Joseph Smith's Greatest Sermon: The King Follett Discourse

[telnetd]

What are your thoughts on this fireside video by Glenn Rawson?

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=540430227499091
I also saw it on KSL.

He made a reference to General Conference but I didn't see it on the church's April 2022
GC talks. 

Do you also consider it Joseph's greatest sermon or would your rate another as his greatest?

Gale

[InCognitus]

32 minutes ago, telnetd said:

He made a reference to General Conference but I didn't see it on the church's April 2022
GC talks. 

He was referring to what was going to be broadcast on KSL radio at 9:30 AM on Sunday, April 3, just prior to the Sunday morning session of General Conference that started at 10:00 AM.  (It wasn't part of General Conference).

33 minutes ago, telnetd said:

Do you also consider it Joseph's greatest sermon or would your rate another as his greatest?

Glenn Rawson rated it as "one of the greatest" sermons, but said that some of the people who heard it considered it to be "the greatest they have ever heard".  I would like to have been there to hear the sermon in person.  I am hoping that there is a way to play it back when we go to the other side of the veil. 

I consider it to be one of Joseph Smith's greatest sermons, and perhaps the greatest.  It certainly gets people's attention.

[JLHPROF]

49 minutes ago, telnetd said:

Do you also consider it Joseph's greatest sermon or would your rate another as his greatest?

100%.  And not just Joseph's.  It's one of the greatest ever.

You'd have to go to the Sermon on the Mount or King Benjamin's address to find better.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, InCognitus said:

He was referring to what was going to be broadcast on KSL radio at 9:30 AM on Sunday, April 3, just prior to the Sunday morning session of General Conference that started at 10:00 AM.  (It wasn't part of General Conference).

Glenn Rawson rated it as "one of the greatest" sermons, but said that some of the people who heard it considered it to be "the greatest they have ever heard".  I would like to have been there to hear the sermon in person.  I am hoping that there is a way to play it back when we go to the other side of the veil. 

I consider it to be one of Joseph Smith's greatest sermons, and perhaps the greatest.  It certainly gets people's attention.

My husband and I went to Nauvoo a few years ago and they did a reenactment of Joseph giving the King Follett sermon, in the same place it happened, I'm thinking. Very surreal moment for me. 

[Bernard Gui]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

My husband and I went to Nauvoo a few years ago and they did a reenactment of Joseph giving the King Follett sermon, in the same place it happened, I'm thinking. Very surreal moment for me. 

The whole sermon? That would take more than a moment.

[Bernard Gui]

23 hours ago, telnetd said:

What are your thoughts on this fireside video by Glenn Rawson?

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=540430227499091
I also saw it on KSL.

He made a reference to General Conference but I didn't see it on the church's April 2022
GC talks. 

Do you also consider it Joseph's greatest sermon or would your rate another as his greatest?

Gale

I have [EDIT have not] read all his sermons but I understand that not all were recorded, but it surely ranks among the greatest.

Does anyone know whether it was prepared or impromptu?

Edited April 11, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[Tacenda]

7 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

The whole sermon? That would take more than a moment.

We were there for a good moment, but I can't say for sure...

ADDED:

Found this: http://mm.prietos.org/2011/08/nauvoo-city-beautiful.html  Looks to be in the time frame we were there. 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2HKcvLkGoY/Tize_-c93QI/AAAAAAAAKC8/gDbTh-vk23Y/s1600/IMG_2686.JPG

 

In the summer in Nauvoo, the pageant actors also do short vignettes throughout the week, and reenact important church historical events. During this enactment, the Joseph Smith actor gave a portion of what is known as the King Follett discourse, which was a sermon delivered at the funeral of Joseph Smith's friend by the same name. It was delivered in a grove of trees, and was opened by the Nauvoo bagpipe band, which played beautifully. I almost want to learn to play the bagpipe now; hearing them play just made my Scottish well up in me.

