As Sir Walter Scott quipped: "Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!"
Here is (a touched-up version of) what Log wrote:
Here is (a touched-up version of) what Log wrote:
The problem with relying on the honesty and integrity of well-connected individuals in the mid-to-late 1800s in the absence of actual documentary evidence for our claims to be able to seal in heaven that done on earth is that the Church in this time period was populated by liars and led by men the Church now unequivocally condemns. Indeed, we have very good evidence that a known liar led the Church in her most momentous decision, contrary to the word of the Lord received less than a year beforehand. I personally find Woodruff’s 1889 revelation credible because despite its source, like D&C 136, it is a statement against interest, as the lawyers say.
Moreover, it is interesting someone brought up Nibley. In Mormonism and Early Christianity, as well as The World and the Prophets, Nibley gives us the historical patterns of behavior of a Church in which prophecy and other gifts of the Spirit had gradually ceased, where priesthood became power and authority over men, and where keys were taken as licenses to exercise said authority. She counterfeited and doctored her history to support her claims to power and authority, not scrupling to efface the scriptures to resolve internal doctrinal conflicts and power struggles. She coupled claims to be able to bind in heaven that done on earth with the claim that her leadership was infallible. This Church extensively altered and denatured her doctrines and rites to adapt to the prevailing legal, social, and philosophical views of the surrounding culture, while ruthlessly pursuing internal orthodoxy. She preserved her temporal existence at the cost of her eternal soul. She became a hierarchy of fear and compulsion.
The historical parallel between Catholicism and the development and behavior of modern Mormonism seems perfectly obvious from Nibley’s works. Just to mention two recent and alarming signs, we have heard Vox Apostoli, Vox Dei taught as recently as the October 2014 Conference, and the temple recommend interview has become a creed to which one must assent or be asked out of the Church – trammeled, indeed. Ask Rock Waterman.
I have felt often that Nibley was the most subversive writer the LDS faith ever produced. His works will undoubtedly continue to be published, since he made the necessary pro forma declarations of faith in the leadership throughout, while those with their eyes open to the principles which govern behavior and relationships and power will continue to see the patterns of the ancients he described in clinical detail being played out before their own eyes in their own Church.
Times change. What was true yesterday may no longer be true today. We can see this even in the scriptures. A Church that was true and living, with which the Lord was well-pleased, as of 1 November 1831 (D&C 1), could be, as of September 1832, condemned by God (D&C 84), which condemnation continued, said President Benson.
And things might be changing again, today. What comes after condemnation?