So I want to continue to put up some posts on some thoughts I have on church leadership. In my last post, I proposed my idea of a caretaker model of our church leadership. I see our hierarchy as an inspired bureaucracy, a very good thing, but different that all or most policies being dictated by God as we tend to talk in the church.
So in my next few posts, I want to talk about some observations I’ve had on what I see as some sort of tension between prophets and great administrators. In my observation, those tend to be different spiritual gifts and skills sets. It seems to me that in our church leadership system, we propose merging the two very important roles, but again, I’ll propose in some of these posts that sometimes that merger is a little forced.
To begin, let me quote a passage from Hugh Nibley’s recorded lectures on the Book of Mormon given at BYU 1989-90. It’s the 7th lecture and starts around minute 4 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWOUjyeiTH8
Nibley was talking about prophets in Jerusalem around Lehi’s time and a student asked, “When you say prophet, I kind of conjure up the hierarchy of the church as we have today.”
Nibley: “No, no, no,” (not a scolding tone, but corrective)
Student: “It wasn’t at all like that back then?”
Nibley: “As Brigham Young said, ‘Prophecy is not an office; it’s a gift. Some people have it and some don’t.’ We are told that anyone who has a testimony of Jesus Christ has the gift of prophecy. But you have no right prophesying for the Church. There are various people who have the gift very strongly. No president of the Church ever had it more strongly than Eliza R. Snow. She made some marvelous prophecies, but she didn’t speak to the world and to the Church. This is given as a special gift, like healing, etc. There are some interesting stories on that.”
Of course, Moses would be held up as the ideal prophet-administrator. Mike Wallace asked Pres Hinckley, “The Mormons, Mr. President, call you a ‘living Moses,’ a prophet who literally communicates with Jesus. How do you do that?” (President Hinckley’s answer in a comment).
Yet as I noted in a number of posts, OT scholars generally note problems with Moses’s historicity, and it would seem to me that the OT prophets tended not do much administration. Generally the prophets make declarations and the kings lead, if the kings are good and wise they will listen to the prophets. In the OT, there isn’t a church the prophets lead separate from the larger people that the king leads. As the picture of Moses seems not to be historical, his story seems to represent an ideal that people long for, the prophet leader. [1]
In the NT, it does seem like Jesus and the apostles do attempt something of prophet leader roles, but the book of Acts suggests this wasn’t a clear-cut and smooth process. I’ll give some observations about our own history noting what I see as some challenges to trying to achieve the ideal of prophet administrators in our own tradition as well.
One tendency I want to focus on is a frequent tendency for the church leader to appoint principle administrators into the first presidency. This makes sense and seems to have been something Joseph Smith did himself, calling people with more administrative experience into the first First Presidency: Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams. This and other attempts to form the ideal of prophet leaderships has had some bumps along the way.
I mentioned in one of my first posts, my love for the book Watership Down. I won’t go into too much detail, but a major theme of the book is Hazel as the great leader, not because of size of strength (he’s a little on the small side), but because he’s the best at coordinating and amplifying the talents of the rabbits who follow Hazel. One such rabbit is Hazel’s brother Fiver, one of the smallest rabbits but also the clairvoyant. Fiver is the prophet, and things go best when the other rabbits, especially Hazel, listen to Fiver. But Fiver and Hazel have different “gifts” and neither Fiver, nor any of the other rabbits, have Hazel’s leadership talent. I think that dynamic accords with Nibley’s observation.
[1] Yes, there is the ideal of the prophet administrator in the Book of Mormon with lots of leaders. I’ve noted questions about Book of Mormon historicity as well, but would like to make this post about the OP. If commenters would like to express concerns over scholarship on Moses or the Book of Mormon, I’ll open up another post for that topic.
