What do LDS Church leaders have to say about the reliability and accuracy of their own scriptures?
According to LDS leaders, Mormon scriptures are “utterly reliable” and “pure truth.” The current prophet, President Monson, declared on the official church website lds.org (underline added):
“The words of truth and inspiration found in our four standard works are prized possessions to me…These holy words of truth and love give guidance to my life and point the way to eternal perfection.”
In 2011, Apostle Richard G. Scott taught,
“Because scriptures are generated from inspired communication through the Holy Ghost, they are pure truth. We need not be concerned about the validity of concepts contained in the standard works since the Holy Ghost has been the instrument which has motivated and inspired those individuals who have recorded the scriptures.”
And D. Todd Christofferson in 2010,
“The scriptures are the touchstone for measuring correctness and truth…Where scriptural truths are ignored or abandoned, the essential moral core of society disintegrates and decay is close behind.”
Apostle Robert D. Hales in 2006,
“So essential are these truths that Heavenly Father gave both Lehi and Nephi visions vividly representing the word of God as a rod of iron. Both father and son learned that holding to this strong, unbending, utterly reliable guide is the only way to stay on that strait and narrow path that leads to our Savior.”
These men, considered prophets, seers, and revelators, all describe Mormon scripture as words of truth and inspiration, strong, unbending, an utterly reliable guide, pure truth, and the touchstone for measuring correctness. If LDS scripture is reliable as pure truth from God yet the racist scriptures still exist, the only logical analysis is that the God of Mormonism was at the time the Book of Mormon was birthed and still is, according to the Merriam and Webster Dictionary—racist (i.e., he is biased against dark skin).
While at BYU teaching multiculturalism, I was LDS and needed to trust Mormon scriptures as “strong, unbending, utterly reliable,” but I could not wrap my head around scriptures that suggest God cursed a people in the Book of Mormon with a mark of dark skin for their transgression. Exchanging my students’ scripture-driven, dark-skin prejudices into impartial attitudes became my passion. I thought perhaps I could help fix the racism problem in the next generation of LDS students. But, how could I when the scriptures taught that black skin was a curse? Find the narrative of my experience with the issue of racism in Mormonism and at BYU in the book, Unveiling Grace: The Story of How We Found Our Way Out of the Mormon Church (Zondervan, 2013).
In opposition, the God of the Bible made His stance crystal clear. He created humans in beautiful variability and is in relationship with people from every nation, tongue, and skin color— all members of the same human race. Skin color is never, ever a determiner of value. He teaches not to judge by appearances (John 7:24). He is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34-35). The biblical God instructs individuals to show no partiality, meaning not to pay special attention to or honor someone because of skin color, wealth, social standing, position, authority, popularity, looks, or influence. If we do, it is so serious it is considered sin (James 2:9). Believers are charged to love other people as God loves them and treat them how we want to be treated.
Although the Book of Mormon states, “all are alike unto God,” as long as racist scriptures still exist, are read, taught, believed, and made part of the culture, one may question the consistency of the Race and the Priesthood statement with the racist Mormon scriptures. The LDS Church is in a difficult position that is irrational, inconsistent, and illogical since the new Race and the Priesthood statement and its own “utterly reliable” and “pure truth” scriptures collide.
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Find Part 1 of Lynn’s article here.
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Thank you for these articles. I never knew how engrained these race-based doctrines of exclusion and looking down on people of other ethnicities is in Mormon Scriptures. I had thought it was one verse that they changed from “white” to “pure” – but whoa – it’s all over like a bad case of stomach flu. This alone (and it certainly is NOT alone) is reason to question the Book of Mormon. There’s still a lot of scrubbing and revising yet to be done.
Merrick,
Thanks for the note. I have been extremely busy over the last several days.
Understand that the Book of Mormon is on equal ground with the Bible as far as evidences. You will never hear that from the folks here. But stepping back and looking at it objectively, that is the truth. I am sorry you have given up on your testimony and the Book of Mormon, etc.
Not sure why you thought I was expressing doubts in my posts here. I have never been more confident and comfortable with my belief that the Book of Mormon is a divine book from God. I have heard every criticism of the book and have been able to investigate all of those criticisms and weight the evidence, and the Book of Mormon stands just fine. It is not on trial, we are. Every criticism of the Book of Mormon can also be thrown at the Bible. In fact, the religious critics of the Book of Mormon, like those here, use the exact same arguments and lines of reasoning in their attack on the Book of Mormon as atheists employ against the Bible. It is just that the religious critics employ two entirely different sets of standards in judging the two books. At least the atheists are consistent. And I think I can be consistent as well and have concluded a million times that both books are true.
As far as discovering the Bible- I love the Bible and read it almost every day. I invest significant amounts of time in reading ancient extra-biblical material to understand the context and meaning of the book more fully.
There are two general groups of people who leave the church- those who become atheists and those who become evangelical Christian. The first group, in my experience, are those who are educated. The second group, in my experience, are those folks who are not well education from a secular perspective as well as a religious perspective within the church. It is always amazing to me the things people in this second group say about the church- it shows how limited and small their understanding was about the church in the first place. In my view, it would be such an enormous step down and backward intellectually, spiritually, and morally to leave the church for a different Christian church.
fifth monarchy man,
Thanks for the civil post.
