“Why Don’t I Ever Hear the Bible in the Mormon Church?”

I heard this question in passing the other day, and it started me thinking. The question included the passing comment that one always hears the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants in the Mormon Church instead---so I projected onto the questioner, perhaps unfairly, such thoughts as, “what’s wrong with these Mormons that they don’t use the Bible?” or “who do these Mormons think they are, using their own scripture instead of the Bible?”

When I was first learning about the Church, I remember seeing scriptural references like “Alma something something” or “D&C something something,” and my reaction at the time ranged from mild indignation to outright disgust that Mormons weren’t using the “real” scriptures. In other words, I totally relate to the questioner’s skepticism.

In twelve years’ worth of Sacrament meetings, I can’t say I personally have noticed a higher proportion of references to the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants over the Bible. But let’s say for the sake of argument that, in general, most Mormons in most wards cite the Book of Mormon or D&C but rarely the Bible in Sacrament talks. Why is that?

To the best of my knowledge, the Book of Mormon IS the Bible as far as precepts, teaching about Christ, and commandments are concerned, but the Book of Mormon offers that spiritual knowledge in a more modern language. Joseph Smith was translating less than 200 years ago as opposed to the KJV Bible’s nearly 400-year-old language, much of which was taken from even earlier translations by William Tyndale circa 1500. If you don’t think the English language changed that much between 1500/1600 and 1800, try reading some of Tyndale’s original work. Almost indecipherable without a translation guide.

Second, the Book of Mormon was translated once from the original gold plates inscribed by the prophets of ancient America. The Lord was so intent on one and only one translation of the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith was not allowed to re-translate the 116 pages that were lost. The Bible, on the other hand, was translated from derivative versions of the records that had been copied and recopied for centuries thus introducing inevitable human error and, we believe, deliberate human distortion. The Book of Mormon is simply closer to the Source.

Third, the Book of Mormon is so much more coherent than the Bible because it conveys the gospel by telling the unified story of three (only three) ancient civilizations over about a thousand years (a little more for the Jaredites) whereas the Bible starts with creation and finishes in about 100 AD (that’s anywhere from 6,000 to 6 million years depending on your point of view) and covers the Israelite civilization plus everyone else in existence in the middle east during that time. The Bible is unavoidably loose, fragmentary and vague on many gospel points. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle that has so many pieces missing, you aren’t really sure what the totality looks like. Only certain sub-areas are clear. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, presents the gospel in vibrant technicolor. In fact, once you’ve read the Book of Mormon and D&C, and the totality of the gospel picture emerges, you can read the Bible so much more deeply because the fuzzy parts resolve against the background of their presentation in the Book of Mormon and D&C.

The most obvious example to me is the Bible’s I Corinthians 15:29 where Paul inquires, Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead? If you have only the Bible, what the heck does that mean? I don’t know of any other church that pays any attention to that verse. Yet the Doctrine and Covenants makes that verse clear: For verily I say unto you, that after you have had sufficient time to build a house to me, wherein the ordinance of baptizing for the dead belongeth, and for which the same was instituted from before the foundation of the world, your baptisms for your dead cannot be acceptable unto me; (D&C 124:33).

So why would many Mormons favor the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants over the Bible? Because they’re easier to read, easier to understand, and more full in their explication of the gospel. They’re like a study guide for the Bible.

Knowing the Church as I do now, it’s almost laughable that I thought they weren’t using the “real” scriptures, that somehow they were dissing the Bible. Now that I have actually read the Bible, I see the continuation of Biblical precepts and practices everywhere in the Mormon church: Temples, the Priesthood, tithing, the Family, patriarchs, the Sacrament (or Lord’s Supper). Contained within the Book of Mormon are two-thirds of the sixty-six books of Isaiah—nearly verbatim—-from the Old Testament. The Book of Mormon’s account of Christ’s visit to the Nephite civilization after his resurrection includes what is essentially the Sermon on the Mount, reiterated almost verbatim to His sheep from a different fold.

I think back to my earlier skepticism about the Book of Mormon, and I liken myself to a tourist from a country without western medical care visiting a hospital emergency room for the first time. The tourist sees doctors stabbing patients in the neck, or sawing their chests open and breaking their ribs, and thinks, “These are doctors? How dare people who call themselves doctors assault the human body like that?” It’s only if the tourist learns the purpose of the actions (i.e., intubation for continued breathing or accessing the heart to operate on it), that s/he can understand.

