🧭 Course Correction¶
Estimated time to read: 8 minutes
Part of God's divine plan is for us, His conditionally beloved children, is to have an authorized spokesman to tell us the will of God the father. Once in a while, that priesthood authority is absent from mortality, requiring some divine intervention. Common folk still listen to religious leaders who claim God's authority, even if that authority is absent. So God intervenes by calling another prophet, authorizing him to lead, guide, and tell us the will of God the father.
This course correction happens from the outside.
Restoration¶
A foundational idea within the LDS church is that of restoration from a fallen state. God begins what is called a dispensation by designating a prophet who is authorized to speak in His behalf. This process becomes necessary when no living person holds priesthood authority—a period of time or state known as apostasy. This is emphasized pretty heavily in missionary teaching material. A dispensation begins with a religious adherence to the teachings of Yahweh, Jehovah, Yeshua bar Yosef, or Jesus Christ, but the organization over time befalls corruption or the priesthood holders meet a violent end. (Good plan, God! 👍) As a Mormon missionary, I propogated the idea that by the end of the New Testament, Christ's authorized apostles had been killed off, and so the world was once again in a state of apostasy.
This must be true, or else the LDS church doesn't really have a leg to stand on. This is foundational to its claims to legitimacy.
The LDS church presents this context to Joseph Smith being called as a prophet to restore Jesus' original, true church. The First Vision takes place (maybe) through Joseph, a banal & unremarkable teenager in New York state, who is advised that all other Christian denominations have strayed. No matter that they're each convinced that they're "correct" or legitimate representatives of Christ and His teachings. The notion that all other varieties of Christianity are misled, unauthorized and corrupt is the entire premise on which Mormonism is built!
What isn't explicitly outlined here is that when Christ's authorized church needs course correction, God calls in an outsider when calling a prophet to start over. The pattern that I see is that God doesn't contact the leadership of the established church(es) to caution them that their actions are causing them to fall into apostasy as, presumably, that wouldn't work. Rather than offer preventative guidance before we lose the priesthood authority, God reacts by calling an external third party to start over. Good plan, God! No notes.
Third Parties¶
Why would God instead tell an unaffiliated third party, a teenage boy in New York about apostasy? Why not tell theologians in a position of influence? Why not tell the faithful audience of attendees?
Here we are today in the 21st century, in what Mormonism calls the "last dispensation" which began with calling Joseph Smith to be God's prophet. Joseph was not in a position of influence. Joseph was not in the Vatican, nor was he part of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee. Smith was a simple farm boy who maybe wasn't all that smart. God Himself and Jesus Christ appear to Joseph Smith, an outsider, to restore the official church. Not the Pope. Not a presbyterian deacon. Not a baptist minister. Just some dork kid in New York.
An issue with mortal men claiming authority to speak for God and to officially represent His church is that lay members have no way of verifying leaderships' claims. In fact, in modern times, us lay people are advised in no uncertain terms that decrees from leadership must be divinely appointed, or else God wouldn't let them lead. Since they're leading, they are therefore divinely appointed, and everything they say is indistinguishable from God's own words!
For a thought-exercise, pick your preferred boogeyman scapegoat religious institution as a stand-in. Now imagine what if God actually had appeared in the Vatican in or prior to 1820 to advise the Pope directly that the Catholic church had strayed and needs course correction? If an effect of apostasy is corruption, Catholic leadership (in this hypothetical thought-exercise scenario) would have no incentive outside of altruism to upend their entire life's work and theological worldview.
It's still up to those leaders to disseminate that message and comply with the directive. Would they tell the rest of the world? What if the bishop or cardinal in question gets expelled for heretical blasphemy? What if word never gets out? If a powerful church didn't want people to know about corruption, they could very easily just keep on keepin' on. When God decrees course correction, it doesn't come from established leadership, it happens from the outside.
Can we agree that God doesn't inspire reform from the top-down? What if He tried from the bottom-up? After all, God wouldn't just... lean back and watch passively as credulous followers live a lie, would He? If the leadership couldn't be trusted to comply with course correction, shouldn't God somehow advise or tell the general membership that their church had strayed, and to not trust their corrupt leaders? God doesn't seem interested in even advising church congregants that something is amiss. If Mormonism's claim of apostasy is true, then this lack of communication from God is worrisome. I'm not aware of any Old Testament examples of reform from the bottom up. Course correction doesn't seem to happen by God inspiring the masses, nor by inspiring the leaders. It happens from the outside.
Who does God tell?¶
"This is all well and fine," you might say, "but the LDS church is led by God, so none of this silly thought experiment really matters."
Well... A multi generational Church of England family in the year 1875 probably thought the same thing.
The point I'm gradually approaching is that when the world falls into apostasy, having lost God's priesthood authority, who does God communicate that to?
Why did it take an unaffiliated third party teenage boy to be able to see the alleged flaws and corruption within mainstream Christianity of the 19th century? If God establishes churches but then doesn't notify His (conditionally) beloved children when the world is in a state of apostasy, then how can anyone be sure that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hasn't also fallen into apostasy or lost its priesthood authority? Has the institution been caught doing shady things?
Out of the numerous offshoots of Mormonism, my understanding is that each one asserts that it is God's officially sanctioned, authorized church, and the others are blasphemers in apostasy. Ironically, they all use the same foundational text of the Book of Mormon, all laying claim to Joseph Smith's authority. If the Strangite branch of Mormonism were still around today, would it have a legitimate basis against the Brighamite sect?
Following the pattern of apostasy & dispensations that LDS missionaries teach to the uninitiated... if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had fallen into apostasy, God wouldn't tell the general membership, and so the general membership wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. God only tells external third parties, not members of the apostatatized church.
Believers and adherents will continue to defend their respective church's leaders, thinking that they can do no wrong when an objective outsider points out flaws, saying "I am part of God's church, and God's church wouldn't behave that way."
So... consider, then: if this cycle of apostasy and dispensations is an ongoing pattern, how would you know if the church you adhere to is the right one?
To be clear, I am not presenting myself as some kind of divine messenger to overthrow the LDS church's corrupt ways. I am a middle-class white American guy who is pretending to know more about philosophy than I actually do. If there is a "better" church available, I don't know which one it would be.