President Kimball Vs. the World - Part Three

 

For Part One, Part Two, Part Four, or Part Five, click on the appropriate link.

We continue with President Kimball’s talk, Voices of the Past, of the Present, of the Future from the April 1971 General Conference. This one was full of culture quotes.

Early on, not all the apostles make quotes accessible to find again. Perhaps they thought no one would ever try.

They thought wrong. It gets better as time goes on.😊

The Quote

“Other religious leaders are saying: “… precise rules of Christian conduct should not necessarily apply to problems of sexuality.” (London—British Council of Churches.)”

There are times like this where I wish I was a librarian – I struck out on finding a source of this one, but the quote itself illustrates again one of the voices that come out of other religions where there is conflict between what they recommend and what the gospel teaches.

Another quote he offered up was quoted, but with no idea of where it came from.

“Only this month the press quoted the retired head of a populous church proposing “revival of old-style betrothals which would permit young unmarried couples to sleep together with the church’s blessing,” and “it would not be regarded in the moral sense as fornication.””

Two quotes on sexuality, and no idea where they came from.

He gave the date – April of 1971.  Couldn’t find it, but I did find another document that proposed something similar. The source was either Anglican or Catholic - I couldn't really tell - but they thought that a betrothal ceremony before marriage would be enough to let a couple have sex before marriage, and their faith tradition would allow it.

It was an interesting idea – getting married without getting married so I can have sex and have church approval – only the betrothal ceremony kind of resembled a marriage ceremony, so…

I can tell you right now - that would never fly in my faith. Nope. We get married – sealed being the actual term for it. Not getting married remains a sin of fornication and needs repenting from.

Newsweek 1967 and Others – Some Dead Ends

He mentioned another couple of quotes regarding sexuality, specifically regarding LGBTQ people at the time. One quote was from Jenkins Lloyd Jones, the Unitarian Universalist who I’ve talked of in a previous blog.

“And now, the voice of a commentator: “Recently, the screen industry solemnly announced that henceforth perversion and homosexuality would no longer be barred from the screen. … We are drowning our youngsters in violence, cynicism and sadism piped into the living room. …” (Jenkins Lloyd Jones.)

Dark indeed.

Remember, the words ‘perversion’ and ‘homosexuality’ had a different connotation at the time. Yes, they come across as offensive today, but we’re talking about a different cultural landscape back then.

From there, there was a quote from Newsweek Magazine, published in 1967. I couldn’t find the original magazine – Newsweek’s Vault wasn’t nearly as impressive as Time Magazine, so all we have is the quote itself.

“Quoting from fairly recent publications: “The __________ church conference today approved recommendation that homosexuality between consenting adults should no longer be a criminal offense. …”

The voice from a much-read magazine: “… a group of __________ ministers in San Francisco thinks the churches ought to drop their strictures against homosexuals. …”

It was reported that groups of ministers and their wives attended a party given by homosexuals and lesbians to raise funds for the perversion program. The magazine quoted: “… that all Bay area schools would have to close down immediately if all homosexuals currently working in the school systems were discovered and in keeping with state law, dismissed.” (Newsweek, February 13, 1967.)

The minister quoted is reported to have said: “… two people of the same sex can express love and deepen that love by sexual intercourse.” (Ibid.)”

Ouch. Historically, quote notation-wise and word-wise, ouch.

It’s better to read such things in context – if you felt triggered by this, I would encourage you to read the full talk for context. There’s more there than just the quote there.

It is what it is. President Kimball wasn’t wrong, but it could have been worded better, more like it’s worded today, now that we know more about the nature of homosexuality than we did in the 70s.

There are obvious differences between the Church’s doctrine and the beliefs and practices of the LBGTQ community. We live in a free country, where we’ve come to the point where some churches and the gay community live in an uneasy peace, and probably will going forward.

We in our church would have everyone want to serve the Lord. Not everyone will, and that’s our challenge – to learn to love those who want different things than us. It’s never easy to do. The LBGTQ community would have everyone accept them for who they are, who they love, and what they do. Not everyone can, and that can’t be easy to sit with either.

Forcing people to believe what they don’t only creates an underground that becomes a volcano – something that Christians AND gay people have both demonstrated at different times in history.

