A Spencer W. Kimball Quote on Blasphemy

[changed]

8 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I don't know why you think God doesn't favor some over others.  EVERYTHING revealed about God indicates otherwise.

So the question becomes what brings about such favor.  All are alike, so if all obey  the same laws all receive the same blessings.  God just favors those who follow him.

You have every right to disagree but I'd like to know what revealed information about God you are basing your concept of God on.  Or perhaps you are designing your own God.

 

Euthyphro dilemma - I look to principles above God.  The principles that bring the most joy to me have been erasing heirarchy, respect and understanding for all - if you understand someone's background, their experiences, ... Ender's game - “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him." - I think there is truth in that.  To live with nothing but love in your heart for everything and everyone, vs. living with judgement and hierarchy - thinking some are better than others, being angry about the choices some have made...  I think more joy comes by not judging or rating and ranking anyone - but instead by learning to love everyone equally, and see everyone equally - only then do you remove anger, only then do you have no enemies, only then is there no darkness, only love.

Edited January 27, 2019 by changed

[JLHPROF]

3 minutes ago, changed said:

Euthyphro dilemma - I look to principles above God.  The principles that bring the most joy to me have been erasing heirarchy, respect and understanding for all - if you understand someone's background, their experiences, ... Ender's game - “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him." - I think there is truth in that.  To live with nothing but love in your heart for everything and everyone, vs. living with judgement and hierarchy - thinking some are better than others, being angry about the choices some have made...  I think more joy comes by not judging or rating and ranking anyone - but instead by learning to love everyone equally, and see everyone equally - only then do you remove anger, only then do you have no enemies, only then is there no darkness, only love.

So you create a God of your own making by worshipping traits you admire and calling them God.  And "love" also defined according to your own preferences is the top one.

Got it.

What that has to do with the actual being that exists and interacts with humans and his divine loveI don't know.  But if you like your design over the witnessed reality go for it.

 

[changed]

9 hours ago, 3DOP said:

Hi changed.

I don't think its quite fair to characterize Christians who believe that Christ established a church hierarchy are by implication saying that God is a respecter of persons, or deciding who is special. I am sure it HAS happened that in the hierarchical churches, persons become puffed up as though their office defined them, and that they are or were superior. But apparently God holds that allowing such an evil to occur is compatible with His will. It can be a source of merit for the laity, as the ordinary faithful are often called among us Catholics...to draw the distinction between the office and the person. We are to respect the office, and trust that God, Who is no respecter of persons will judge the person. I think there are popes and bishops and priests who have died without God's life in their souls. Being in the hierarchy is no ticket to heavenly rewards. The Scripture offers warnings that those who occupy important offices will be held accountable.

---Heb. 13:17

This passage seems explicit. Does not a text like this, and there are many others that imply the same, establish an order of hierarchy to which the faithful are supposed to attend?

When one looks at the historical record one finds Christians in the post apostolic age attending to an ordered hierarchy. Read the Epistles of St. Ignatius, who was martyred at Rome around 110 AD. He was Bishop of Antioch. As he was being taken to Rome for execution, he wrote letters to other churches, about seven of them I think. In each of them he admonishes the faithful to follow their bishops in the strongest terms. If this kind of Christianity had been exterminated out of existence by Pagan Rome, I might not have sought to discover those prelates to whom I was obliged in obedience. But instead, it was an hierarchical and sacramental church that eventually triumphed over the pagan gods. It took three centuries before the faith became legal in the Empire. It was thanks to the heroic blood of faithful and priests and bishops alike that the faith of Christ was not crushed in its infancy. I do not remember precisely, but something around fifteen of the first bishops of Rome died at the hands of executioners. Whatever they believed, that is what I want to believe. I don't think those brave Christians were against being led by souls who occupied positions believed to be established by Jesus Christ Himself. 

