Why the RLDS Restoration branches reject the King Follet sermon

[BartBurk]

Mormon encyclopedia says about Heavenly Mother:

As early as 1839 the Prophet Joseph Smith taught the concept of an eternal mother, as reported in several accounts from that period. Out of his teaching came a hymn that Latter-day Saints learn, sing, quote, and cherish, “O My Father,” by Eliza R. Snow. President Wilford Woodruff called it a revelation (Woodruff, p. 62). In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason; truth eternal Tells me I’ve a mother there. When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, Mother, may I meet you In your royal courts on high? [Hymn no. 292]

Unfortunately, there are no references to his “several accounts from that period.”

Exactly. The accounts are all second hand. This is more likely a doctrine that came from Eliza R. Snow than Joseph Smith. Interestingly, the descendants of Joseph Smith in the RLDS Church didn’t know about any teaching regarding a Heavenly Mother.

 

[soren1]

There were three or four LDS scribes who claimed to have notes of the sermon and these notes were the basis of the published accounts. Perhaps this is why the LDS don’t consider it canonical – there is no way to verify the original version

There is no meaningful dispute over the historicity of the KFD. The fact that there are multiple scribes makes it easier, not harder, to authenticate the text. The reason is that you can compare the separate testimonies of the different transcripts and use them to correct each other. If one scribe changes or omits a sentence or phrase, you can spot the error by comparing it to the other accounts, who do not repeat the same errors, but do repeat the same words when they have it correctly.

Mormons who want to distance themselves from the KFD often allege that the text we have comes from years later. This is very misleading, and I know of no Mormon who has ever claimed it in a scholarly setting. It is true that the edition most commonly cited was compiled six years after Smith’s death. But the source texts used in that compilation were all contemporary with the sermon. These texts are still extant and can be compared. Here is a parallel representation of the six versions we have. If you scroll down about a sixth of the way into the sermon, to where Smith explains that God was once a man like us, you see that all of them contain it, with the sole exception of the Laub summary, which only preserves a dozen or so sentences from the whole sermon anyway. And where one version varies in wording from the others, you can see that the others agree with the text as it has historically stood. Furthermore, back in the 1970s, a group of BYU scholars put together a text-critical edition, based on careful study and collation of the extant accounts, and made a near-definitive reproduction of the sermon. I once read it online in PDF form, and I would post a link to it, but somehow I can’t find it today.

 

[BartBurk]

There is no meaningful dispute over the historicity of the KFD. The fact that there are multiple scribes makes it easier, not harder, to authenticate the text. The reason is that you can compare the separate testimonies of the different transcripts and use them to correct each other. If one scribe changes or omits a sentence or phrase, you can spot the error by comparing it to the other accounts, who do not repeat the same errors, but do repeat the same words when they have it correctly.

Mormons who want to distance themselves from the KFD often allege that the text we have comes from years later. This is very misleading, and I know of no Mormon who has ever claimed it in a scholarly setting. It is true that the edition most commonly cited was compiled six years after Smith’s death. But the source texts used in that compilation were all contemporary with the sermon. These texts are still extant and can be compared. Here is a parallel representation of the six versions we have. If you scroll down about a sixth of the way into the sermon, to where Smith explains that God was once a man like us, you see that all of them contain it, with the sole exception of the Laub summary, which only preserves a dozen or so sentences from the whole sermon anyway. And where one version varies in wording from the others, you can see that the others agree with the text as it has historically stood. Furthermore, back in the 1970s, a group of BYU scholars put together a text-critical edition, based on careful study and collation of the extant accounts, and made a near-definitive reproduction of the sermon. I once read it online in PDF form, and I would post a link to it, but somehow I can’t find it today.

The way Mormons distance themselves from King Follet is reminding people that it is not part of the canon of scripture presented by the LDS leaders and accepted in a General Conference of the church. It is also not an official declaration of the First Presidency.

 

[soren1]

The way Mormons distance themselves from King Follet is reminding people that it is not part of the canon of scripture presented by the LDS leaders and accepted in a General Conference of the church. It is also not an official declaration of the First Presidency.

The canonical status of the King Follett discourse is irrelevant. The whole modern Mormon distinction between official and unofficial doctrine is extraneous to most questions of prophetic authority. To show why this is, two questions, that are often confused, need to be always distinguished:

1. Is doctrine X official LDS teaching?
2. Does doctrine X test Smith’s authority as a prophet?

Mormons generally assume that the answer to #2 can only be “yes” if the answer to #1 is also “yes.” This makes a lot of intuitive sense to Catholics, because we ourselves think that papal infallibility operates only when the pope speaks officially, in his capacity as pontiff. Naturally, we think it is reasonable and fair to extend the same considerations to Mormon prophets.

