Episode 2 of the Mormon Canon Podcast!
Joseph Fielding McConkie once said the McKays and McConkies don't always see eye to eye. Could it have something to do with President McKay's chilly reception to Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine when it was first published?
Is it possible to write a comprehensive and definitive encyclopedia about all aspects of the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Can apostles and prophets disagree? Why are agency and infallibility wholly incompatible?
This podcast coincides with the publication of the Mormon Canon Preface at Canonizer.com. Do you agree with Bruce R. McConkie's original preface? Do you prefer our 2019 revised preface? Or do you want to write a different preface altogether? Join a camp or create one of your own!
Episode 2 of the Mormon Canon Podcast!
Joseph Fielding McConkie once said the McKays and McConkies don't always see eye to eye. Could it have something to do with President McKay's chilly reception to Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine when it was first published?
Is it possible to write a comprehensive and definitive encyclopedia about all aspects of the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Can apostles and prophets disagree? Why are agency and infallibility wholly incompatible?
This podcast coincides with the publication of the Mormon Canon Preface at Canonizer.com. Do you agree with Bruce R. McConkie's original preface? Do you prefer our 2019 revised preface? Or do you want to write a different preface altogether? Join a camp or create one of your own!
Hello and welcome to the second episode of the Mormon Canon podcast. My name is Jim Bennet. My name is actually James McKay Bennet, and that's going to become very significant as we go forward because I've titled this episode Mackay versus McConkey and I think that's a little more dramatic than it needs to be, but my cousin wants, took a class from Joseph fielding McConkie who was I told you in the last episode was my mission president. He was also the son of Bruce R McConkie, the author of Mormon doctrine. They had a number of rather heated conversations and at one point Joseph fielding said to my cousin, you're on McKay, aren't you? The McKay's in the McConkie. These have never quite gotten along. Now I got along with Joseph fielding McConkie without any problem at all, but the issue stems all the way back to the publication of Mormon doctrine and today we're going to actually get into the text of the book. If you go to[inaudible] dot com on the front page down at the bottom, there is a box that says what's new? It canonized, sir, and you will find a link to a camp statement where we go over the preface from Bruce[inaudible] book. And what I've done there is we put Bruce R McConkie and his original preface from the 1958 version of Mormon doctrine. That's the first edition. That's also the most controversial edition, which I think is gonna make this a little more fun. And there's also a revised preface that I have written that I think represents where we are in terms of what Mormon doctrine is in the year 2019 and so what I invite you to do is go there, read both of those and determine which camp you want to join. If you think that Bruce R McConkie is prefaces absolutely right and represents the current state of latter day Saint theology, go ahead and join that camp. If you think otherwise, and read my preface and think, Hey, no, Jim Bennett knows what he's talking about here. I'm going to join that camp. What happens is as people join different camps on canonized, the most popular camps rise to the top and the camps that aren't as popular or that are outdated or falsified, sort of fall down to the bottom. And then you get a sense of where the consensus is and you're able to get that without the kind of heated arguments and debates that you find on social media and everywhere else. And so I would invite you to take a look at what's there. And if you don't like what's there, if you don't like Bruce R McConkie statement, if you don't like my statement, feel free to write a statement of your own. You create a camp and then you write a camp statement. And hopefully as we go forward, people are going to look at these things. And we're going to have a number of different camp statements, particularly about the more controversial topics. And I think that's going to give us a lot of insight into where we are with Mormon theology and the 21st century. So I want to give you a little bit of background because the preface, as Bruce R McConkie wrote, it describes his goal for what he wanted Mormon doctrine. The book to be in 1958 elder McConkie wrote this work on Mormon doctrine is unique. The first book of its kind ever published. It is the first major attempt to digest, explain and analyze all of the important doctrines of the kingdom. It is the first extensive compendium of the whole gospel. I mean, go big or go home, right? The idea that the whole gospel is contained in the 778 page work is just a little presumptuous for my tastes, and it was a little presumptuous for David omakase tastes. David O. McKay was the president of the church at the time. The Bruce R McConkie published this book and he published it without seeking first presidency approval. Bruce R McConkie was the son-in-law of Joseph fielding Smith and Joseph fielding. Smith didn't even know this book was being published. The first