These strong words of Ignatius are intended to warn those who he well knows might find themselves scandalized by bad priests or bishops, although the persecution that church office invited in those days probably deterred souls of weaker character from accepting. But here is the quote, which seems to represent the thinking that carried Christianity from the problems of persecution to the problems of power and freedom:

---Epistle to the Ephesians, ch. 3

----Obid., ch. 4

Why should we be confident that this teaching of St. Ignatius is contrary to the will of Christ? Does God really despise what Ignatius is saying here while he is preparing to be fed to the lions for refusing to renounce the name of Jesus? I am persuaded that this teaching is of Apostolic origin. In ch. 5, our martyr talks about one difficulty of separating from the organized church:

---obid., ch. 5

We see in the Book of Acts how the Apostles led the early Christians to assemble together for "the breaking of bread". Leaving aside the Catholic teaching on the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, Jesus admonishes the Apostles to "do this in memory of me". Can we practice this activity without some kind of organized assembly? Is it God's will that we do this in our families, taking turns as to who plays the part of Jesus?

There are many more reasons I could give for why I have joined a hierarchical church after beginning in a less formal setting as a Christian. I had decided to started my own "church" in 1985. I asked a neighboring pastor if he thought I needed to be ordained first. I think he probably sensed as I did, the problem with ordination ceremonies for one without any linkage back to the Apostles, or a Restoration. Better to not go down that path. I decided to forego any kind of ceremony. I decided that anybody could start a church. It is a long story from there to now and this post is already too long.

Allow me to close by saying that I began to take Mormonism serious in the early nineties, because they offered an answer to what eventually became clear to me from my ministry. If there are problems with a hierarchy, the problems, in my opinion, are multiplied if we say that the Christian Scriptures and subsequent history shows that God prefers an unorganized "church" where all of His believers, are equally free to assemble, to teach, or to not assemble, and not teach. I am comfortable now in holding that this view, which I once unconsciously held, is incompatible with the revelation of Christ and His Apostles. 

I hope you don't see this as an attack changed. I appreciate the reasoning that makes one think as you appear to do. I am just trying to offer you and other interested parties some perspective that might give pause for thought.

Rory

 

Sadducee and Pharisees - problems in that hierarchy.  ... It is similar to political regimes, for those who currently, or in the past, have not supported those in political power, yet still love their country and countrymen, and are forced to follow leaders who rub them the wrong way... the "not my will, but thine be done" dance.... Not my will - not my political viewpoint - not my religious viewpoint - not how I think things should be done - not what I believe.  The entire world, with all of its different religions and imperfect leaders - all just one big lesson in "not my will, but thine be done"...

Yes, anyone can start a church - I suppose we all start our own churches by the end of it, all have a few unique individual beliefs.... Yin/Yang - Organized/disorganized - I think it is all in there together.  

Thanks for the comments 3DOP

Edited January 27, 2019 by changed

[changed]

9 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

So you create a God of your own making by worshipping traits you admire and calling them God.  And "love" also defined according to your own preferences is the top one.

Got it.

What that has to do with the actual being that exists and interacts with humans and his divine loveI don't know.  But if you like your design over the witnessed reality go for it.

 

Haha, love you too JLHPROF -   you hold onto your definition of God, as do we all.

Edited January 27, 2019 by changed

[cinepro]

10 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

Scripture is scripture.  

A General Conference talk is a General Conference talk, not scripture.

 

Four years ago, I had this same conversation with my son.  Imagine his surprise when this question popped up on a test in Seminary:

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, esodije said:

We’d be in a world of rhetorical hurt if we put more than a tiny bit of stock in very many 19th Century conference talks.There are good reasons not to canonize the Journal of Discourses, and for current-day GAs not to quote from it.

Perhaps but I think we would be a more enlightened people if more people read them. Reading them to the exclusion of all else is probably not healthy. I read them alongside more modern conference talks.

