One of the methods that paleontologists use to understand the age of a fossil in relation to other fossils at a site is by looking at layers, or strata. The basic idea is that layers build up over time, with organisms becoming part of the sediment layers as the organisms die and get buried while the sediments continue to build up, then become fossilized over time. Since layers build upwards, older layers will generally be found lower in the strata levels, with the newer layers being superimposed on top. Thus, each layer provides a snapshot of what was living (and dying) at a given time period, with fossils found deeper in the layers coming from earlier periods and fossils found higher in the layers coming from more recent eras.[1] A question that become important in interpreting Joseph Smith’s revelations is whether we can approach studying the ideas presented in them in a similar way—with each revelation functioning as a fossilized snapshot of a dynamic and evolving theology—or whether every revelation should be treated as an individual presentation of a unified, unchanging theology. A doctrinal debate in the Church that is heavily impacted by which route you take in interpreting Joseph Smith’s revelations is the idea of progression from kingdom to kingdom in the afterlife. In other words, after resurrection and judgement, can individuals who were assigned to the Telestial Kingdom continue to progress and repent to the point that they…
Category: Features
Sunday School lessons – Book Reviews – Interviews
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 76: The Vision
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C section 76, The Vision of the Celestial Kingdom — plus, was Joseph Smith a poet?
“Exhortation to the churches”
It can be easy at times, when studying the early history of the Church through the lens of the Doctrine and Covenants, to forget that there was a whole life and existence in the Church outside of the main gathering places in Ohio and Missouri. We spend so much time following Joseph Smith and his companions that the lives of those not immediately around him can fall by the wayside. Even when studying later periods, it can be easy to forget that there were times during the mid-1800s that the majority of Church members actually lived in Britain rather than the US. Not that focusing on the Doctrine and Covenants in this way is bad (they are scriptures after all), but at the point in the Doctrine and Covenants where we’re at, we do catch glimpses and reminders that the Church was larger than its headquarters and that the branches outside of those areas needed tending to stay aligned with what was happening at the focal points. A few examples stand out from the revelations we’ve been studying these past few weeks. When Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Sidney Rigdon were commanded to travel to Cincinnati in an August 12, 1831 revelation (D&C 61), they were told to “lift up their voices unto god against that People,” then “from thence let them Journy for the congregations of their brethren for their labours even now are wanted more abundantly among them then among the…
A Whole Lot of Hugh Nibley
Some years ago, I attended a course on the Pearl of Great Price at the Logan Institute that could have just as easily been entitled “Teachings of Hugh Nibley.” The teacher was well-versed in Nibley’s writings and frequently used them in discussing both the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham. And, frankly, it made the class quite interesting to attend because of the insights the teacher shared from his reading of Hugh Nibley’s works. In part because of the things that Nibley wrote, he has garnered attention as a widely-known figure of the 20th century in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a recent interview with Jeff Bradshaw of the Interpreter Foundation, Kurt Manwaring discussed the new volume Hugh Nibley Observed, which “contains more than 800 pages about the life of Latter-day Saint Scholar Hugh Nibley, including contributions from Dallin H. Oaks, Richard Bushman, and Truman G. Madsen.” In the discussion at Kurt Manwaring’s site, they went over a variety of topics, including who Hugh Nibley was, the impact of his work on various Latter-day Saints, and some discussion of what the Interpreter Foundation is currently working on. What follows here is a co-post, with a few excerpts and some discussion, but for the original post, follow the link here. Hugh Nibley was an influential professor at BYU and a noted apologist for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As stated in the…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 71-75: Criticism, Consecration and Proclamation
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 71-75, addressing Criticism, Consecration and Proclamation
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 67-70: The Lord’s Witness, Inspiration, and Parenting
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 67-70, addressing The Lord’s Witness, Inspiration, and Parenting
“When moved upon by the Holy Ghost”
At this point in the year, we’ve finally caught back up with the context of where we began—Section 1. The conference in early November 1831 (at which Sections 1, 67 and 68 were recorded) was focused on publishing the revelations that Joseph Smith had been—a project which would come to be known as the Book of Commandments and later The Doctrine and Covenants. It is, perhaps, inevitable in a religious movement that believes in both being led by prophets and that everyone can receive revelation that there are going to be tensions about who is able to speak for the Lord. From a revelation sparked by the Hiram Page incident in September 1830, we have the statement that: “No one shall be appointed to Receive commandments & Revelations in this Church excepting my Servent Joseph for he Receiveth them even as Moses.”[1] This placed the burden of receiving revelations for the Church squarely on the shoulders of Joseph Smith as the prophet of the Church. At the November 1831 conference, however, members of the Church expressed concerns about whether the revelations were the Lord’s words or whether they were Joseph Smith’s words. Section 67 issued the challenge to “appoint him that is the most wise among you or if there be any among you that shall make one like unto it then ye are Justified in saying that ye do not know that is true” as a way to rebut those concerns.[2] Section…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 64-66: Forgiveness, Zion’s Ensign and Our Thoughts