After pizza with our friends at a local pizzeria, we went to the "Sunset on the Mississippi" variety show that evening. It was performed mainly by senior couples who are serving missions in Nauvoo, and it was hilarious. Gigi chased her friend Seth around in the adjacent field during the show, and we were happy to see them entertaining themselves.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Tacenda

[Bernard Gui]

5 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

We were there for a good moment, but I can't say for sure...

https://emp.byui.edu/jexj/new/talks/talks/JS KingFollettDiscourse.pdf

[Tacenda]

1 minute ago, Bernard Gui said:

https://emp.byui.edu/jexj/new/talks/talks/JS KingFollettDiscourse.pdf

I edited my post to you, if you want to take a look.  

[Saint Bonaventure]

I have a two-volume set of "Readings in the History of Christian Theology" which sets out to illustrate "major theologians, controversies, and schools of thought." Joseph Smith's King Follett Discourse is included in a section called "Theology in America." 

[SwedishLDS]

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/king-follett-discourse?lang=eng

Its a really good sermon and its important, I will add that it is not perfectly documented, albeit pretty goodly.

[Calm]

44 minutes ago, SwedishLDS said:

will add that it is not perfectly documented

There is at least one weird claim about it, the idea that children would remain children eternally  (because he might have taught parents would be able to raise their children—care for them till adulthood—elsewhere iirc, though I could be conflating with later prophets).

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/61350-king-follett-on-babies-does-the-lds-church-still-teach-this/

I like the idea that when mortals see the dead, they often see them in the form they are familiar with and this may be why Joseph assumed children would remain children, rather than it being revealed (because he saw children he knew in heaven and they were as he remembered them as opposed to being told this).  This happened with my husband’s grandmother.  She lived so long she was afraid her husband, who had died in his and her mid 20’s iirc, would not recognize her, which made her fearful of death and fighting it. He came to her a few days before her death as he was at death (congenital heart defect) and wearing the clothing she had last seen him in according to her.  After that, she was very peaceful and went in a day or two.  If it was an illusion, it is a pretty typical one.  Makes sense our brains would function that way, but it also makes sense to me a loving Father would create visions like that as well.

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Calm

[telnetd]

15 hours ago, InCognitus said:

I consider it to be one of Joseph Smith's greatest sermons, and perhaps the greatest.  It certainly gets people's attention.

There is a passage which says "We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will
refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see".

Do Latter-day Saints believe in a God who is God from all eternity?

[telnetd]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

I like the idea that when mortals see the dead, they often see them in the form they are familiar with and this may be why Joseph assumed children would remain children, rather than it being revealed (because he saw children he knew in heaven and they were as he remembered them as opposed to being told this).

I saw this mentioned in Gospel Principles.

"All spirits are in adult form. They were adults before their mortal existence, and they are
in adult form after death, even if they die as infants or children".

[Calm]

1 minute ago, telnetd said:

There is a passage which says "We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will
refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see".

Do Latter-day Saints believe in a God who is God from all eternity?

Define eternity.  Define God.  Depending on the definition of God, I will say yes or no…and even maybe now I think of another for option for defining God. Same with eternity.

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, telnetd said:

I saw this mentioned in Gospel Principles.

"All spirits are in adult form. They were adults before their mortal existence, and they are
in adult form after death, even if they die as infants or children".

Do you have a question or point or is this just an FYI?  
 

I, at least, am talking about the physical bodies of those who died as children in reference to the KFS.  They are resurrected as children and then grow to adulthood during the Millennium, the state of the spirit is no more relevant than the fact a mortal baby’s spirit is also an adult…though I wonder if the veil leaves it experiencing life as a child spirit.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Calm

[Fether]

13 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

I have read all his sermons and I understand that not all were recorded, but it surely ranks among the greatest.

Does anyone know whether it was prepared or impromptu?

Is there a place with all of Joseph’s Sermons compiled?