I am currently trying to read all the ones that are on the Gospel Tools app. Started way back and am up to 1975 under President Kimball's leadership. It was funny reading Elder McConkie's little jibe at those wanting the Priesthood Ban removed. Wait a few years buddy. I am also hitting the first Conference talk given by a woman since I started. There was a sort of Relief Society Conference (two days worth) twice a year until 1945 when it went down to once a year but it was not part of the General Conference. Then it shifted to the Young Women and Relief Society Conference once a year before conferences (alternating). Just got to where the Relief Society President starts speaking in almost every Welfare session of conference (she got the now defunct Welfare Session talk in this one). Women speaking in general session is still about 9 years off.

It is also fun watcing the Apostles shift. President Nelson is still a few years away but he is on the sustaining list as the General Sunday School President. They just organized the First Quorum of the Seventy as a general level organization and Elder Lee just got sustained (uh-oh). We also have Paul H. Dunn telling "stories" from his life.  

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

Four years ago, I had this same conversation with my son.  Imagine his surprise when this question popped up on a test in Seminary:

All of the above?

[sunstoned]

13 hours ago, changed said:

Wow... just wow...

and here I thought God was no respecter of persons, that all were alike unto God... 

The entire authority thing - hierarchy, patriarchy, different degrees of glory, ... "I'm better than you, you have to rely on me - you have to rely on the arms of flesh, and we decide who is special and who is not" - this is the kind of thing the JW's did too - or even the Catholics claiming they trace their priesthood power back to Peter... I guess the Catholics are the only right ones, because they have apostolic succession?? Same thing as LDS church - everyone claiming they are the only ones with "true power"...

This stuff makes me want to leave Christianity all together.  

In general, I find this book full of these types of harsh judgments.  It is very disturbing.  I think I remember reading somewhere that SWK latter wished that he had used a softer tone in the book.

[The Nehor]

10 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

In general, I find this book full of these types of harsh judgments.  It is very disturbing.  I think I remember reading somewhere that SWK latter wished that he had used a softer tone in the book.

President Kimball was very forceful about sin. He had a great concern for how lightly many members were treating sin. Brigham Young talked about the same problem of having your message meet the needs of the person. He said some people fall to repentance after the mildest of rebukes while others you can preach forcefully for an hour and they have no idea what you are talking about. Sometimes the former head a message intended for the latter and do not take it well.

I think we do President Kimball a disservice by focusing exclusively on that message. This is the same man who after visiting a state prison and asking after the welfare and lives of many of the inmates and visitors said: “All men are basically good. Some just lose their way and need to be led back into proper paths and habits,”

Edited January 27, 2019 by The Nehor

[mfbukowski]

14 hours ago, Navidad said:

In 1969 when Spencer W. Kimball was a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, he wrote a book entitled “The Miracle of Forgiveness.” In it he said the following, 

“Presumptuous and blasphemous are they who purport to baptize, bless, marry, or perform other sacraments in the name of the Lord while in fact lacking his specific authorization. And no one can obtain God's authority from reading the Bible or from just a desire to serve the Lord, no matter how pure his motives.” 

This statement is also quoted in “The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball” published by Deseret Book Company in its Kindle Edition with a source reference back to his 1969 book. It is not quoted in the LDS.org version of "The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball."

I would greatly appreciate some clarification. I am still a bit confused about what is considered scripture (non-canonical) and what is not. If Elder Kimball gave a General Conference talk as a member of the twelve, that would be considered scripture, correct? If he made a statement in a book he wrote that was then published by a Church subsidiary, would that be scripture? Would it be his opinion only? Would it in any way be considered Church teaching since it is published by Deseret?  Is it in fact the teaching of the Church that anyone performing an ordinance outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is committing blasphemy?

Of course, I ask because the statement is pretty powerful in its identification as “blasphemous” the routine and regular actions of those in other Christian groups. This summer I am traveling around to give a series of talks to both members of the Church and non-LDS Christian audiences on various subjects. I want to understand how to quote this statement without doing it any injustice or misrepresenting it. Thanks so much for your input. 
 

We treat these talks as similar to scripture in their value for today, but they are not "scripture" until they are canonized which is VERY rare.