Comments
18 responses to “Prophets and Administrators”
Richard Rohr talks about the role of Old Testament prophets in the introduction to his book, “The Tear of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage.” In short, they were anything but administrators. Their role was to call God’s people to repentance, to expose their hypocrisies, and by so doing, to create discomfort that leads to repentance and reform. This could devolve into a debate about offices and titles, which isn’t helpful (eg: in our modern church do deacons or teachers do what the D&C outline as their responsibilities?) The point is that if we only accept leaders as “prophets” when they say things that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, then we’re probably ignoring essential prophetic voices that are pushing us to progress, change, and do better. Rohr’s entire introduction can be read on the google books preview here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Tears_of_Things/gW8WEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PR13&printsec=xiii
Another Nibley quotation, posted without comment: “Leaders are movers and shakers, original, inventive, unpredictable, imaginative, full of surprises that discomfit the enemy in war and the main office in peace. For managers are safe, conservative, predictable, conforming organization men and team players, dedicated to the establishment.”
Joseph Smith explicitly expected someone to be Aaron to his Moses and act as his “spokesman.” That doesn’t necessarily map to an administrator, but it could. At the very least it supports the idea of bringing in people with different gifts.
I’m curious what you make of Samuel (not his historicity, unless you feel that has to be addressed before we try to learn from his story). Seems to me he combined the roles of Prophet, both in the sense of predicting the future and in the sense of receiving guidance from the Lord for his people; High Priest, performing ordinances, leading others who did, and managing the tabernacle; and Judge, or political leader. And he was the last to combine all those roles, because the Israelites famously wanted to break them up. So the rest of the Old Testament prophets were indeed voices in the wilderness, solitary or leading small fringe groups, but that was explicitly second-best. Seems like our current practice of combining the roles of Prophet and High Priest is closer to the ideal of a Samuel or a Moses, even if in practice they spend more time being High Priest than Prophet.
I really appreciate these posts.
Seems to me that two vitally important Book of Mormon prophets had no standing in the church hierarchy: Abinadi and Samuel. They both prophesied in a manner that really pissed powerful people off–they both warned wealthy people about the evils of excessive wealth.
Felix, yes, that sounds like the Protestant definition of the prophet which is a little different than the Mormon one. The Protestant one sees the prophet at the one who speaks truth to power, while the Mormon one is more about a special gift of receiving revelation. I think both fit with the OT, but I’m not sure that great administrative talent is necessarily the key aspect.
Great quote, MoPo.
RLD, I think the role of High Priest is very important. Simply put, our leaders are certainly religious ones. I can’t help think there is a long human desire for the ultimate leader who can combine many roles. I wonder if such figures take on legendary status and wonder that about Moses and Samuel.
Tim, yes I see Abinadi and Samuel very much fitting the more Protestant definition.
To be a prophet you must prophecy. Until then you are only carrying the title. All our current leaders are just carrying the title IMO. If they choose not to tell us when they are actually speaking for Jesus and not themselves, then I will default that they are speaking for themselves and not Jesus. Very simple. This doesn’t mean I dont agree with/follow anything they say, it means I dont take everything they say as speaking for Jesus.
There is a reason that the “prophets” avoid saying the word “revelation” in our day. 1) They know that the majority of the believers already think everything they say or change IS a revelation so they roll with it. 2) Their predecessors have not declared any “revelations” so why even go there.
All based on my opinion of course and what I have studied/read to date regarding the history of our past leaders.
We must not think of being an administrator or caretaker as lesser or lower — indeed, that can be a noble and even holy calling. Being sustained as President of the Church gives the incumbent the authority to do everything that is done; indeed, all of the power comes from that office (President of the Church) and none comes from the role (not even an office) of prophet.
Similar thoughts, REC and ji. Hazel in Watership Down leads the rabbits on a Brigham Young like treck of establishing a new warren at the end of a long journey. Hazel is the primary hero of the book and one of the wise things Hazel does is listen to Fiver.
There is what appears to be a pattern when God picks a leader. Main person is “off” or “less capable” and typically has a wing man/woman to help. Its as if God goes out of his way to let future believers know that it is not the person with the skills, they have none, it is God working with an unlikely leader so you know it is God and not the talents of that leader. “least of you will be the leader” kind of deal.
When people in our church pick a new leader, we just go with the next guy in line. It has worked for the most part, surprisingly. You can do this when you are not expecting them to actually prophecy. I dont think that all 15 leaders would be comfortable with producing prophecies. Lucky for them the majority of the members dont ask/question if changes made are by revelation.
