Just a little vignette for you this evening

So my family* is going through the Book of Acts in the Bible. At one point, Paul and his companions stop for a while at the home of Philip the Evangelist, who has four unmarried daughters who all prophesy.

Well, we use a lot of different Biblical translations simultaneously in our family scripture reading,** and the version that was being read through at that moment rendered it “four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy”.

My oldest recognized the parallel in the family structure, and said “Well. That would be hectic.”

So it would, kid. So it would.

* Which, in case you don’t know (and this is necessary information for the story), is me, my wife, and our four daughters.

** Yeah, i know, i just started J. Reuben Clark, Jr. spinning in his grave again. Not to worry—he’ll stop eventually.

Finishing early

So the (Roman Catholic) pope has now resigned, which got me to wondering: Can a Mormon prophet resign? I mean, we already have a precedent or two that a Mormon prophet doesn’t get removed from office when disabled (even in such a way that he’s mentally disabled to some extent), but could one simply announce that he’s not the prophet anymore? (Of course, part of the answer might simply be to ask what would stop him from doing so, if that’s what he wanted to do.) Also, if it happened, what would the ripple effects be?

Self-evident truths

You know, i can’t be the only one who gets amused by people bearing testimonies that include lines like “And i know that Thomas S. Monson is the president of this church.”

Why would we have a canon otherwise?

Really, really interesting quote, from Joseph Fielding Smith’s Doctrines of Salvation 3:203:

It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teachings of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear. We have accepted the four standard works as the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man’s doctrine.

So, to those who propagate the meme that the words of the sitting prophet supersede the canon (as you occasionally hear in church classes, particularly around general conference time), i would like to point out that it was a prophet who said otherwise.

Doing wrong things (or, perhaps, doing things wrong)

As i read the Bible (and to a lesser extent the Book of Mormon), i sometimes think the entire reason the historical bits were included was to remind us that even God’s chosen can have flaws. I mean, Noah self-medicated with alcohol, Abraham lied when he was scared, David cheated on his wives, Peter doubted…

Interestingly, although you get hints of this even in the book of Doctrine and Covenants,* we don’t talk much about how God’s chosen have flaws these days. I mean, discussion of the personal flaws of, say, Brigham Young or Joseph Fielding Smith is pretty much out of bounds in Sunday school classes in ways that the personal flaws of David and Peter aren’t. I still can’t figure out why.

* I say “even” in that book because it doesn’t really contain much in the way of stories, and so one would naturally expect less of it there.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So the bloggernacle is abuzz with the report that Boyd K. Packer is revising his general conference address in a couple of not insignificant ways before it’s published.

There’s a lot of discussion on various fora about what this might mean for Mormon dogma with regard to homosexuality, but that’s not what really caught my attention about this. What caught my attention is that this pokes a bit of a hole in the idea a lot of Mormons have that every time a prophet or apostles sneezes, then it’s automatically church doctrine.

Age and leadership

A question that i posted during my general conference semi-liveblogging sessions, but one i want to highlight separately, ’cause i really do wonder what people’s answers might be:

Joseph Smith was a teenager when he was first called as a prophet (though he was in his twenties once his ordination occurred). The original quorum of apostles was made up of fairly young guys. Why don’t we have notably young people in the highest levels of church leadership any more?

Ignoring the prophets

I remember Boyd K. Packer speaking in the October 1998 general conference—and it was striking enough that Jeanne and i looked at each other with a “Did he really just say that?” reaction—about scheduling youth activities, and the need to make sure we don’t overschedule our youth with church things. The entire address is worth reading, but here’s the money quote:

I must touch upon what must surely be the most difficult problem to solve. Some youngsters receive very little teaching and support at home. There is no question but that we must provide for them. But if we provide a constant schedule of out-of-home activities sufficient to compensate for the loss in those homes, it may make it difficult for attentive parents to have time to be with and teach their own children. Only prayer and inspiration can lead us to find this difficult balance.

We often hear, “We must provide frequent and exciting activities lest our youth will go to less wholesome places.” Some of them will. But I have the conviction that if we teach parents to be responsible and allow them sufficient time, over the long course their children will be at home.

There, at home, they can learn what cannot be effectively taught in either Church or school. At home they can learn to work and to take responsibility. They learn what to do when they have children of their own.

Or, to summarize: Please cut back on scheduled activities!

Didn’t happen, though—leading me to wonder why. Any ideas?

Voices

Just a little note stemming from the fact that i’ve probably listened to more pre-1970 general conference audio than anyone else born post-Woodstock.

Most people my age (and older) associate Spencer W. Kimball with the slow, intensely gravelly voice that came from him surviving a bout with throat cancer by having a chunk of his vocal folds removed.

When he was first called into the quorum of apostles,* though, he had one of the most beautiful speaking voices i’ve ever heard. In my tradition of asking unanswerable questions, i wonder whether he would have been perceived differently had he never had his voice disfigured like that.

* Yeah, i know that’s not the standard name of the quorum—it’s accurate, though, so i’m sticking with it.

Dating and rumors

Jeanne and i were talking about growing up Mormon, and we realized that all through our growing up people told us that “the prophet” had said that kids shouldn’t date ’til they’re 16 years old, but we never actually saw a prophet say that ourselves. Were we simply looking in the wrong decade (or century)? I know it appears in various bits of church literature, but had a sitting prophet actually made such a declaration by the mid-80s?

(Of course, nobody ever actually defined “dating” when saying that anyway, so when it really comes down to it it’s not like it was actually terribly helpful advice.)

The prophets vs. the scriptures

A rather frequent Mormon meme that actually bothers me pretty intensely: The idea that if we had to choose between having the scriptures or having living prophets, we should choose the living prophets ’cause they can simply give us what’s already in the scriptures as well as anything else we need.

This, of course, is the reason that the prophet Lehi felt free to leave the brass plates behind in Jerusalem. Right?

Silencing Brigham Young

Every once in a while you get a sacrament meeting address or class discussion where we hear the meme about how it’s the calling of women to be good mothers. Odd how you don’t hear a lot about Brigham Young’s declaration about it being the calling of women to use their talents in whatever way uses those talents best, including in a number of occupations that can only be done outside the home.*

Quite seriously, i wonder why.

* For those of you who might not know it, here’s my favorite Brigham Young quote on the subject:

We think the sisters ought to have the privilege to study various branches of knowledge that they may develop the powers with which they are endowed. Women are useful, not only to sweep houses, wash dishes, make beds, and raise babies, but they may also stand behind the counter, study law and physic, or become good bookkeepers, and all this to enlarge their sphere or usefulness for the benefit of society at large. In following these things they but answer the design of their creation.

On prophecy

The latest thing that bores me in sacrament meeting speeches: Someone reading something of the “If the world doesn’t repent, then God will pour out punishments on them” variety from, say, Spencer W. Kimball or Joseph Fielding Smith while they were president of the church, and then drawing the conclusion that the problems the world is facing now are in direct fulfillment of that prophecy, and that that’s proof that the prophet was divinely inspired, since otherwise how could they have known thirty whole years ago?

Thirty years? Thirty years is nothing! I mean, John prophesied all that in the Book of the Revelation nearly two thousand years ago! And how about Daniel, long before that?