Just Follow the Prophet

That makes it awfully, awfully simple, doesn't it? It is an airtight, impenetrable, unbreakable logical loop, 2 simple steps: He is the Prophet, He cannot be wrong. Obedience is the first principle of heaven. Therefore, whatever brain power I have need only be consumed with A- Discerning the teachings of the Prophets, and B- Conforming myself to the above.

Given the ease, given the simplicity, given the strength that such a formula locks everything into, it can no doubt be very appealing. After all, thought is uncomfortable. Uncertainty is absolutely no fun. As JFK said, “We prefer the comfort of opinion to the discomfort of thought.”

Maybe it is inevitable given my absolute inability to cease being a Smartass. Everyone has to either be a Smartass or a Dumbass though, it seems. Well, there are a few outside that formula. I have run into about 20 genuine really good people in my life. You think you know thousands of good people, but you are blind, you don't. I don't mean to be rude, if you are older than me maybe you have known 50 goodfolks. But I am an extremely good judge of character- not to brag but I must because it is the truth- I see right through people- I see way more than they want me to see, certainly more than they ever want me to say. (just as example #35913, I saw through John Edwards instantly, forget politics or idea, I knew he was a subpar human, I have no idea how anyone didn’t).

I cannot watch General Conference and simply download the package without scanning for viruses. I cannot even read the scriptures (especially the Old Testament) without seeing so much stuff that cannot be swallowed without a lot of chewing- even stuff that tastes so bad it needs to be spit out. If you don't it is because you didn't notice the 200 outrageous things- like Moses yelling "Damn it, kill the prisoners of war! Kill them!! But keep the virgins for your own fun. God commands it!" or Paul laying out, in about 6 places, why Eve was to blame, why women shouldn't speak in Church, why if they have questions at Church they should go home and let their husbands tell them how it is, etc etc. Sorry if I'm arrogant for noticing what you didn't. Shoot the intellectual. And no, the Joseph Smith translation doesn't touch the above instances.

I really think what I go through is true of anyone who actually listens and thinks about what they are hearing at Conference, or what they are actually reading if they are reading the scriptures and not just highlighted quotes. Maybe 90% of the time people have the TV on and get internally generated warm fuzzies for the fact that they are being a good little person and watching Conference. I don’t know. I don’t know what other people do. I get the need to turn the brain off and act at a certain point when the ball is about to be snapped. One can't quibble with analysis forever, choices must be made.

Well, actually I do know what many others do. In Elders’ Quorum any halfway interesting topic usually has a way of being melted back to “We know what we have to do; we just need to be better this week!!!” Sorry, but I heard more worthwhile principles than that laid out by fellow 7th graders in the basketball huddle. I mean, Rah Rah Rah, I am right there with you, but since when the whole "this isn't pertinent to salvation" nonsense. What happened to Joseph Smith'sprinciple equating salvation directly with knowledge and mysteries? What happened to Brigham Young’s “Every Elder should be a profound theologian”?

A friend recently told me about the wisdom of having a shelf. A mother once told her children “anything bugs you, anything you disagree with, just put it on the shelf.” Good idea. But one can't put the whole thing on the shelf.

Seriously- since when is ‘Follow the Prophet’ the first principle, the central concept, and only theme? Am I supposed to read the scriptures because the Prophet says so?

And why is “having a testimony of the Church” the primary need? I object to both ends, and have been for about 3 years, and haven’t heard anything resembling a good defense of either side. Here is why. A testimony is overrated. Vastly overrated. Muhammed Atta had a testimony. The Mountain Meadows Massacrers had testimonies (Not that they will be discussed in the lessons on obedience, the modern 2nd principle, but they absolutely should.) . The evil spirits possessing the pigs had testimonies. Republicans have a testimony that A, B, and C are true, and Democrats have a testimony of D, E, and F. The Jehovah's Witnesses have testimonies. Fawn McKay Brodie has a testimony the other way. Saul, Saul, why persecutest- SAUL HAD A KILLER TESTIMONY!