I was having lunch with a friend the other day and he said that he will be fine if he just “follows the prophet.” The thought I had was how do you know when he is acting as one to follow since they dont tell you? I kept that thought to myself. I wish I could be like that, but I cant.
Side note: If Joseph Smith III was of age when his father died, I would have followed him instead of Brigham Young. I am not saying BY was the wrong choice, I just know who I would have followed.
I hate Nibleys Leaders vs Managers quote as I think good leaders are also good managers at least at the bottom and mid levels of an organization where 99% of us are. Too many people see themselves as needing to bring “leadership” when they really would benefit others more with compliance, standardization, and optimization.
The prophet vs admins I haven’t thought as much about. I’m sure there is some tension but let’s not forget there may be a lot of overlap. Maybe correlation and modern accounting and fiscal advancements, corporatization, franchising, and policy manual standardization are examples of LDS admin advancement supporting prophecy.
Joseph Smith at his level in the organization seemed to be blessed at prophecy and leadership but knew he had limitations in administration that partially compounded the chaos is Nauvoo. Bennet appeared to be a blessing but like many others in that time weren’t fit to help the administration. Joseph was more of an architect and not a skilled engineer. He proposed communal living, banks, cities, buildings, etc and others were needed that weren’t able to expand and execute the vision. BY got the Saints out west but many administrative attempts besides colonization were failures (Read Arrington especially on economics).
The LDS people seem to have been blessed to become good administrators in and outside the Church over the past 100 years through fine tuning the structure and processes of the Institution along side the preaching and prophecy and the faith has gained a permanency. DOM sparked expansion, others brought in ways to stabilize and expand the work of restoration.
If prophecy is receiving revelation why limit inspiration to where administration is needed?
I confess I’m a little nervous about where this is going. If we agree President Nelson is like Hazel, are we to believe there’s a Fiver out there he should be listening to?
REC911, the trouble with prophets saying when they’re acting as prophets is that the record suggests they’re sometimes wrong about that. Church members are always looking for a mechanical rule that will tell them when they can be sure Church leaders aren’t making a mistake (frequently it’s framed as when we “have” to believe what they say) but there isn’t one. The Lord wants us to follow the prophet, but he also wants us to develop our own minds, our own hearts, and our own ability to receive revelation, while recognizing that we’ll sometimes be wrong. Making us deal with prophets who can also be wrong is part of the learning process.
Sister Joan Chittister is a Cathloic nun, feminist, writer, and poetess/prophetess etc. who reminds me a lot of of a Catholic version of Carol Lynn Pearson. (High compliments to both of these brilliant women whom I consider heroines.)
Sister Joan defines a Prophet as “someone who speaks truth to a culture of lies.” She goes on . . .
” * They care about poverty and decry it, about violence and condemn it, about religion and set out to purify it of its arrogance, its false faith, and the emptiness of its rules and rituals.
*They are more committed to the Word of God than they are to acceptance by those who claim to be the guardians of the Word of God but betray its meaning.
*They are more committed to commitment than they are to social approval.
*They are more given to faith in God than they are to fidelity to the system.
*They are more full of hope in the future than they are afraid of pain in the present.
*They are more committed to the Word of God than they are to fear of those who speak for the institution but claim to speak for God.
*They are more committed to new questions than they are to old answers.
*They are people of their times who prefer to stand, if necessary, alone with God.
*They believe beyond institutional theology in the God who created us all, led us all, lives in all of us, not just some of us, not just our kind, not just us. ”
https://joanchittister.org/word-from-joan/prophetic-spirituality
As I reflect on the prophets in the scriptures, Jesus, and several moments watching our modern day LDS prophets, her definition rings true to me.
I’m sad to admit that sometimes our current prophets will not stand alone – they do not have that type of leadership. They are too bureaucratic, too strategic, too diplomatic. They steward the good ship U.S.S. Zion and it is a giant luxury steamliner that they feel they cannot steer too abruptly least the crowd playing shuffleball on the deck will fall off. They have no desire to be like the lonely lamenting prophets at the end of the Old Testament who mourn in caves alone. They’ve read the book of Helaman and have no desire to dodge real arrows on a wall while trying to hurl a message to an angry crowd (like the Prophet Samuel) and live as an outlaw in exile. They choose to play it cool. Considering our church’s history, can you blame them?
