When is the Mormon Prophet Speaking as a Prophet?

[SirThomasMore]

Sorry campeador. I didn’t read that linked post. I am only on these forums once in a while when I have the time. It’s a long weekend so I’m having a very late night session with my computer.

On that linked thread, you need verse 30 to see it in context.

And no, the prophet do not choose who is worthy. God does.

So then BY young was just being dishonest again? That is some “prophet”

 

[StevieD]

Surely it is reasonable to expect a ‘prophet’ to be consistent no matter in what context he is speaking but especially if speaking in public and having his speech recorded (as at King Follet’s funeral). If Mr Monson gave a speech at a friend’s funeral in which he said that he believed something totally different from official church teaching, would the church just ignore the fact? Of course it wouldn’t no organisation especially one claiming to be a church would do so or should.

 

[SirThomasMore]

Good point. If Monson went to a funeral and said that, in reality, The Trinity IS how God really is, it would turn the Church on its ear. There would be none of this “well, it was at a funeral and is not doctrine” stuff we are seeing here. Excellent point

 

[CatholicGuyNY]

Hello Rebecca,

The misunderstanding comes from what people think is doctrine. In this new world of electronics we have today, it is fairly easy to determine what is LDS doctrine. They are all contained here.

You can also find discussion materials here.

If you don’t find it there, then the doctrinal value of such material is questionable.

Except that the belief in Heavenly Mother is found nowhere in the Standard Works. Can the belief in Heavenly Mother be called “questionable”?

 

[SirThomasMore]

Yes.

It would appear so. But since it is one of the doctrines that takes Mormons out of the mainstream, you will likely see Mormons start backing away from it

 

[lax16]

He used his prophetic authority to authorize the “Perpetual Education Fund” which has been a great blessing to many people. He used his prophetic authority to present the “Proclamation on the Family” to the church and later to the world for those willing to read it and understand it. He used his prophetic authority to warn against the calamities and disasters that were going to come, and warn the members of the church to have minimal debt and to save for a “rainy day” in their life. He warned that those who overextended in debt would regret the consequences.

President Monson uses his prophetic authority to inspire members to care for the aged, and to provide humanitarian service in many, many places in the world. Those who see the signs of the times are well aware of his guiding counsel to help them be prepared for those hard times that are still coming in the world. Often it is a reiteration of those things already prophesied by earlier prophets of long ago. The messages to come unto Christ and love our fellow men are messages that always bear repeating, and as the prophets and apostles bear witness of those messages, our soul can be lifted and impacted and our lives changed if we gain our own personal witness and allow the Holy Ghost to bring out lives into covenant making and covenant keeping. A covenant becomes a binding promise that lifts our soul heavenward.

Parker - The Perpetual Education Fund is for LDS only. (And only for young LDS that qualify). Wouldn’t prophets have a message for the whole world, not just a select few?

Monson is not the first to speak of caring for one’s parents (the aged). Confucius taught this long ago in the Confucian View of the Nature of Filial Obligation.

So, using these examples, you are saying that LDS prophets have messages that benefit LDS people only and they can a repeat message that was taught by a great philisopher a couple of thousand years ago and call it prophetic?

It seems to me, that any organization that wants to set up educational funds for their young people is doing a good deed, however, to call it prophetic is a huge leap.
Are the prophets speaking for Christ? If so, please show where Jesus’ message was ever for a select group vs for all.

 

[SirThomasMore]

Parker - The Perpetual Education Fund is for LDS only. (And only for young LDS that qualify). Wouldn’t prophets have a message for the whole world, not just a select few?

Monson is not the first to speak of caring for one’s parents (the aged). Confucius taught this long ago in the Confucian View of the Nature of Filial Obligation.

So, using these examples, you are saying that LDS prophets have messages that benefit LDS people only and they can a repeat message that was taught by a great philisopher a couple of thousand years ago and call it prophetic?

It seems to me, that any organization that wants to set up educational funds for their young people is doing a good deed, however, to call it prophetic is a huge leap.
Are the prophets speaking for Christ? If so, please show where Jesus’ message was ever for a select group vs for all.

yep

 

[zerinus]

Joseph Smith once said “a prophet is only a prophet when he is acting as such”. What does this mean? What is the criteria for “acting as” a prophet? When Brigham Young spoke about the “Adam-God theory” in General Conference, was he “acting as” a prophet? Why or why not?

I see it as being comparable with the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. You say that the Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra (which he doesn’t do very often). The above teaching by Joseph Smith is comparable to your doctrine of ex cathedra.

 

[CatholicGuyNY]

I see it as being comparable with the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. You say that the Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra (which he doesn’t do very often). The above teaching by Joseph Smith is comparable to your doctrine of ex cathedra.