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 64-66, addressing Forgiveness, Zion’s Ensign and Our Thoughts
Saint, Senator, and Scoundrel
“The lack of any biography of Frank Cannon seemed a glaring gap in [Utah] annals. It was high time to tell his story.” Val Holley recently stated this during an interview with Kurt Manwaring where they discussed Frank Cannon and Holley’s recently-published biography, Frank J. Cannon: Saint, Senator, Scoundrel (University of Utah Press, 2021). What follows here is a co-post to that interview, with quotes and some commentary. Feel free to read the full interview here. In summarizing Frank Cannon’s accomplishments, Holley stated that: Frank Cannon was Utah’s first U.S. senator after it became a state in 1896. During the 50 years he lived in Utah, he was also (in chronological order) founder and editor of the Ogden Standard, territorial delegate to Congress, state Democratic Party chairman, editor of Ogden’s Daily Utah State Journal, and editor of the Salt Lake Tribune. He was one of many sons of George Q. Cannon, who had five wives. Frank’s mother was the second wife, Sarah Jane Jenne. Most frequently in the Church, however, Frank Cannon is known for his “sustained attacks on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ recidivism in polygamy and alliances with trusts and corporations,” which “discomforted many Utahns, not only in the early 20th century but in the present day.” Frank Cannon’s relationship with the Church was a very complicated one. He had, what Holley called, “youthful periods of sustained drunkenness and debauchery,” during which his father, “George Q.…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 63: Rebelliousness and Signs—The Lord is in Control
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C section 63, addressing rebelliousness and signs, but concluding that the Lord is in control
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 60-62: Missionary Work
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 60-62, addressing missionary work and the Lord’s support for us.
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 58-59: Timing of Blessings, Sabbath Day
The end is always a new beginning. The arrival of the first Latter-day Saints in Independence, Missouri was both an end and a beginning. They accomplished the goal of gathering to Zion, but then realized that now they had to actually build Zion—a process that has, in a variety of ways, continued ever since. For the Saints at that time, the revelations contained in D&C 58 and 59 show the process of realizing that the new beginning of Zion contained a new set of struggles, and struggles that were very different from what they expected. For us today, these sections point out, symbolically, at least, that we are also facing struggles in our process of building Zion. And in these sections we find two different messages about the blessings we often expect. First, we learn that blessings don’t come automatically—God is not a vending machine. Instead, blessings come according to God’s timing. And second, we learn that by keeping the Sabbath, we will receive both temporal and spiritual blessings. The Timing of Blessings The Saints who lived when the bulk of the Doctrine and Covenants were written faced a lot of struggle and suffering. These trials were often seen as necessary to their salvation, and the blessings they would receive were expected only in the future, if not in the next life. Eliza R. Snow captured this view in the following poem, written in late 1843 during her stay…
The American Apocalypse
The end of the world is a pretty dramatic scene. Perhaps it is because of that drama that the idea has captured the imagination of human beings for thousands of years and continues to do so today. It is not an uncommon topic of conversation among Latter-day Saints that I have known, including the occasional discussion of dreams or visions about the End Times. These types of discussions interested Christopher Blythe, who has “always had a deep interest in apocalypticism” and felt that “much of the scholarship on Latter-day Saint last days beliefs seem to focus on official doctrine rather than the conversations occurring among lay Latter-day Saints.” His recently-published book Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse (Oxford University Press, 2020) focuses on “how lay Latter-day Saint beliefs intersect with the official doctrine of the faith” by examining the full span of apocalypticism among Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century. He recently had an interview with Kurt Manwaring to discuss his research and book. What follows here is a co-post to the interview (a short discussion with quotes from the interview), but the full interview is available here. As Blythe put it, an apocalypse is “literally an unveiling—a revelation. It’s also a genre of scriptural literature, which is best represented in the Bible with the Book of Revelation. … In popular usage, the apocalypse is the end of the world.” The genre of literature is, first and foremost, “the…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 51-57 — Temporal Zion
