How well does the depiction of God and humanity inJoseph SmithS King Follett Discourse and Lorenzo SnowSfamous "coupletnfit with traditional Christian views of Christ and the Atonement- or even with thosefound in the Book of Mormon? Must Latter-day Saints choose between them? THEOLOGY AND CHRISTOLOGY THROUGHTHE LENS OF A By L. Rex Sears HEN BYU RELIGION PROFESSOR STEPHEN E. and may be responding by moving the Church away from its Robinson collaborated with an evangelical King Follett heritage. Christian to write How Wide the Divide?, he de- voted his contributions to minimizing Mormon departures "THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF TRUTH from more orthodox forms of ~hristianit~.'Judging from AND OF THE GOSPEL" Robinson's position and influence, we have come a long way from our nineteenth-century heritage of glorylng in alienation N THE KING Follett Discourse he delivered shortly before from mainstream Christianity For my part, I suspect that we his death, Joseph Smith taught the Saints, as "the first have never fully appreciated how wide the divide really is-or I principle of truth and of the Gospel," that God "once was might be, if we took our founding prophet at his word. If ac- a man like one of us and that God Himself, the Father of us all, cepted, Joseph Smith's later teachings have implications, unap- once dwelled on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did preciated perhaps by the Prophet himself, which could place in the flesh and like "God Himself who sits enthroned in us even further from the biblical Christian tradition than the yonder heavens is a Man like unto one of yourselves-that is Mormon firebrands of the nineteenth century recognized. the great ~ecret!"~ Over the years, observers on both sides of the divide have According to Smith, this "great secret" is the key to under- remarked that the theology Joseph taught in the King Follett standing "the designs of God for the human race, the relation Discourse fits poorly, or not at all, with orthodox Christianity's the human family sustains with God, and why He interferes notions of humanity, deity, and their relations one with an- with the affairs of man."5 God is "a man" like us, and our des- other. But I think observers on the Mormon side, in particular, tiny as "joint-heirs with Jesus Christ" is "to inherit and enjoy have shown little awareness that King Follett teachings may the same glory, powers, and exaltation until you ascend a have decisive consequences for the central Christian doctrine throne of eternal power and arrive at the station of a God, the of Atonement as well. As I argue here, reasonable elaborations same as those who have gone bef~re.'~ of the discourse's teachings undercut certain lines of You have got to learn how to make yourselves Gods in Atonement theory and render competing lines superfluous. order to save yourselves and be kings and priests to Eugene England characterized the perfect and loving, yet God, the same as all Gods have done-by going from limited divinity of the Mormon theology he loved as the a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small de- "weeping God of ~ormonism."~I share England's taste in the- gree to another, from grace to grace, until the resur- ology, but unlike him, I am not sure we can keep our weeping rection of the dead, from exaltation to exaltation-till God and still maintain our membership in the wider Christian you are able to sit in everlasting burnings and ever- fraternity And although those in authority may not have con- lasting power and glory as those who have gone be- sciously acknowledged the tension, I think they may sense it fore, sit enthroned.' Thus Joseph Smith explains God's interest in human affairs: L. REX SEARS is an attorney practicing in Salt God has trodden the same eternal path as we; and just as his Lake City. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from forebears have done (and we shall yet do), God desires to raise Haward University, where he wrote his disserta- up yet another generation of gods-just like generation after tion on Mormon theology. generation of human beings eagerly bear and rear offspring. PAGE 34 APRIL 2002 SUNSTONE I consider the parental model of divinity set forth in joseph Smith i discourse and Lorenzo Snow's couplet to be incompatible with guilty monotheistic piety that teaches us to feel hopelessly and inescapably dependent on and indebted to a mercifully condescending creator. For Joseph Smith, then, the reason for God's participation in great creator. As the objects of such condescending mercy, we human affairs is captured in Lorenzo Snow's couplet: "As man can only assume toward our god a position analogous to is, God once was. As God is, man may become." supine prostration. King Benjamin espouses something like In a newspaper interview a few years ago, President this in his famous sermon: Hinckley publicly dismissed Snow's teaching as "a little cou- And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and plet," "more of a couplet than anything else," that "gets into granted unto you your lives, for which ye are in- some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much debted unto him. And secondly, he doth require that about."' Personally, I do not think the theology involved is all ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if that deep-if by deep, we mean obscure or difficult; the doc- ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore trine is certainly profound but not deep in that other sense. he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, In a more recent interview, President Hinckley gave the and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of same treatment to another ideological derelict from our past. what have ye to boast? (Mosiah 2:23-25) He attributed to Brigham Young the statement that "If you I wonder if, at some level, those who are uncomfortable went to Heaven and saw God it would be Adam and Eve," and with Joseph Smith's later teachings might regard accepting this commented, "I don't know what he meant by that."9 In both sense of worthlessness as a form of payment for the aid of the cases, rather than acknowledge that earlier prophets taught supreme being McMumn talks about, the one who holds the what they appeared to teach, President Hinckley concludes whole world in his hands. Based upon my own development, that their statements are difficult or obscure and cannot be ac- I suspect that some people have an unarticulated fear that this cepted at face value.'' I think that the similarity of President being might abandon them if they do not exhibit and preach Hinckley's treatment of the little couplet and Adam-God bodes such guilty monotheistic piety ill for the future of the couplet. But I do not think this piety fits with the model of divinity President Hinckley followed his remarks about the couplet espoused by Joseph Smith. If we take the Prophet's model seri- with a tempered endorsement of the idea that we can become ously, we must modify or abandon some of our more self-dep- as God is, which suggests that his reservations center primarily recating religious notions. on the first teaching of the couplet, that God was once as we are now l1 Several decades earlier, influential Apostle Anthon TO SHARE KNOWLEDGE, POWER, AND GLORY H. Lund had similarly confided to his journal that he did not "like to think of a time when there was no ~od."'~Sterling M. OSEPH SMITH TEACHES us to understand our relation- McMunin suggested one possible explanation for the discom- ship with God through the lens of earthly parenting. fort evident in Lund's reaction to this teaching when he noted J Healthy parenting of mortal children is about many noble that worshippers want the object of their worship to "have the things, but it is not about mercy or condescension in anything whole world in his hand," because they "do not propose to like the sense described above. Like most parents, I have a take their problems to a God who has problems of his own."13 deep and abiding love for my son that can drive me to make Maybe Lund disliked the notion that God once was not a god great sacrifices for his sake. But I did not become and I do not because that idea threatened his comforting belief in a god remain Christian's father because I feel sony for him. I am with no limits. simply thrilled to be a part of his life, to have the opportunity King Follett theology poses another, less obvious but re- to share in his upbringing, and to help and watch him grow. lated threat to certain religious sensibilities. Traditional Like the heavenly father Joseph Smith describes, I am Christian theologies present God's participation in human af- raising my son to share in whatever "knowledge, power and fairs as the incomprehensible condescension of a being insu- glory" I have achieved or may achieve. Sadly, this means an im- perably superior to us. In such theologies, the creation and portant part of what I want for Christian is independence from subsequent Atonement of humanity is solely motivated by the me. Like any teacher's, my success is measured by the extent to unmerited mercy of the supreme being for lesser creatures which my child becomes able to meet tasks and challenges who are and must ever remain pitiable by comparison to their without my help.