Saturday, May 9, 2015

Brigham Young's Sermons

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.













Another busy day at the quote mine for Ron Rhodes.