Without spiritual preparation, a Mormon Sacrament meeting is a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese where they’ve tossed the Bible overboard and quote self-centeredly from scriptures they’ve discovered. Once you realize the intimate continuity with the Bible, however, then the invaluable imprint of the Holy Ghost on the spirits of noisy, restless, often annoying little children, and the beauty of the Lord’s plan to provide scriptures of the never-changing gospel to all of His sheep in every fold make it a religious experience.

P.S. Just for grins, I decided to look at April’s General Conference and count the references made to the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants. Of the twenty talks given by either President Monson or one of the twelve apostles, there were 156 references to the Bible, 52 references to the Book of Mormon, 73 references to the Doctrine and Covenants, and 10 references to the Pearl of Great Price. That’s Bible 156: Mormon scripture 135. And to be fair, many of the D&C references were listed as secondary references to the Biblical references because they recapitulate what is stated in the Bible.

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Death, the Ultimate Mirror

We had a tragic death in the little world of our community, a thirteen-year-old girl who should still be giggling over boys and learning eighth grade math. But she was taken, unexpectedly, on a Monday morning.

At first I thought there was something wrong with me that I was so overwhelmed with feelings about her death. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t make decisions. Then I spoke with others who shared similar symptoms, and I realized that all of us, no matter how close we were to the girl or her family, were undergoing a life-altering experience.

Death happens all the time; aged parents and grandparents, ill loved ones, pets even. But when it’s a seemingly-healthy young girl, our brains short-circuit. Shock, so automatic and numbing, unmoors our thinking from its foundation of routine daily life. We are forced to recalibrate with a broader understanding of life, like a river that overflows its banks but must still find a way to the ocean.

Sudden, unexpected, shocking death strips away all our facades, social pleasantries, and self-delusions. We are left before the ultimate mirror to face the raw reflection of our glorious and ghastly selves. Is that why death makes so many people uncomfortable?

The mirror showed us our own comfort level with death. Did we view the experience—for the young girl—as positive or negative overall? Do we anticipate or dread our own transition?

How much of ourselves were we willing to extend toward the family? A card? A call? A visit? Money? Flowers? Service? Did we serve them privately, away from their grief? Could we sit with them and keep them company in their anguish?

It showed us the seductive illusion of control and our own dependence on that illusion. How much of our thoughts were directed to the worry that something like this could happen to us or a loved one? How much distress did we feel at our absolute inability to predict or control such events?

The mirror showed us where we are in our family relationships, the bonds we have or don’t have. What did we suddenly want to do differently, if anything? How serious are we about making those changes? Have we done it?

Perhaps most difficult of all, the mirror showed us what kind of person we think ourselves to be. How would we be eulogized? Who would come to our funeral? Do we matter in the world? Do we touch other lives? Are there changes we need to make to bring our selves into alignment with who we want to be?

What is our relationship with God, really? Is is strong enough to withstand such a shock? Do we lean on Him? Know how to apply the Atonement? Are we angry at the apparent capriciousness of life? Are we excited to be reminded of the reality of the spirit world? Disheartened by the vale of tears that is this world?

One hundred people would see one hundred different reflections in the mirror, all of them valuable, none of them better or worse than any other. We are all at different places spiritually. God sees us and loves us exactly as we are. For one brief moment, the ultimate mirror of death allows us to see ourselves almost as clearly. Let’s hope that we find a way to love ourselves as encouragingly as He does, no matter what we see in the mirror.

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How Do You Feel When the Church Changes?

I confess I felt a ripple of nervousness when I heard the Church was coming out with new scriptures. Then I was relieved to hear that the changes were either grammatical or adjustments to chapter and section headings. Whew. What would it have said if the Church had changed scripture? I would have had a hard time accepting the divinity of scripture, and the whole process of revelation, if our forebears (namely Joseph Smith) had gotten scripture wrong.

The most interesting changes to the new scriptures are Official Declaration 1 dealing with polygamy and Official Declaration 2 dealing with blacks and the priesthood. What brought them to my attention was an NPR article that quoted Terryl Givens, professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond, whom the article calls a “Mormon scholar.” I must admit I was surprised to find that Professor Givens is a practicing Mormon (I checked). Or perhaps the article misquoted him. But here is how Professor Givens reportedly responded to the new official declarations. He praises the “more modern Mormon Church” for “the privileging of history over theology.”