We regard our prophets and fallible human beings, and there are numerous quotes to back that up.

Furthermore that particular volume has grown progressively to be seen as too strict for use in our day, and as kind of a relic of times past.  

When I was a bishop I remember being trained not to use that volume with people with sexual morality problems because of its harshness.  

Edited January 27, 2019 by mfbukowski

[Navidad]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

We treat these talks as similar to scripture in their value for today, but they are not "scripture" until they are canonized which is VERY rare.

We regard our prophets and fallible human beings, and there are numerous quotes to back that up.

Furthermore that particular volume has grown progressively to be seen as too strict for use in our day, and as kind of a relic of times past.  

When I was a bishop I remember being trained not to use that volume with people with sexual morality problems because of its harshness.  

Thanks. The only thing that bothers me is that 1969 is considered "a relic of times past." I remember 1969 pretty well! 😄 I got engaged that year! Come to think of it, I guess at this point I am a relic of times past too. 

There is a bit of a thread of harshness in the writings and speeches of many passionate advocates of many faith groups. This is not idiosyncratic to any one group. I am encouraged that folks like Millet and Robinson on the one hand, and Mouw and Zacharias on the other hand have been trying to change the tone of the conversation from a harsher time. There are younger apologetes like Timothy Dalrymple and Matthew Bowman who probably weren't alive in 1969 who write without the bite and are the hope for the future. I hope and trust we can continue that direction. Even an old relic like me believes that will make God smile. 

[Gray]

13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

So you create a God of your own making by worshipping traits you admire and calling them God.  And "love" also defined according to your own preferences is the top one.

Got it.

What that has to do with the actual being that exists and interacts with humans and his divine loveI don't know.  But if you like your design over the witnessed reality go for it.

 

It's called revelation and moral reasoning, JLHPROF.

[JLHPROF]

7 minutes ago, Gray said:

It's called revelation and moral reasoning, JLHPROF.

Call it what you will.  We all create God a little according to our own preconceptions.

But if doing so requires putting aside belief in any historical account of God's dealing with man I would say it could be as much imagination as revelation.

[Gray]

10 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Call it what you will.  We all create God a little according to our own preconceptions.

I would say that's the unavoidable aspect of believing in a personal God.

 

10 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

But if doing so requires putting aside belief in any historical account of God's dealing with man I would say it could be as much imagination as revelation.

I can't think of any theology that doesn't put aside something taught in scriptures somewhere.

[cdowis]

On 1/26/2019 at 12:01 PM, Navidad said:

I would greatly appreciate some clarification. I am still a bit confused about what is considered scripture (non-canonical) and what is not.
 

These are the principles which guide me ====>>>

If the Conference Talk is grounded in scripture, then it is an expansion/ interpretation of those scriptures.  

2 Peter 1 [20] Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
[21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Otherwise it should be seriously considered as being inspired and not lightly discarded.

As Brigham Young advised:

What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually.  JD IX:150.

Some may say, "Brethren, you who lead the Church, we have all confidence in you, we are not in the least afraid but what everything will go right under your superintendence; all the business matters will be transacted right; and if brother Brigham is satisfied with it, I am." I do not wish any Latter-day Saint in this world, nor in heaven, to be satisfied with anything I do, unless the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit of revelation, makes them satisfied.  JD III:45.

Joseph Smith, I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2019 by cdowis

[esodije]

On 1/26/2019 at 8:16 PM, pogi said:

So...no conference talks?

I won’t go that far, but there’s a reason why so much “Wonder Bread” is served up in Conference now. “Controversy” these days usually doesn’t go much beyond reaffirming a belief that binary gender, man-woman marriage, and nuclear families were ordained of God.

[Vance]

On 1/26/2019 at 1:24 PM, 3DOP said:

---Heb. 13:17

. . .

Rory

In addition to that verse there is this one.

  Heb 5:4 And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.

Is it ok to call someone you usurps the authority of God a blasphemer?

Edited February 7, 2019 by Vance