Also, Native Americans make an appearance.
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 20-22
Administrative acts don’t always get the same attention that ordinances and more dramatic events. And in comparison to the First Vision, the Martyrdom and a number of other events, the organization of the Church doesn’t get as much attention. This is also true in poetry. But even so, there are poems that mention the organization of the Church. This week’s Come Follow Me lesson discusses sections 20 and 21, both of which refer directly to the organization of the Church. And the third section covered in the lesson, section 22, makes plain the need for baptism by proper authority, something directly connected to the Church’s organization. Whitney’s Two Pictures While the Church’s organization hasn’t received as much attention as the First Vision, poet Orson F. Whitney saw an important connection between them. Whitney was not the first of our poets to eventually become Apostles, but he may be the best, and perhaps even the most ambitious poetically (although Parley P. Pratt can also make these claims). Here’s Whitney’s take on these two early events in Church history: Two Pictures by Orson F. Whitney (1886) The foremost is a scene where forests grow, Where flowers bloom and springtime breezes blow, Where sweet-toned birds send up their matin lay And revel in the golden beams of day. Deep in the bosom of a woodland shade, Where solitude her secret home hath made, A rustic lad, his sunburned temples bare, Pours forth…
“It is not written, that there shall be no end to this torment”
Years ago, I attended a testimony meeting that began with a counselor in the bishopric talking about how grateful he was to be a part of a religion where believed that God was full of grace and would save almost every individual in one degree of glory or another. He quoted from the Vision in Section 76, and discussed how all but a very few would be saved in the Telestial, Terrestrial, or Celestial Kingdom and how grateful he was that God loved His children enough to make a plan that allows pretty much everyone into heaven in some form. What was interesting was what followed—the bulk of the remainder of the testimony meeting was dominated by adults in the ward getting up and rebutting his testimony by “clarifying” that being in a place outside of the top tier of the Celestial Kingdom is still damnation, so we need to work hard to gain eternal life instead of believing that we will have it good in the end, no matter what. In a way, that meeting captured the complicated relationship Latter-day Saints have with universalism. Joseph Smith lived in a context where Universalism was a major part of the religious discussion. Universalists argued that God is a benevolent and generous being whose attributes of love and justice were incompatible with widespread condemnation and permanent torment. They also held that God would not allow Himself to be defeated by Satan and…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 18-19
The sections of the D&C covered in this week’s Come Follow Me lesson are apparently about the calling of the twelve apostles and paying for the Book of Mormon. But they also include themes that don’t directly bear on these purposes. Perhaps the most important theme is the call for repentance, and the subsequent forgiveness. Both sections talk about repentance: section 18 discussing the role of missionaries and members in calling the world to repentance, and section 19 including the oft-cited imploring of the Lord to repent in verse 16: “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that that they might not suffer if they would repent.” A Call to Sinners If we ask what language outside of English first received a sustained call to repentance, I think most Church members today would be surprised to learn that the answer is Welsh. While Orson Hyde published a missionary tract in German earlier, it didn’t represent a sustained missionary effort. Instead, that happened first in Wales, which benefitted from the country’s integration in the United Kingdom. Missionaries first began preaching there in 1840, and saw significant success by 1845, when the well-known missionary Dan Jones began preaching in his native language. In 1846, the first non-English Latter-day Saint periodical Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee) began publication, and included the following anonymous poem: Galwad ar Bechaduriaid (1846) O, bechaduriaid, trowch mewn pryd–– Ar bechu mwy na roweh…
“You shall obtain a view of them”
What were the three witnesses promised and what did they claim to experience? The basics of answering this question seems obvious—they saw the gold plates and other artifacts related to them. What is less apparent is how the Three Witnesses had that experience, since there are indications that they viewed the plates in vision, rather than experiencing them in a tangible way. There is often a desire to make their experience out as being more materialistic than it was, perhaps as a result of conflating their experience with that of the Eight Witnesses, contradictory recollections of those who knew the witnesses, or a desire to have the experiences seem more real by being more physical in nature. Whatever the case, it seems that the Three Witnesses saw and heard in a supernatural setting in a direct contrast to the experience of the Eight Witnesses, who claimed to have touched and handled the plates. Both early revelations and the Book of Mormon itself lay out the promises made to the three witnesses. The earliest promise of a chance to witness the Book of Mormon was a revelation that was received in March 1829 (now D&C 5). The text states that: “three shall Know of A surety that those things are true for I will give them power that they may Behold & v[i]ew these things as they are.”[1] Next, while translating Moroni’s writings in the Book of Ether, the promise was made to…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.4: Orson Hyde on repentance
Most of this article is not actually about repentance.
