All About Mormons

Several years ago, I had a fascinating conversation about modern revelation with two non-member friends, Kevin and Ashley. Kevin and Ashley are wonderful people. Ashley has always been a source of support for my wife during challenging times. Kevin is one of the most generous people I’ve ever met. At the time of that conversation, I expressed some ideas that I now realize were incorrect. Here’s my letter of correction!

Dear Kevin and Ashley,

Hope all is well with you in Texas. We sure do miss both of you, and your little Ester. The neighborhood just isn’t the same without you. Please remind Ester about the time we went to the glider port together. Remind her please that we saw big ones and little ones, green ones and red ones and even blue ones. We sure do like Ester.

I don’t know if you remember a conversation we had a few years back about revelation, the way God communicates with prophets. What I initially said was basically correct. Mormons do believe God communicates with prophets, and that the prophets then transmit the divine message to the rest of us. Our conversation eventually turned to the reliability of that transmitted message. Is the message transmitted from God to the prophet, and then from the prophet to the people, in all cases without error? I implied that it was. As I’ve thought about that conversation in the years since, I’ve come to realize that my explanation was not compatible with established Mormon doctrine.

It’s funny, because if you’d asked me, “So you believe your prophet is infallible?” I would have said “no” in a second. If you’d asked, “Is your prophet just God’s puppet, then, a mindless man merely parroting God’s message without pondering and interpreting that message according to his own culture and understanding?” I again would have said, “no.” And yet my claim that that the divine message is always transmitted without error is entirely incompatible with these established doctrines. After some pondering, my view of revelation is now more nuanced.

Let me start by saying that I have great faith and confidence in prophets, both ancient and modern. These are men of God who do a wonderful job transmitting God’s message. To ensure that His will is done, however, God does not find perfect men to act as His perfect spokesmen; there is no perfect man. Instead, God uses negative feedback; He communicates His message to His prophets, who transmit that message to the people through the lens of their own understanding and culture. On those rare occasions when a prophet misunderstands the divine message, God sends additional revelation, in His own due time, to make the appropriate course corrections. Sometimes those course corrections come immediately, but sometimes they are slow in coming. The time it takes probably depends as much on the prophet’s receptivity as it does on God’s own wisdom and timing.

The Bible provides examples of these kinds of course corrections. Jonah comes to mind. God commanded Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh. Jonah interpreted that message through the lens of his own experience with the gentile inhabitants of that ancient city and so took off in the opposite direction! God subsequently sent additional revelation-and, allegedly, a whale-to literally make a course correction, turning Jonah’s journey back in the direction of Nineveh. That city repented when it ultimately received God’s message through His imperfect prophet Jonah.

In modern times, Brigham Young offers another example. So many of his teachings were true-I sincerely believe they came from God-but on rare occasions he clearly taught things that were not true; he, like Jonah, was influenced by his own culture and understanding. It’s hard to deny, for example, that some of his teachings about race came not from God through revelation, but from Southern Protestants with whom he had contact in Missouri. In due time, God made the necessary course corrections by revealing His will to subsequent prophets who were not so blinded by their own cultural circumstances.

To ensure that His message is accurately transmitted, God also uses a second technique. According to the New-Testament model, God reveals His will not to a single prophet alone, but to an entire quorum of apostles with the prophetic gift. “Doctrine” in Mormonism is determined not by the voice of a single prophet, but by consensus. Clearly these men can be collectively influenced by their mutual culture and experience-just as Mormons don’t believe their prophet is infallible, they don’t believe the quorum of the apostles is infallible-but when doctrine is established not by revelation to a single prophet but by revelation to a quorum of men with the prophetic gift, incorrect teachings are less likely to be transmitted.

In modern times, Bruce R. McConkie provides a good example. Bruce R. McConkie was an apostle from 1972 to 1985. One need only listen to the last words of the final discourse he preached before passing away to know that he had the prophetic gift-to know that he received God’s message. In 1958 he wrote a book called “Mormon Doctrine,” which he published as an individual and not as an official publication of the church. Many of the apostles at the time-men with the prophetic gift-felt that Elder McConkie had made some statements in that book that were not, in fact, Mormon doctrine. Because there was not consensus among the quorum of the apostles, the errors in “Mormon Doctrine” were not actively taught in the church and are not considered doctrine today. Elder McConkie subsequently revised his statements, and subsequent editions of “Mormon Doctrine” are far more reliable, though not official, statements of Mormon belief. Doctrine is established not by an individual, but by consensus among all members of the quorum of the apostles.

Hope this helps to clarify the Mormon view of revelation. Sorry for the mistaken explanation I gave when we spoke a few years ago! Our conversation really got me thinking and led me to a better understanding of my church’s teachings.

Hope all is well with you in Texas!