But it is not. A prophet is different from a pope. Popes do not speak directly from God. When someone claims to be a prophet, he claims to speak for God directly, and should be tested by criteria appropriate to that claim. This means Mormon prophets really have to meet a significantly higher standard than popes. The Biblical standard for judging the doctrine and worship of a prophet is plenary infallibility. Scripture contains teachings about how to test prophets, which are proper to the prophetic office itself. Foremost among these with respect to Mormonism is Deut 13:1-4:

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.

Where in this text does it say that the prophet or dreamer of dreams must be speaking “officially” when he says “let us go after other gods”? Bear in mind that this is a legal text, intended to be enforceable as written. That means it does not assume qualifications outside what it says. Since it does not define any special context in which the prophet must blaspheme, then it is applicable to every context when a prophet does so. Thus, if a Mormon prophet professes worship of any kind of false deity, like a man from another world, Deut 13:1-4 applies. Mormons who distance themselves from the KFD have, merely by doing do, admitted enough to prove why we must not honor Smith as a prophet.

 

[NewSeeker]

The canonical status of the King Follett discourse is irrelevant. The whole modern Mormon distinction between official and unofficial doctrine is extraneous to most questions of prophetic authority. To show why this is, two questions, that are often confused, need to be always distinguished:

1. Is doctrine X official LDS teaching?
2. Does doctrine X test Smith’s authority as a prophet?

Mormons generally assume that the answer to #2 can only be “yes” if the answer to #1 is also “yes.” This makes a lot of intuitive sense to Catholics, because we ourselves think that papal infallibility operates only when the pope speaks officially, in his capacity as pontiff. Naturally, we think it is reasonable and fair to extend the same considerations to Mormon prophets.

But it is not. A prophet is different from a pope. Popes do not speak directly from God. When someone claims to be a prophet, he claims to speak for God directly, and should be tested by criteria appropriate to that claim. This means Mormon prophets really have to meet a significantly higher standard than popes. The Biblical standard for judging the doctrine and worship of a prophet is plenary infallibility. Scripture contains teachings about how to test prophets, which are proper to the prophetic office itself. Foremost among these with respect to Mormonism is Deut 13:1-4:

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.

Where in this text does it say that the prophet or dreamer of dreams must be speaking “officially” when he says “let us go after other gods”? Bear in mind that this is a legal text, intended to be enforceable as written. That means it does not assume qualifications outside what it says. Since it does not define any special context in which the prophet must blaspheme, then it is applicable to every context when a prophet does so. Thus, if a Mormon prophet professes worship of any kind of false deity, like a man from another world, Deut 13:1-4 applies. Mormons who distance themselves from the KFD have, merely by doing do, admitted enough to prove why we must not honor Smith as a prophet.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

soren1:

Where in this text does it say that the prophet or dreamer of dreams must be speaking “officially” when he says “let us go after other gods”?

Oh! sorry for being slow to understand where your concern was coming.

Hold your horses, Soren, and put down your torch. Your Deuteronomical license to kill has not been invoked.

The key word here is “go after.”

At no place in the King Follet speculations does Joseph Smith remotely suggest that we should “go after,” i.e. worship, other Gods.

Think about it.

There are Old Testament prophets that said things that are at best agnostic as to the existence of other Gods. The emphasis was simply that God is the only god worthy of worship. Mind you, I don’t believe that Baal or Moloch or Ishtar actually existed; I simply think that having the mere opinion that such monsters had some intangible existence, is NOT the same thing as idolatry. You’re imposing Catholic norms on scriptures to which such norms did not apply. The OT, and even the NT, do not speak of heresy, i.e. having the wrong opinion, as some sort of ultimate evil. The evil warned of was actually worshiping those false gods, or carving their likenesses, or otherwise leading others in worship of those false gods.

Thus, if a Mormon prophet professes worship of any kind of false deity, like a man from another world,

PRECISELY. So where in the world do you see JS “professing WORSHIP” of any different deity in the Kentucky-Fried Doctrines, pardon, the King Follet Discourse?

And if Smith’s supposed speculations in the KFD really were supposed to affect our worship, then why the heck did the LDS church not even hear of the KFD until nearly a century after the KFD was delivered? When BH Roberts went off and published someone’s old notes on the KFD, out of his own pocket, without church authorization?