he'd heard about it was when David O. McKay heard about it. When it hit the presses, and there's a little bit of history there that I want to give you. Joseph fielding Smith wrote a book called man, his origin and destiny and in man his origin and destiny. He lays out the case for why organic evolution is of the devil, why the earth is only 6,000 years old. Why all of the continents were divided in the days of pay lag. It actually teaches the idea that continental drift is something that happened less than 6,000 years ago when some guy named Peleg was alive and he's mentioned in the book of Genesis. All of the continents split apart and moved all across the world and were put where they are now. And so it was very much a young earth creationist manifesto and Joseph fielding Smith wanted it published by the church. David O. McKay was a believer in organic evolution. At one point he gave a speech where he talked about Darwin's beautiful theory of evolution in the printed version of the speech, they took out the word beautiful cause. I guess that's a little too controversial, but the idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old is an idea that Joseph fielding Smith thought was essential for every latter day Saint to believe, except the problem was the president of the church at the time didn't believe it. My mother is David omakase granddaughter and was also the curator of all of his private papers and donated all of them to the university of Utah special collections where you can go and look at them yourself. However, there was one piece she did not donate, and that was David omakase personal copy of Joseph fielding Smith's book. Man, his origin and destiny and the way she described it to me had me very excited because she said that he was writing all these notes in the margins and saying how, how wrong it was and how terrible it was, and I thought this was going to be really explosive if I could get my hands on it. And I finally did. It's was sitting on my parent's bookshelf and I went and took a look at it. There are some notes in the margins. There's, but they're not particularly explosive. There is one sheet of paper that's inserted into the book where president McKay listed what he called were misapplied scriptures. It seems fairly innocuous to me, but I think my mother was concerned that people would be shaken if they discovered that the president of the church and the president of the quorum of the 12 didn't agree on something. Well, there's been a whole lot more scholarships since Greg Prince's book. David O. McKay in the rise of modern Mormonism has outlined all of the battles between Joseph fielding Smith and my great grandfather. And one of the things that's always remarkable to me is how many members of the church still believe in a sort of prophetic infallibility that it's not possible for these prophets and apostles to disagree on anything or if it is they are only disagreeing on minor things. I mean when I talk to people about prophetic fallibility, a lot of them say, Oh yeah, profits can make mistakes. They can forget when your birthday is, they can give you the wrong directions. But when it comes to doctrine which never changes in which is rigid and an alterable, these are people who converse on a weekly basis, if not a daily basis with the person of Jesus Christ and it is not possible for them to get any of this wrong. Well, it's not a question to me of right and wrong. It's a question of different interpretations where we do not have revelation on any given subject. It's entirely appropriate for people even at the highest levels of church government to disagree. And David O. McKay repeatedly stated that the church does not have revealed information about how the world was created and that there is no theological impediment for any member of the church to believe in science. Whereas Joseph fielding Smith insisted, no, no, you can't believe in science and believe in religion at the same time, which I think is sort of a short sighted view. And I think David omakase view thankfully has won out over the years. But that kind of battle between the McKays and the fielding Smith's carried over to the McKays and the McConkie. When Bruce R McConkie published Mormon doctrine. I'm now going to quote from Greg Prince, his book David O. McKay in the rise of modern Mormonism. The first paragraph on page 50 of that book, Prince writes that Mormon doctrine was an immediate success on the book stands largely because it gave succinct answers to a plethora of questions and did so in an authoritative tone. In spite of the author's disclaimer that he bore quote, soul and full responsibility on quote for the contents. McKay's initial reaction to the book was not favorable in a first presidency meeting. He said that quote, the general authorities of the church should be informed that the first presidency expect no book to be published unless it be first submitted unquote. And just as an aside, that's submitted to the reading committee. In fact, after this, after this whole debacle, uh, it was established as a policy of the church, which is still the policy. The church today, that anything published by a general authority has to be submitted to the reading committee and has to be reviewed by the first presidency before the book can go forward. So they learned a lot of lessons through this process that are still part of the church today. So back to Greg