As to your questions, I think the critics are insisting on seeing only the narrow view of the Book of Mormon passages that can be called racist. Yes- from a modern view, one can certainly say that there is racist, as we define it, in the Book of Mormon. But there is a broader, more meaningful view of the book in which God truly does not esteem one person higher than another based upon skin color. The same view must be considered for a person to not conclude that the Bible is racist as well. But again, there are those double standards. The protests that the Bible only condones killing people based upon religious belief is pathetic. As if Israelites are justified, in the context of our modern definitions, in killing their own for marrying people outside their group. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
So to answer your question- no, people really haven’t acknowledge the longer term context of the Book of Mormon wherein the Lamanites were more favored, preserved, and blessed than the Nephites. The response has been essentially just to add to the number of passages that state that the Lamanites were cursed with dark skin color. Nobody has really dealt with the points I made about the ultimate promises of God to the Lamanites and their preservation. But I expected nothing different than the responses here.
Fof,
It really is sad that you simply cannot tell the truth.
If I recall correctly, before you disapearred as usual, you claimed evidence for the bible was so over whelming it was not funny. When asked for it, you said you could not be bothered to post it. Typical, claim evidence but don’t provide it, here again you do that. Now watch, you will not post it and run away.
“But stepping back and looking at it objectively, that is the truth.”
Then provide the object evidence and arguments.
Its amazing to me, FoF, how you can gloss over that which you don’t like. You are seeking to control the conversation here, it appears, and only address that which you like. Honest discussions don’t work that way.
RickB and MJP,
Your responses are quite hypocritical and humorous. How many times do the critics here claim that “there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon” or some other enormous claim. Go back and see how many times those posters provide support for their claims. And now, you insist that I must back up every claim I make.
It has been my experience after countless attempts to provide evidences for the Book of Mormon on forums like this that such is simply not possible. And I have no interest in making another attempt as a result. In my opinion, 99% of critics of the Book of Mormon have no basis upon which to judge evidences and they have extremely unrealistic expectations and perceptions of science and evidence in general. They are entrenched in what I call the Indiana Jones mindset that they cannot see things in anything approaching a balanced or methodical manner. They want a sign that reads “welcome to Zarahemla.” And they change the subject so consistently, a single point or clarification can almost never be made. They will almost always fall back to Joseph Smith being a pedophile or polygamy or men on the moon, etc. etc. They do not have the intellectual capacity to stay with an argument or understand evidence.
You can pick any thread here and see how consistently the critics change the subject. It is actually somewhat entertaining.
It is very condescending as well to insist that I must overcome my pride and have the “scales” taken from my eyes so that I can see what you see. And the fact that your understanding of the Book of Mormon is very superficial is humorous as well given your demands above. It is no different than me insisting that you must overcome your pride and arrogance and accept the Book of Mormon. How does that feel?
FoF:
Evidence for the Bible: http://carm.org/evidence-and-answers
See also the numerous books and websites on the topic.
And FoF,
We have asked you questions, legitimate questions, that go unanswered. You disappear, as has been noted. I asked you several questions last week that have gone unanswered. A great example is when you said we both believe in Christ and all is well I responded wondering if my salvation just as powerful as yours. I heard nothing in response. You’ve yet to address whether the policies are racist on their face by saying you’re not going to judge the leaders of a different time.
I also asked you to remember that it is a possibility your leaders are men making decisions of men, not of God, among other points about your faith. Silence in response.
You now come and tell us we use cognitive dissonance in our positions. I am well aware of the shortcomings in arguing my faith. For instance, concerning proofs for the Bible: I understand ultimately proving the Bible and God is something that cannot be done using reason. It comes by faith. However, I can look to a whole lot of evidence to know what the Bible records is true. It is an historically accurate book. The Book of Mormon cannot say that.
You cannot compare the two. The BoM and the Bible are in different leagues when it comes to proof. You can say all sorts of things that might support the hope the BoM will be proven historically accurate, but right now, that is hope.
You’ve also never addressed my knowledge of the Bible and of my God. How can I be so sure of my faith’s veracity if I am wrong, which I must be if you are right? Our views are incompatible, in the end. My God has been God always, whereas yours has not. It ends there.
You sound like you have an agenda in that you have no intent of addressing that which you don’t like. Its dishonest and manipulative.
FoF,
What a joke your posts are. You talk about Atheists and how they are more honest in what they say, yet you use the same arguments they use, I pointed that out and I notice their was no reply from you. But how can you honestly reply? You either have to admit you did not read the Bible and the entire flood account, but to do that would be a problem. Or you must admit you knew God gave the human race over 100 years to repent and they could if they so choose to, enter the Ark. But then to do that, you would need to explain why you did not mention that, because leaving that out leads people to believe, God is cruel and did not extend mercy to the human race. The Atheists do the same thing.