So please, put your torch down and back away from the stake.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

Popes do not speak directly from God. When someone claims to be a prophet, he claims to speak for God directly

All the time? So when the prophet goes to McDonalds and orders fries and a cheeseburger, he’s speaking on God’s behalf?

Or do you concede that there may be times when a prophet is speaking on his own behalf, and not on God’s?

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

Mormon encyclopedia says about Heavenly Mother:

As early as 1839 the Prophet Joseph Smith taught the concept of an eternal mother, as reported in several accounts from that period. Out of his teaching came a hymn that Latter-day Saints learn, sing, quote, and cherish, “O My Father,” by Eliza R. Snow. President Wilford Woodruff called it a revelation (Woodruff, p. 62). In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason; truth eternal Tells me I’ve a mother there. When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, Mother, may I meet you In your royal courts on high? [Hymn no. 292]

Unfortunately, there are no references to his “several accounts from that period.”

Doesn’t matter, since the current First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve all unanimously approved the doctrine in the Official Proclamation to the World on the Family. Now all that remains is for the Proc to be submitted and approved via common consent, and then we would regard it as official scripture, and it would probably be entered as Official Declaration #3 to the Doctrine and Covenants. (That’s not a prophesy, btw, just my interpretation of the D&C, so please don’t burn me if things turn out differently .)

 

[zaffiroborant]

All the time? So when the prophet goes to McDonalds and orders fries and a cheeseburger, he’s speaking on God’s behalf?

Or do you concede that there may be times when a prophet is speaking on his own behalf, and not on God’s?

When he’s ordering a cheeseburger…speaking on his own, when making statements about the nature of God…speaking on God’s behalf. If he makes up his own stories about the nature of God he is useless as a prophet. In the KFS Joseph Smith made declarations about the nature of God that the even LDS church itself rejects, really there is no further proof needed that the man didn’t know what he was talking about when it comes to the nature of God.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

When he’s ordering a cheeseburger…speaking on his own, when making statements about the nature of God…speaking on God’s behalf.

And you became an expert on when a prophet speaks as a prophet, how exactly? Don’t the Protestants play pretty much this same game with you, telling you how you should regard statements and actions by your Popes? Isn’t it at all embarrassing to see their nonsensical self-serving projections in the mirror?

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

PRECISELY. So where in the world do you see JS “professing WORSHIP” of any different deity… ?

 

[zaffiroborant]

And you became an expert on when a prophet speaks as a prophet, how exactly? Don’t the Protestants play pretty much this same game with you, telling you how you should regard statements and actions by your Popes? Isn’t it at all embarrassing to see their nonsensical self-serving projections in the mirror?

Well if you think it’s okay for a prophet to describe the nature of God incorrectly as Joseph Smith did what can I say. But I see no reason to trust anything he’s said since even your church picks and chooses among his declarations:shrug:

 

[Outspoken]

Originally Posted by Cowboy Pete View Post
PRECISELY. So where in the world do you see JS “professing WORSHIP” of any different deity… ?

What you consistently fail to grasp, is the fact that polytheism is not necessarily just the worship of other gods, but also the* belief* in other gods.

Merriam-Webster: Definition of POLYTHEISM
belief in or worship of more than one god

Just because you don’t worship more than one, doesn’t mean anything. You’re still considered to be polytheistic based on your belief in multiple gods of infinite number. Do you really need me to post any more definitions of polytheism before you understand what it really means to be polytheistic, and, for you to realize that that’s exactly what Mormonism teaches and believes? By your church’s own admission, you don’t even worship Jesus Christ, Who really IS the True God, Who became man. The fact that ‘Jesus Christ’ is part of the name taken by your church, is a complete misnomer, meant to deceive people into thinking that He is the basis of your faith, but the true Jesus, really isn’t. Yours isn’t much more than a caricature of the real Jesus.

Your church’s pantheon of multiple ‘gods’ that Joseph Smith based loosely on the ‘characters’ of the Bible, as if it were some kind of dime-store novel that he decided needed to be rewritten, is about as far from true Christianity as Australia is from the USA. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the truth is the truth. If you want to believe that you or your church are monotheistic, just because you only ‘worship’ one ‘god’, go right ahead and believe what you want to believe. You certainly do have ‘free agency’ to do anything that makes you feel better about yourself, and your church. But, that’s a self-delusion of epic proportions that you seem to cling to in order to keep believing in your church, or you just do it to try to convince others that it’s true (I think it’s more of the latter). But, please, don’t even bother to try to convince any of us that the LDS church is monotheistic, because we know better. It really doesn’t take a genius to figure it out after looking at the ‘big picture’ from an objective point of view.