prints, he said the dilemma for him was the same that he had faced four years early with Smith's book. That's Joseph fielding. Smith man has origin and destiny quote mrs president McKay being quoted in the minds of the people, the general authorities in their individual capacities cannot be separated from them in their official capacities. Unquote McCade was tolerant of McConkie has individual views, but objected as he had with Smith to McConkie his implication that those views represented official church doctrine. And so Greg prints goes on at length about this and the entire experience president McKay had a number of general authorities review it. They determined that the book contained roughly 1067 errors. So that's not roughly, that's a precise amount. And they said that the errors cover all 778 pages of the book. So the question became, what do we do about this? Because the one thing president McKay was not willing to do was to publicly disagree with another general authority in public. And this I think is a cultural issue within the church today that I don't think does us a whole lot of good. You don't see general authorities disagreeing in public. It just doesn't happen. I can't think of any example in my lifetime with one possible exception, back in 1990 Russell M. Nelson, then elder Russell M. Nelson gave a talk and his talk was all about how essential it was that we use the full name of the church in all of our references to it, and the word Mormon was an inappropriate nickname. And if you go back and read that 1990 conference talk, it reads suspiciously like the 2018 conference talk where now president Nelson, president of the church reaffirmed everything he said in 1990 and made it very clear to those who had been following his ministry from 1990 till now that this has been something that has been very important to him for a very long time. The reason it didn't take hold in 1990 is that at the very next conference, Gordon B Hinckley, that a member of the first presidency and therefore Russell M Nelson's ecclesiastical superior, gave a talk where he referenced directly elder Nelson's talk and said nice things about it. And then proceeded to tear it apart and say that the Mormon nickname is too easy to say we can't get rid of it, but we can make it shine with added luster and we should make sure that Mormon means more good. And so from that point on, up until 2018 when Russell M. Nelson was in the words of his wife unleashed and could and could actually act on what he had wanted to do in 1990 and do it with more authority for all those intervening years. Gordon B Hinckley's opinion prevail. And this was a very, there, there was no direct rebuke of Russell M. Nelson from Gordon B Hinckley. But it was a clear demonstration of the fact that general authorities do not agree on every subject and even on important subjects, they don't necessarily agree. So as I look at this and I go through my own preface for what I think ought to be the preface to a comprehensive list of all latter day Saint doctrines, and you can see that I'm trying very hard to sustain our living prophet by not saying Mormon and saying latter day Saint. It's important to recognize where these differences are and to understand them and come to appreciate them because there's nothing wrong with having different opinions on different subjects. One of the things that I follow in my wanderings in the blogosphere is the growing movement of people who call themselves Heartland ERs, who believe that the book of Mormon took place. The events of the book of Mormon took place in the continental United States only that they didn't take place in South America and most importantly that the Hill designated as Camorra in New York where the Hill Kamora pageant had been for years and years in which we've now finally cancelled. But that Hill is in fact the Hill Kamora that is described in Mormon chapter six verse six in the book of Mormon. And to them that is the most important principle of the gospel, which is just stunning to me. I review it. I believe in book of Mormon historicity. I know that there are faithful members of the church who do not and I know that there are nonbelievers who do not, and in fact I would say all nonbelievers do not, but I believe the book of Mormon is a Chronicle of real people who actually lived and took up geographical space somewhere on the American continent. Now, when Joseph Smith was the president of the church, the assumption was that the book of Mormon took place in all of North and South America and that Panama was the narrow neck of land. The book of Mormon describes that separated the two continents. Well, that's fine. They believe that in absence of any kind of direct revelation as to where it was and the idea that the Hill in New York is the Hill Kamora Rose up out of tradition, we have no revelation designating it as such. Joseph Smith never refers to it as such. In any revelations. He only uses the word Kamora once when he talks about glad tidings from Komora, but he doesn't designate it in any sort of geographical time and space. But it was clear that early latter day saints and from then on most latter day saints, including latter day saints leaders, presidents of the church believe that the New York Hill was in fact the Hill where Mormon buried all of his plates and did his abridgment and then buried the plates that were Merona. I came back and buried the plates