So what is the criteria for when the Prophet is speaking as a prophet? We have criteria for Papal infallibility. What is the criteria in your church? How do you know when “Prophet infallibility” is being employed?

 

[SirThomasMore]

I see it as being comparable with the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. You say that the Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra (which he doesn’t do very often). The above teaching by Joseph Smith is comparable to your doctrine of ex cathedra.

Again, if you want to admit an lds president is not really a prophet…fine. So, as long as you keep keep comparing prophets to non-prophets, I will take it as tacit admission that your don;t have real prophets.

Now, answer my question…if Monson went to a funeral and said, “The Trinity is true” What would the LDS Church do?

 

[zerinus]

So what is the criteria for when the Prophet is speaking as a prophet? We have criteria for Papal infallibility. What is the criteria in your church? How do you know when “Prophet infallibility” is being employed?

Actually the criteria is not all that different from the Catholic one. Here is the Catholic criteria which I found in Wikipedia:

Papal infallibility is the dogma in Roman Catholic theology that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error[1] when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being contained in divine revelation, or at least being intimately connected to divine revelation. It is also taught that the Holy Spirit works in the body of the Church, as sensus fidelium, to ensure that dogmatic teachings proclaimed to be infallible will be received by all Catholics. This dogma, however, does not state either that the Pope cannot sin in his own personal life or that he is necessarily free of error, even when speaking in his official capacity, outside the specific contexts in which the dogma applies.

This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1870. According to Catholic theology, there are several concepts important to the understanding of infallible, divine revelation: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Sacred Magisterium. The infallible teachings of the Pope are part of the Sacred Magisterium, which also consists of ecumenical councils and the “ordinary and universal magisterium”. In Catholic theology, papal infallibility is one of the channels of the infallibility of the Church. The infallible teachings of the Pope must be based on, or at least not contradict, Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture. Papal infallibility does not signify that the Pope is impeccable, i.e…, that he is specially exempt from liability to sin.

---

Statements by a pope that exercise papal infallibility are referred to as solemn papal definitions or ex cathedra teachings. These should not be confused with teachings that are infallible because of a solemn definition by an ecumenical council, or with teachings that are infallible in virtue of being taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium. For details on these other kinds of infallible teachings, see Infallibility of the Church.

According to the teaching of the First Vatican Council and Catholic tradition, the conditions required for ex cathedra teaching are as follows:

1. • “the Roman Pontiff”
   • “speaks ex cathedra” (“that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority….”)
   • “he defines”
   • “that a doctrine concerning faith or morals”
   • “must be held by the whole Church” (Pastor Aeternus, chap. 4)
   For a teaching by a pope or ecumenical council to be recognized as infallible, the teaching must make it clear that the Church is to consider it definitive and binding. There is not any specific phrasing required for this, but it is usually indicated by one or both of the following:
   • a verbal formula indicating that this teaching is definitive (such as “We declare, decree and define…”), or
   • an accompanying anathema stating that anyone who deliberately dissents is outside the Catholic Church.
   Source.
   
   The LDS teaching is pretty much the same. When the Prophet speaks at General Conference and gives counsel on matters of morals and Christ-like living, his teachings are considered to be inspired and good advice that Church members can follow without qualms about whether he is speaking “as a prophet” or not (same as the Pope in the Catholic Church). The question arises only when he teaches a doctrine that cannot be supported by the scriptures and past revelations of the Church. The occurrence of that has been very rare in the past, and is even rarer nowadays; and it becomes “binding” on the Church, or official doctrine, when it is endorsed by his counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve (read “Magisterium”), and put to the vote of the Church members. Then it becomes the official doctrine of the Church.

 

[lax16]

The LDS teaching is pretty much the same. When the Prophet speaks at General Conference and gives counsel on matters of morals and Christ-like living, his teachings are considered to be inspired and good advice that Church members can follow without qualms about whether he is speaking “as a prophet” or not (same as the Pope in the Catholic Church). The question arises only when he teaches a doctrine that cannot be supported by the scriptures and past revelations of the Church. The occurrence of that has been very rare in the past, and is even rarer nowadays; and it becomes “binding” on the Church, or official doctrine, when it is endorsed by his counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve (read “Magisterium”), and put to the vote of the Church members. Then it becomes the official doctrine of the Church.

zerinus - How about teachings from early LDS church prophets?
When did LDS begin General Conference?

 

[lax16]

From lds.org:

Prophets

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are blessed to be led by living prophets - inspired men called to speak for the Lord, as did Moses, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, Nephi, Mormon, and other prophets of the scriptures. We sustain the President of the Church as prophet, seer, and revelator-the only person on the earth who receives revelation to guide the entire Church. We also sustain the counselors in the First Presidency and the members of the Quorom of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators.

Starting with JS, the Mormons have taught that all churches except the Mormon church are an abomination.