Today they won’t speak up against political atrocities, tyrants, misinformation, quackery, or world-threatening regimes. We as a people are hungry for social approval and even curtail our culture to fit in. We love our celebrities, our accomplishments, our politicians, and success stories.
I don’t want to be in their shoes, or critique them. I resonate with John Adams as depicted in the musical 1776 “If you were the one to do it (write the Dec of Independence) they’d run a quill pen through it, you’re obnoxious and disliked you know it’s true.” Someone like me would run the church into the ground. Meanwhile, the Lord chose amazing and popular brethren who can walk into rooms and their charisma and energy inspire reverential crowds to spontaneously rise to their feet, sing adoring hymns, and shed tears of gratitude.
At the same time, it puts me off to follow leaders who bend in the wind of social appeasement. Churchill said, “You have enemies? Good. That means you stood up for something sometime in your life.” It doesn’t’ feel like we stand up for things, especially as we scramble to conform to the mainstream and are quickly abandoning our weird Mormon ways. It doesn’t feel prophetic or epic, or grand, just mediocre. And they wonder why the members are less dedicated and are leaving in larger numbers. It feels like we don’t value what we’re managing, like we aren’t doing anything epic anymore. We’re just waiving the flag of the peaceful good shepherd Jesus and saying we stand for peace and love. Whoop-ti-doo. And? So what?
I can’t put my finger on exactly what the problem is, but in the musical ‘Hamilton’, Burr’s measured strategic coolness is compared to Hamilton’s unfiltered, fiery idealism. Hamilton sings, “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?” If that’s a true-ism, there could be consequences for following leaders who don’t take a stand.
This measured coolness, strategic diplomacy, this careful public relations’ positioning becomes neutrality. And, we all know that neutrality is never “neutral”, it favors the oppressors.
Will our leaders speak up for the hundreds of thousands of poor, malnourished and starving children who are as we speak, dying because of the removal of USAID resources? Will our Physician Prophet stand up against MAHA and its medical quackery, now that we are seeing a resurgence of measles? As the world’s preeminent vaccine experts have been fired and their panels/committees co-opted by quacks, as many vaccines are now uninsured (and prohibitively expensive), is our Prophet ready to speak truth to a culture of lies? Or shall we just sing praises to Jesus and move on?
“The Lord wants us to follow the prophet”
RLD – You tell me when they are acting as prophets and I will follow them. I am fine with prophets being wrong as I dont think they are always (hardly ever) acting as such. To me, believing everything they do/say we must follow because they have the title of prophet is a scary proposition. Almost cultish. I realize I am not the norm and that’s fine too.
Blows my mind that the last 16 “prophets” dont have a problem with the nickname mormon and members believe/follow the 1 “prophet” that has a problem with it. What?
The apostles dont even follow the prophet….In our history there are several occasions that the “prophet” wanted to change something but there were holdouts in the Q12 so it didn’t get changed.
Think about that. Apostles can disagree with the prophet but members cant? What?
You might know what Pres Kimball had to go through to change the priesthood ban with the apostles. There were holdouts for probably 20+ years. Apostles that did not follow the prophet.
I completely agree with you. Blindly following the “prophet” every time he speaks – bad.
Relying on personal revelation as to what the leaders say/teach – good.
Were they actually wrong or were they not speaking as prophets but over zealot members took it as prophecy? (if they said it, it must be Jesus speaking)
How many meetings do we attend when someone says “the prophet said”… implying we must follow. How many meetings have we attended where someone says “the prophet said” and then we are counseled to go home and find out for yourself if this is prophecy or personal opinion of a church leader? We are basically told not to question and if you do, you are not in the best of standing as members.
I cringe when people say just follow the prophets. But full disclosure…I am weird. :)
Mortimer, I’m sympathetic. I do see prophets crying in the wilderness as a second-best solution when the Lord’s people refuse to give them institutional power (see the discussion of Samuel earlier). But there are downsides to combining the roles of prophet and high priest, like having to care for an institution.
