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A Question about the 14 Fundamentals . . .


consiglieri

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President Ezra Taft Benson lists as numbers 2 and 3 of his 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet:

Second: The living prophet is more vital to us than the standard works.

Third: The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.

Inasmuch as President Benson is no longer a living prophet, should we remove these two from the list and make it an even dozen?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

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President Ezra Taft Benson list as numbers 2 and 3 of his 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet:

Inasmuch as President Benson is no longer a living prophet, should we remove these two from the list and make it an even dozen?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Could you please post the rest of the list?

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President Ezra Taft Benson lists as numbers 2 and 3 of his 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet:

Inasmuch as President Benson is no longer a living prophet, should we remove these two from the list and make it an even dozen?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Maybe at least one, so we got a bakers dozen! I mean come on no one give us 14 things at once it's 12 or 13 at the most!

Moses didn't give us the 14 Commandments, it was the 10 Commandments! In fact I go even further we should cut if from 14 to 10 fundamentals! ROFL rofl.gif

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President Ezra Taft Benson lists as numbers 2 and 3 of his 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet:

Inasmuch as President Benson is no longer a living prophet, should we remove these two from the list and make it an even dozen?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Fourteen Fundamentals of Following the Prophet

Second: The living prophet is more vital to us than the Standard Works.

President Wilford Woodruff tells of an interesting incident that occurred in the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith:

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I see no good reason to change it, and it appears to have been based off of other precidents already set.

I am not being clear enough, I think.

President Benson said a living prophet is more important than a dead prophet.

He said this while he was alive.

Now President Benson is dead.

What force and effect should his words in this regard continue to have?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

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I don't see why you would delete them

I don't think you see what Consig is saying.

The current living prophet is not saying these things. In a sense of irony, it is safe to ignore them because President Benson is dead and he told us while alive, that we should listen to the living prophet.

What seems to not work here, soley, because President Benson is no longer alive his whole list should be removed not just those 2. But that only works if we listen to Presidents Benson's advice.

See the conundrum?

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President Ezra Taft Benson lists as numbers 2 and 3 of his 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet:

Inasmuch as President Benson is no longer a living prophet, should we remove these two from the list and make it an even dozen?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Why stop at just the 2? Why not toss out all 14 of them?

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I don't think you see what Consig is saying.

The current living prophet is not saying these things. In a sense of irony, it is safe to ignore them because President Benson is dead and he told us wile alive, that we should listen to the livin prophet.

What seems to not work here, soley, because President Benson is no longer alive his whole list should be removed not just those 2.

ooOOOooo interesting!

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I don't think you see what Consig is saying.

The current living prophet is not saying these things. In a sense of irony, it is safe to ignore them because President Benson is dead and he told us wile alive, that we should listen to the livin prophet.

What seems to not work here, soley, because President Benson is no longer alive his whole list should be removed not just those 2. But that only works if we listen to Presidents Benson's advice.

See the conundrum?

Brilliant!

(You are hereby granted absolution for misidentifying my avatar yesterday.)

It is sort of like every prophet's words have a built-in expiration date.

What is meant to give primacy to the living prophet actually detracts from his importance.

I mean, how much attention should we pay to a prophet's voice if what he says is only good until the next prophet comes along?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

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What force and effect should his words in this regard continue to have?

I feel that one must take from this what the President meant with this talk (and I know I am one to be quite literal so this is a rarity for me to talk about looking beyond what is directly said).

He wasn't literally saying that once a Prophet dies that his words are useless to us, only that the inspired words of living prophet hold more weight because they are the inspired words of the Lord for us in our day. As it is said in our Faith, the revelations to Adam were not made for Enoch, nor the revelations to Enoch made to tell Noah how to Build the Arc, not the Revelations to Noah give Abraham his Covenant, ect. Each generation has there Prophet (unless we are in a time of spiritual darkness) to give them the revelations of God relevant for there times and there situation.

I also think these statements also follow along with the idea that a prophet can make changes to policy or doctrine if so inspired by the Lord. The two biggest things that come to mind about this is the polygamy and the priesthood ban for blacks, both were taught as doctrine by Prophets and later discontinued by other Prophets. If a later prophet gives us a teaching that modifies or does away with the doctrine, policy, or teachings of earlier prophets we go with the living prophet since he is the one who receives the will of the Lord of the Church in our times!

So since this talk and other talks and teachings of the modern prophets haven't been removed by the living prophet they still stand as official policy and/or doctrine of the Church, IMO.

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Brilliant!

