The Mormon Representation of Brigham Young, and His Adam-God Doctrine
One of the most egregious aspects of Mormon doctrine, as it was, and is, presented to the world, and to its millions of rank and file members during the 20th and 21st Centuries, is its misrepresentation of its very colorful 2nd Prophet, Brigham Young.
In the literature that the Mormon Church has produced for its members to study about the life of Brigham Young, the Brigham Young of the 19th Century is not really mentioned.
Instead, you have the scanty sketch of a man depicted as a probable monogamist, the husband of one wife, who didn't, or couldn't, produce his own teachings of theology and proclaim them as revelations and ex cathedra scripture, as did Joseph Smith.
But the truth is that Brigham Young had 27 wives, and, from 1851-on, he proclaimed in the General Conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints several doctrines that were regarded by the Utah Mormon Church, and the British Mormon Church as sacred revelations from God.
The primary doctrine of Mormon theology introduced in 1851 by Brigham Young, and recorded in the highly acclaimed "Journal of Discourses" was the Adam-God Doctrine which was believed and followed by the Utah and British Mormons until around 1905.
Brigham Young, a close friend and confidante of Joseph Smith, fully believed in what Smith had said in his King Follett Discourse, in 1844, and in Smith's Book of Abraham, about Mormon polytheism.
Yet, Brigham believed that he had received further knowledge, from the source that he called his god, that Joseph Smith had not received about the resurrected exalted-man doctrine.
Young actually believed that one of his purposes on earth was to fulfill the complete doctrine of the exalted-man god; and proclaimed, in 1851, that the Father exalted-man god, who had created all of the spirit children that were to inhabit mortal bodies on earth through procreation with his celestial wife, was Adam, as in the Garden of Eden, and that his goddess wife was Eve.
From 1851, until his death in 1877, he continually propounded the Adam-God Doctrine in L.
D.
S.
General Conferences (and even in the Mormon newspaper, "The Deseret News).
He had the arrogance to state in one of those conferences that, in paraphrase, "Jesus had to have a resurrected body like his father, Adam, in order to be able to properly judge his children.
" Yes, you heard it correctly.
This perturbing statement of Brigham Young was printed in the "Journal of Discourses, and, later, in the L.
D.
S.
1984 Melchizadek Priesthood Study Guide, used by me and every other elder of the Mormon Church during the year 1984, in a chapter entitled, "Man May Become Like God.
" In his heretical interpretation of Christianity, Brigham Young had sadly neglected to understand that Jesus Christ was the eternal Spirit Jehovah, who had presided over the Children of Israel as He brought them out of Egypt, established them in the Land of Canaan, and judged them through the prophets for nearly a thousand years.
Eleven of the Mormon Apostles, serving under Brigham Young, from 1851-1877, were ardent believers in the Adam-God Doctrine.
Only one Mormon Apostle, Orson Pratt, refused, however, to believe in Brigham's ex cathedra revelation that had been made into ex cathedra scripture.
During recorded minutes of meetings of the Mormon Council of the Twelve Apostles, in 1858, 1862, and 1867, Orson Pratt was chastised by the other apostles for not believing what the Prophet, Brigham Young, proclaimed were words from God.
These recorded minutes are available on the Internet for public perusal.
In 1877, the Mormon Prophet Brigham Young, ailing from bad health, decided to convert his Adam-God Doctrine into a Mormon temple liturgy, and had it written and recorded as the "Lecture Before the Veil," in which he wrote the chronology of Father Adam and Mother Eve, as they had been resurrected and glorified as a god and a goddess before Adam had organized (he didn't have the power to create something out of nothing) the heavens and the earth and placed himself and his one special celestial wife, Eve, into the Garden of Eden.
Young personally read the original Adam-God liturgy for the first time in the St.
George, Utah Mormon Temple in early 1877.
Twenty years, or so, after Brigham young's death, in August 1877, just after Utah had been added to the Union, in 1896, the Mormon Church hierarchy realized that the un-Christian strangeness of the Adam-God Doctrine was something, much like polygamy, which would detract from the apparent Christian representation that the Mormon Church was trying to paint for the U.
S.
government, for the purpose of annexation.
So, around 1902, the Mormon Church began to officially denounce the Adam-God Doctrine, which had been practiced in the Mormon Temples since 1877, and which had been regarded as ex cathedra cannon scripture since 1851.
The major problems, however, associated with de-canonizing a long-established doctrine, revealed and developed by a Mormon prophet, as heresy was handled pragmatically by sophistic Mormon propagandists who became well known as Mormon apologists.
After 1902, the Adam-God Doctrine was officially relegated in Church publications to the status of a heresy and called, instead, the Adam-God theory, which Mormon Prophet Spencer W.
Kimball later said, in 1985, was concocted by a heretic.