How do we fix a problem of this magnitude?

Like I know.

I have no idea, other than to accept what is and try to see each other as children of God, individuals, and not arbitrary labels. Christ never did. That’s all I know.

 

 

President Kimball Vs. the World: Part Two

 

For Part One, Part Three, Part Four, or Part Five, click on the appropriate link.

A Historical Caveat

My heart really goes out to President Kimball…and all the other apostles who had to serve the Lord through the Sixties.

That was a mighty squirrelly time. To say the least. And that was why President Kimball’s talk – Voices of thePast, of the Present, of the Future – and many of his other talks, fought back so hard against what was going on at the time.

A lot of what happened then went against the grain of the gospel, yet at the same time, President Kimball was the one who presided over the Church and ushered in the Proclamation on the Priesthood, that made it so all worthy young men could be priesthood holders and people of all races could benefit.

Civil rights changes were a very good thing, and acceptance of people of different races being together and working together. All that must be remembered when I go back and read talks like this. It’s worth learning about, and for a deeper understanding, I recommend the Saints books. A very detailed history of what happened in our church at that time, and what they were going through. They’re free online to anyone who’s interested, and they’re very good. Volume 4 in particular covers the 60s.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers; the Church provides some, but history is complicated. We tend to want to excessively simplify with history…to either gloss it over, or to look at it and say, ‘Just burn it up and start over. Everything historical was racist and horrible.’ Both approaches are wrong-headed in my eyes. Just as in life, we need a middle mindset to understand what happened, so that we can benefit from it today.

To anyone who reads these older talks, please remember that. The words were different and can sound offensive to our ears today sometimes; the beliefs were different because history we take for granted – current knowledge and revelation we take for granted – hadn’t happened yet.

Everyone in the whole world knew so little about sex and their own bodies then – honestly, even now, a lot of people still struggle with a lot of ignorance in that area, even though we have more information and more access to it. Also, our knowledge and understanding of those who have same-sex attraction and their struggles was nearly nonexistent and very misunderstood back in this time.

And With That, I Give You…Time Magazine!

Did you know that Time Magazine has an online archive of a lot of their back issues? It’s called Time Magazine Vault. I just found that out and found the original article that went with this quote.

“Many churchmen are reluctant to give a definite yes or no to marijuana.” “It depends upon circumstances.” (Time, August 16, 1968.)             

These were two separate statements given in the same article – in the magazine with the cover of Richard Nixon and his GOP running mate on the cover. Inside was even more interesting – just looking through the ads and other articles on my way to finding the section I was looking for was an experience. It’s such a time-travel experience.

The quotes come from page 64 of the magazine, in a section entitled ‘Churches’. No doubt President Kimball’s eye was caught when he read the full quote:

“Many churchmen are reluctant to give a definite yes or no to marijuana, on the grounds that the medical evidence as to its harmfulness is incomplete.”

The other quote states, “On the other hand, Dr. Joseph F. Fletcher of Massachusetts’ Episcopal Theological School, the nation’s leading exponent of situation ethics, argues that ‘the morality of pot depends on circumstances…”

President Kimball gave a good snort to the idea of situation ethics in his talk. Reading the original quote, I had a pretty good laugh thinking about it.

Anyone who knows our history knows that current medical and scientific considerations don’t count into apostles’ revelation for the Church one iota. I realize this may sound strange to my friends who aren’t of my faith – they ought to, right? We want to be healthy and follow good science, right?

We do (want to follow science whenever possible), but they (prophets and apostles receiving revelation from God) don’t consider that first. They never have. First comes the revelation, THEN comes the science. Always.

Our health code, the Word of Wisdom, which prohibits all smoking and alcohol consumption, was first given in 1833, only three years after we became a church in the first place. People in and out of the church were scratching their heads over that one at the time – what’s wrong with smoking? Everyone smokes. The alcohol is safer to drink than water – what’s wrong with alcohol?

The Surgeon General (the nation’s highest medical authority) didn’t say one word about smoking alone being bad for people until 1964! Over a hundred years later!

Hence President Kimball’s snort: “They have developed ‘situation ethics’, which seem to cover all sins.”