Let’s take Official Declaration 1 since it’s the easiest. The first sentence: “The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise” does not seem revolutionary to me. Isn’t that what we always thought? Polygamy is only sanctioned by God under certain circumstances, and only by certain individuals. Yet Professor Givens comments that “one could read that almost as an inversion of many Mormons' historical understanding of plural marriage." Really? How so? Someone will have to enlighten me on this one.

On to Official Declaration 2, which is more problematic, at least for me. Again the first sentence: “The Book of Mormon teaches that ‘all are alike unto God,’ including ‘black and white, bond and free, male and female’.” Yes. Agreed. Then further on in the declaration: “During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood.” Okay.

Now here’s the part that I’m still processing: “Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.” Professor Givens has apparently had more time to digest it. His reaction is, "I think that this new introduction to the revelation ending the priesthood ban is a major step forward in many ways because it acknowledges that the practice may have originated — it seems to me, this is how I'm reading it anyhow — as a matter of error or cultural and historical conditioning rather than as the will of God," he says. "And that's a fairly significant statement for the church to make."

Is it overkill to say I’m stunned by his reaction? Am I just naïve? To me, “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice” is a far cry from “error or cultural and historical conditioning.” I can think of at least two other possibilities. (1) records are missing, incomplete, or forbidden to be written (how many times in the Book of Mormon do we read that someone is forbidden to write what they know or experience?) and (2) it was God’s will but He has his own mysterious reasons for it, which is what I thought we all had already submitted to in order to accept this “albatross around the neck of the church” as Professor Givens puts it.

I start off with the things I know to be true:

1. God is no respecter of persons.
2. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
3. The Church is true.
4. Prophet does not equal infallible.
5. God will remove any prophet who attempts to lead the Church astray.
6. God cannot interfere with agency.
7. Our limited mortal minds cannot possibly understand the mind of God.
8. Nothing can stop the work of the Lord.
9. The gospel is full of seeming contradictions.

Let’s talk about contradictions. God put Adam and Eve in the garden, put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in there with them, told them not to eat of it, knew they would eat of it, and gave them a consequence. If anyone has figured that one out, please let me know because I sure haven’t.

We are taught that little children are born innocent, that it is wrong to murder innocents, and yet the God of the Old Testament wipes out entire populations that must have contained numerous small children.

Unchastity is a sin, yet an unmarried woman conceived the Savior.

God is no respecter of persons, and yet black males of African descent were denied the priesthood for 150 years.

These contradictions are enough to make many people turn away from religion altogether. I prefer to look at them scientifically. For thousands of years, going back to the Greeks, scientists have debated whether light was a particle or a wave. In 1905 Einstein proved that it was both. Higher knowledge resolved the seeming contradiction.

We have limited, mortal knowledge and will for the entire time we live on earth. We see through a glass darkly, as Paul would put it. But there will come a time when we all have higher knowledge that I believe will resolve seeming gospel contradictions.

I give the Lord the benefit of the doubt in the meantime. He has mysterious (to us) reasons for doing things sometimes. We can read scripture, look at statements by early Church leaders that sound racist to our modern ears, read Official Declaration 2, pray, ponder, and fast, and still never figure out what really happened.

Whether it was God’s will to withhold the priesthood from blacks for 150 years and simply not recorded as such, or whether it was early Church leaders’ “error or cultural and historical conditioning,” or whether something else altogether, the Lord allowed it in His church. I figure that means something.

When I first read the statement that “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice,” I wondered how wise it was to put that forward. But maybe it’s the perfect statement. No matter what the historical record, we really don’t know why it happened. And maybe that’s just the way the Lord wants it. Maybe it’s one big Rorschach test where we all project onto the ambiguous and troubling facts our own testimonies. Maybe it’s a test to see how firm our testimonies really are.

This is a Mach 10 church. We have to cop to the history on polygamy. We have to say that homosexuality is a sin. And we have to associate ourselves with a policy that denied blacks the priesthood for 150 years. There’s something in there for everyone to struggle mightily with, if not all three. Maybe the Lord is giving the best students the hardest tests. Will we stick with the Church, or will we let its apparent “errors” chase us away? How committed are we to our testimonies? Enough to withstand the world’s ridicule and disgust for our history and beliefs?

I think it all comes back to the beginning. He has his reasons, and we don’t understand them because we are mere mortals. It starts and ends as a matter of faith. We may never know for sure in mortality, so Professor Givens might be right, I might be right, or we might both be wrong. In any event, my bet is on the Lord to have a reason that will make just and merciful sense when we’re capable of understanding it.

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