Reconciling bruce r. McConkie

[MrShorty]

On 8/9/2021 at 8:40 PM, CV75 said:

I think what happens in these discussions about fallibility, is that when someone points out that in general the personal imperfections and drawbacks of those who administer the keys are relatively minor in comparison to the perfect doctrine of the Kingdom, someone else has to magnify those imperfections and drawbacks to reinforce the notion that they are not so relatively minor and so detracted from the doctrine of the Kingdom that it too is now in error.

I expect you are correct that sometimes critics overstate the importance of personal imperfections. I also expect that some apologists understate the importance of some personal imperfections. I can't speak for others as to how much to overinflate/underinflate the importance of different issues. Certainly there are some issues that seem to have little moral significance (like Christ being born on Apr 6). Other issues (like slavery or 19th century racial attitudes) seem very morally significant. I still think that Ben Spackman captures the real issue when he ask what sort of model of prophets and scripture and revelation allows a prophet to believe/teach something as morally reprehensible (to us) as slavery or racism.

Maybe the real question for you is, how do you keep these issues in their proper perspective, neither overstating their importance nor understating their importance?

[Emily]

On 8/1/2021 at 9:10 AM, MrShorty said:

but I think it is over stated to claim that "follow the prophet" has never been taught.

I did not say that, "follow the prophet" isn't taught in church. I said that we are not taught to slavishly kowtow to every random leader of the church. (The implication made by the person I was responding to.)

I did in fact say that "Follow the Prophet" is taught. But adult members understand the difference between official church doctrines, prophetic advice, good advice, and plain old personal opinion. 

 

 

[Emily]

On 8/1/2021 at 2:10 PM, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Sounds like we are being told to always follow what the prophet says not just what we think is right and correct. 

And I agree. We need to follow the prophet when he's speaking as a Prophet. However, this is a far cry from the idea that "members are taught to follow what the leaders say and not deviate."

We are under no obligation to listen to diddly squat when a man, who happens to be the Prophet, is expressing a personal opinion. 

It's not always easy to comb out "prophetic statements" from personal opinion in comments that were made in the early church. If you want to be hardcore, we are actually only obligated to pay attention to what made it into the D&C from that time period. Though there are some wonderful bits of knowledge found in statements made by the early prophets that didn't make it into scripture, we still need to lay anything that is not found in the D&C in the "speculation" category.

Our obligation now is much more clear cut. Conference talks, letters signed by the entire First Presidency, and Proclamations, also signed by the First Presidency "count."

Everything else is advice. Probably good advice. Potentially inspired advice.  But we aren't obligated to accept it. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Emily