M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
Two Churches Only
By Joseph Fielding McConkie
Editor’s note: This is part 2 of a talk given by Joseph Fielding McConkie on November 5, 2005, at a Joseph Smith Symposium held in Palmyra, New York. Read part 1 here.
“Creeds an Abomination”
While I presided over the mission in
I promised him straight answers and spent a couple of hours responding to his questions. I then said, “Now it is my turn. I have some tough questions to ask you.” I asked how he justified the Christian creeds. He buried his head in hands and was silent for a matter of minutes. Then he raised his head and said, “Our creeds are responsible for the dark ages.”
He was a good man, an honest man, who always treated our missionaries with respect. I told him what it meant to have living prophets, and that one of them was my great-grandfather from whom I received my name. I told him that my grandfather had received revelations from the Lord. He said he would like to see them. I read the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead to him from beginning to end without a word of commentary. It was as if a rushing of mighty wind filled my office. He wept as I read the revelation and I wept with him. When I finished, he said that he could not say that what I had read was not a revelation.
I share this story because I think it is important in responding to the matter of how we handle hard questions. There is strength and power to be found in standing on our own ground that cannot be had in any other way.
Are not the creeds spoken of in the First Vision simply a refill of the same prescription that killed the church in the meridian of time? Consider this text in a great revelation on the priesthood. “After they have fallen asleep [meaning the apostles] the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even Satan, sitteth to reign — behold he soweth the tares [that is the philosophies of men]; wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness.” (D&C 86:3).
My experience suggests that the weaving of the philosophies of men with scripture is as dangerous individually as it is collectively. It is an illegitimate union, the seed of which is not born under the covenant and the fruits produced, thereby do not engender the faith known to our forefathers and in the words of the Savior, “every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13).
Save Two Churches Only
If we are concerned about not offending the world, the first thing we ought to do is to reject the Book of Mormon. Can you imagine a book telling someone who believed in infant baptism that they are “in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity,” that they have neither “faith, hope, nor charity,” and that they ought to be cast down to hell for the very thought? (Mormon 8:14).
Can you imagine a text that is so direct in describing a particular church during a particular part of earth’s history as the church of the devil that it is virtually an unforgivable sin among Latter-day Saints to admit the truth of what is being said (1 Nephi 13:1-9)?
The Book of Mormon is uncompromising where breaking the laws of God are concerned. It teaches that the effects of sin are eternal and that the laws of God are absolute. Its prophets testify that Christ’s atonement extends the hope of salvation to you and me by answering the ends of the law. Christ atoned to preserve the truth. To deny those truths is to deny Christ and the atonement. The anti-Christs in the Book of Mormon all struck out against the law and in doing so denied the need for the atonement (Alma 1:4; 30:16-17). If the truths of salvation were not absolute there would have been no atonement; there would be no right, no wrong, no broken law, and no law to be mended. There would have been no Christ, no plan of salvation, and for that matter no God. (See 2 Nephi 2: 11-13; Alma 34:15-16; 42:11-25.)
Can it be any surprise that a book teaching such principles would, in describing the events following the Restoration of the gospel, contain a statement to the effect that “there are save two churches only,” the one being the church of the “Lamb of God, and the other being the church of the devil” and that everyone belongs to one or the other?
Let me suggest what is taking place here. In his instruction to Nephi, the angel of the Lord chooses the most emphatic language at his command to teach what is the most fundamental principle of the Christian faith. We are all subject to the fall of Adam and thus citizens of the kingdom of the devil. It is the fall that demands that we be born again, that we put off the natural man and become saints through the atonement of Christ (Moses 6:59; Mosiah 3:19).
The fall lays claim to all that have been born. Christ lays claim to those who have been born again. It is only by putting off the natural man that we become “saints,” or the “covenant people of the Lord.” Only then can we be numbered among the “church of the Lamb” (1 Nephi 14:14). The issue is one of citizenship not of judgment. No one will be judged until they have had the opportunity to accept or reject the true and living Christ of whom the Book of Mormon is a witness.
You can say what you want by way of criticism about the Book of Mormon. Give it whatever grade you think it deserves, but what you cannot say is that it lacks for plainness or that you cannot quite figure out where it stands relative to Christ and his gospel. On such matters it is plain, clear, and bold; its writers had no intention of being misunderstood. It is a theological Everest; you can try to cover it with flowers but you are not going to be able to hide it. Simply stated, it is a public relations nightmare.
