability to place oneself (back) in another's shoes, and partly because of a felt need to distance oneself from beliefs that one once strongly held.

I hope this clarifies my perspective. I appreciate your own work to break down bigotry against Latter-day Saints, and I hope you will also break down bigotry toward those of us who no longer believe. We frequently get lumped together with the loudest and angriest among us, and are often also associated with the ugly likes of Korihor and the other Book of Mormon anti-Christs. But these categorizations serve to obscure, not to illuminate.

Don

[DonBradley]

Paul,

I identify strongly with those quotes as well.

And while I wonder why you have chosen to leave the Church and this bond of friendship, I respect your right to make your own decisions.

I genuinely appreciate this, and I think I can understand your puzzlement. As stated earlier, I'm not going to try to explain my departure on this thread. Perhaps some time I'll write a bio in the "Introductions" section and sum up my story there. But it is a loooong story.

Thanks again,

Don

[Paul Ray]

I genuinely appreciate this, and I think I can understand your puzzlement. As stated earlier, I'm not going to try to explain my departure on this thread. Perhaps some time I'll write a bio in the "Introductions" section and sum up my story there. But it is a loooong story.

Thanks again,

Don

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I know something about why you chose to leave the Church, based on the thoughts I have concerning what you said. And yet while I understand, to the degree that I understand, I still wonder why you made that decision... and I doubt that your words would help me to understand.

To me, it's like understanding why someone would chose to leave the Lord while knowing who our Lord is, and what He wants from us. I understand it, to a point, by understanding all their reasons, but I still wonder why, and how, they could do it.

I sometimes wonder if I will ever understand that.

[DonBradley]

Paul,

I no longer hold certain beliefs, or act on those beliefs, because I no longer see the evidence as indicating these beliefs are actually true. This is what we all do in changing our beliefs. When we see different evidence, or see it differently, we believe differently.

Being able to understand the reasons behind beliefs and actions contrary to your own requires you to set aside your own worldview for a while, to imagine, if only hypothetically, that your own views are wrong. If you find yourself in a place where you can't or won't do that, then, you're right, no amount of explanation would make it clear to you.

BTW, what I thanked you for was affirming my right to my own life and its decisions. While it is clear that I do have that right, I appreciate your explicit acknowledgement of it.

Don

[Paul Ray]

Paul,

I no longer hold certain beliefs, or act on those beliefs, because I no longer see the evidence as indicating these beliefs are actually true. This is what we all do in changing our beliefs. When we see different evidence, or see it differently, we believe differently.

Yes, and that is what I don't understand. Your suggestion that you no longer see what, I suppose, you once saw, is something that is hard for me to fathom.

And btw, I was once a member of another church before I became a member of this one, and the reason I left that Church is because I saw more... more than I saw while I was in that other church. But I still see what I saw while I was in that other church. God simply helped me to see more than I saw.

I wonder why, and how, you no longer see.

Being able to understand the reasons behind beliefs and actions contrary to your own requires you to set aside your own worldview for a while, to imagine, if only hypothetically, that your own views are wrong.

I acknowledge there is more that I don't see right now, but once I see, I don't see how I won't see. Unless, of course, I went blind, but I would still know I had seen what I saw when I did see, and I can't imagine what would take that away.

If you find yourself in a place where you can't or won't do that, then, you're right, no amount of explanation would make it clear to you.

But how can you be wrong?

Can you not see what you once saw, and have seen?

Or are you saying that you never saw?

Maybe you've never seen what I see and have seen... even though you're actually saying you did see.

BTW, what I thanked you for was affirming my right to my own life and its decisions. While it is clear that I do have that right, I appreciate your explicit acknowledgement of it.

Heh, no problem. You can do, think, and believe whatever you want to.

[DonBradley]

Paul,

You've never thought that an experience or evidence indicated one thing, and then later come to see that it didn't? Have you, for instance, ever had an experience you initially took to be personal revelation, and then found that it didn't work out and wasn't what you'd thought?

If you haven't had this experience, then, take a note from Joseph Smith. David Whitmer, Hiram Page, Martin Harris and others testified of the revelation Joseph received instructing some of the brethren to go to a specific city in Ontario, and promising that if the people of that place didn't harden their hearts, these brethren would be able to sell the Canadian copyright for the Book of Mormon, and thus finance its publication. Only it turned out that there was no one in that city who was authorized to buy the copyright--it's sale there had been an impossibility from the start.

David Whitmer reported that when asked to account for this, Joseph looked into the stone and received these words by revelation: "Some revelations are of God; some are of man; and some are of the devil." In other words, Joseph initially thought the Canadian copyright revelation was from God, but then came to see it as either from an evil spirit or merely his own mind.

Now, why is it so baffling that a person could at one time see an experience or set of experiences as revelatory, and believe they know that their content is true, and later come to see those same things as not true?

Don

[DonBradley]

Note also, that I came to "no longer see" the evidence as supporting LDS foundational claims because I researched extensively and continually acquired a great deal of additional evidence, which gradually (i.e., over about fourteen years) tip the scale to the "false" side.

Again, this is the sort of thing we do in changing our minds in other areas of life. Why should it be so difficult to understand in this one?

Don