Come Follow Me: Articles of Faith, Official Proclamations 1 and 2
There is a lot of doctrine in this week's writings. Books have been written on them. I won't write a book here, and so will focus on a few points.
Articles of Faith
These were written as part of the Wentworth letter, a newspaper publisher who wanted to know the beliefs of the Church. Joseph wrote down 13 basic tenets of our belief.
1. We in , the Eternal Father, and in His , Jesus Christ, and in the .
All the gospel builds upon this statement. It is a declaration of faith by the Latter-day Saints. We believe in the three members of the Godhead. While each is a unique individual, they are eternally joined by truth, light and love to each other and their everlasting purpose: to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man: (Moses 1:39)
3. We believe that through the of Christ, all may be , by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
The Book of Mormon clarifies this even more. Jacob and Nephi insist we are saved by grace (Christ's atonement and resurrection) after we repent and are reconciled to God (see 2 Ne 25:23). We do not save ourselves. We reconcile ourselves to God through repentance, obedience and receiving covenants/ordinances. However, grace is all encompassing - it was present in the premortal existence, during the Creation, in the teachings of prophets and angels, in the death and resurrection of Christ, and in his current and future ministry to mankind. The concept of reconciliation is reinforced by the next Article of Faith:
4 We believe that the first principles and of the Gospel are: first, in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, ; third, by for the of sins; fourth, Laying on of for the of the Holy Ghost.
Christ offers us grace. It is already given. It is a gift. We only have to receive it in faith, and then gratefully follow Christ in order to retain the gift. We do not obey laws in order to save ourselves. We obey laws because we love Jesus and want to follow him.
Many of the articles discuss the Restoration of the Gospel and its gifts: Revelation, priesthood authority and power, freedom of religion and thought, Zion. All are important themes in the gospel, of which we've studied over the past year in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Official Declaration 1
The Church has long had a love/hate relationship with plural marriage. Begun in secrecy in the 1830s when Joseph Smith married Fanny Alger (which ended shortly afterward), and was expanded in Nauvoo. It came to its heyday in Utah for 40 years. The prophet Joseph saw it differently than polygamy, which he condemned In fact in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, D&C 101 condemned polygamy. The statement read:
Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.
In 1835, only Joseph had practiced plural marriage. Joseph saw plural marriage as different from polygamy. In polygamy, anyone could take more than one wife. In plural marriage, one could only take additional wives with God's permission through the prophet. Viewing it this way, Joseph and the early saints who knew about it could insist polygamy was not being practiced.
Because of this statement in the original D&C, there are many people in other Latter Day Saint movements who do not believe Joseph practiced plural marriage. Yet, the evidence is very clear it began with Joseph and increased under Brigham Young.
It wouldn't be until the early 1850s that the Church went public with plural marriage. Rumors floated across the country about it for several years, but finally Brigham was forced to openly teach it. In doing so, the leaders seem to take a big step in promoting their religious belief, almost daring the United States to do something about it, which they did.
Initially, federal laws were passed that were hard to prove or uphold in the Utah territory. However, in the 1870s, new laws were passed which threatened imprisonment for members living plural marriage and the possible loss of the Church's property (including temples). George Reynolds was arrested, and his case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court on the basis of the First Amendment's religious freedom clause. In 1879, the SCOTUS determined that the government could pass laws to protect society against bad religious actions.
The Saints under President John Taylor continued for a decade to fight against this law. Many went into hiding. Others moved to Mexico or Canada to escape US government prosecution. It was only when President Wilford Woodruff saw thatLatter-day Saint emigrants were being denied entrance into the United States, that the Church property was about to be taken by force (including the temples), and that the missionary work was greatly impaired, that he received the revelation ending plural marriage.
It wasn't an easy decision. It meant many plural wives would be without a husband, and children without their fathers. Many would fight against it, some breaking off into other polygamous Mormon sects. Even some of the apostles were castigated (and excommunicated) for continuing the practice.
