Brigham Young, Natural Seers, and Seer Stones

J. Stapley needs no introduction. He’s been kind enough to join in on the seer stone/”magic” fe[a]st we’ve had here at JI this week.

Stan’s recent post on the use of seer stones by young women, reminded me of some sources relating to Brigham Young. Young is on record as saying that he was not a “natural seer” (see discussion in this post). I’m currently of the position that Brigham Young believed that he did not have the ability to use seer stones. As illustrated in comments while discussing some of his more controversial beliefs with the Salt Lake School of the Prophets, Young “said there were many revelations given to him that he did not receive from the Prophet Joseph. He did not receive them through the Urim and Thummim as Joseph did but when he did received them he knew of their truth as much as it was possible for them him to do of any truth.” [1]

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How Thomas Aquinas?s Theory Of Scripture Explains Why Jimmer Fredette Is The Hinge On Which Modern Mormonism Pivots

(Part whatever of my ongoing investigation into the cultural intersections of religion and basketball; part I, on the intertwining cultural meanings of Mormonism and the Utah Jazz, can be found here; part II, a review of the religious pilgrimage of Cleveland Cavaliers bit player Lance Allred, here; part III, on the Puritan antecedents of LeBron James nemesis Dan Gilbert, here.)

The author of Holy Scripture is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property, that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal.   That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it.    Now this spiritual sense has a threefold division. For as the Apostle says (Hebrews 10:1) the Old Law is a figure of the New Law, and Dionysius says [Coel. Hier. i] “the New Law itself is a figure of future glory.” Again, in the New Law, whatever our Head has done is a type of what we ought to do. Therefore, so far as the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law, there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense.

– Thomas Aquinas,Summa Theologica 1.1.10.

Like Walt Whitman, and Holy Scripture properly understood, Jimmer Fredette contains multitudes. 

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Supplemental Worship

Last year in a post here at JI, I explored the worship patterns of Latter-day Saints living in the American South at the turn of the twentieth century. I suggested that often times these ungathered Mormons, left to wade the waters of Mormonism on their own, without an ordained priesthood holder and consequently any real semblance of standard church organization and a regular meeting schedule, would often “supplement their Mormon worship by attending other denominations? worship meetings in between visits from the itinerant elders.” Some Mormons thus attended Methodist camp meetings and Baptist church services on any given Sunday, though they retained their belief in the Mormon message and their membership as Latter-day Saints.

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The Conversion of Parley Pratt; or, the patterns of Mormon piety

I.
First, definitions.

(And already, you know this will be long.)

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The FLDS rally at the Salt Lake Courthouse, July 29, 2009

This morning, several hundred members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gathered on the steps of Salt Lake City’s Matheson Courthouse and on the lawn of the Salt Lake City and County Building across the street to express their dismay that District Judge Denise Lindberg was considering ordering the United Effort Plan trust, which contains a great deal of church property, dismantled and sold.

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“Thou Wast Willing to Lay Down Thy Life for Thy Brethren”: Zion’s Blessings in the Early Church, Part II

*This is continued from Part I.

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“Thou Wast Willing to Lay Down Thy Life for Thy Brethren”: Zion’s Blessings in the Early Church, Part I

*This is the first of a two-part summary of the paper I presented at JWHA this past weekend.

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