Why the Mormons have to be on the right track regarding Jesus.

Who best knows what Jesus taught, or did or thought (or thinks)? 

To some, apparently Evangelicals included,  the answer is the Bible. . .

Jesus love me, yes I know, because the Bible tells me so.

To me this song was always a bit baffling.  If Jesus loves you, and he is alive. . and is GOD it seems that we would be able to find out from Him directly whether he loves you.  Depending on the Bible alone, and the teams of unbiased scholars it would take to approach an accurate exegisis of a 2000 year old document seems like a strange approach indeed.  When the bible text is limited and not completely clear, theology becomes a slave to scholarship and scholars, collectively, rarely agree on anything. 

Mormons take a different approach, we posit that Jesus must be speaking to some or all of his followers directly and try to find out the truth by listening and recognizing his voice.  We teach our kids: 

I know my Father lives, and loves me too, the Spirit whispers this to me and tells me it is true. 

Personal revelation as well as global revelation is the conceptual center of the Mormon faith. The Mormon mantra, is their testimony that God speaks to us today, Joseph Smith was a prophet and there is a living prophet on the earth today.  How do Mormons know this?  From the voice of God himself, by the voice of his Spirit. 

Joseph Smith, speaking for God, declared:

” For verily the ^avoice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to ^bescape; and there is no eye that shall not see, neither ^cear that shall not hear, neither ^dheart that shall not be penetrated.” Doctrine and Covenants 1:2

Speaking for himself he taught:

“God hath not revealed anything to Joseph, but what he will make known unto the Twelve, and even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them…”  –Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 150-151

Of course I know that non-mormon eyes start to roll at this point.  People who speak for God, or as God, are a dime a dozen and there are always a bunch of suckers ready to buy the story.   Any charismatic preacher with a egomaniacal bent can form a sect, cult, following, denomenation  (pick your term).  Joseph Smith, they say, was just one of a long list of self-proclaimed (false) prophets.   

I hear the argument loud and clear, and it is certainly compelling.  (Mormons think all those other people were false prophets too! )

However, even if I was convinced (as evangelicals are) that Joseph should be lumped in with the Mohommeds of the world and the Book of Mormon with the Urantia book, Its difficult to argue against the approach and reasoning: i.e. Go  first to God to find what God thinks and then listen to his answers.   If you want to know what Jesus really taught, why can’t we dial him up now, or least find some sort of spokesman.  Even the organizations devoted to Mammon have customer service representatives, how much more should God, our father who loves us, provide contemporary customer support?

As an attorney and a student of philosophy,  I have lost my faith in debate and analysis to untangle complicated events such as the life and ministry of Jesus.   In my experience, its nearly impossible to figure out with certaintywhat was said and done last year, let alone alone 2000 years ago. It seems that if that examination of the known facts and documents of historical christianity is our best path, then we are destined to be “Ever learning, and never able to come to theknowledge of the truth.”

Palin, Prayer, Politics and Prophecy

When I saw the media coverage of Sarah Palin’s speech in her church (shown in full here,part 1 and  here part 2) had some observations and questions relevant to this blog.

It has struck me with my limited experience with Evangelical prayer that they generally pray for different things and pray in different ways.

1. Evangelical prayer is more informal, Mormon prayer seems more solemn and formal, very often using old-style english and very formal forms.

2. Praise is a much bigger theme in Evangelical prayers.  Mormons generally don’t have many hymns or prayers of praise like I have seen in evangelical churches, i.e. Mormons don’t really talk a lot about how God is great and awesome and powerful.  Mormons are generally thankful and

3.  It seems that Palin is much more open in praying for certain things to happen in the world, i.e. pipelines, economic development, etc.  Mormons are more subdued in that sort of thing, I generally feel embarrased when people pray for such “political” things (I don’t really know if most mormons are that way or not).  Is this typical of evangelical prayers?

4. I think for many mormons it is an uncomfortable thing to pray for one particular person to obtain public office or that some political event to take place.  Mormons and the Mormon church do tend to be more right-wing than the average person in the U.S.  (not really true outside the US) and socially “conservative” across the board but politics is most often carefully kept out of public worship.   At least in the case of Palin’s pastor, he seems very open about putting Palin in office.    I am sure he believes his prayers had a part in getting her on the Republican ticket.   Despite the claims of prophetic guidance, Mormon leaders are now extremely conservative in making any sort of political prophecy. I think there is a lot of irony here, i.e. that Mormons, in my opinion, are more uncomfortable about such bold prophecy than evangelicals, and generally more skeptical unless the prophecy is very clearly delivered as such from the head of the church.

5. I thought the older pastor’s prayer seemed much more Mormon-like, i.e. it focused on love, gospel, and left out politics.

The questions that remain are:

Are Mormons comfortable (or even excited) about having a national leader who prays like Palin? are Evangelicals?

If you are comfortable or excited about having a national leader make decisions based on prayer, does it make a difference that the leader prays in a “Mormon” or “Evangelical” (or some other) way?

Is there something Mormons can learn from evangelicals prayers and vice versa?  such as: Could Mormons get closer to God by praising more and could Evangelicals get closer by focusing less on political areas and more on interpersonal issues?

Could the fact that evangelicals seem to be very bold in their prophecy on a local level, help them develop more understanding of Mormon’s belief in modern prophecy as authoritative?