that Joseph Smith went and recovered as he translated the book of Mormon well scholars since that time had been looking at this and it becomes very clear that the book of Mormon itself is geographically consistent, but it also covers a relatively small area and the, the current theory by most scholars that have looked at this within the church is that it took place somewhere in the area designated as Mezo America around the Guatemala area. I think, I don't know a whole lot about it, so don't come to me for specifics, but that seems to be where the scholarly consensus is that the book of Mormon fits very well in a sort of limited geographical model. Well, the heart Landers don't believe that and I've got no problem with that. Again, in the absence of revelation, there's absolutely no reason why we can't disagree about things and it's not a big deal. But the Heartland is insist that anybody who believes that the Hill Camorra in New York is not the Hill Kamora that was described in the book of Mormon. They're all apostates. They're all evil. They're not following the profits because they can point to statements by prophets and apostles where those prophets and apostles clearly believe that the New York drumlin was the Hill Kamora referenced in the book of Mormon. Well, prophets and apostles can say a lot of things. Uh, but prophets and apostles are human beings with opinions and in absence of revelation, their opinions don't necessarily carry any more weight or shouldn't carry any more weight than the opinion of any other member of the church. And that was the problem with Bruce R McConkie. His book was that so much of this, it's well-researched. Bruce R McConkie was an extraordinarily bright man. He was a lawyer. So he takes a very legalistic approach to doctrine, which I have to admit, turns me off. I don't view doctrine legalistically I don't think scriptures were written as legal briefs and to sort of dissect and parse language in the scriptures the way you would a statement in a court of law, I think completely misses the point as to what the scriptures are supposed to be. But that being said, Bruce R McConkey had his ideas, had his opinions, put them all in this book. He did. So prior to being an apostle, he did sell when he was a general authority. So do we assume that that infallibility doesn't kick in until you're called into the 12 the whole idea of infallibility is incompatible with the idea of agency. Because if you have agency, you are capable of making mistakes. You are capable of making a choice. If you are infallible, you are incapable of making wrong choices, which means your fallibility, your agency has been extracted from you at some point. And when does that happen? What does that happen when you're called as a 70 does that happen when you're called as an apostle? Does it happen when you're called into the first presidency or does it happen when you're president of the church? Well, the answer is it never happens. And Bruce R McConkey as smart and as faithful and wonderful as he was, had opinions like everybody else. And the big problem with Mormon doctrine as a book is that those opinions have been given almost the weight of scripture. And I've seen that in my own life. I remember a friend of mine was looking at the church and she went to a church bookstore. It was a seagull book in Los Angeles. And she walked out of that bookstore with a copy of the book of Mormon, which I wonder if was given to her. I can't imagine them selling it to her, but also a copy of Bruce Arakaki, his Mormon doctrine. And she came back to me with so many different objections to so many different things in that book, and I had to spend so much time explaining to her, no, this is not really Mormon doctrine, but she said, well, if it's not Mormon doctrine, then why does it say so on the cover? And that seems to be the reaction of many people when they look at this and they look at what this book is and what this book has done. And I think Bruce R McConkie believed that he was essentially writing a new scripture. I'm not sure if he would have admitted that even to himself, but if you go and watch Bruce R McConkie spinal testimony, he passed away from in 1985 and he gave one final testimony in general conference two weeks before he passed away. And it's extraordinarily powerful. I would, I would recommend it to you. He talks about how an upcoming day he will see the savior and bathe his feet. In my eye, I will feel the wounds in his hands and in his side and I will bathe his feet with my tears, but I will not know any more than than I know now that he is God's only son and that salvation comes through him and through no other way. I think I'm paraphrasing, but I'm picturing him as I tell you this, I'm not reading it from anything, but one of the things that's remarkable is if you go and read that sermon, he quotes scripture all throughout it, but he never cites any references. And at the very beginning of the talk he says these words were spoken by other people, but they are now. Mine for the Holy spirit has revealed them directly to me as if they were spoken by me in the first instance, which shows kind of the approach that he was taking. I think he firmly believed that if he was scholarly enough but righteous enough and that if he was in touch with the spirit that he could pour out a new scripture that would be just as reliable and just as powerful as the scriptures. We