As to why the Lord made it this way we may not know — but this much we do know, it is philosophically impossible to reject truth without accepting error, to shut out the light without being immersed in darkness, to reject true teachers without cleaving to false ones, to reject the true Christ and his prophets without giving allegiance to those who follow another Master. [1]
We cannot march with both the Israelites and the Philistines. Light and darkness will never meet. Christ and Satan will never shake hands. As to Christ and his gospel there can be no middle ground, there is no neutrality. You stand with the prophets or against them.
The Book of Mormon was ordained in the councils of
heaven to gather latter-day
Faith in the Restoration comes with a cost, and as John Taylor said, that cost included “the best blood of the nineteenth century to bring it forth for the salvation of a ruined world” (D&C 135:6). As the doctrine and spirit of the Book of Mormon are unyielding,so must the spirit of those who accept it be unyielding.
Common Ground
As a mission president I discovered that the way we present our message has a good deal to do with who accepts it and how deeply their roots are anchored in the soil of the gospel. On this matter some things are obvious. For instance, it would be no great surprise to you that shallow missionaries get shallow converts. In like manner, I do not think you would be surprised to learn that the more direct we are the more successful we are. There is no reason that missionaries cannot ask everyone they meet if they would like to be baptized. What came as a surprise to me, however, was that nothing chased the dark spirit of contention away as effectively as the declaration of those very texts that seemed the most contentious. Let me share our experience.
During a round of zone conferences, I challenged the missionaries to proselyte for one month without taking their Bibles with them. This meant that they had to do all of their teaching from the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants. I told them that any principle that they could not teach from those sources they had no business teaching because it was not a part of the message that the Lord had commissioned us to take to the ends of the earth. It seemed a reasonable assumption to us that if the gospel had indeed been restored and we in reality represented a new gospel dispensation, then we could teach the message as the Lord had given it to us.
Between then and our next round of zone conferences, the reports flooded in. The missionaries spoke of a stronger, even an overwhelming spirit in their cottage meetings. It was obvious that the Holy Ghost liked being a part of what they were doing. What was noticeable to the mission president was the increased confidence that they took with them into the teaching situation when they knew they were standing on their own ground. The natural result of this was that somehow they started to find more people to teach than they ever had before. These things I expected but what I did not expect was the report that the spirit of contention, common to many of their efforts to teach, was now gone. After our one month experiment, our missionaries refused to return to their old methods. Their faith was centered in the revelations of the Restoration. They liked the spirit of the whole thing.
Can you see what was happening? They conceded the fact that they did not necessarily know any more about the Bible than those they taught. There was no reason for argument over the meaning of Bible passages which was not their message. Their message was that God had spoken through a living prophet and they stuck to that message. When those they were teaching understood this, they asked questions about what God had told the prophet about this, that, or the other thing, and with every question came the opportunity to open the revelations of the Restoration and let the light they contained shine. That light carries with it its own spirit. You can accept it or you can reject it but you cannot argue with it. Can you imagine arguing with Moses about whether the Lord gave him the Ten Commandments or not.
Surely, someone must have said, Moses, I do not think you got the Ten Commandments from God, I think Aaron wrote them and someone else must have explained that Moses was just quoting from a book that was really written by Miriam. And what will Moses say to all of this? “I got them from God; if you question that I suggest that you ask him about it.”
That’s our message: “Ask God.” The way we answer questions about our faith ought to be by finding the quickest and most direct route to the Sacred Grove. The heavens are open, class is in session, its time to ask questions because God answers and if you do not get the answer from him you are not going to do very well on the test.
The Restoration began with Joseph Smith on his knees in the Sacred Grove and that is where the testimony of every Latter-day Saint must begin, on their knees in a sacred moment asking of God. Everything that we believe as Latter-day Saints rests on the reality of what God said that spring morning to Joseph Smith and the great irony of it all is that the harder the saying, the more offensive it seems to the world, the more peace it brings, it is the very light that chases away the darkness of contention with all that are honest in heart.
No Middle Ground
Perhaps we need to rethink the idea of seeking common ground with those we desire to teach. Every likeness we identify leaves them with one less reason to join the Church. When we cease to be different we cease to be. The commandment to flee Babylon has not been revoked, nor has it been amended to suggest that we seek an intellectual marriage with those not of our faith. The fruit of such a marriage will always be outside the covenant.
One of our great revelations on missionary work says: “Ye are not sent forth to be taught, but to teach the children of men the things which I have put into your hands by the power of my Spirit” (D&C 43:15).
Could you imagine a vacuum salesman telling some one, “This vacuum is just like the one you already have, but if you buy it your parents will disown you and everyone in the neighborhood will hate you”? How many vacuums would you expect this salesman to sell?
