Yes, Joseph Smith peered into a hat as he translated parts of the Book of Mormon. He used a seer stone. He had multiple wives. He was not perfect. Neither are prophets today; so individuals turn away from the faith.
Recall, however, the apostle Paul’s wise counsel, “... Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Or, as the Worldwide English New Testament version reads, “Now it is like looking in a looking-glass which does not make things clear. We cannot see and understand things plainly. But when things become perfect, then we shall fully know and understand everything, just as God knows.”
As Paul understood, our perceptions are clouded in this life, but all will become clear when we return and dwell with God.
Interestingly, distortion is, perhaps, one of the most prominent features of today’s technologically connected world. As wonderful as technology can be, it also opens us up to nonstop onslaughts by advertisers and the media who hammer messages into our conscious and unconscious minds that socialize us to certain beliefs and practices. For example: college students are socialized to “party” yet practically and pragmatically, “partying” presents real risks to the well-being and success of students. Nevertheless, many students mindlessly conform because that is what they have been persistently conditioned to do by advertisers and the media.
Aware of this phenomenon, wouldn’t we be better served by questioning contemporary messages, often built on the arrogant assumption we are better, brighter and smarter than those in the past whose practices, when out of step with ours, we deem aberrant or wrong. For, although there is much good in the world, in many ways we seem increasingly selfish, vicious, disdainful and inconsiderate of others. Perhaps we should seek to understand those from the past, and at least judge them on their terms since, truthfully, many of them were bright, articulate, capable, inventive, wise individuals from whom we can learn much.
Which leads us back to the vilification of Joseph Smith Jr. for his habits and practices. He peered into a hat while translating the Book of Mormon. So what? He lived in the small Whitmer farmhouse with a bazillion other people coming and going all day while he tried to translate the Book of Mormon. I have trouble concentrating in my quiet, private office. Lacking privacy, perhaps this allowed him to zone out the commotion around him and focus on his task.
He had a seer stone. Many people did in his day. Today we think it weird. However, we read our horoscopes, have our palms read and take advice from telephone psychics, TV talk show hosts and Hollywood stars — whose lives are often a mess.
In the church today, we need to stop comparing the ancient, or restored, or today’s church, against today’s socialized norms — many of which are aberrant to God — and spend more time searching God’s word.
Try this exercise. What practices might individuals in the future wag their heads over when looking back at our world?
We claim to disdain slavery, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and rightly so, but what about the slavery and genocides of today? We fail to protect innocent women and children from sexual slavery and from predators whose lusts are often fueled by pornography. Many cavalierly reject protecting the unborn. Are their lives really of so little consequence that we casually slaughter them in vast numbers?
Do we ever consider the greatest irony, yet magnificence, of a God who has only frail, wholly imperfect human beings, heavily socialized to certain practices and behaviors, to work with to achieve the glory and immortality of mankind? A loving God who must sigh often as we smugly rail against his chosen prophets and his commandments. The same God who made clear, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8).
We even at times presume to know more than God by defying his word, delivered through his prophets and apostles, although we are comparatively ignorant compared to our omnipotent, omniscient Heavenly Father. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reminded us in “Prophets, Seers, and Revelators” during the October 2004 general conference:
“Against … our modern day, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are commissioned by God and sustained by you as prophets, seers, and revelators, with the president of the church sustained as the prophet, seer, and revelator, … authorized to exercise all of the revelatory and administrative keys for the church … and gaining their strength from the chief cornerstone, ‘the rock of our Redeemer, who is (Jesus) Christ, the Son of God.’ … Such a foundation in Christ was and is always to be a protection in days ‘when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you.’ In such days as we are now in … the storms of life ‘shall have no power over you … because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall’” (Helaman 5:12).
It would be to each person’s eternal benefit to recognize how deeply we are socialized to many false worldly beliefs, to humble ourselves, to go to the Lord in mighty prayer, to study his word, to fast to know his will, to trust God and his prophets and exercise greater faith, greater devotion and less arrogance and self-righteousness.
Kristine Frederickson writes on topics that affect members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide. She teaches part time at BYU. Her views are her own.
Email: kfrederickson.desnews@gmail.com