Mormonism has placed each believer into having to choose which Prophets you believe and which Prophets you don’t. Choosing which Prophets are right about the views they hold claiming they got them from God and which prophets were simply wrong claiming something came from God when it must surely be their own false view since the views are contradictory. In the end the disagreement seems so obviously contradictory that one must choose one claim over the other which leaves them dismissing a prophet and having that prophet apparently unable to discern between the voice of God and his own false imagination. And once you admit that prophets and those who place faith in them are no more able to discern truth from error via the Holy Ghost…… Then how does one navigate with certainty about their own spiritual knowings and those of the prophets when one could be misled this easily. And the Cherry on top is the LDS Church’s continued Deception around the issue including misleading members by articulating the issue as if Brigham didn’t teach it through their talks, the Church manuals, and private letters demanding silence.
RESOURCES:
https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:Was_the%22Adam-God%22_theory_ever_taught_as_part_of_the_temple_endowment_ceremony_as_something_called_%22the_lecture_at_the_veil%22%3F
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1975/04/a-self-inflicted-purging?lang=eng
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1976/10/our-own-liahona?lang=eng
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1980/10/adam-the-archangel?lang=eng
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-r-mcconkie/seven-deadly-heresies/#byu-header
http://www.eugeneengland.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/BRM-to-EE-Feb-80-Combined.pdf
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-brigham-young/chapter-14?lang=eng
https://journalofdiscourses.com/9/27
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-brigham-young/chapter-4?lang=eng
https://www.journalofdiscourses.com/1/8
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I was taught Adam-God by his royal cockiness, Joseph F. McConkie, in a Pearl of Great Price class at BYU in 2002. I had never heard it before and it struck me as totally crazy. I drove to a Deseret Book store that evening to look for references of Brigham Young, which, of course, I found. Adam-God theory is one of the sexier examples of it, but in reality, it is just one example of how there is no such thing as eternal truth or standard doctrines in Mormonism. All doctrines are subject to reinterpretation and are held or discarded at the whim of the current corporate head.
‘his royal cockiness’….hilarious! I can just imagine. I was a teen in the70’s when Bruce R. thought he was God. I had a sickening pit in my stomach every time he pontificated in his arrogant , know it all way from the pulpit. When he died, I was secretly delighted and guilt ridden for feeling so. Of course I blamed it on my own weakness and not on his terrifying fire and brimstone certainty! LOL!
Interesting that the Grandfather and Great Grandfather was replaced by lowercase “him.” If it were in reference to the Father, shouldn’t this have been capitalized too? Suggests the manual aggregators or editors had no clue what was going on, just doing what they were told.
RFM….thank you for you very well researched and laid out lesson here. You covered a lot very efficiently. Let me also add that you are an extremely patient and humble man in spite of whatever obstacles or annoyances come your way….I’ll leave that to your own interpretation.
Here’s a ‘new name’ for Bruce R’s father-in-law…how about
“Joseph, What the F Brigham?’ Smith”
Was anyone wondering if the nepotism stopped at Adam? LOL!
This podcast triggered a memory of that time when Adam God was a frequented conversation in Utah. A little story to Elder Peterson’s book that RFM refers to “Adam: Who Is He?” In 1984 on the 4th floor in the Lee library at BYU I came across a master thesis published in 1953 by a religion teacher at BYU, Rodney Turner titled “The Position of Adam in Latter-Day Scripture and Theology.” It thoroughly destroyed all of Elder Peterson’s talking points in his book, so I looked up Professor Turner’s home address, he was retired, and I knocked on his door. Bro Turner let me in after which I so no way that Peterson’s book could be viable in any way. Turner agreed with me so I asked how an apostle could write such a book. Professor Turner replied that Peterson must not know the information.
I drove back home and told my BYU professor dad of the conversation, from which he laughed at me. We live across the street from BYU with a ward full of professors, including several well know religion professors. My dad recounted several anecdotes he heard from them where it was clear that Lying for the Lord is very real in the Church, especially the Q15. To entertain the notion that Peterson wasn’t aware of the facts was simply naive. Rather, Elder Peterson was simply lying for the Lord.
Many years later in his interview with Dehlin, Brent Metcalfe tells of a conversation that he had with Mark E. Peterson where he plainly admits he was lying in his book. He did so to prevent members from apostatizing and becoming fundamentalists.