[Calm]

Just an fyi:

Quote

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have continued to take the sermon as a source for their understanding of various teachings, though there have been questions about the accuracy of the transcription and continued changes in thinking about some of its teachings. The place of the King Follett Discourse in Latter-day Saint culture is signified by the fact that it is one of only two of Joseph Smith’s sermons that are referred to by name. The other is the “Sermon in the Grove,” often confused with the King Follett Sermon or even fused with it as if there were only one sermon. Given several weeks later, the Sermon in the Grove teaches some of the same doctrines, such as a plurality of gods. Of the two, however, the King Follett Discourse is, by far, the better known. Yet the King Follett Sermon’s status in the Church of Jesus Christ is far from clear. How do Latter-day Saints understand the sermon? Is it authoritative? If so, to what degree and concerning what topics? Is it the pinnacle of Joseph Smith’s teachings? If so, why has it not been canonized? Or, instead, is the sermon peripheral to his work? If so, why do so many of its teachings continue to figure into Latter-day Saint self-understanding?

 

Quote

Part of the problem has been that since Joseph Smith did not speak from a written text, and no stenographer recorded his remarks, we have no transcript of the sermon to which we can refer. However, four persons who were present (Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, Thomas Bullock, and William Clayton) made notes as Joseph Smith spoke, and several versions of the sermon have since been created from those notes.1 The first, which relies primarily on Bullock and Clayton, was published later that same year, shortly after Smith’s death, in a Church newspaper, Times and Seasons,2 as well as in two other Latter-day Saint publications the same year.3 In 1855, Jonathan Grimshaw compiled all of the extant notes and edited them to create what came to be known as the “amalgamated” version. With some edits, his version, published in the Deseret News in 1857,4 continues to be the version in general use today. It was, for example, partially published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its official magazine, the Ensign, in April 1971 and is still available on the Church’s website.5

 

Quote

Another version in common use is that published by Joseph Fielding Smith in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith.6 That version is said to be taken from the Times and Seasons, but it closely resembles Grimshaw’s, which was published after the Times and Seasons publication. Finally, a new, scholarly edition of the sermon, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” was published by Stan Larson in 1978.7 Larson’s version deletes material added by Grimshaw and adds material from the notes that Grimshaw omitted, but nevertheless there are no substantial differences between it and any of the previous published versions. It is noteworthy that each of the editors who has worked with the notes of the sermon has created much the same final version. That should give considerable confidence in the text as we have it, even if it is only an amalgamation of notes made at the time.8

 

QuoteIn the order in which they appear, the King Follett Sermon’s most important teachings were the following:

• “God himself who sits enthroned in yonder Heavens is a man like unto one of yourselves.”⁹
• The Father once dwelt on an earth as Jesus Christ did and we do; Jesus Christ did what he saw the Father do before him.
• The Father found “himself in the midst of spirit and glory—because he was greater saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself”¹⁰—“you have got to learn how to make you[r]selves Gods.”¹¹
• The world was not created ex nihilo.
• “The mind of man—the intelligent part is coequal with God him­self”¹²; it “exists upon a selfexistent principle.”¹³
• We have an obligation to perform proxy religious rites for those who have passed away.
• To commit the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, a person must “say that the Sun does not shine while he sees it he has got to deny J. C. when the heavens are open to him.”¹⁴
• Children who die young will be resurrected as they were when they died and remain that way eternally, though they will sit on thrones of glory.
• Baptism is required for salvation.

 

QuoteIn the order in which they appear, the King Follett Sermon’s most important teachings were the following:

Many of these things had already been taught by Joseph Smith. With perhaps one exception, the origin of God as a human being, there is nothing new in the sermon.¹⁵ In addition, of this list, all but the second and the next to last have been accepted as doctrine by most Latter-day Saints since at least Smith’s sermon, if not before. It might seem, then, that the King Follett Discourse is peripheral to Smith’s work as the founding prophet of the restored Church of Jesus Christ. But consider how items two, three, five, and eight have been taken up in Latter-day Saint theological discussions, perhaps most often with the King Follett Discourse as their warrant.

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-king-follett-discourse-pinnacle-or-peripheral/

I thought the conclusion that nothing was new except for one item, so that it could be viewed as “peripheral” if someone felt like it…but that one item is the Origin of God as a human being…yeah, that dramatically shoves everything else out of the way to take center stage…the Diva of our doctrine in my view.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Calm

[Fether]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Just an fyi:

 

 

 

 

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-king-follett-discourse-pinnacle-or-peripheral/

I thought the conclusion that nothing was new except for one item, so that it could be viewed as “peripheral” if someone felt like it…but that one item is the Origin of God as a human being…yeah, that dramatically shoves everything else out of the way to take center stage…the Diva of our doctrine in my view.

