Returning to the series I was working on earlier this year about canonization, I wanted to discuss why it sometimes isn’t the best idea to canonize documents. Part 1 of the series discussed the process by which canonization occurs in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while Part 2 discussed some documents that could possibly be canonized in the future. While I generally feel like more documents could and should be canonized, I also recognize that there are legitimate reasons to be hesitant about expanding the scriptural canon.

The most notable reason is that practices and doctrines change in the Church over time. This is a necessary part of allowing the Church to adapt and is why ongoing revelation is so important. In my discussion of Monogamy is the Rule, for example, I discussed the 1886 Revelation of John Taylor and how the document was not canonized and is not regarded as binding upon the Church as a result. The Church began the process of backing away from plural marriage as a practice within five years of the Taylor revelation being recorded, and if it had been officially canonized, this process would have been made much more difficult. (As it was, section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants has posed its own challenges to the process of divorcing the Church from practicing polygamy.)

This reason for avoiding canonization is highlighted by the stories of the few documents that have been decanonized in Latter-day Saint scripture. The most notable example is the Lectures on Faith, a theological textbook for missionaries in the Church that was prepared by a group of Church leaders in Kirtland in 1834. This was the original “doctrine” section of the Doctrine and Covenants, but was suggested for removal in 1876 and was finally removed in the 1920 edition. While there is still much in the lectures that is congruent within the Latter-day Saint tradition, a likely reason is differences of belief about the Godhead portrayed in the lectures from the current beliefs (particularly those shaped by section 130 after its canonization in the 1870s).^[1] There is also an 1835 statement of marriage that was decanonized. This statement of belief declared, “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.”^[2] Given the practice of plural marriage that was current in the Church in the 1870s, this document was quietly dropped from the scriptures at the same time that section 132 was added.

As the stories of these decanonized documents that were removed due to changes in belief and practice demonstrate, it is, perhaps, more beneficial to guide the Church through documents that are regarded as easier to change. The Church’s handbook has largely come to fulfil this purpose while avoiding the relative immutability that comes with canonization.

President Brigham Young provided another theological reason for care about how revelations are presented—accountability. There is a revelation of Brigham Young that was rediscovered by Christopher Blythe that allows us to glean some insight into how he chose to capture and convey what had been revealed unto him. President Brigham Young shared the revelation at the beginning of a discourse given in St. George, Utah, in February 1874. He stated:

The word of the Lord that was reveal[e]d to his People, by his servant the Prophet sear and Reverlator, President Brigham Young, Feb[r]uary 1874[.] He speak unto the people saying, Thus saith the Lord it is my will that this people should enter into A Holy united order, by concentrating their labour, there time, and their means together for the interest of my Kingdom, and for their own mutual benefit, And I the Lord will bless them abundantly, they shall get along with less labour, and less means, And become a great deal richer, and happyer, and be enabled to do a great deal more good, And if not the curse of the Lord will be upon them, for we are got as far as we can get in our present position, for the time is fully come that we should enter into this Holy Order, the Lord is saying come, and Holy angles are saying come, and all good men are saying come, and I say come let us enter into this Holy Order, that the Kingdom of Heaven may continue to advance, till it fill the whole earth with the knowledge and love of God, Hear this oh Israil, I tell you the Kingdom of God cannot advance one step further until we enter into this Holy Order.^[3]

While this revelation was shared in this form at that time to encourage the Latter-day Saints to join the United Order of Enoch and follow the Law of Consecration, Young chose to soften the presentation the next time he shared it by framing it as follows: “Thus saith the Lord unto my servant Brigham, Call ye, call ye, upon the inhabitants of Zion, to organize themselves in the Order of Enoch.”^[4]

Christopher Blythe noted the change and provided some reasoning for why President Brigham Young changed the wording to something other than a direct command from God to the Saints. Blythe wrote, “First, he argued that the Saints had not lived up to the revelations that Joseph Smith had already revealed,” quoting President Young as saying, “But before we desire more written revelation, let us fulfil the revelations that are already written, and which we have scarcely begun to fulfil.” Blythe then added, “Second, Young believed that the Saints were more accountable when a revelation was framed in the voice of deity,” quoting Young again as stating that if the will of the Lord is framed more softly, “the consequences of disobedience are not so dreadful, as they would be if the word of the Lord were to be written under the declaration, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’”^[5] It seems like, based on this example, Brigham Young avoided written revelations because he believed the Saints still needed to embrace the ones they had in that format and that to add more would make them more accountable than they were ready for. While I don’t necessarily appreciate the lack of respect for moral agency or trust in the capabilities of Latter-day Saints, it is an additional reason to avoid canonization in some cases.

Thus, while canonization is an important process for establishing what documents will guide and shape our religious community, more is not always better. The constant process of evolving and adapting the Church to meet the needs of the time—guided by revelation—means that documents established as scripture can sometimes prove more limiting than useful.

 

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Footnotes:

^[1] Allen D. Roberts, Steven C. Walker and Richard Van Wagoner, “The ‘Lectures on Faith’: A Case Study in Decanonization,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 20, no. 3 (Fall 1987), 71–77.

^[2] Appendix 3: Statement on Marriage, circa August 1835, p. 251, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-3-statement-on-marriage-circa-august-1835/1.

^[3] Thomas C. Haddon, Thomas C. Haddon writings, circa 1882, Church History Catalog, Salt Lake City, UT (MS 3216).

^[4] Brigham Young, “The United Order is the Order of the Kingdom where God and Christ Dwell—The Law of the Kingdom of Heaven Protects All People in Their Religious Worship—In Obeying Counsel There Is Salvation,” in Journal of Discourses, 17:154.

^[5] Christopher James Blythe, “Brigham Young’s Newly Located February 1874 Revelation,” BYU Studies 58, no. 2 (2019), 171–175. Brigham Young quotes are from Brigham Young, “The Lord at the Head of His Kingdom—Self-discipline—Necessity of Cultivating a Knowledge of Science, and Particularly of Theology, etc.,” in Journal of Discourses, 6:319, and Brigham Young, “Saints Improving Slowly—Guidance of the Spirit and Dictation of the Priesthood—Fasting, and Gathering the Poor,” in Journal of Discourses, 12:127–128.