Blind Obedience

Blind-Obedience:

Some people seem to think that I am advocating blind obedience to the LDS General Authorities. I'm doing no such thing. My sin is that I have been guilty of rebelling against them when they were actually right. There's nothing wrong with rejecting some of their individual comments when the Spirit and the Standard Works tell you clearly that their individual comments are wrong.

For example: Awhile back, my wife and I were listening to one of the Conference Messages from one of the LDS Apostles. When he got done speaking, my wife looked at me and said, “That didn't feel right.” I told her, “That speech wasn't correct.” Here and there throughout the speech, the Spirit (and my past studies) told me what the man was getting wrong and why. I then told my wife where the LDS Apostle got it wrong and why he got it wrong.

It was an interesting experience. A couple days later, the LDS Newsroom released a couple of corrections and retractions for that particular talk. Then, when the talk came out in the Ensign, it had been edited and parts of it had been changed so that the talk would be more doctrinally correct. Clearly, many other Latter-day Saints had detected that there were some things wrong with that particular talk.

Truth is, age and illness do some horrible things to human beings, including LDS Apostles. As we get older, some things get fuzzy, and sometimes we are not firing on all thrusters. This situation taught me a very important truth, “God gave us 15 LDS Apostles for a reason, instead of giving us just one.”

When all 15 LDS Apostles are in unity, what they say in unity is binding on us all as LDS Church members. When there are 15 separate inspired witnesses who are each in complete agreement, that's a very powerful and indisputable witness that what they are saying is indeed the Word of God and the Will of God. Furthermore, there are 15 of them because when one of them gets off track, the other 14 can intervene and make some corrections and adjustments as necessary. It's a beautiful system.

Warren Jeffs, Denver Snuffer, and some of the others don't have that kind of backup. They don't have 14 other inspired God-selected Priesthood-holding men standing behind them to back them up and sustain their words and actions. They don't have a quorum standing behind them to support them and sustain them and correct them. They don't have 14 other Apostles standing behind them to help correct them should they get off track or get a little lost.

Things are the way they are for a reason, in the LDS Church, because it is the Lord's Church.

Here are some important quotes that help me in this particular situation:

Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience, p.101-102:

The basic doctrines call for real discipline of self; they are hard because wise self-discipline is hard. Among the requirements that God has laid upon us is to pay heed to His living prophets. In our dispensation this has been described as "following the Brethren." It is a dimension of obedience that has been difficult for some in every dispensation. It will be particularly hard in ours, the final dispensation. Secularly, every form of control, except self-control, seems to be increasing, and yet obedience rests on self-control.

The reasons for the hardness of this doctrine are quite simple: First, these are the winding-up times when there will be a dramatic convergence of the growth of the Church and an intensification of evil in the world-all of which will make for some real wrenching. Second, the degree of deceit will be so great that even the very elect will almost be deceived. (Matthew 24:24.) Third, the tribulations will be such that, as the Savior said, they will exceed the tribulations of any other time. (Matthew 24:21; D&C 43:28; 45:67-68.)

To be obedient to prophets in such a setting will require, most of all, special faith and trust in the unfolding purposes of an omniscient and prevailing Lord.

When we speak of following the Brethren, we mean particularly the First Presidency and the Twelve. In 1951, President Kimball observed in a general conference that though some of those special individuals might falter, "there will never be a majority of the Council of the Twelve on the wrong side at any time." (Conference Report, April 1951, p. 104.)

We also have the precious promises concerning the President of the Church-that he will never lead the people astray. President Wilford Woodruff announced, "I say to Israel, the Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this Church to lead you astray." (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 212.)

It is exceedingly important for members of the Church to get experience following the prophets in little things, so that they can follow in large matters. By following the prophets in fair weather we become familiar with their cadence, so that we can follow them in stormy times too, for then both our reflexes and our experience will need to combine to help us; the stresses will be so very real.

End quote.

Obedience has no value unless it is willingly, deliberately, freely, intelligently, and eagerly given.

Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, April 1880, p.36

. . . exhort the people to continued faithfulness and progress in the right path, until Zion shall be redeemed, the world subdued, and evil put under foot. Zion must be built up on the principles of righteousness, truth, and obedience to the laws of God; not an ignorant nor a "blind obedience" or submission to the requirements of heaven or the dictates of the priesthood, but an intelligent submission to the laws of God; for the Lord has said that he "requireth the heart and a willing mind, and the willing and the obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days; and the rebellious shall be cut off out of the land of Zion, and shall be sent away, and shall not inherit the land."

End of quote.

Harold B. Lee, The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, edited by Clyde J. Williams, p.84:

President Brigham Young said something to this effect that is very meaningful, [a paraphrase of which follows]: "The greatest fear I have is that the members of the Church will accept what we say is the word of the Lord without first praying about it and getting a witness in their heart that what we say is the word of the Lord" (see Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1941], p. 135). You see, that places [the responsibility] upon us, as individual members, to know when men speak from an authoritative standpoint; it is up to us to test it by praying about it, and each of us receive the witness in our hearts that what we have heard is the mind and the will of the Lord. Therein is the safety and the strength of not blind obedience but intelligent obedience to those who preside in authority over us.

End of quote.

These Apostles say it well, and the Spirit periodically testifies to me that what they say is true.

If you are going to stand and deliberately go contrary to all 15 of them when they are in unity about a particular subject, know that you are in trouble and on the road to apostasy away from the Land of Zion.