I will state for the record, I dont believe you will responed to this, as you are know for avoiding the hard questions, as MJP has pointed out many times.
FoF said
Sorry FoF, but your lying. I as well as others have pointed out how you avoid the hard questions, and run away for months at a time. If I asked you a 1000 times for evidence, you would simply say 1000 times you have provided it, all the while you have not, then you would say as you have, you tire of always posting all this evidence.
But now if you or any other mormon asked me 1000 times to back up what I say with evidence, I would post it every single time I’m asked, Because I can back up what I say, and I believe some one might just be reading for the first time what I said, so they need to see the evidence or quote.
FoF said
Again, More of your opinions, why not keep your opinions to yourself and give us hard fats and evidence. As I said, I just got got back from Isreal and my wife is working online to make a photo book with pictures of lots of Archeological evidence, we have 2648 pictures of Israel. We saw signs that we took pictures of that said “Archeological dig sites”. We have pictures of stones that have writting on them from Non-Jews in the time of King David saying, this is the house of King David.
That alone is about the Christian version of the sign that says, welcome to Zarahemla. I can provide it, why cant you? Because the evidence for the BoM simply does not exist. I could go on with evidence for the Bible. How come the battle of the hill curmoh has never turned up any evidence? Supposdly millions died their, that means we should find something, but sadly they keep moving the battle field due to lack of evidence. What a joke.
FOF said,
Yes- from a modern view, one can certainly say that there is racist, as we define it, in the Book of Mormon. But there is a broader, more meaningful view of the book in which God truly does not esteem one person higher than another based upon skin color.
I say,
We might be getting somewhere, You agree that the BOM read in it’s specific narrow context is racist. Would you also agree that the larger context of the actions and words of the early Mormon leadership could also be seen as racist by objective observers?
You say,
Nobody has really dealt with the points I made about the ultimate promises of God to the Lamanites and their preservation.
I say,
So are you saying that the promises and preservation of the lamanites makes up for the curse of the dark skin? You are missing the whole point. The problem is why should dark skin be considered a curse in the first place. What is wrong with having more melanin than the other guy?
The fact that the author of the BOM thought that dark skin would be considered a curse proves that he was racist. The fact that he negated the “curse” later on in his narrative does not change that, In fact it is very offensive to claim that dark skin is a handicap that must be compensated for in the first place.
You said,
The protests that the Bible only condones killing people based upon religious belief is pathetic. As if Israelites are justified, in the context of our modern definitions, in killing their own for marrying people outside their group.
I say,
Who said anything about modern definitions? Or if the actions of the Israelites were justified. There is lots in the Bible that is offensive to the modern man. We are not talking about that right now. We are talking about racism. Racism is a modern invention.
racism is defined as,,,,,
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
You wont find anything like that in the Bible.
peace
FOF,
There is archeological and historical evidence for the Bible. There is none for the Book of Mormon. That’s the difference. If the Bible had the dearth of any evidence what-so-ever that afflicts the Book of Mormon, I would not believe the Bible either.
FOF,
I found your description of Mormons who become Evangelicals amusing. By your reasoning, there couldn’t possibly be an intelligent, well-informed Mormon who is now an Evangelical…. yep, as a Mormon you claim to be a Christian – similar to all those idiot Evangelicals? Is that what you’re arguing?? LOL
I believe you are intelligent, well-studied, and persistently loyal in your dedication to your religious beliefs. Don’t assume those you disagree with to be without the same intelligence and investigation of what they believe. Know that God comes to us through His Word – the preached or spoken Word of Christ crucified for our sins – and delivers to us salvation in Christ. He calls us His own and saves us from our sins. I pray God will cleanse you from all sin and put His name upon you. Romans 6:3-5 I suspect, like the rest of us, you already know you’re not doing it on your own – you’re failing at following God’s law – our only hope is in God in the flesh, Jesus. He comes to redeem sinners, not the righteous.
This is the kind of nonsense and intellectual dishonesty that some Mormons love to engage in. I know many, many ex-Mormons, and they hold a diversity of beliefs, and “Most” are not atheists or Evangelicals. Many of them are Agnostic. Many believe in God, but not in any organized Religion. And many are Catholics, Calvinist, Eastern Orthodox, etc.
I was an atheist for 25 years after I left the Church. So I guess since I have embraced Christianity once again, I’ve “lost” all the education I had (Since FOF has made it clear how “uneducated” I am). What an idiotic statement from someone who just makes stuff up as he goes along. This is the kind of arrogant thinking that promotes racism. No surprise that FOF has embraced it.
4fivesolas,
I explained a generalization among those who leave the church. Generalizations cannot be forced upon every single individual- in other words, there are, of course, exceptions. But generally speaking, I believe that what I said is true. Highly educated people who leave the church, by far, most often become atheists or a-religious. I didn’t say anything about level of intelligence. Only education.
Grindael- your experience is consistent with my statement. When you left the church, you became an atheist. Thanks.
No, it is not consistent with your statement, because all of it is wrong. I was an atheist for a time, but that changed. You say nothing of this. So once again, you got it wrong. You sir, are so disingenuous that it boggles the mind.