From JS History 1:18-20:“I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight…He again forbade me to join with any of them;…”

D&C
29:21 - "And the great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth…

88-94 -"…That great church, the mother of abominations, that made all nations drink of the wrath of her fornication…

**Apostle John Taylor **-…The old church is the mother, and the protestants are the lewd daughters…There is none in all christendom that doeth good; no, not one.

**Prophet John Taylor **- “…the Roman Catholics, Protestants, and all that have not had the keys of the kingdom and power thereof, according to the ordinances of God.”

**Apostle Orson Pratt -"**Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the “Whore of Babylon” whom the Lord denounces…as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any any person who shall be so wicked as to receive a holy ordinance of the gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them…The only persons among all nations, kindred, tongues, and people who have authority from Jesus Christ to administer any gospel ordinance are those called and authorized among the Latter-day Saints…

There are **many more quotes from apostles and prophets **of the LDS Church referring to the Catholic and Protestant Churches being wicked, corrupt, abominable, rotten with the filth of thy whoredoms…

Also, we know they are referencing the BoM in their comments regarding the great and abominable church and the whore of babylon.

So if you have apostles/prophets of the mormon church (who by LDS definition are “inspired to speak for the Lord”) making these statements, are they doctrine? Are they truths?

Because **the prophtes and apostles of the Mormon church are referencing the BoM **wouldn’t that make it doctrine?

The BoM is (from the Introduction):
-a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible
-contains the fulness of the everlasting gospel
-puts forth the doctrines of the gospel, outlines the plan of salvation, and tells men what they must do…
-the most correct of any book on earth

You have prophets/apostles speaking for the Lord, making statements about the Catholic and Protestant Churches, which are referenced from the BoM itself, therefore these statements seem to be doctrinal.
Do LDS agree that these statements are doctrinal? Why or why not?

Why does current LDS literature state about the Great Apostasy:

• "Good people and much truth remained, but the gospel as established by Jesus Christ was lost". Good people and much truth - really? That’s not what the BoM and the early LDS leaders taught.

 

[zerinus]

zerinus - How about teachings from early LDS church prophets?
When did LDS begin General Conference?

Conferences began as soon as the Church had been organized. The first mention of it is in section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which was received in April 1830, which is the same month that the Church was organized.

 

[StevieD]

This is the 2nd paragraph of the record of the KF Discourse made in front of an estimated 20,000 Mormons:

“I want your prayers and faith that I may have the instruction of Almighty God and the gift of the Holy Ghost, so that I may set forth things that are true and which can be easily comprehended by you, and that the testimony may carry conviction to your hearts and minds of the truth of what I shall say. Pray that the Lord may strengthen my lungs, stay the winds, and let the prayers of the Saints to heaven appear, that they may enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, for the effectual prayers of the righteous avail much. There is strength here, and I verily believe that your prayers will be heard…”

If I were a Mormon and read this but subsequently heard that JS’s discourse contained gross errors, I believe I’d have left without a backward glance. Who with any sense wouldn’t?

 

[soren1]

I see it as being comparable with the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. You say that the Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra (which he doesn’t do very often). The above teaching by Joseph Smith is comparable to your doctrine of ex cathedra.

This comparison is alright up to a point, but it becomes misleading early on if it taken very far at all. A pope has a different type of office from a prophet, and so the two are not to be judged by the same standard. For example, the pope not only has to speak ex cathedra, but the notion of ex cathedra pronouncements are limited to certain types of subject matter, namely faith and morals. By “faith” here, I mean “the faith,” that is, the deposit of doctrine already received by the Church in revelation. The pope’s function in speaking ex cathedra is therefore to define teachings already contained, if only implicitly, in known revelation. A prophet, however, can introduce new doctrine, because he is inspired in the sense of speaking in the very person of God. This gives a prophet’s authority a broader scope in terms of subject matter. And this affected how one can judge a prophet’s authority. For instance, if a Pope said, “I declare ex cathedra that 2+2=5,” this error would not actually disprove his infallibility, because the correct sum of two and two is not a matter of faith and morals. If, however, a prophet made such an error while invoking his authority as prophet, the same defense could not be made, since the prophetic office entails no limitation as to the type of content that God could reveal to him.

Further, God’s possession of a prophet as his mouthpiece is more comprehensive than what is claimed for the pope. There are tests given in the Bible to ascertain who is and is not a prophets, and these tests do not take into account distincts between speaking for oneself and speaking as a prophet. Consider this text from Deuteronomy 13:1-5:

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

No distinction is made here between when our how a supposed prophet might teach error about which God is to be worshiped. The nature of the prophetic office is such that any false teaching as to which God is to be followed is grounds to reject him and put him to death. Such is the monopoly that God holds upon prophetic speech.