(You are hereby granted absolution for misidentifying my avatar yesterday.)

It is sort of like every prophet's words have a built-in expiration date.

What is meant to give primacy to the living prophet actually detracts from his importance.

I mean, how much attention should we pay to a prophet's voice if what he says is only good until the next prophet comes along?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I'm pretty sure that President Benson only meant to address situations where The Living Prophet was saying things that appeared to contradict things that had been taught by past Prophets or The Scriptures. Obviously, Utah polygamists would be immediately brought to mind.

While we're on the subject, in the other thread some people made the claim that President Kimball and/or other GA's had a negative reaction to President Benson's talk (given at BYU in 1980 and printed in the Church magazine "Liahona" in 1981). Does anyone have any details about what happened?

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Brilliant!

(You are hereby granted absolution for misidentifying my avatar yesterday.)

That is good, I will be embarrased by this for some time. I bet you were wondering "What does Captain Kirk have to do with anything." everytime I brought it up over the years? Lol.

In other news I spent part of my day watching a childhood favorite "Manimal".

It is sort of like every prophet's words have a built-in expiration date.

What is meant to give primacy to the living prophet actually detracts from his importance.

I mean, how much attention should we pay to a prophet's voice if what he says is only good until the next prophet comes along?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I don't know? It would seem that the church regularly teaches pasts prophets teachings. In a certain sense I would say they don't follow President Benson's teaching yet at the same time they are.

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President Ezra Taft Benson lists as numbers 2 and 3 of his 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet:

Inasmuch as President Benson is no longer a living prophet, should we remove these two from the list and make it an even dozen?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I dunno. Have any currently living prophets made favorable reference to these 14 fundamentals that President Benson postulated as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve? Have any currently living prophets said anything to make you think any of the 14 fundamentals have been abandoned? I mean, really Consig, you should know better than to read the context out of the statements. Bad boy! Bad! Bad! Bad! :P

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While we're on the subject, in the other thread some people made the claim that President Kimball and/or other GA's had a negative reaction to President Benson's talk (given at BYU in 1980 and printed in the Church magazine "Liahona" in 1981). Does anyone have any details about what happened?

I had personally never heard of this reaction, but would be interested in the details.

Am I correct in remembering that President Benson gave this same address again after he was president?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

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President Ezra Taft Benson lists as numbers 2 and 3 of his 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet:

Inasmuch as President Benson is no longer a living prophet, should we remove these two from the list and make it an even dozen?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Number 2 and 3 are cited in one manual (the Institute's Teachings of the Living Prophets) and in two Nov 2010 conference talks so it would appear to be still considered doctrinal according to the lds.org definition.

http://lds.org/ensig...ang=eng&query=*

http://lds.org/ensig...ophets?lang=eng

Those do appear to be the only full citations however, which is interesting.

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I am not being clear enough, I think.

President Benson said a living prophet is more important than a dead prophet.

He said this while he was alive.

Now President Benson is dead.

What force and effect should his words in this regard continue to have?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Oh I see, it's just another "stir the pot" moment to see what sticks to the bottom.

*whoops* There goes my CDS again...

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Am I correct in remembering that President Benson gave this same address again after he was president?

He was President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the time not President of the Church.

I have heard some say this talk was considered controversial at first because President Benson wasn't President of the Church when he made it, but within a year the Church published it in the Ensign and Liahona putting to rest any questions about it from what I have heard. I haven't heard much about it except it mentioned briefly in other threads, but I too would like to know if and why there was any controversy surrounding the talk, and how it was resolved and what impact did it have on the message!

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While we're on the subject, in the other thread some people made the claim that President Kimball and/or other GA's had a negative reaction to President Benson's talk (given at BYU in 1980 and printed in the Church magazine "Liahona" in 1981). Does anyone have any details about what happened?

Apparently Edward L. Kimball told this to D. Michael Quinn in August 1992. Further, President Kimball's wife Camille described "his displeasure with the speech" to her brother-in-law George T. Boyd, and Boyd told Quinn about it in September 1992. (The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power.)

They say that Pres. Kimball was so upset by Elder Benson's speech that he demanded that he apologize to the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. Elder Benson's apology didn't seem sincere, so President Kimball made him apologize to the entire body of the General Authorities, too!

Or so I hear... :P

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I mean, how much attention should we pay to a prophet's voice if what he says is only good until the next prophet comes along?

All things considered, about the same amount of attention that we pay to the promptings of the Spirit, especially since what he says is good and sets the stage for the next prompting that comes along.

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