Ron Rhodes and Marian Bodine wrote the
following against LDS claims that their leaders are fallible:
For Mormons who believe that [Brigham] Young was not always
speaking as a prophet when he delivered his sermons, they should consider just
two of his claims to authority:
·
"I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children
of men, that they may not call Scripture."
·
"I say now, when they [my sermons] are copied and approved by me
they are as good as Scripture as is couched in this Bible, and if you want to
read revelation read the sayings of him who knows the mind of God." (Ron
Rhodes and Marian Bodine, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Mormons
[Eugene, Oreg: Harvest House Publishers, 1995], 81; emphasis in original).
There are many problems contained in this
analysis from these Protestant apologists, not the least is that they are
guilty of “quote mining.”
The first quote comes from Journal of
Discourses (hereafter, JOD) 13:95. Let us read the entire quote,
something most critics don’t do (emphasis added):
Well, brethren and sisters, try and be Saints. I will try; I have tried
many years to live according to the law which the Lord reveals unto me. I know
just as well what to teach this people and just what to say to them and what to
do in order to bring them into the celestial kingdom, as I know the road to my
office. It is just as plain and easy. The Lord is in our midst. He teaches the
people continually. I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the
children of men, that they may not call Scripture. Let me have the privilege
of correcting a sermon, and it is as good Scripture as they deserve. The
people have the oracles of God continually. In the days of Joseph, revelation
was given and written, and the people were driven from city to city and place
to place, until we were led into these mountains. Let this go to the people
with "Thus saith the Lord," and if they do not obey it, you will see
the chastening hand of the Lord upon them. But if they are plead with, and led
along like children, we may come to understand the will of the Lord and He may
preserve us as we desire.
Clearly, when read in context, Brigham
Young did not mean that his sermons were "inerrant" are, ipso
facto, authoritative Scripture in the fundamentalist sense. Therefore, to read
into this comment a statement supporting the infallibility of LDS leaders, or
at the very least, Brigham Young, is ignorant at best; deceptive at worst.
A related comment from Brigham Young is
the following, the fuller text of the second quotation from Rhodes and Bodine:
Brother Orson Hyde referred to a few who complained about not getting
revelations. I will make a statement here that has been brought against me as a
crime, perhaps, or as a fault in my life. Not here, I do not allude to anything
of the kind in this place, but in the councils of the nations—that Brigham
Young has said 'when he sends forth his discourses to the world they may call
them Scripture.' I say now, when they are copied and approved by me they are
as good Scripture as is couched in this Bible, and if you want to read
revelation read the sayings of him who knows the mind of God, without any special
command to one man to go here, and to another to go yonder, or to do this or
that, or to go and settle here or there. (JOD 13:264; emphasis added)
As seen from the above quotes, Brigham had
two prerequisites for calling a sermon "scripture"--firstly, he
needed to review the sermon and make any necessary corrections; secondly, it
had to be explicitly identified as Scripture. It should be noted that there are
few sermons that Brigham reviewed for correction, and even fewer were announced
as Scripture.
