Tuesday, May 20, 2014

MISUNDERSTOOD


The Bible Misused (From the Book, Gospel Symbolism, pages 232 to 244 by Joseph Fielding McConkie)(Only a small part is given here).

"The Bible is the most misused and misunderstood book ever written. It has been used to justify all manner of impropriety, wickedness, and falsehood. Every spiritual fraud ever perpetrated in the history of Judaism or Christianity has claimed support from the Bible. It has been quoted as often by devils as it has by Saints. It has served as an instrument of suppression as often as it has served as a source of inspiration.

The Bible makes no claim to infallibility. The infallibility of the Bible is a fundamental doctrine among Bible cultists, though by their own admission they cannot find a book, chapter, or verse within the Bible to sustain this doctrine. Infallibility and mortality are incompatible. We no more have infallible books than we have infallible men. Such a belief quickly leads to the ridiculous. It was in the name of infallibility that Galileo was condemned by the church in Rome for saying that the earth moved around the sun. The idea, it was held, contradicted scriptural passages that spoke of the sun's rising and setting.

The Book of Mormon, which is a much more perfect translation than the Bible, not only makes no pretense of infallibility but specifically addresses the inevitability of errors existing in it. 'Whoso receiveth this record,' Moroni said, 'and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these.' He also said, 'If there be faults they be the faults of a man.' (Mormon 8:12, 17.) This principle and spirit apply to the reading of all scripture.

The Bible makes no claim to having been supernaturally dictated. It is not inerrant. Whoever was the first dogmatist to make the terms 'the Bible' and 'the Word of God' synonymous, rendered to the cause of truth and of religion an immense disservice. The phrase in that sense has no shadow of Scriptural authority.

'It occurs from three to four hundred times in the Old Testament, and about a hundred times in the New; and in not one of all those instances is it applied to the Scriptures.'  (Farrar, Frederic W. History of Interpretation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Co., 1961, p. 396.)

By disposing of the divine dictation fraud we can also dispose of the unfortunate idea that everything in the scriptures is of equal worth. It is hard to imagine that the Song of Solomon, even if someone can concoct some meaningful allegory, could be thought of as having equal value with the Sermon on the Mount. And it is difficult to suppose that the account of the Levite cutting the dead body of his wife into twelve pieces and sending them to the tribes of Israel to arouse their anger against those who killed her (Judges 19) is of the same spiritual merit as the Savior's bread of life discourse. Leviticus is hardly as valuable to us as the Gospel of John, and the Nephite wars as recorded by Alma hardly compare with the visit of Christ in 3 Nephi.

'All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness' (2 Timothy 3:16), but all is not of equal worth. The Proverbs, for all their wisdom, do not compare with the knowledge received in the vision on the degrees of glory (D&C 76) or with the vision of the redemption of the dead (D&C 138).

The Bible makes no claim that its prophets are infallible. James wrote of Elijah, one of the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, that he was 'a man subject to like passions as we are' (James 5:17). Paul corrected Peter (Galatians 2:11-14), and Peter said of Paul that he wrote things 'hard to be understood' (2 Peter 3:16). Jonah misunderstood his own prophecy (Jonah 4); Jeremiah got so discouraged that he said the Lord had 'deceived me' and swore that he would speak in the name of the Lord no more (Jeremiah 20:7, 9); and Noah got drunk (Genesis 9:21). Balaam had his head turned by the promise of riches and was destroyed with the wicked (Numbers 31:8); Judas, a member of the Twelve, betrayed the Son of God…

The Bible makes no pretense to having answers to all the questions needing answers, nor does it pretend to be a composite of all revelation ever given. In fact, the Bible continually directs its readers to implore the heavens for knowledge and understanding beyond what it contains, and often quotes statements and books that are now lost to it. Further, nowhere does the Bible purport to give its readers either authority or commission to preach the gospel or to perform gospel ordinances.

One of the greatest of Bible frauds is the idea that the canon of scripture is complete and that revelation has ceased. Again, the announcement cannot be sustained by the Bible itself…

The New Testament church was led by Apostles and prophets and governed by the spirit of revelation. The life-giving force of the Church was the Holy Ghost, not some scriptural record that no member of that church ever read. The New Testament did not exist until some considerable time after the apostasy was complete.