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 14-17
This week’s Come Follow Me lesson includes several similar sections of the Doctrine and Covenants: three revelations to David Whitmer, John Whitmer and Peter Whitmer, Jr., who have asked the Lord where they should focus their efforts. The fourth section in this lesson is essentially the call to David Whitmer, Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery to be the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. But while these sections have similar purposes and focus on the Whitmer family, they are far from the same. Even the most similar, the revelations to John and to Peter Whitmer, Jr., have some differences. And those differences lead to the discussion of several different principles. John Jaques and Measuring Arms with God In section 14, a revelation given to David Whitmer, the revelation again uses the “marvelous work and a wonder” phrase that is so common in the Doctrine and Covenants. Often this phrase comes with a bit of a paradox, since it is clear that we are supposed to participate, but that regardless of what we do, God will accomplish His purposes. I like how poet John Jaques catches some of this in the following poem. Born in England in 1827, Jaques joined the Church in 1848, and in addition to serving a mission, he wrote poetry, including several hymns in our current hymnal. He is perhaps best known for “Oh Say, What is Truth?” He immigrated to Utah in 1856, and…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.3: Orson Hyde on faith
Orson Hyde’s lecture on faith seems a lot like the Lectures on Faith.
“The keys of the ministering of angels”
One of the persistent questions from Doctrine and Covenants, Section 13 is what is meant by the statement that the Priesthood of Aaron “holds the keys of the ministering of angels.” Answers from general authorities in recent years have varied, including the idea that the Aaronic priesthood comes with a special privilege to have the visitation and ministering of angels;[1] the idea that when men ordained with the Aaronic priesthood serve other people, they act as ministering angels themselves;[2] and the idea that when men ordained to the Aaronic priesthood administer ordinances that offer a remission of sins to those who receive the ordinances (i.e., baptism and the sacrament), they open the door to the ministering of angels to all Church members, since spiritual cleanliness is generally a prerequisite of communion with heavenly beings.[3] The fact that there are a few different answers is an indication, to me, that we don’t really know what is meant by the phrase. This may be, in part, because it brings up a conundrum that we are generally faced with when discussing the priesthood in the Church—what does ordination to the priesthood offer that is not available to faithful, believing, and righteous members of the Church otherwise? First, however, it is worth investigating what the term “keys” might mean in this context. In one dictionary that was contemporary with Joseph Smith’s time, there are eleven different definitions for the word “key”, four of which…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 12-13
The two sections of the D&C for the next Come Follow Me lesson are both quite short, but the second covers one of the most significant events in Church history—the visit of John the Baptist restoring the Aaronic Priesthood and the ordinance of Baptism, found in section 13. But before that, in section 12, we find a blessing on Joseph Knight, Sr., who sought to know what he should do to build up the kingdom. Surprisingly, the answer to that is not often found in the earliest Mormon poetry—when this poetry speaks of Zion or of the kingdom, the message is often simply the millennial message that the Lord will bring Zion, regardless of what we do. Fortunately, there are some poems that do suggest that we should work to build up Zion. Jane Mason On Zion On Zion is the earliest poem I found that mentions that we should be part of building up Zion. Its author, Jane Horby Mason, was born in Louth, Lincolnshire in 1807 and married Thomas Mason in 1840. They had a child, James, in 1841, and several years later Jane joined the Church and wrote a poem titled “Truth” in 1847 and the following poem in 1848. Early the following year, Jane and her son James immigrated to Utah, leaving Thomas behind. In Utah Jane married Levi Savage, Sr. in 1856, and lived in Utah until her death in 1888. I hope to…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.2: Orson Hyde on new scripture
Everything makes sense until the last sentence.
