Engaging Gospel Doctrine (Episode 71)

Lesson 42

Continuing Revelation to Latter-day Prophets

Hook / “God still cares about us and speaks to us today”, missionaries and members the world over tell friends and investigators. This is a powerful and needed message. But how does it work, exactly? Why does it matter? What other sources of “continuing revelation” can we access, and how do we find balance?
Goal / Class members should understand the role of prophets, including how God works through limited human beings, and consider the balance of prophetic, individual, and outside revelation.
Overview /
  • What is revelation?
  • Review assigned reading
  • What is distinctive about “continuing revelation through latter-day prophets”? (Bring up humanity of prophets, Holland’s talk, George Albert Smith’s mental breakdown, fallibility. God uses humans. Weak, flawed humans. This is one of the most important paradigm shifts we can have, and in its way is at least as satisfying as the superhuman model we learn in primary)
  • Alternate reality thought exercise
  • What continuing revelation have we had?
  • Other sources of continuing revelation: Personal revelation and inspired leaders outside of the Church
  • Take away: Revelation through prophets and individuals (inside and outside the Church) differs not in quality, but stewardship. And this makes theological sense.

for the latter-day revelation episode I am going to play out an alternate reality I have considered

where Mormonism is most distinctive for how cutting edge it is

even disconcertingly so

changing every six months, as much as is needed

What IS revelation? (broad range of possibilities, but it seems clear that it works for prophets the same as for the rest of us)

Even if we accept that continuing revelation exists, what should we do with it? How does continuing revelation through latter-day prophets differ qualitatively from latter-day revelation through ourselves?

Crowd source: What is a maximum list of latter-day revelation we can come up with?

Continuing Revelation through Latter-day prophets: A maximal list (solicited from faithful facebook groups)

Questions

  1. How do we know what is revelation and what is just suggestions?
  2. Don’t we need to accept new revelation “by common consent” per D&C XX?

Possibilities for Inclusion

  1. Policy changes such as the lowering of the missionary age
  2. Institution of small temples
  3. Proclamation to the Family (You would think so, especially because it merits its own Sunday School lesson and is frequently quoted. At the same time, note that Packer called it a revelation in his original remarks during the XX Conference, but in the written version the wording was changed to “”)
  4. Missionary callings
  5. General Conference talks
  6. Handbook and manual contents?
  7. Decisions such as the location of temples
  8. 1978 revelation changing the policy on black men and the priesthood (which also impacted black women’s access to the temple)
  9. Perpetual education fund announcement
  10. Establishment of the welfare program (1930s)
  11. Correlation
  12. Financial decisions?
  13. Institution of food storage (and emergency preparedness)
  14. Family Home Evening program
  15. Changing views on race, marriage, homosexuality, status and role of women, and other social issues
  16. Guidance to stay out of debt (Hinckley, October 1998 General Conference; 2001))
  17. Leadership roles for sister missionaries
  18. Changes in garment design
  19. Church programs, seminary
  20. Perpetual education fund

In Sum:

  1. Clarifications or changes in doctrine
  2. Significant, church-changing policies (blacks and the priesthood/temple)
  3. Other church changing policies (welfare program, auxiliaries, small temples, change in the endowment, sealing policies garments, missionary age)
  4. Proclamations (Family, Living Christ, God’s Love for all [hu]Mankind)
  5. General Conference
  6. Official letters from the Brethren
  7. Church materials (lesson manuals, etc)
  8. Day-to-day administration (temples, missionary calls, sealing clearance)

Now, brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order.

So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings.

I repeat, I hope we will never again see such a depression. But I am troubled by the huge consumer installment debt which hangs over the people of the nation, including our own people. In March 1997 that debt totaled $1.2 trillion, which represented a 7 percent increase over the previous year.

In December of 1997, 55 to 60 million households in the United States carried credit card balances. These balances averaged more than $7,000 and cost $1,000 per year in interest and fees. Consumer debt as a percentage of disposable income rose from 16.3 percent in 1993 to 19.3 percent in 1996.

I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.

This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe. May the Lord bless you, my beloved brethren, to set your houses in order. If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That’s all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable.

Some quotes about God assisting with all the decisions of the Church

Eric (don’t use) I think it is helpful to compare and contrast some elements of continuing revelation of the type that include remarkable insight. Other forms of "continuing revelation" are unremarkable and not worth promoting as unique.
Examples:
1. Expands the awareness and consciousness of humanity.
2. Exclusively delivers new truth.
3. Tends to be ahead of its time and therefore resistant to social change.
4. Stands the test of time when looking back on it.
Solid examples are John Muir and the creation of national parks, Charles Darwin and natural selection, the early abolitionists...

My wishlist for continuing revelation (from a global leader)

1.How can we adjust our behavior to minimize the consequences of climate change?

2.How can we prepare for the consequences that are already too late to change?

3.How can we move toward a sustainable human population in a way that conforms to gospel principles?

4.How can we encourage responsible stewardship of the earth in general?

5.How should we best deal with waste?

6.How can we get clean water and sanitation to all of God’s children?

7.What is the best way to feed the world?

8.How do we reduce or remove abuse in the world? (I do appreciate the references to this in conference, the Proclamation to the Family, and elsewhere)

9.How can we enable the daughters of God to fulfill their potential and have full status and voice both in the Church and the world?

10.How can we get each other to cooperate?

11.How can we address the radical wealth disparity in the world?

12.How do we wrest back power from corporations and corrupt institutions?

13.What is the best way to educate and empower God’s children?

14.What system of ethics can we follow that transcends the iron age principles in the scriptures we currently have?

Millennium Goals: (

  1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
  2. Achieve universal primary education
  3. Promote gender equality and empower women
  4. Reduce child mortality
  5. Improve maternal health
  6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
  7. Ensure environmental sustainability (including access to safe drinking water and sanitation)
  8. Develop a global partnership for development

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