 

[Outspoken]

All the time? So when the prophet goes to McDonalds and orders fries and a cheeseburger, he’s speaking on God’s behalf?

Or do you concede that there may be times when a prophet is speaking on his own behalf, and not on God’s?

In everyday conversations, I surely don’t expect the Pope or a ‘prophet’ to be speaking on God’s behalf. But, when the Pope gives a sermon of any kind, or declares that he is speaking in his full capacity as Pope, I do expect him to speak the God’s honest truth to the faithful that he is addressing in that circumstance. You can go to the Vatican website and look up any number of sermons, given by various Popes. I doubt that you could ever find any where the Pope goes off on some kind of wildly speculative tangent concerning the nature of God, or any other doctrinal subject, that is so blatantly contrary, not only to Catholic beliefs, but completely contrary to Christian beliefs of any kind.

Anyone that claims to be a prophet of God that gives a ’sermon’, should most definitely be held to that same standard. A sermon isn’t just a relaxed ‘dialogue’ between friends or acquaintances. It’s a means of speaking to and teaching the faithful ***about ***God. When Jesus was speaking to an entire crowd of people, He was giving a ‘sermon’, and everything He ever said was the absolute truth, even when He wasn’t preaching. That’s the same standard that we hold for anyone that’s giving a ‘sermon’. If the LDS ‘prophet’ is not expected to always teach the whole truth during a sermon, then, when is he expected to tell the truth? And, how could you ever believe anything else that he ever told you if you think he would lie about the nature of God during a sermon?

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

What you consistently fail to grasp, is the fact that polytheism is not necessarily just the worship of other gods, but also the* belief* in other gods.
[quotes Miriam-Webster dictionary as scriptural authority ]

Just because you

STOP RIGHT THERE. I said outright that I don’t accept the KFD, that I believe only in one God.

My point is that even if Joseph Smith hypothesized other Gods, as some of the OT prophets arguably did, that such hypothesis would not invoke Deuteronomy’s license to kill.

don’t worship more than one, doesn’t mean anything. ] still considered to be polytheistic based on your belief in multiple gods of infinite number. Do you really need me to post any more definitions of polytheism before you understand what it really means to be polytheistic

Why are you acting as if this discussion was about polytheism? I said that Deuteronomy does not give you license to murder Joseph Smith, since he did not tell you to worship other Gods. Miriam Webster’s definition of polytheism has nothing to do with Deuteronomy’s license to kill.

By your church’s own admission, you don’t even worship Jesus Christ,

That is false.

We worship Jesus Christ. We don’t worship Christ in the same way that we worship the Father. We pray to the Father in the name of the Son, not vice versa. See the Title Page to the Book of Mormon; see Bruce R. McConkie’s hymn “I believe in Christ … I’ll worship Him with all my might…” If you don’t believe we worship Christ, then you’ve been sold a bill of goods.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

Well if you think it’s okay for a prophet to describe the nature of God incorrectly

I don’t think it’s okay.

as Joseph Smith did what can I say…

Personally, I find that when I run out of things to say, that it’s generally a good idea to stop talking.

 

[zaffiroborant]

I don’t think it’s okay.

Personally, I find that when I run out of things to say, that it’s generally a good idea to stop talking.

But since I followed that up with one more sentence obviously I didn’t run out of things to say

 

[RebeccaJ]

That is false.

We worship Jesus Christ. We don’t worship Christ in the same way that we worship the Father. We pray to the Father in the name of the Son, not vice versa. See the Title Page to the Book of Mormon; see Bruce R. McConkie’s hymn “I believe in Christ … I’ll worship Him with all my might…” If you don’t believe we worship Christ, then you’ve been sold a bill of goods.

I don’t know how one can worship without praying to Who is being worshipped. Prayer is integral and essential to worship.

So while Mormons say they worship Jesus, no one can really see that it is ever being done. No prayers of thanks to Jesus Christ, no petitioning Him, no nothing. Worship, being an active thing that Christians do, not just nice thoughts and “sending good vibes to Jesus”, kind of thing.

 

[Outspoken]

STOP RIGHT THERE. I said outright that I don’t accept the KFD, that I believe only in one God.

I’m glad to hear it. But, that doesn’t change the fact that your church believes in a trinity of three completely separate ‘gods’ that make up a ‘godhead’, that are only ‘one in purpose’. They might think and act in a similar manner, but they are totally separate ‘beings’. They are not ‘one in being’, completely inseparable, as most true Christians believe. That still qualifies your belief system as ‘polytheistic’. The members of your trinity are not ‘one god’ as ours are.