These pronouncements, however, created quite a stir among the generations of Mormons who had personally experienced polygamy and the Adam-God Doctrine liturgy in the Utah Mormon temples, and, because of it, the Mormon Church, between 1905 and 1920, lost around 75,000 of its, once, loyal members, who renamed themselves fundamentalist Mormons and retained polygamy and the other doctrines that had been propounded by Brigham Young.
The Mormon church dealt with these thousands of, once, loyal Mormons by excommunicating them for practicing false doctrines.
This basically was the second schism, or rift, in the Mormon Church.
The first schism had been the separation of the Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, when Brigham Young had declared himself the successor of Joseph Smith, after Smith's lynching and death.
and led a portion of the Latter-day Saints west to the Utah Valley.
Hence, the doctrinal history of the Mormon Church has been greatly spotted with pragmatic efforts to keep the Church alive and prospering by declaring that doctrines, once regaled by Mormon leaders as the voice, word, and command of God, were heresy for the political benefit of the Church.
Much earlier, Mormon leaders who had plural wives had lied to the world when they had printed in their Doctrine and Covenants that "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not endorse polygamy, but teaches, and believes, that a man should have one, and only, wife.
" Men with as many as ten wives went on missions from Utah to other countries declaring and preaching that polygamy was a sin.
Amazing, huh? I tend to believe that the more honest scholars in the early 20th Century Mormon Church hierarchy, such as B.
H.
Roberts, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, were still pragmatic enough to conclude that the Church had to go on, so that lying for the Mormon lord was ultimately necessary, though completely dishonest.
Roberts was greatly concerned about the true origin of the Book of Mormon, whether Joseph Smith had plagiarized it from other works or had really translated it from golden plates; but, having been one of the generation to actually experience the Adam-God Doctrine in the Salt Lake Mormon Temple, he had no qualms about dispensing with the Adam-God Doctrine as though it had been a passing fad.
In a previous essay, I attempted to compare the typical true-blue Mormon mind to one systematically compartmentalized by lifelong conditioning, where truth and fantasy are contained in different well-insulated mental compartments, and used selectively support an insupportable religion.
Perhaps B.
H.
Roberts had this type of selectively switchable mind.
By reflecting on Brigham Young and his heretical arrogance, in saying what he did about the Savior of the world, the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among men, the Jehovah of the Old Testament who guided the Children of Israel through Moses to the promised land, our Lord Jesus Christ, that He had to have had a physical body, just like his exalted-man father god, in order to be able to properly judge his children, we can be readily assured that the creator and progenitor of the Adam-God Doctrine was surely a heretic.
In the literature that the Mormon Church has produced for its members to study about the life of Brigham Young, the Brigham Young of the 19th Century is not really mentioned.
Instead, you have the scanty sketch of a man depicted as a probable monogamist, the husband of one wife, who didn't, or couldn't, produce his own teachings of theology and proclaim them as revelations and ex cathedra scripture, as did Joseph Smith.
But the truth is that Brigham Young had 27 wives, and, from 1851-on, he proclaimed in the General Conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints several doctrines that were regarded by the Utah Mormon Church, and the British Mormon Church as sacred revelations from God.
The primary doctrine of Mormon theology introduced in 1851 by Brigham Young, and recorded in the highly acclaimed "Journal of Discourses" was the Adam-God Doctrine which was believed and followed by the Utah and British Mormons until around 1905.
Brigham Young, a close friend and confidante of Joseph Smith, fully believed in what Smith had said in his King Follett Discourse, in 1844, and in Smith's Book of Abraham, about Mormon polytheism.
Yet, Brigham believed that he had received further knowledge, from the source that he called his god, that Joseph Smith had not received about the resurrected exalted-man doctrine.
Young actually believed that one of his purposes on earth was to fulfill the complete doctrine of the exalted-man god; and proclaimed, in 1851, that the Father exalted-man god, who had created all of the spirit children that were to inhabit mortal bodies on earth through procreation with his celestial wife, was Adam, as in the Garden of Eden, and that his goddess wife was Eve.
From 1851, until his death in 1877, he continually propounded the Adam-God Doctrine in L.
D.
S.
General Conferences (and even in the Mormon newspaper, "The Deseret News).
He had the arrogance to state in one of those conferences that, in paraphrase, "Jesus had to have a resurrected body like his father, Adam, in order to be able to properly judge his children.
" Yes, you heard it correctly.
This perturbing statement of Brigham Young was printed in the "Journal of Discourses, and, later, in the L.
D.
S.
1984 Melchizadek Priesthood Study Guide, used by me and every other elder of the Mormon Church during the year 1984, in a chapter entitled, "Man May Become Like God.
" In his heretical interpretation of Christianity, Brigham Young had sadly neglected to understand that Jesus Christ was the eternal Spirit Jehovah, who had presided over the Children of Israel as He brought them out of Egypt, established them in the Land of Canaan, and judged them through the prophets for nearly a thousand years.