This aspect of biblical teaching is universally overlooked in LDS defenses of Mormon prophets. For instance, it is often said that Brigham Young taught the Adam-God doctrine as a personal theory, not as a true revelation. Hence the rejection of that doctrine by the modern LDS Church does not ultimately reflect upon Young’s authority. Even if this patently false statement were true - for there is no instance of a controversial doctrine from Young that was in fact a "theory - it wouldn’t matter. If Young claimed to be the pope, it might be a plausible defense, but it is not a good defense of a prophet. Even if Young had said something really reserved like “Y’know, I think that Adam is the only God with whom we have to do. … I mean, that’s not a doctrine, but it’s what I think and it’s what you all should accept for now,” that would be enough to demonstrate he was false prophet by the standards of Deuteronomy.

 

[RebeccaJ]

I don’t know who was teaching you Rebecca but if you read the Book of Mormon you will see that the Nephites were righteous in the beginning, the Lamanites were not. Then later on, the Nephites became wicked and the Lamanites became righteous. And on the cycle goes throughout the entire book.

And that, although God chose to curse some wicked people by darkening their skin, He never stated that ALL wicked people will be cursed with dark skin, nor did He ever state that ALL dark skinned people are cursed. Never in the Bible nor the BOM will you find that passage.

But then you were in 2nd or 3rd grade. You might not have understood it properly.

Of course non-doctrinal teaching is discouraged. All teachers from Primary all the way to the Bishop are given guidance on what to teach. The first thing you get when you get a call to teach is the book, “Teaching, No Greater Call” and it is VERY clear in that book that a teacher cannot use materials that are not endorsed by the Church (such as the Journal of Discourses) and a teacher cannot use personal examples/personal anecdotes/stories that are not in-line with the material. In fact, all lessons are outlined in a lesson manual and one cannot deviate far from it. The presidencies are required to provide training to the teachers and the Stake hold teacher trainings as well.

I should know. I teach the 8 year olds.

Pinay, I did not misunderstand anything. The same teachings were there, year after year, in sunday school and in seminary, never changed even at the time I left mormonism. It has only been more recently that your BoM has been edited to make it appear to be teaching something different.

The teachings of your church was that every native person in the Americas were cursed with dark skin. Every person of African descent were cursed because of Cain. It is all very racist.

Even now you are in agreement that dark skin=cursed by God. I find this very sad, and not anything a disciple of Jesus should believe. You should study up on where this slave-era American idea comes from, and how slavery in the US was justified by people with Bibles.

How this relates to the OP…how anyone can believe this is a teaching from God is beyond me. It is nothing but a big red flag that mormon prophets are false.

 

[lax16]

Pinay - you were once Catholic. Do you believe the LDS teachings by their founders, prophets and apostles and the Book of Mormon that the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox etc Churches are the great and abominable church and the whore of babylon founded by the devil?

Why or why not?

 

[zerinus]

This comparison is alright up to a point, but it becomes misleading early on if it taken very far at all. A pope has a different type of office from a prophet, and so the two are not to be judged by the same standard.

The Pope also claims to be a prophet, although he does not use that word. The Pope claims to be more than a prophet. He claims to be the successor to Peter. He claims to have the same mantle, the same Apostolic authority, the same priesthood, the same keys etc. that Peter had. Peter was an Apostle, even the chief Apostle, and that makes him more than a prophet. An Apostle is greater than a prophet. He is a prophet plus a few more things that an ordinary prophet is not. That is what the Pope claims to be.

 

[ParkerD]

Parker - The Perpetual Education Fund is for LDS only. (And only for young LDS that qualify). Wouldn’t prophets have a message for the whole world, not just a select few?

Monson is not the first to speak of caring for one’s parents (the aged). Confucius taught this long ago in the Confucian View of the Nature of Filial Obligation.

So, using these examples, you are saying that LDS prophets have messages that benefit LDS people only and they can a repeat message that was taught by a great philisopher a couple of thousand years ago and call it prophetic?

It seems to me, that any organization that wants to set up educational funds for their young people is doing a good deed, however, to call it prophetic is a huge leap.
Are the prophets speaking for Christ? If so, please show where Jesus’ message was ever for a select group vs for all.

Lax16,
I’m going to back into some answers for you to your questions.

First, consider the following passage from Matthew 15:

22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Jesus had a mission that included teaching, first, the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”, and later the apostles knew by revelation through the Holy Ghost and also by His teaching to them to go into all the world and teach all nations, that there was a time for teaching all the nations of the Gentiles. The Savior and the Holy Ghost knew and revealed when the time was to do the teaching.

There is another element of that experience within Matthew 15. It involves the faith of the woman from the land of Canaan. The Savior said she had great faith, and “be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” Her faith was the key element of her daughter being healed.

I’ll continue with a new post to answer your question using Matthew 15 as an example.