“I will establish my church”
Doctrine and Covenants Section 10 is interesting in its discussion of the Lord’s church because it seems to use the term in two different ways. One definition is the institution that we’re most likely to think of when we hear the term—the one we call Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The second is what has been loosely termed the “church without walls” or the “invisible church”—the collective group of people who are in tune with the Holy Spirit and do God’s work in the world. Both definitions are important to understand and think about in our relationship to the world today. The first definition to be brought up is the institutional Church of Christ that would be established in April 1830. The revelation paraphrases an earlier revelation in stating that the Lord had said: “If this generation harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them.”[1] This seems to alluding to either an unknown revelation that we don’t have today or a revelation given to Martin Harris in March 1829 about the Three Witnesses, which proclaimed that they would receive their testimony “in this the beginning of the rising up and the coming forth of my church out of the wilderness—clear as the moon, fair as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners,” and that “their testimony shall also go forth unto the condemnation of this generation if they harden their hearts against them.”[2] …
Deny not the Spirit of Revelation-a reflection on Come Follow Me
The story of the First Vision is one of the most beloved in all the Gospel, and many of us have sat through multitudes of lessons on what truths this vision taught, one of which being that the creeds of all of the other religions are an abomination to God. Sometimes this has been interpreted as meaning that the religions are an abomination, but that is not what God said–it was the creeds that God hated. Weirdly, however, while there are some creeds that teach things that we find abominable, there are many that are perfectly fitting with our doctrine. (I don’t think most Latter-day Saints would find it abominable, for example, that Jesus is the son of God, that he saved us from our sins, that he was born of a virgin, etc.) But God did not distinguish between which creeds were an abomination, they were all lumped together. Joseph Smith’s way of defining the gospel was that “Mormonism is truth, in other words the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, is truth. … The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of [others].”[1] When explaining what God meant when telling Joseph that the religious creeds were all an abomination, he explained, “I want to come up into…
At Home with Nothing to do? Try a Zion Project
I am currently serving as the RS president in our ward. Basically I have spent the last almost year pining and waiting for things to get back to normal, but lately I have been thinking that maybe that is not at all what I want. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait until we can leave the house without masks and can be with people without it, you know, ending in death. But I’m also realizing, what better time to shake things up a bit? Firmly believing that if you’re going to do something you might as well do it big, and in honor of this year’s study of the Doctrine and Covenants, our Relief Society is going to put forth a concerted effort this year to create a Zion community, and we want to think outside of the box to do it. For example, many people think Zion is a place where everyone can be accepted, but it’s also a place where people are not free to hurt each other. There have to be some firm boundaries of accepted behavior. How do you see boundaries being implemented while at the same time appreciating diversity? What problematic behaviors do you think are deserving of patience and what ones cannot be tolerated under any circumstances? I have a million questions and I would love to get some ideas from you all. I would truly love to know what you picture when…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 10-11
The two sections in this week’s Come Follow Me lesson seem very different. The first, section 10, concerns the aftermath of the loss of the 116 manuscript pages containing the initial translation of the Book of Mormon. In contrast, section 11 is a revelation of advice to Hyrum Smith. But in both of them is a message of seeking the Lord and relying on Him—the first proclaiming that God foresaw everything from the beginning, so we should rely on Him, and the second urging reliance on Him by accepting revelation and prophecy. Seek Ye The Lord by Maria Berry Let’s start with a poem by Maria Berry, apparently the Maria Berry who lived in the then mining boomtown of Mammoth, some 45 miles west southwest of Provo (near Eureka). If this is correct, then Maria was born in Denmark as Hansine Marie Bluhm, and immigrated with her family to the United States in 1881, when she was just over a year old. She married John Ernst Berry (born Behre in Germany, also immigrated as a child) in 1900, and raised her family first in Sanpete county and then in Mammoth, before the family settled in Salt Lake. She passed away in 1969. This poem shares its first line with the hymn “Count Your Many Blessings”, which may cause some confusion or dissonance when reading it. But its message is much closer to the message of the lesson: Seek Ye…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.1: Orson Hyde on the Godhead
Orson Hyde’s explication of doctrine, like the Articles of Faith, begins with the nature of God, although Hyde’s treatment is about 30 times as long.