My point is that even if Joseph Smith hypothesized other Gods, as some of the OT prophets arguably did, that such hypothesis would not invoke Deuteronomy’s license to kill.

My other post addresses the fact that any ‘prophet’ giving a ‘sermon’ constitutes that they are, in fact, preaching the truth about God to their listeners, which JS certainly made very clear in his discourse. What does Deuteronomy have to do with the price of apples in Poland?

Why are you acting as if this discussion was about polytheism? I said that Deuteronomy does not give you license to murder Joseph Smith, since he did not tell you to worship other Gods. Miriam Webster’s definition of polytheism has nothing to do with Deuteronomy’s license to kill.

You were the one that seemed to be taunting us because no one responded to your claim that JS never told his followers to ‘worship’ more than one god, as if that nullified the possibility of LDS being polytheistic, when it doesn’t change it, at all. I was merely taking up that gauntlet that you had thrown down, to clarify that just having a belief in more than one god, still constitutes polytheism.

Just to be clear, I certainly didn’t kill Joseph Smith, and, I don’t recall you saying anything about Deuteronomy’s ‘license to kill’ that you keep babbling on about. You seem to be having an attack of ‘LDS persecution complex’. You’re right about one thing, though. Merriam Webster has nothing to do with Deuteronomy, nor is it a ‘scriptural authority’, by any means. But, it is the foremost authority on the common definitions of most words for everyday use. That is the one and only definition that it gives for ‘polytheism’. Like I said, I can provide numerous other sources that explain what constitutes polytheism in much more detail if you insist on seeing them, or you could just google it.

That is false.

We worship Jesus Christ. We don’t worship Christ in the same way that we worship the Father. We pray to the Father in the name of the Son, not vice versa. See the Title Page to the Book of Mormon; see Bruce R. McConkie’s hymn “I believe in Christ … I’ll worship Him with all my might…” If you don’t believe we worship Christ, then you’ve been sold a bill of goods.

You might want to take a chill-pill, Pete. You seem to be having a bit of a meltdown.

I’ve been told by other Mormons that you don’t worship Jesus, because if you did, it might be inferred that LDS is polytheistic, which the point is moot because they’re still polytheistic by their definition of their trinity, anyway. Worshiping Jesus as God is a very good thing. You should do it as often as possible.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

I don’t know how one can worship without praying to Who is being worshipped. Prayer is integral and essential to worship.

Absolutely. We pray to the father, in the name of the Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Ghost. Isn’t that how you do it? We also have hymns, which are themselves prayers of a sort.

No prayers of thanks to Jesus Christ

Jesus taught us to pray generally to the Father. Prayers of thanks for Him, and for his atonement, in just about every sacrament meeting that I’ve ever been to. And at least one specific Hymn about Christ’s atonement, in every meeting.

, no petitioning Him,

Oh? I’m sorry that our hymns petitioning Christ meant so little to you when you were in the Church.

Master, the tempest is raging!
The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadow with blackness,
No shelter or help is nigh;
Carest Thou not that we perish?
How canst Thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threatening
A grave in the angry deep?

Refrain

The winds and the waves shall obey Thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm tossed sea,
Or demons or men, or whatever it be
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies;
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, peace, be still!

Master, with anguish of spirit
I bow in my grief today;
The depths of my sad heart are troubled
Oh, waken and save, I pray!
Torrents of sin and of anguish
Sweep o’er my sinking soul;
And I perish! I perish! dear Master
Oh, hasten, and take control.

Refrain

Master, the terror is over,
The elements sweetly rest;
Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
And heaven’s within my breast;
Linger, O blessèd Redeemer!
Leave me alone no more;
And with joy I shall make the blest harbor,
And rest on the blissful shore.

Refrain

Worship, being an active thing that Christians do

Yes. Prayer, hymns, and other actions comprise worship.

say they worship Jesus, no one can really see that it is ever being done.

Do you consider that a critical part of worship, Rebecca? Being seen by other people?

just nice thoughts

Not just thought, but meditation and study can also be an important part of worship. And worship without thought would be hollow, wouldn’t it? IIRC Jesus was not terribly impressed with folks that observed worship forms to be seen by other people, without putting thought into it.

“sending good vibes to Jesus”

Who exactly are you quoting? That doesn’t sound very mormon.

Do you pray to the Holy Ghost, Rebecca?

It’s funny that some of you call us “polytheistic,” and yet you complain to us about not praying separately to each person of the Godhead.