It’s interesting that one of the more exciting peripheral teachings we believe in comes from a single section of a single sermon that was record 2nd and 3rd hand. 
 

Do we know if any other sources that speak of this? Does Brigham Young ever say anything about it?

Edited April 10, 2022 by Fether

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, Fether said:

Do we know if any other sources that speak of this? Does Brigham Young ever say anything about it?

There are four transcripts, and somewhere in my box of books in the garage (getting ready for a move) is a comparison of the transcripts.  But fortunately these are all online on the Joseph Smith Papers site, here:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/accounts-of-the-king-follett-sermon

And the four transcripts are:

1. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Willard Richards

2. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Wilford Woodruff

3. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Thomas Bullock

4. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by William Clayton

There are differences in the statement quoted by Telnetd above, in the William Clayton, Thomas Bullock, and Wilford Woodruff transcript is somewhat ambiguous.  

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Fether said:

It’s interesting that one of the more exciting peripheral teachings we believe in comes from a single section of a single sermon that was record 2nd and 3rd hand. 

Not 2nd or 3rd hand, just differing accounts of wording as InCognitus posts below like when any two people take notes.

19 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

There are four transcripts, and somewhere in my box of books in the garage (getting ready for a move) is a comparison of the transcripts.  But fortunately these are all online on the Joseph Smith Papers site, here:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/accounts-of-the-king-follett-sermon

And the four transcripts are:

1. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Willard Richards

2. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Wilford Woodruff

3. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Thomas Bullock

4. Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by William Clayton

There are differences in the statement quoted by Telnetd above, in the William Clayton, Thomas Bullock, and Wilford Woodruff transcript is somewhat ambiguous.  

Thank you!  Differing accounts but contemporary.

1 hour ago, Fether said:

Do we know if any other sources that speak of this? Does Brigham Young ever say anything about it?

Yes Brigham repeatedly taught that God was once a mortal man and that mortal men can become Gods.

Edited April 10, 2022 by JLHPROF

[InCognitus]

4 hours ago, telnetd said:

There is a passage which says "We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will
refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see".

Do Latter-day Saints believe in a God who is God from all eternity?

What Calm said above is right on, it depends on your definition of God and definition of eternity. 

Based on Abraham chapter 3 (and elsewhere), spirits (or intelligences) "have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal".  (Abraham 3:18)  And God is said to be the greatest of all of the intelligences.  I understand that to mean that God is an eternal being, and none are greater than he is.

How he came to be "God" is relative, in my opinion, and has to do with his relationship to us.  At some point in time (if time exists to God), he became the Father of spirits and created our universe and provided a way for us receive some of the same blessings and opportunities that he enjoys.  That is what I believe Joseph Smith meant when he said that God "came to be God" (in my opinion).  It is our relationship to him, he is our God.

Edited April 10, 2022 by InCognitus

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

How he came to be "God" is relative, in my opinion, and has to do with his relationship to us.  At some point in time (if time exists to God), he became the Father of spirits and created our universe and provided a way for us receive some of the same blessings and opportunities that he enjoys.  That is what I believe Joseph Smith meant when he said that God "came to be God" (in my opinion).  It is our relationship to him, he is our God.

I believe the fundamental attributes of God (his charity, his intelligence, his integrity and morality, etc.) that allow God to be God the Father are his eternal attributes and therefore he has always been God in that sense.  Think of it as someone with a high IQ that theoretically won’t change much over their life, they are always a genius…but based on what type of education they get, what type of self discipline they have, access to resources to support their creations, there will be a very big difference in the level of their abilities and accomplishments over time.  In that sense I believe God grew into the role of the Father.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Calm

[Fether]

.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Fether

[Fether]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

 

Yes Brigham repeatedly taught that God was once a mortal man and that mortal men can become Gods.

References?

Edited April 10, 2022 by Fether