Of Snacks, Plastic and Prophetic Infallibility
This message was delivered in the Salt Lake Liberty Stake, Fourth Ward on January 10, 2016.
Last week Christian Harrison said something interesting, perhaps a bit controversial, in his testimony. He said, and I’m paraphrasing, that despite frequent assertions that the church is the same everywhere, that isn’t true and the 4th ward is the best ward. He went on to make his case that we in the fourth ward live the gospel better than most.
I do not intend to defend or criticize that observation. Instead, I want to tread carefully down a related path.
In this room, among the saints, we often assume that our beliefs are clear and homogenous. We can all recite the 13 articles of faith, or at least we could we when were 12 and we still recognize the familiar words when we hear them. They do provide unmistakable guideposts for the membership of the church.
The standard works, our canonized scripture, including the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price represent the foundation of LDS doctrine.
The Articles of Faith, on the one hand, are too brief to serve as a comprehensive arbiter of our doctrine, so function better in their intended role as a representative doctrinal sampler for those unfamiliar with our faith.
The scriptures, on the other hand, represent thousands of pages of documents, most of them being thousands of years old, written in languages other than English. Even the Book of Mormon, described as the “most correct book” is remarkably incomplete, with almost no explanation of temple work. The sheer volume of text, combined with the nuances of language, context of time and place, and some of the difficult contrasts between the theology of a vengeful Old Testament God and that of a God so merciful and kind to his people as to offer up his own son as a sacrifice, provide fodder for almost as many doctrinal conclusions as there are people to read them.
For this reason, most of us would agree that a living prophet is more important than the scriptures or the articles of faith for helping us determine how to live in accordance with the mind and will of God. Even here, however, we lack unanimity of thought. Most of us would agree that the prophet is not infallible. Some here would interpret that to mean only that in his personal life he may err, as we all do, but we can rely without doubt upon his word. Others, at the same time, would take the position that prophetic fallibility extends to prophetic statements, meaning that a prophet might err in some way in leading the church.
In all of these observations, I am trying assiduously to avoid taking sides. I only wish to note that there are sides, or, on most issues, a spectrum of Mormon thought.
A much broader range of ideas is likely present in this room than you believed when you arrived this morning.
This week, the Church felt compelled to issue a statement condemning the actions of Ammon Bundy and his group up in Oregon because they were using Mormon scripture and theology, in part, to explain the motivation for their actions. Even after that statement was issued, some members of the church have expressed deep sympathy with their cause because of long-held resentment toward the Federal Government, which has roots in our history, not only resulting in the saints being driven from place to place across this continent, but also in facing an occupying army. Fort Douglas, at the University of Utah, became a permanent base of operations for Federal forces in no small part so that they could keep an eye on the Mormons. I am confident that there are some here today who feel solidarity with our modern day Ammon.
At the same time, there are those in the congregation who would say they love America no less than Ammon and his men, yet see the legal and justice system we have as being the fairest and most accessible on the planet, allowing for a Mormon to receive the republican presidential nomination in 2012 and to have a Mormon serve as the Senate Majority Leader for the better part of a decade. For this group, violence or the threat of violence makes no sense in Oregon—or elsewhere. These folks may resent Ammon more than respect him.
Of the two groups, I think I know which is more likely to send snacks.
Speaking of snacks, if we were to poll the 150 or so people in this room for their favorite snack, I suspect we would come close to finding 150 different favorite snacks.
Of course, when it comes to eating, we have the guidance of the Word of Wisdom. Some here today have read and pondered the counsel to eat meat sparingly and have concluded that the time for that counsel has passed, given that our ability to store, distribute and preserve meat safely has radically improved since the revelation was given. Others here today are vegetarians, influenced by the same scriptural counsel.
Between the insignificance of the diversity of opinion in this room regarding snacks and the potential significance for understanding doctrinal nuances around such topics as the fallibility of the prophet, there are countless intermediate topics upon which we would find a diversity of opinion in the Church. Furthermore, in this room, there are not only Republicans and a Democrat or two, but libertarians, socialists and perhaps even a communist. Certainly, these parties and their philosophies are represented by temple recommend holding members of the church around the world.
As an aside, let me caution all of us to remember that on so many of these points there is no black and white answer, that diversity of opinion exists specifically because there either is no absolute truth, as would be the case for choosing the best sacrament meeting snack, or we don’t have all of the light and knowledge we might need to understand the issue completely. No less than Bruce R. McConkie thought he was in a position to write down the doctrine of the Mormon church plainly for all to understand. When his book was first published, the more senior brethren took out their red pens and began marking significant corrections. Let’s not be too confident of our personal theology on Mountain Dew.
So, what of this diversity of thought within the church?
We needn’t worry ourselves as to whether you and I take exactly the same lesson from Matthew 25 as we might apply it to the question of how many Syrian refugees to let into the country. We come together today and every Sunday to partake of the sacrament, to renew our covenants with our Savior and our Heavenly Father.
Jesus Christ is the head of this Church. I testify that he lives. I testify that he loves us—enough to die for us. There is no one here or anywhere else on this planet, regardless of whether or not they recycle their plastic waste or prefer to open carry rather than carry concealed, whose life is not precious to the One who gave his life for us all.
Shouldn’t we welcome everyone, even if they don’t look the way we do, vote the way we do, or live the way we do? The missionaries have a process for determining worthiness to be baptized. We don’t have to occupy ourselves with screening; we are allowed to simply occupy ourselves with keeping the two great commandments, to love the Lord and to love our neighbors.
Please don’t think I’ve shared this message as a rebuke. To Christian’s point, I love this ward specifically because it is a remarkably good ward where a diversity of thought has always been accepted. You inspire me.