By going in order through the Doctrine and Covenants, the Come Follow Me lessons sometimes show the concerns of the Church at a particular point in time. The seven sections included in this lesson are quite varied, but all demonstrate temporal concerns — where to put all the immigrants arriving in Kirtland, how members should share what they have, how should church members fulfill the command to gather to Missouri and who should be doing the printing of Church publications. But despite these temporal concerns, in these sections there are clearly spiritual lessons which are germane to the temporal needs and directives. These include learning to become a faithful, just and wise steward, and learning to be pure in heart. Being a Faithful Steward Eliza R. Snow is likely considered to be a faithful steward by most Church members. But like most of us, she had to make the decision to follow the gospel. She wrote about that decision in the following poem, and of the stewardship responsibilities that came with that decision. When I espous’d the cause of truth by Eliza R. Snow (1841) Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”-Matt. 7:14 When I espous’d the cause of truth, The holy spirit, from on high, Promply instructed me, forsooth, To lay my youthful prospects by. I saw along the “narrow way” An ordeal, which the saints…
“Whoso forbideth to abstain from meats”
It’s a well-known grammar joke that punctuation can save lives, since there is a difference between saying: “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and: “Let’s eat Grandma!” Punctuation and grammar do make a difference, as Oakhurst Dairy found out the hard way a few years ago. In a legal case about overtime for drivers and a state law in Maine, the debate centered on the grammar of the law, which required time-and-a-half pay for each hour worked after 40 hours, with exemptions for: The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods. The lack of a comma after “shipment” allowed the truck drivers to argue that the law only made an exemption for packing for distribution (along with packing for shipment) rather than distribution of the products being part of the exemption, which meant the company hadn’t been paying them appropriately for overtime. They won the case, costing the dairy company $5,000,000. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the law was changed soon afterwards to read that the exemptions included “storing; packing for shipment; or distributing of” the products.[1] Discussion of whether the Doctrine and Covenants endorses eating or not eating meat can come down to grammar and punctuation choices. The two main sections that come into the debate are Section 49 (a 7 May 1831 revelation) and Section 89 (a 27 February 1833 revelation). In…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 49-50 — Marriage, Falsehood & Edification
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 49-50, addressing marriage, identifying falsehood & edification through spiritual gifts.
“It is given to some to speak with tongues”
I served my mission in the Midwestern United States, and we had a decent amount of contact with groups, such as the Pentecostals, who were enthusiastic about charismatic gifts of the Spirit. I remember on one occasion, that a missionary serving in the same district approached me about an investigator they she been working with who believed that speaking in tongues (in the sense of spouting out what sounded like gibberish while under the power of the Holy Spirit) was a very important part of Christianity and a sign that God was involved in a Church. The missionary, on the other hand (as I remember) wanted to know the best way to explain that the gift of tongues was about speaking in other languages with the help of the Spirit and that the way the investigator understood the gift of tongues was entirely unnecessary. I referred her to the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, which has a chapter that discusses the subject, as a way of saying that both ways of understanding the gift of tongues are legitimate and acceptable in our Church’s doctrine and history, but that there are some cautions associated with the gift that need to be kept in mind. The two ways of understanding the gift of tongues do have technical terms associated with understanding two charismatic phenomena. Glossolalia is the term for the type of speaking in tongues the Pentecostal investigator…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 46-48 — Welcome, Spiritual Gifts, History and Sharing
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 46-48, addressing being welcoming, spiritual gifts, keeping a history and sharing the lands we own.
Daniel Becerra on 3rd and 4th Nephi
Within the Book of Mormon, 3rd and 4th Nephi are arguably some of the most important portions of the book, with their focus on the in-person ministry of Jesus Christ among the children of Lehi and what followed because of that ministry. Daniel Becerra, author of the book 3rd, 4th Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction, recently sat down with Kurt Manwaring to share some of his insights from the process of writing his theological introduction to the books. What follows here is a co-post to the interview, with excerpts and some discussion, but if you want to read the full interview, you can head on over to Kurt Manwaring’s site here. Daniel Becerra is a scholar of early Christianity who is an assistant professor of ancient scripture at BYU. As he explained in the interview, his background played an important role in how he approached the Book of Mormon: “My training is in early Christian literature and my research focuses on moral formation, so I am very interested in how Christians understand perfection as well as in how they conform themselves to this ideal. I think the shape of my volume reflects this.” He added: I … tried to situate the teachings of 3–4 Nephi within the larger tradition of Christian theological thought. I was pleasantly surprised at how much more I was able to get out the Book of Mormon when I started reading it in conversation with other…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 45 — Standards and Zion
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C section 45, addressing the raising of gospel standards and establishing Zion.
