William James

William James
We must get by on what truth we have today, and be willing to call it error tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Our Duty To Question Church Leadership

In response to someone's comment:

"it is our duty to question the leadership. We have a guideline for doing so. We are taught to "search, ponder and pray." We must question our leaders. We must not "trust" them. We must see possible error and research the subject ourselves, then we must consider the implications of the matter from an educated perspective then finally we approach God on the subject and obtain confirmation one way or the other regarding the subject.

Church leadership throughout the Bible shows the need to question their actions. The sons of Eli, Abraham and Hagar, Moses screwed up and made the Israelites wander longer than was needed, etc. etc.

To maintain a strong and "true" Church of God all memebrs must exercise their ability to verify the correctness of the application and practice of the Gospel as well as statements by its leadership."

The comment was made:

"God himself has promised through the Prophet Joseph Smith that this would be the last time the gospel would be restored until the Savior returns for his millennial reign. So the is no more apostasy to occur at an organizational level ie the church will remain in tact until the Lord returns. IF you believe in that God reveals his words through His servants the prophets and the aforesaid is true, they will not lead us astray therefore no need to question. There is also no harm in asking for confirmation on any true and correct event or principle. But to question because of possible error/falling away or ill conceived doctrine of our leadership, that is totally and unequivocally incorrect, in fact we are commanded not to do it, there is no need."

To which I responded:

Suppose one of those church leaders in the old testament claimed receiving a similar revelation from God (such as the one made by Wilford Woodruff). What then would have happened to the church? Bottom line: the validity of the statement depends upon the assumption that the one making it truly received that revelation from God. Mustn't we also verify that before we follow every subsequent instruction without question? If we do not question, we will fall into the category of members criticized by Brigham Young when he said something along the lines of that he was concerned that members would so unquestioningly follow the prophet that they might stop thinking for themselves and be led astray.

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