“You have another gift”
In a land of myth and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom[1] rests on the shoulders of a young man. His name … Joseph. If you couldn’t tell from the text above, my wife and I have been watching the TV series Merlin lately. We’ve rather enjoyed their take on the Arthurian legends. To me, there is something fascinating about stories that are told and retold time and time again for hundreds of years. Now, I inserted Joseph’s name into the opening sequence of that TV series for this post because while the United States isn’t a land lost in myth and legend like Camelot, the early days of our religion were, for many adherents, a time of magic. To be fair to them, they didn’t necessarily see what they were doing as magic—more often they viewed it in religious terms. For example, in this week’s readings for “Come, Follow Me,” we come across an interesting portion of Section 8 that discusses Oliver Cowdery having “the gift of Aaron.”[2] While the nature of this gift is obscured in the text of the Doctrine and Covenants, the earliest extant version of the revelation states that Oliver had “the gift of working with the sprout,” which was a “thing of Nature” and that it was “the work of God.”[3] A subsequent version of the text rendered this as “the gift of working with the rod.”[4] The Joseph Smith…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 6-9
The central character in this week’s D&C sections is Oliver Cowdery, the primary scribe and assistant to Joseph Smith in the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon. In our mythology1, we frequently recount the story, told in two of these sections2, of Oliver’s attempt and failure at translating the Book of Mormon, often to teach the idea (among others) that receiving revelation is work, something that we need to put effort into. A third of these section also seeks to help Oliver understand revelation, while the fourth is, if nothing else, an example of revelation. So we don’t need to search hard to find a theme for this week. The Revelation by Hannah Deady Tomsik And the theme of revelation appears regularly in LDS poetry. Let’s start with a very personal poem, and one that I think will resonate with many of us today. It was written in 1921, not long after the influenza pandemic, by Hannah Tomsik of Washington City, Utah. At this point she was a mother of three small children, and her immediate family had escaped the pandemic. But her poem suggests that she saw many others suffer: The Revelation by Hannah Deady Tomsik (1921) We look upon our neighbor in his grief, And wonder how he bears the bitter pain. In our weak way, we try to give relief; We try to help and comfort, but in vain. We see him lay…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 3: Orson Hyde on priesthood
The subject of the priesthood office has by itself already caused more contention, bitterness and jealousy between the Catholic and the Protestant church than all remaining matters of dispute combined.