Eleven of the Mormon Apostles, serving under Brigham Young, from 1851-1877, were ardent believers in the Adam-God Doctrine.
Only one Mormon Apostle, Orson Pratt, refused, however, to believe in Brigham's ex cathedra revelation that had been made into ex cathedra scripture.
During recorded minutes of meetings of the Mormon Council of the Twelve Apostles, in 1858, 1862, and 1867, Orson Pratt was chastised by the other apostles for not believing what the Prophet, Brigham Young, proclaimed were words from God.
These recorded minutes are available on the Internet for public perusal.
In 1877, the Mormon Prophet Brigham Young, ailing from bad health, decided to convert his Adam-God Doctrine into a Mormon temple liturgy, and had it written and recorded as the "Lecture Before the Veil," in which he wrote the chronology of Father Adam and Mother Eve, as they had been resurrected and glorified as a god and a goddess before Adam had organized (he didn't have the power to create something out of nothing) the heavens and the earth and placed himself and his one special celestial wife, Eve, into the Garden of Eden.
Young personally read the original Adam-God liturgy for the first time in the St.
George, Utah Mormon Temple in early 1877.
Twenty years, or so, after Brigham young's death, in August 1877, just after Utah had been added to the Union, in 1896, the Mormon Church hierarchy realized that the un-Christian strangeness of the Adam-God Doctrine was something, much like polygamy, which would detract from the apparent Christian representation that the Mormon Church was trying to paint for the U.
S.
government, for the purpose of annexation.
So, around 1902, the Mormon Church began to officially denounce the Adam-God Doctrine, which had been practiced in the Mormon Temples since 1877, and which had been regarded as ex cathedra cannon scripture since 1851.
The major problems, however, associated with de-canonizing a long-established doctrine, revealed and developed by a Mormon prophet, as heresy was handled pragmatically by sophistic Mormon propagandists who became well known as Mormon apologists.
After 1902, the Adam-God Doctrine was officially relegated in Church publications to the status of a heresy and called, instead, the Adam-God theory, which Mormon Prophet Spencer W.
Kimball later said, in 1985, was concocted by a heretic.
These pronouncements, however, created quite a stir among the generations of Mormons who had personally experienced polygamy and the Adam-God Doctrine liturgy in the Utah Mormon temples, and, because of it, the Mormon Church, between 1905 and 1920, lost around 75,000 of its, once, loyal members, who renamed themselves fundamentalist Mormons and retained polygamy and the other doctrines that had been propounded by Brigham Young.
The Mormon church dealt with these thousands of, once, loyal Mormons by excommunicating them for practicing false doctrines.
This basically was the second schism, or rift, in the Mormon Church.
The first schism had been the separation of the Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, when Brigham Young had declared himself the successor of Joseph Smith, after Smith's lynching and death.
and led a portion of the Latter-day Saints west to the Utah Valley.
Hence, the doctrinal history of the Mormon Church has been greatly spotted with pragmatic efforts to keep the Church alive and prospering by declaring that doctrines, once regaled by Mormon leaders as the voice, word, and command of God, were heresy for the political benefit of the Church.
Much earlier, Mormon leaders who had plural wives had lied to the world when they had printed in their Doctrine and Covenants that "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not endorse polygamy, but teaches, and believes, that a man should have one, and only, wife.
" Men with as many as ten wives went on missions from Utah to other countries declaring and preaching that polygamy was a sin.
Amazing, huh? I tend to believe that the more honest scholars in the early 20th Century Mormon Church hierarchy, such as B.
H.
Roberts, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, were still pragmatic enough to conclude that the Church had to go on, so that lying for the Mormon lord was ultimately necessary, though completely dishonest.
Roberts was greatly concerned about the true origin of the Book of Mormon, whether Joseph Smith had plagiarized it from other works or had really translated it from golden plates; but, having been one of the generation to actually experience the Adam-God Doctrine in the Salt Lake Mormon Temple, he had no qualms about dispensing with the Adam-God Doctrine as though it had been a passing fad.
In a previous essay, I attempted to compare the typical true-blue Mormon mind to one systematically compartmentalized by lifelong conditioning, where truth and fantasy are contained in different well-insulated mental compartments, and used selectively support an insupportable religion.
Perhaps B.
H.
Roberts had this type of selectively switchable mind.
By reflecting on Brigham Young and his heretical arrogance, in saying what he did about the Savior of the world, the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among men, the Jehovah of the Old Testament who guided the Children of Israel through Moses to the promised land, our Lord Jesus Christ, that He had to have had a physical body, just like his exalted-man father god, in order to be able to properly judge his children, we can be readily assured that the creator and progenitor of the Adam-God Doctrine was surely a heretic.
Source...