The thing actually boils back to what the status of the General Authorities is- what the status of the First Presidency and apostles is, etc. Are they infallible? Well, we claim not, but act as though they are more reliable than the sunrise. Does the Prophet have a red phone to Kolob? Does their fax machine receive policy books and statements from Kolob? Are they actual literal witnesses of Jesus? The fact seems to be, no. Not long after the birth of the Church they were called to try to be, and most of them ended up excommunicated. Brigham never claimed 1% as much as Joseph claimed, and then soon the matters- on which their authority seems to be based- became “too sacred to talk about”, which was an odd reversal of the early days of the Church- when they did claim to have the actual witness, but didn’t claim it gave them any kind of authority. Joseph was about a .315 hitter on the calls to General Authority level leadership that he made. We have a testimony of the process by which the handbook is written today? I mean, seriously, you do? You have too many testimonies dude.

But well, God wouldn’t allow it, we say. Someone said somewhere that God would never allow the Church to be led astray. We have 180 years of wonderful and colorful history- but history that cannot but show that they can certainly be very very wrong on very very big matters (race, polygamy, politics, and so on). There are prophecies abundant from the early leaders which did not come true- sorry, call me evil, but if you open up the history books and actually put the prophets to the test, as the scriptures say to do, you don’t come out anywhere near 100% accuracy unless you’re bucking for a promotion in the Church. The later leaders, well, pretty much shut the prophetic faucet down to an occasional trickle.

What do I conclude? Well, personally, for the time being, I cannot read the Book of Mormon for 20 minutes without being blown away by the wisdom and awe and power of the thing, really spiritually moved by it, on the one hand, and laughing out loud and “saying COME ON FARMBOY!!!” on the other. I do this in the same sitting. Sorry, but I do. BH Roberts, the Apostle in the 12 for decades, the scholar, the polygamist Congressman, etc., well he spent decades studying the mysterious book and, it sure appears to me, died dubious as to whether there is historical reality to the stories therein. If any of you read, say, the Book of Ether, for example, and carefully study it, you will have to say “This is patternism on steroids and then some”, and that would be being kind. My list of “Seemingly blatant Biblical plagiarism items” reached 15 before I quit keeping it, just on Ether. The worst may have been the beautiful woman who dances for the King and her wicked mother gets her to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a charger after the King promised her anything she asked up to half the kingdom. There is no honest way for one not to see that, short of just choosing to ignore- which we do like crazy because as JFK said we prefer the comfort of opinion to the discomfort.... And yet, if there was ever a Prophet, Joseph Smith was a Prophet. Pick up the Lectures on Faith and see if it doesn’t instantly demand to be many levels above any other religious writing. Look at what he said in Liberty Jail. Look in 1000 places- what Joseph writes is music to the soul… and yet, on the 3rd hand, he had about 50 or 80 wives and lied to Emma and many others about it and they were generally very young and it was definitely sexual and it was not rare for them to be already married to other men and it had not a darn thing, despite what your Seminary teacher will tell you, to do with caring for old widows or population growth (explain that math).

Sorry, I was concluding. I conclude that religion is a mysterious, complex, spiritual thing, and it isn’t algebra. God can make my next door neighbor a Prophet, or a woman in Cambodia could speak eternal truth while David Bednar speaks rubbish. Mormonism is a tiny and shrinking religion (despite the wildly exaggerated nonstop propaganda reports to the contrary). But it is mine and I love it. The real religion is Christianity- but Joseph Smith was inspired- he got it better and truer and deeper than anyone else, in my completely biased assessment. I have basically no issue with President Hinckley, even if he is the 1st Prophet in the history of the world to write a book called Way to Be! (enough said). I certainly have no issue with President Monson, he is a favorite, and here’s hoping he outlives… sorry, I digress. I do take issue with the schmuck from Arkansas whose first act was to blame inactive people for the fact that Mormons who are asses drive them out of the Church and who instantly became a 4th Sunday classic, beloved by every such ass in the Church. I don’t have a ton of respect for people who claim that God has confirmed Bednar to their souls in prayer, but I’m going to hell, so we’ll see. “Martin Luther King is a commie spy” Ezra Taft Benson was able to become a Prophet in time, so maybe Packer and Bednar will too.

I respectfully request that hard-line absolutist people, who are overflowing with certainty about way too many things, stop acting as though this stuff is algebra. And I welcome more to join me in turning their brains on within the topic.