“Let God Prevail”
I share here a sacrament meeting talk I delivered recently in my St Louis congregation. I suspect there have been many other such sermons on the same topic delivered in wards around the globe over the past three months. President Nelson’s October address seems to have made a powerful impression on our people in this time of spiritual hunger. I endorse President Nelson’s message and am grateful to have reflected on it at length here. In one of the most enigmatic scenes in the Old Testament, a man stands alone on the bank of the Jordan river at midnight. The man is Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, a hard-driving trader in a hurry from the moment he was born grasping his twin brother’s heel as if to drag him back into the womb. Jacob has been on the move for many years, first leaving home to escape the wrath of his twin Esau, from whom, after the failed heel-grab, he eventually did manage to take the coveted birthright blessing. Now Jacob has fled from his father-in-law Laban, from whom he has won two daughters and much property. The Lord is calling him back to Canaan, the land of his father, and Jacob is on his way home. At the threshold of return, the Jordan river, Jacob finds himself at an impasse. His family has crossed, but Jacob himself stays behind. At his back is Laban, before him is Esau; in…
Louis Midgley on Hugh Nibley, the Maori, and More
In an interview ranging from discussing Hugh Nibley to missionary work in New Zealand to systematic theologies to the dedication of the Swiss Temple, Kurt Manwaring recently sat down with Latter-day Saint apologist (and retired professor of political science) Louis C. Midgley. What follows here is a co-post to one at Kurt Manwaring’s site, where I’ll focus in on a couple points of particular interest, but for those interested in reading more, hop on over to the full interview here. Louis Midgley was a friend and colleague of Hugh Nibley and has worked hard to defend Nibley’s career and to share his writings with the world. At a few points throughout the interview, he shared stories about Hugh Nibley. One humorous one from Nibley’s mission was that: When Hugh Nibley was a missionary in Germany before WW II, a local branch took up a collection for someone who really needed a suit. Hugh chipped in with some money. He did not realize that he was the one for whom they were raising money—it was his suit that was in rags. A more poignant story was about Nibley at the end of his lifetime: Phyllis called me and urged me to visit her husband. I did. And we talked. Hugh was in a hospital bed. He could hardly speak. He’d mumble and we’d talk back and forth. We talked a bit about New Zealand and the Maori. Since he had heard…
“A man may have many revelations”
We’re four weeks into the year, and we’ve finally reached the beginning of the Doctrine and Covenants. I know we started the book weeks ago, but what I mean to say is that this week we’re now working with the earliest material in the Doctrine and Covenants. Section 3 is the first revelation from Joseph Smith for which a text has survived (even pre-dating the text of the Book of Mormon), while for Section 5 is the revelation for which we have the earliest extant copy of any of Joseph Smith’s revelations (a copy created by Oliver Cowdery after his arrival, around April 1829).[1] The prior two sections that we’ve studied are placed before Section 3 because Section 1 was written as a preface for the Doctrine and Covenants and Section 2 is recalling events that occurred in 1823. Section 2, however, was written in 1838-1839 as part of an official history and added to the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876 (by comparison, our Section 3 is Section 2 in the Community of Christ’s version of the Doctrine and Covenants), while Section 1 was written in 1831. All three of the revelations we are studying this week were received in the period before the Church itself was founded or the bulk of the Book of Mormon as we have it was dictated, spanning the period of July 1828-March 1829. As the earliest existing documents of the Latter Day Saint movement,…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 3-5
In the three sections covered in this week’s Come Follow Me lesson we go with Martin Harris from the 116 pages to being a witness, with a detour to Joseph Smith Sr. and what it means to serve God. While I haven’t found poems that mention the events associated with these sections, there are a number that examine the principles in them. For example, the lesson discusses Martin Harris’ worries about his standing in the community and with his wife as one of the contributing factors behind him seeking the 116 manuscript pages, and draws from Section 3 the principle “Trust God not man.” And that teaching is the subject of the following poem by Thomas Ward. A Fragment by Thomas Ward Thomas Ward served as editor of the Millennial Star, the Church’s long-running England-based periodical, following Parley P. Pratt’s return to the US in October 1842 until Orson Hyde took over in October 1846, as Ward was apparently leaving England temporarily. By the next year, Ward was in England, and had become ill with dropsy. He died on March 4th. A Fragment is one of several poems that Ward published in the Millennial Star. A Fragment By Thomas Ward (1843) I mark’d him as he stood with downcast eye, Whence, ever and anon, a tear would start; While with convulsive throb his bosom heav’d; ‘Twas nature’s final struggle to o’ercome The high resolve, the purpose of the…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste: translating the name of the church in 1842
The translator thought about it and…just gave up.