now have a, bless him for that effort and I think everybody should try to make that effort to some degree, but the product is very much a product of who Bruce R McConkey was as a fallible human being and there is much about the book of Mormon doctrine that has not aged well. This should not surprise us because of two things, and I write about these in my preface that you can go and read. Again as we're coming up to the end of this episode, I asked you to go to canonize or.com go to the bottom right hand corner of the front page and click on the link under what's new at cannon ISER and go and join a camp. Join my camp of the night of the 2019 preface to Mormon doctrine or join Bruce R McConkie his camp of the 1958 preface or create your own camp and call it whatever you want and see if we can get people to support your camp as well. Anyway, I want to leave you with these two things that I think are very important. One is the idea that this is a church with an article of faith that believes that God will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God and that means that there are things that we do not yet know and I think we can assume that many of those things will give us greater light and knowledge and help force us to reinterpret the things that we think we do know in light of the new knowledge that we have. Bruce R McConkie again is a great example of that because Bruce R McConkie gave a talk called all are alike unto God. It was right after the 1978 priesthood revelation where he counseled everybody, forget everything he ever said on the subject of race, and we're not doing that because we're going to look at that very closely and I think it's going to be some of the most controversial stuff we're going to consider as we go through his 1958 book. But his point was we spoke with a limited understanding. We spoke without the light that has come into the world. And so as a church expecting more light to come into the world, we should be the last people on earth to dig in our heels and insist, no, we know everything. This is comprehensive. This is the only way to interpret this. The end forever. Amen. Which is the spirit in which Mormon doctrine the book was written. And it's amazing to me how many members of the church sort of see things in those terms that see the idea that we can't learn anything else, that we can't have anything that contradicts what we already understand. That's not the principle upon which the church was based. Okay. The second thing I want to consider here, and the second reason why I think that Bruce R McConkie did not create the kind of, you know, definitive declaration of what Mormon doctrine is, comes from the first section of the doctrine and covenants where the Lord counsels Joseph Smith and talks about the fact that all revelation is given to his servants in their weakness, according to their language, that they may come to understanding. In my very limited experience with revelation. I understand that because people sometimes look at the scriptures, they look at the text of the doctrine and covenants and assume that text is the revelation. That text is not the revelation. That text is a human attempt to put divine knowledge into language. And the times when I have experienced revelation, I can count them. I'm in the kind of revelation that Joseph Smith describes as pure intelligence flowing into you. And I can count those times, I think on one hand, but they've been very powerful. And when they've come, they've come filled with knowledge filled with light that is imparted directly to my soul in an instant. And when I described that instant and I describe that knowledge in language, something always gets lost in the translation. I can't use language to fully describe the sense of peace and love. Uh, the direct concern that I feel from God in those moments. And as I sort of clothed that in that language, something gets lost. And clothing, revelation, clothing, divine knowledge and language is an imperfect process because we are a fallen and imperfect people. And that's the way it is. That's the way it's supposed to be. And the only way we get the kind of knowledge that we want from God is to get it from God directly. And the written versions of the revelations are opportunities for us to impart tune God for the direct kind of revelation that can speak to our heart directly that we don't get from texts. And I think was the kind of revelation that Bruce R McConkie was describing in his final testimony when he said, okay, I read these words, but the knowledge of these words is now mine. It's come directly from heaven. And I would hope people reading all of these things would have that experience. Whenever they're reading scripture, whenever they're reading anything, they have the right to be able to go to God themselves and have as much direct access to heaven as the president of the church does and get that direct revelation right to their own souls. So that's a tall order. But I think, I think the Mormon Canon project is designed for all of us to be able to come together and share our understanding as limited as it is, and that by sharing different understandings of the same divine principles, we can grow in light and knowledge that we can help each other. That's the goal of the Mormon cannon project, and I invite you to participate. Until next week, I'm Jim Bennett and we'll see you next time on the Mormon cannon podcast.