I remember sitting in a priesthood meeting one Sunday morning
in a small struggling ward in
I do not remember the topic of the lesson. My thoughts were on the investigator. He was a man of fine appearance, bright, and articulate. My thoughts were a few years down the road. I could not help but think what a fine bishop he would make.
The others present made a particular point to relate each principle that the teacher mentioned to some common ground between them and their Catholic visitor. When the meeting was over he turned to the missionaries and told them not to call on him or his family again. He said, “I see that you are a young struggling church and that you desire to become what the Catholic Church already is. Since I already have what you are seeking I see no reason to change.” He left and that ended our association with him.
Conclusion
As a mission president I was grateful for the three texts we have considered this morning. I needed something — not from me but from the Lord — that justified the faith and sacrifice that I knew membership in the Church would require.
That such texts will give offense to some is true. Truth, however, is more important than harmony. Were that not the case, there would have been no war in heaven, no gospel of Jesus Christ, and no reason for the Father and the Son to appear to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove. If we are to be a Christ-like people, we must value truth above life itself. [2]
If we claim that our God speaks, that we have modern revelation and living prophets, we must of necessity claim that we are “the only true and living church on the face of the whole earth.” The two doctrines are as inseparable as the body and the spirit in the resurrection. You cannot have the one without the other.
If our prophets are indeed prophets and our apostles indeed apostles then it is for them and them alone to mark the path which all must follow who would return to their divine Father. Claiming the authority to speak in the name of God and at the same time claiming that the heavens have been sealed since New Testament times is no different than claiming to be God’s spokesman while admitting that he has not spoken to you for two thousand years. This picture simply does not hang straight.
True it is that there are those who think it quite “unchristian” of Latter-day Saints to suggest they cannot be saved in their errant doctrines. Yet it is the same people who hold the gates of heaven open to all who profess Christ except us. Why, we might ask is it that virtually all testimonies of Christ are acceptable in their heaven save ours? And why is it that we are labeled unchristian for not accepting them while their rejection of us is the proof they offer that they are Christian? Let it not be lost on you that it is their creeds that require them to respond in this manner.
To the early missionaries of this dispensation the Lord said, “Preach my gospel which ye have received, even as ye have received it” (D&C 49:2). There is no suggestion here that they cover it with honey or put ribbons on it. A few months later the Lord said, “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself” (D&C 1:38). The Lord has never commissioned anyone to make excuses for him, he has simply asked us to trust him.
If the gospel message is true, it must by its very nature have things in it that require faith to accept. If we are going to get serious about it we can hardly expect to find gospel truths getting along compatibly with worldly fashions, nor can we expect them to get an approving nod from those who worship at the shrine of their own intellect.
The plain fact of the matter is that you cannot build strong testimonies out of weak doctrine. As there is no courage without a struggle, so there can be no spiritual strength without a challenge. We have claim to neither peace nor safety save we build on a strong foundation.
Any time we declare something to be true, we have picked a fight with that which is untrue. We cannot, as Marion G. Romney assured us, do the Lord’s work without offending the devil. [3] It is as certain as the night following the day that we will never be able to declare our message without opposition or without giving offense to some. Moroni promised Joseph Smith that his name would be known for “good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people” (JS-H 1:30). He also told Joseph Smith that, “Those not built upon the Rock will seek to overthrow this church,” and he then promised the Prophet that the church “will increase the more opposed.” [4]
[1] D&C 6:2; 11:2; 12:2; Hebrews 4:12
2 D&C 135:1
3 The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, [Second Edition, Claredon Press, Oxford, 1994], p. 2075.
4 F. F. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, [Hodder and Stoughton, 1983], p. 15.
5 Personal Correspondence
6 Neal A. Maxwell, Things As They Really Are [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1978], 48-49.
7 Boyd K. Packer, Directive, May 9, 1995.
8 Milton V. Backman, Jr., Joseph Smith's First Vision: Confirming Evidences and Contemporary Accounts, 2d ed. rev. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980], 170-71.
9 Boyd K. Packer, “The Only True Church,” Ensign, October 1985, emphasis mine
10 Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1978], p. 37.
11 I was deeply impressed some years ago when we as a faculty visited Plano, Illinois, and listened to their bishop, a very confident woman, of what was then called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (today the Community of Christ), tell us that since their people left Nauvoo they had never known a day of persecution and had lived in harmony with those of all faiths. What a telling story.
12 Marion G. Romney, “The Prince of Peace,” Ensign, October, 1983, p. 3.
13 Messenger & Advocate 2:199.