A Monopoly on Truth?

We don’t have a monopoly on truth.

Part of my perfectionistic thinking is that the Church has to be the single repository of all truth. Logically, I know that’s not right, but it is an expectation I have held. So for this month’s blog I’m going to blow that thinking out of the water. 

I’m going to point you to this amazing podcast with S. Michael Wilcox. In his words: “God has been speaking to his children all the time. Every way he can, everywhere . . . I can hear (his voice in) the voice of a sage, or a philosopher or a poet or playwright. God’s voice is like an orchestra. We believe in a God that is speaking all the time, everywhere, every way he can.”

It comes in two parts:
God’s Many Voices (Part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZsEHzgNSZA
God’s Many Voices (Part 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_xmLBfPZMs 

Joseph Smith declared: “One of the grand principles of ‘Mormonism’ is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church 5:498-5.) He also said, “Have the Presbyterians any truth? Yes. Have the Baptists, Methodists, etc., any truth? Yes. . . . We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true ‘Mormons.’” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church 5:516-18.) 

Brigham Young taught: “‘Mormonism,’ so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to ‘Mormonism.’ The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belong to this Church. As for their morality, many of them are, morally, just as good as we are. All that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy belongs to this Church and Kingdom. ‘Mormonism’ includes all truth. There is no truth but what belongs to the Gospel. It is life, eternal life; it is bliss; it is the fulness of all things in the gods and in the eternities of the gods.” (Teaching of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, 16.)

We welcome truth, from wherever it comes. 

To be continued . . . with Part 79