Do we really have such short memories that we need President Nelson to speak out on vaccines again before we’ll accept that the Church (and presumably the Lord) has a position on the topic? It’s right in the Handbook (38.7.13): “Vaccinations administered by competent medical professionals protect health and preserve life. Members of the Church are encouraged to safeguard themselves, their children, and their communities through vaccination.”
REC911, if I could tell you when prophets are acting as prophets that would defeat the purpose. First, I might be wrong (unless the Lord either took away my agency or exempted me from the learning process of mortality–which the Lord doesn’t do for prophets either), and second, it would take away your need to figure it out for yourself. That learning process is more important than being right about particular issues. And note that I said the Lord wants us to follow the prophet, not agree with everything they say. You’re quite right that everyone from apostles to ordinary members can disagree with the prophet on some things and remain faithful.
RLD – Vaccinations – is that the doctor speaking? The pres? the prophet? Committee? Did Nelson have anything to do with that being added to the handbook?
Thanks for your comments. I do appreciate them.
The letter encouraging Church members to wear masks and get vaccinated during the pandemic came from the First Presidency. I’m sure handbook entries are written by a committee, but they’re approved by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.
Seems to me that the Lord made sure a doctor was the prophet during the pandemic (which means he was planning for the pandemic since at least 1985) so he wouldn’t HAVE to give Church leadership a revelation before they’d know how to respond. But it wasn’t just President Nelson. I imagine he talked with his counselors, they discussed the pros and cons (lives saved vs. faith crises prompted), reached a decision, prayed about it, and felt it was the right thing to do so they did it. And they did it in a way that conveyed to Church members that this was an official and authoritative statement, so President Nelson clearly believed he was acting as a prophet. I think he was.
And many members disagreed. I was a junior high councilor at that point, and the night the letter came out we had the most extraordinary stake council meeting trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that a lot of people were not going to follow the prophet on this one. Kicking them out of the Church or denouncing them as unfaithful were not among the options discussed.
RL, I agree that good administration IS really important. That was a very needed talent in the church from the time of it’s founding. In lots of ways I see Young continuing to work to fulfill JS’s vision in Utah. It was central to being able to have the church we have today. I think this is similar to what you said, and I do agree that JS and Young had different gifts.
RLD, I see a model for prophets more like the one Nibley seemed to suggest in the OP. Nibley was covering the topic in 1 Nephi 1:4, “there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.” That’s what sparked the student’s question, basically, shouldn’t prophets and prophecy be more systematized and bureaucratized?
Nibley’s answer: absolutely not.
As Nibley presented it, there isn’t simply one “THE prophet” but many can have that gift as indicated by 1 Nephi 1:4, and Nibley’s point about Eliza R. Snow. It’s a gift not an institutionalized office. I agree.
So my point isn’t to argue that people should listen to someone other than President Nelson, but only there can be additional prophetic voices that are also worth listening to.
Indeed, I see Nibley himself as often performing that prophetic role. Not so much in terms of declaring grand revelations about the future, but more in the mode of the “prophet crying in the wilderness,” saying that there were some very important themes in the scriptures that he worried Mormons weren’t heading enough. We were (are) too focused on commerce and consumerism and not enough on the mutual seeking each other’s welfare central to building Zion.
I think Nibley’s message is a warning that we should definitely heed. I see him as one of the many prophets that we should listen to, especially since his message was very scriptural and one that the church leaders tend not to stress as much.
In other words, I do see Watership Down as a kind of ideal organizational model. Hazel, the ideal leader, listens to Fiver.
Mortimer, yes, I do see that as an important definition. Ideally, holy administrators and prophets would not be at odds, but the great leaders would listen carefully to what the prophets had to say.
REC and RLD, like I said, I do see the ideal as something of a meshing of inspired administrators and inspired prophets. Great leadership is very important and the great leaders will listen to the prophets. I am happy to be in a church with inspired administrators. But I agree with what Nibley said about prophecy being a gift not an office.