The plain and obvious meaning of any passage can be rejected and lost by declaring it to be figurative or allegorical. This is a dangerous affliction, the only antidote for which is honesty, a commodity particularly hard to find among people priding themselves on their objectivity. Those most susceptible to this error of interpretation are usually defending some scientific theory or unusual and speculative view.

There is also a danger, especially among those whose minds are already made up, of squelching the spirit of revelation. The counsel to 'deny not the spirit of revelation' (D&C 11:25) was given to the faithful, not to the unbelievers in the world. It was not intended that we have all the answers… Revelation marks the path, but the journey must still be one of faith."

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Our Destiny


Chapter 5 "None of Them Is Lost" (From The God Who Weeps, by Terryl & Fiona Givens) (A very small part is included here).

God has the desire and the power to unite and exalt the entire human family in a kingdom of heaven, and except for the most stubbornly unwilling, that will be our destiny.

God is personally invested in shepherding His children through the process of mortality and beyond; His desires are set upon the whole human family, not upon a select few. He is not predisposed to just the fast learners, the naturally inclined, or the morally gifted. The project of human advancement that God designed offers a hope to the entire human race. It is universal in its appeal and reach alike. This, however, has not been the traditional view.

Some Christians believed hell to be a more populous destination than heaven. One popular friar of the early eighteenth century, St. Leonard of Port Maurice, sermonized on “The Little Number of Those Who are Saved,” reviewing the opinions of church authorities from St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas up to his own day. Most everyone he surveyed agreed that “the greater number of Christian adults are damned.” Non-Christians and unbaptized children weren’t even possible candidates for salvation. He relates one visionary account that put the proportions at two souls saved …for every thirty-three thousand damned to hell. Another source gave odds of three saved out of sixty thousand….

In the early Christian centuries, Origen had taught that God would somehow find a way to redeem all of His children from the effects of sin. He never worked out the details of how that would come about, and his belief in “universal salvation” was soon declared a heresy

Charles Beecher thought such a… way was the only reasonable alternative to mass damnation on the one hand, and a superfluous atonement on the other. A more comprehensive program than the one executed by missionaries among the living must be envisioned. In 1863, he was convicted of heresy for such a belief.

Beecher’s position is the only reasonable one. If hearing and believing the message of Christ is essential to all mankind’s eternal happiness, then that opportunity must be available beyond the confines of mortal life. The eighteenth-century revolt against organized religion was in large measure a protest against the narrowness of its vision.

The belief that the work of ministry includes the departed, animates the Latter-day Saint practice of tracing the roots of their families into ages past and performing gospel ordinances on their behalf.

If we are serious about our prospects of life beyond the grave, then we should not shy away from making a considered effort to understand what kinds of continuity with this life make sense. If God’s dominion does not end with our death, why should the progress of the human soul?

The particular potency of the challenges we face—our bodily weakness, the instincts and passions that consume us, the press of evil all around us—make a life of virtuous aspiration very like a race through quicksand. However, it is just these conditions of mortality, … that are especially conducive to growth and progress.

Life may well give us, in a concentrated dose, the soul-stretching most necessary to our long-range spiritual development. But even for those who live and die in obliviousness to God’s eternal purposes, death does not freeze the soul in time.

We live on an uneven playing field, where to greater or lesser degree the weakness of the flesh, of intellect, or of judgment intrudes. Poor instruction, crushing environment, chemical imbalances, deafening white noise, all cloud and impair our judgment.

Hardly ever, then, is a choice made with perfect, uncompromised freedom of the will. That … is why repentance is possible in the first place. We repent when upon reflection, with a stronger will, clearer insight, or deeper desire, we wish to choose differently…

God would not have commanded us to forgive each other seventy times seven, if He were not prepared to extend to us the same mathematical generosity. Come, try again, He seems to be saying, like a patient tutor who knows his student’s mind is too frozen with fear to add the sums correctly.

Why else would the Lord’s strategies be so rife with interventions and second chances? Samuel was called three times in the night, before he recognized his Lord. It took a bright light and a voice from heaven to capture Saul’s attention. Who knows how many other potential disciples will find their road to Damascus only on the other side of life’s veil? Why should God not there as well as here persist in His efforts to gather His children, as a hen its chicks? Why not believe that “His hand is stretched out still?”

If we fall short of salvation, it will be because our cumulative choices, our freely made decision to reject His rescue, have put us beyond His reach, not because His patience has expired.