Joseph F. Smith would proclaim a "second" manifesto on plural marriage in 1904:
Official Statement
“Inasmuch as there are numerous reports in circulation that plural marriages have ben entered into contrary to the official declaration of President Woodruff, of September 26, 1890, commonly called the Manifesto, which was issued by President Woodruff and adopted by the Church at its general conference, October 6, 1890, which forbade any marriage violative of the law of the land; I, Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hereby affirm and declare that no such marriages have been solemnized with the sanction, consent or knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and
“I hereby announce that all such marriages are prohibited, and if any officer or member of the Church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage he will be deemed in transgression against the Church and will be liable to be dealt with, according to the rules and regulations thereof, and excommunicated therefrom.
Joseph F. Smith,
President of the Church of Jesus Christ
Of Latter-day Saints…”
The Lord's standard is monogamy, unless he commands otherwise. We also see the importance of following the living prophet, even though a previous prophet may have said something entirely different.
And that concept takes us to Official Declaration 2
Joseph Smith saw all members of the Church as eligible to receive temple and priesthood blessings. He embraced African Americans, including Elijah Abel (ordained an Elder by Joseph Smith in 1836) and others.
The Kirtland Temple allowed entrance by the following:
“old or young, rich or poor, male or female, bond or free, black or white, believer or unbeliever…” (History of the Church 2: 368-69)
However, racism began to creep in even during Joseph's lifetime. Some of the leadership of the Church were not comfortable with the African American members. This became more apparent with the building of the Nauvoo Temple and the sealing of families for eternity.
In 1843, Joseph taught that Blacks have souls and are a product of their environment. He insisted that if they had the same chance as whites, they would be and act the same. From 1844-45, Joseph Ball, a black man, was branch president in Boston.
However, after Joseph's death, problems began to emerge. At Winter Quarters, a black man named William McCary was baptized and received the priesthood. He established a local town of his own, and invited white single sisters of the Church to join him in plural marriage. He was excommunicated. His actions caused much alarm for members who were concerned regarding miscegenation (marriage between people of different races).
Some members searched the scriptures and found verses that (to them) pointed to an ancient curse on black people. This included verses in the Books of Moses and Abraham regarding Canaanites (who actually were Semitic), the curse of Cain, and the curse on Pharaoh.
Such bad readings of scripture led Brigham Young to establish a ban on priesthood to black people.
From this point, members, including leaders, would develop theories on the priesthood ban: disobedience in the premortal existence, curse of Cain continuing to our day, etc. Some of these theories became equivalent to doctrine for over a century to the Saints, ingrained as strongly as plural marriage was.
David O. McKay had the priesthood ban researched. No evidence of a revelation regarding the ban could be found. In prayer, he asked the Lord if he could end the ban, and the Lord told him it wasn't time.
The time would be almost 20 years later, in 1978. President Spencer W Kimball had the ban's history researched by Elder Bruce R. McConkie and others. They could not find a revelation regarding it, either. President Kimball questioned the Twelve over several years on their feelings regarding the ban. Finally, President Kimball gathered his counselors and 11 of the Twelve together to pray about it. The revelation that proceeded convinced all that the time for the ban's end was now.
Elder McConkie noted it as being stronger than a witness of the Son. Elder David B. Haight would talk about the Revelation on the Priesthood many times in General Conference. I was present to listen to him speak at a missionary conference in Bolivia in 1979, and he remarked how revelatory and powerful the witness was.
As for all the theories, Elder McConkie taught that we must forget all the past teachings and theories. They are all wrong in light of the revelation.
Recently, the Church's official statement on "Race and the Priesthood" includes this:
Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.
Since that day in 1978, the Church has looked to the future, as membership among Africans, African Americans and others of African descent has continued to grow rapidly. While Church records for individual members do not indicate an individual’s race or ethnicity, the number of Church members of African descent is now in the hundreds of thousands. ( https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng )
No comments:
Post a Comment