“Provide for him food & raiment”
As a missionary, I occasionally found myself in the uncomfortable experience of listening to my companions talking about how proud they were to be part of a Church where every calling is performed on a voluntary basis, with no compensation—from the top leaders on down to the local level. My discomfort was caused because, in general, the missionaries in question were not aware that general authorities do receive a stipend—something that Church members became more aware of in light of the 2017 MormonLeaks documents, which indicated that the living stipend for Church leaders was up in triple-digit figures.[1] There are legitimate reasons for full-time Church leaders to receive a stipend, but because the Book of Mormon speaks out so heavily against “priestcraft” (portrayed as the idea of paying people for Church service), we have a strong bias against the idea of receiving money for the ministry. Yet, the Doctrine and Covenants provides direction and precedent for supporting Church leaders using Church money so they can focus on their work in the Church. One of the central sources of antagonism in the Book of Mormon (at least in the Book of Alma) are the followers of Nehor, who practiced priestcraft. At the very outset, Nehor’s practice of charging for preaching is portrayed in negative terms: “And he had gone about among the people, preaching to them that which he termed the word of God … declaring unto the people that every…
Hear the words of the Church’s first lady — a review of Jennifer Reeder’s *First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith*
“I have many more things I could like to write but have not time.” Thus wrote Emma Smith in a letter to her husband, Joseph Smith. I wish she did have the time! Jennifer Reeder’s biography of Emma Smith — First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith — left me wanting even more of Emma’s words. Emma Smith was a remarkable woman, and Reeder clearly feels a deep affection for her subject, despite their chronological separation of roughly one and a half centuries. Reeder isn’t blind to Emma’s flaws, but neither does she judge. Despite the fact that Emma left much less of a written record than her spouse (“Emma did not leave a journal or even much correspondence”), Reeder plumbs the depths of what record there is to paint a rich portrait — in Emma’s own words wherever possible — of a woman who was the “first” in many roles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the title of the book implies. Rather than a traditional, origins-to-legacy biography, Reeder opts for a thematic approach, taking the reader through each of Emma’s major roles in her life and in the early Church: her marriage to Joseph Smith, her mothering both of her own children and serving as a mother figure to many other children in the community, her business experience and political activism, her roles as the first “presidentess” of the Church’s women’s organization (the…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 41-44 — Law, Consecration and Revelation
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 41-44, addressing the law, consecration for supporting the poor, and the role of revelation.
Know Brother Joseph
What did Joseph Smith think? What was he like as a person? Questions like these are interesting to think about and are important considerations when you’re a part of a religion that draws so heavily on one person’s writings and ministry for its foundation. In a recent interview with Kurt Manwaring, R. Eric Smith, Matthew C. Godfrey, and Matthew J. Grow discussed some of their insights into Joseph Smith’s mind and life gained through both their work with the Joseph Smith Papers Project and in editing the recently-published Know Brother Joseph: New Perspectives on Joseph Smith’s Life and Character (Deseret Book, 2021). What follows here is a co-post (a brief post with quotes and some thoughts), but I encourage folks to read the full interview as well (available here). One of the questions that Kurt asked was about whether Joseph Smith was familiar with feelings of loneliness. Matt Godfrey answered as follows: In a certain sense, yes. He was a gregarious person who never lacked friends, but being the prophet and leader of the Church, I think he had moments where he felt like most people couldn’t understand what it was like to be him. I think that’s where his statement “No man knows my history” was coming from. He also had moments where it felt like God wasn’t speaking to him—such as in Liberty Jail—which created a sense of loneliness in him. I think many of us have had times…
“Endowed with power from on high”
The revelations we are studying this week continue with themes found in revelations from throughout 1830, such as an imminent Second Coming and the gathering, but also set up an expectation for an endowment of power that would be an important theme for much of the remainder of Joseph Smith’s ministry. After the conversion of a significant number of people in Kirtland and the subsequent arrival of Sidney Rigdon and Edward Partridge in New York to meet Joseph Smith in December 1830, a set of revelations were recorded that indicated that the headquarters of the Church should shift to Ohio for the time being. On 30 December 1830, a revelation stated that: “A commandment I give unto the Church that it is expedient in me that they should assemble together at the Ohio.”[1] Three days later, after requests for further information about this command to move to Ohio, another revelation came that drew upon a significant amount of eschatological imagery, stating that: “The day soon cometh that ye shall see me & know that I am for the chains <?vails?> of vails of darkness shall soon be rent & he that is not purified shall not abide the day,”[2] but added that: “ if ye are prepared ye need not fear.” It went on to state that it is in preparation for that time that the commandment to gather to the Ohio was given, “that ye might escape the power of the enemy & be gethered unto me…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 37-40 — Gathering, Fears and Cares
Poems about the Gathering, preparation in order to ally our fears, and the cares of the world, to accompany the Come Follow Me lesson for April 12 to 18.
