Many years
ago I read a story, that I cannot now relocate, told by one of President Joseph
Fielding Smith’s children. If memory serves, it went like this: one of his
adult children had gone into his private office on some errand and had noticed
a paper laying on his desk that looked like a revelation. Being filled with
curiosity, it was read and found to contain interesting and sensational items.
It was soon whispered about to his other grown children that were present for
some family function. When Elder Smith came home, he noticed his family filled
with suppressed excitement. One confessed to what they had seen and how all had
by then read it. President Smith then told them that it was a forgery; that they
had been taken in by a faked revelation that someone had sent him.
Such an
occurrence is far too common. I recall another episode, again from memory,
regarding Hyrum L. Andrus (now
deceased), for many years a well-respected and prominent member of the BYU
religious education faculty and author. As I heard the story, he had a student
in a class that showed him written revelations that she had purportedly
received. He read them and was fooled; taken in. He sent them to President Spencer
W. Kimball so that the prophet of the Lord could be informed and act
accordingly. Not long afterward Andrus was relieved of his teaching duties,
given a new obscure office out of the way and some likewise-obscure new
research duties until retirement. A fourth and final volume of a successful
series was never published.
While on a
mission to England, Bishop Orson F. Whitney was introduced to one Charles W.
Stayner, a self-professed prophet and revelator that then served in the Liverpool
mission office. Unfortunately Whitney was beguiled and with others became a
disciple of Stayner’s for many years, believing in his revelations and doctrines,
including that Stayner had been several Old Testament prophets (reincarnated).
He went so far as to try to convince President Snow to call Stayner as an
apostle because Stayner had proclaimed himself to be “Elias” (Pres. Snow would
have none of it). Bishop Whitney’s world fell apart when Stayner died leaving
his prophecies unfulfilled. Whitney himself then had to undergo an intense
two-year repentance process and reformation, and then more years of proven spiritual
and doctrinal integrity before he became worthy to be called as an apostle in
1906.[1]
With some gay activists and
feminists now claiming
personal revelation contrary to those received by the prophets and
apostles, and with best-selling books like Visions
of Glory garnering wide attention, it becomes prudent, even imperative,
to recognize spurious and false revelation and doctrine, and also those
materials containing mixtures of truth and error. We can never be too careful
with items outside the scriptures and the teachings of prophets and apostles
and approved church curriculum.
From Determining Doctrine:
Marion G. Romney:
It is, of
course, common knowledge that there are among us many who, through devious ways
and means, take unwarranted liberties with the revealed word of God. In
speeches, magazine articles, books, [and now the internet] etc., the scriptures
are wrested at will in an effort to make them appear to support private
interpretations and theories. We ourselves have read advertisements soliciting
enrollment in courses where, so it is claimed, the gospel is to be taught in
greater depth than it is taught in priesthood classes and other Church
organizations.
We of this
group should ever be on guard against such heresies. Certainly, we should never
be the originators of them. We institute and seminary teachers should study and
correctly understand the scriptures as they are written, and so rely upon them.
They should be studied for the purpose of learning what they say and teach,
rather than for the purpose of using them to support a predetermined thesis or
theory. (“Behold, Ye Have My Gospel,” Address to Seminary and Institute
personnel at BYU, July 13,
1970 , 3.)
Joseph
F. Smith:
Let it not
be forgotten that the evil one has great power in the earth, and that by every
possible means he seeks to darken the minds of men, and then offers them
falsehood and deception in the guise of truth. Satan is a skillful imitator,
and as genuine gospel truth is given the world in ever-increasing abundance, so
he spreads the counterfeit coin of false doctrine. Beware of his spurious
currency, it will purchase for you nothing but disappointment, misery and
spiritual death. The "father of lies" he has been called, and such an
adept has he become, through the ages of practice in his nefarious work, that
were it possible he would deceive the very elect. (Gospel Doctrine:
Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith, comp. John A.
Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1939], 376.)
Bruce R. McConkie:
I do not
get very troubled about an honest and sincere person who makes a mistake in
doctrine, provided that it is a mistake of the intellect or a mistake of
understanding, and provided that it is not on a great basic and fundamental
principle. If he makes a mistake on the atoning sacrifice of Christ, he will go
down to destruction. But if he errs in a lesser way—in a nonmalignant way if
you will—he can straighten himself out without so much trouble. (Mark L.
McConkie, ed., Doctrines of the
Restoration: Sermons & Writings of Bruce R. McConkie [Salt Lake City:
Bookcraft, 1989], 338-39.)
Joseph
F. Smith:
To be Latter-day Saints men and women must be thinkers and
workers; they must be men and women who weigh matters in their minds; men and
women who consider carefully their course of life and the principles that they
have espoused. Men cannot be faithful Latter-day Saints unless they study and
understand, to some extent at least, the principles of the gospel that they have
received. When you hear people, who profess to be Latter-day Saints, running
off on tangents, on foolish notions and one-horse, cranky ideas, things that
are obviously opposed to reason and to good sense, opposed to principles of
righteousness and to the word of the Lord that has been revealed to men, you
should know at once that they have not studied the principles of the gospel,
and do not know very much about the gospel. When people understand the gospel
of Jesus Christ, you will see them walking straightforward, according to the
word of the Lord and the law of God, strictly in accordance with that which is
consistent, just, righteous, and in every sense acceptable to the Lord who only
accepts of that which is right and pleasing in his sight; for only that which
is right is pleasing unto him.—Improvement Era, Vol. 14, 1910, p. 72. (Gospel
Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith,
comp., John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City :
Deseret Book, 1939], 114.)
Harold B. Lee:
Some people
get impatient because the Lord hasn’t revealed more than he has. Unmindful of
the fact that he already has revealed more than we are able to digest, in most
cases….
Brother
German E. Ellsworth who presided over the Northern California Mission, up to a
few years ago, told us of an interesting experience when as a young missionary
down in San Francisco ,
they were visited by one of the Presidents of the Church. They had had the
missionaries together the night before and one of the missionaries when called
upon to speak had told about the meaning of the horns in one of the great
visions of John. Well, there were new and strange interpretations and they all
listened because nobody knew any more than that missionary did, and the
President sat there and he made no comment. The next day they had taken the
President out for a ride in San
Francisco Bay 7 February 1955 , 10-11.)
[1]
For further information on Orson F. Whitney’s troubles with false doctrine and
false revelations, see Dennis B. Horne, Orson F. Whitney: Historian, Poet, Apostle,
published by Cedar Fort in 2014. A review is here.
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