He made situation ethics sound like a disease when he said it like this. We in our church do love our black-and-white lines. That’s part of who we are. In some areas of life, anyway. The Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity are a couple of those areas. If we want to be able to do temple work, they're a firm requirement.

                Does that mean we hate people who smoke or drink or have sex outside of heterosexual marriage or shun them? Heavens no!

 We don’t shun. We’ll tell people (inside and outside the Church) to repent all day long, but we’ll still talk to you and invite you to our parties loaded with carbs and sugar and pray over them, asking the Lord to make them healthy for all of us. Because we love you. And we love sugar. And we really want it to be healthy even though it's not, because that’s all we have left to us after the alcohol, smoking, and coffee all goes away.

                We’re human. Commandments are hard. They’re supposed to be hard. And the Lord tells us all the time to repent, every day. And we all do our best.

We love our Episcopal friends to no end, as well as those of any other faith or even no faith. But in a lot of cases, situational ethics do not exist in the dojo of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

 

 

Some Quote, Some Don’t – The First Literature Quote in Modern General Conference

 

This is the first of five blogs about this talk. For Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five, click on the appropriate link.

Not Everybody Quotes More Than Scripture

                The current prophet at the time, President Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. was a stoic, good-hearted man, and faithful to the gospel to the core. He was the prophet of the Church when I was born, but he passed away soon into being prophet, so I don’t personally remember him well. What I do know is, he never quoted more than scriptures in his talks.

                There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach – many other of the prophets and apostles also did the same, keeping a tight focus as they felt drawn to do.

                Others would reach out into the wider world to give quotes where some author or another referenced concepts that were gospel-compatible, and those quotes became part of our Conference talks, thus part of our scripture canon - but a part of the canon that was regularly updated.

President Kimball – Voices of the Past, of the Present, of the Future

                The very first Conference talk that did this was President Spencer W. Kimball, before he officially became prophet of the Church, while he was acting President of the Council of the Twelve.

                President Kimball was prophet of our Church until I was 16 years old. His raspy, breathy voice (from surgery for throat cancer) was the first prophet’s voice I ever knew, and one I can still hear in my memory.

                This talk referenced the many voices of the world and what they say, versus the voice of the Lord speaking to us from scriptures and prophets and what He would say, notably referencing the great difference between the two.

                The very first person quoted outside of scripture in General Conference that we have record of was a Unitarian Universalist minister named Jenkin Lloyd Jones.

The Quote

                “A prominent columnist wrote of our day: “One thing is certain. We shall be given no centuries for a leisurely and comfortable decay. We have an enemy now—remorseless, crude, brutal and cocky … [who believes] that we are in an advanced state of moral decline … [and] ripening for the kill.” (Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Human Events, November 24, 1961.)”

The Context

                During the 1960s and 70s, society experienced an intense societal change, that we often refer to as ‘the Sixties’.  President Kimball was well known for standing against those societal changes that made it harder to live the gospel, and he spent a lot of time talking about belief systems in the world and showing how they did not hold up under scrutiny – in that context, he often referenced the Devil, as did many other apostles of the time. Our faith believes the Adversary to be as real a force as God and Jesus Christ, but in the 70s, the Devil got a lot more mentions than he does today. Our focus now is more on Jesus Christ and His atonement.

                It’s my guess (only a guess, mind you) that this greater emphasis on focusing our attention on Christ came about ultimately because of technology, and the way it tends to fracture our attention and our thinking. Society was not the same back then as it is now, which is why we need modern prophets and apostles to help us maneuver through changing circumstances. How they spoke about these issues also changes over time.

Jenkin Lloyd Jones

                Turns out, Jenkin Lloyd Jones is family to me – he is my 10^th cousin, four times removed. He was a Universalist minister and outspoken pacifist, due to his experiences in the Civil War. His nephew, Frank Lloyd Wright, helped him build the Abraham Center, from where he wrote in his magazine The Unity and taught.

                I wasn’t able to reference the sermon this quote came from, called Human Nature. But his journal from the Civil War, called An Artileryman’s Diary, is an intriguing read. If you’re interested in the day to day life of a Civil War soldier, this is a good way to step into the shoes of another in history for a moment. Life then was very different than now.