“The time of my coming”
For several days odd signs had been showing—the sky was yellow and the sun was red. Suddenly, the sky darkened further. Animals ran for cover. When seen, the moon was red and soot was seen to be floating in the river. By noon it was dark, forcing people to light candles and wonder—was the great and terrible day of the Lord’s return at hand? With all the signs at hand, it was proposed that the Connecticut legislature be adjourned in case the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was going to occur. One of their members, Abraham Davenport, opposed the move, and supposedly went on to say that: “The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, then there is no cause of an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty.” The setting for all of this wasn’t some apocalyptic novel, but 19 May 1780 A.D. in New England. Known as the Dark Day, the event was likely caused by smoke from severe forest fires in the area, but the highly religious Puritans didn’t know that at the time. I can’t be sure if I have the words correct (not having seen the primary documentation), but I like what is portrayed in Davenport’s words above. Our church is committed to an apocalyptic worldview, but we don’t know when the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the dawn of the Millennium…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 30-36 — Missions and Family Relationships
The seven sections of the Doctrine and Covenants covered by this week’s Come Follow Me lesson discuss, in general, missionary work and the subsequent benefits of membership in the Kingdom. The first five of these sections include missionary calls to David Whitmer, Peter Whitmer Jr., John Whitmer, Thomas B. Marsh, Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Petersen and advice on how to preach is given to Ezra Thayre, Northrop Sweet and Orson Pratt. The final two sections are Sidney Rigdon’s call to act as scribe for Joseph Smith in translating the Bible, and a blessing given to Edward Partridge. L. O. Littlefield’s Farewell Missionaries and missionary work is a frequent subject of LDS poetry, and the parting at the beginning of missionary service is probably the most commonly treated part of missionary service. Of course, historically many poets have found inspiration in parting—so this focus among LDS poets is hardly surprising. In this case, the missionary poet is Lyman O. Littlefield, who was then the typesetter for the Times and Seasons. Born in 1819, Littlefield joined the Church in 1834 before joining Zion’s Camp. He married in 1840 and was called on his first mission in 1843, leading to the following poem. Later, Littlefield went on a second mission to Great Britain in 1847, then immigrated to Council Bluffs before moving to Utah in 1859. He died in Smithfield, Utah in 1893. L. O. Littlefield’s Farewell By Lyman O. Littlefield…
Lit Come Follow Me: Easter
While no Come Follow Me lesson will be taught at church this coming Sunday, there is a lesson in the manual, meant for home study. So, I’m providing some poems to go with that lesson, which focuses on three aspects of the mission of Jesus Christ: that he was resurrected (i.e., He Lives), that because of him we will all be resurrected, and His atonement. Of course, these are not strange concepts in our poetry; they appear many times in our hymnal alone. So I’m presenting a few poems that are less familiar.
Richard Turley on Dallin H. Oaks
Recently, President Dallin H. Oaks’s biographer, Richard E. Turley, Jr. sat down with Kurt Manwaring to discuss the recently-published book In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks. What follows here is a co-post to the one at Kurt Manwaring’s site, with quotes from and discussion about the full interview, which can be read here. As part of the discussion, Richard Turley discussed some of the documents he had available to him to draw upon in writing about President Oaks. He stated that: He is one of the most documented Church leaders in history. I used his personal history, his journals, his correspondence, his talks, and a host of other materials ranging from newspaper articles to photographs. I would characterize his journals as being among the best ever kept by a Church leader. I would be curious to know more about President Oaks’s journals, especially given some of the things I’ve heard about general authorities being discouraged to keep journals. It gives me hope that we will be able to have at least some journals and diaries of Church leaders from our time akin to those being published by the Church Historian’s Press or Signature Book from Church leaders in the past like George F. Richards, Emmaline B. Wells, George Q. Cannon, Brigham Young, Anthony Ivins, and so forth. Now, President Oaks is, admittedly, a controversial figure in the Church, but it sounds like the biography…