You deserve a lot of credit. You’ve really hung in there and responded with pertinent responses and arguments. Many other SLC LdS would have retreated long ago. Since you just revealed your affiliation, you may find that the tone may change.
I don’t mean to take any liberties, but I have a couple of questions for you if you’re willing to entertain them.
As a person who no longer attends the CoC (RLDS), what was/is the RLDS position on the Doctrine and Convenants? I see that they disavowed polygamy, baptisms for the dead, secret (aka “sacred”) temple rituals, etc., but what about men being able to attain godhood, etc.?
The concern many of the “anti’s” here have is the PoGP, Journal of Discourses and the D&C. There are way too many outlandish “revelations” in those books for reasonable people to conclude that the LdS use only the BoM as scripture and as points of doctrine. What are your thoughts and what is the RLDS position on these?
I believe the SLC LdS beliefs are tainted because of JS’s behavior and subsequent “teachings” and “revelations” as well as those of subsequent prophets in the additional “scriptures” I mentioned. What are your thoughts and the position of the RLDS on this?
As a matter of disclosure, I’m an apostate SLC LdS married to a mormon and I’m transitioning out of mormonism although she is not (extremely devout).
FRegards,
SZ
Since the Book of Mormon was in print when the church was founded, it was already accepted as scripture. The revelations through Joseph Smith were simply presented as occasions required. The first attempt to gather these revelations into a book was the ill-fated 1833 Book of Commandments, which was only partially printed when the church's Independence, Missouri press was destroyed by enemies of the church. There is no evidence that a church conference had approved the book's publication.
The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants was approved for publication by church conferences, thus abiding by the doctrine of common consent, which means that church leaders must not force scriptures on the church without her approval through elected delegates to a general conference.
The 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants added some documents, including some on baptism for the dead, which had never been approved by a church conference. The RLDS was founded on common consent, so the documents that had never been approved by a conference had less authority than those that had been approved. Although the 1844 additions were not officially removed from its canon until 1970, the RLDS never practised baptism for the dead.
Another document put forth by Joseph Smith in the Nauvoo period that had no conference approval was the Book of Abraham, later added to the LDS canon in her Pearl of Great Price, but never added to the RLDS canon.
The RLDS acquired the manuscripts to publish Joseph Smith's revision of the Bible, now referred to as the Inspired Version. I believe that this was authorized by a general conference.
As it has turned out, no documents by Joseph Smith presented during the Nauvoo period have a place in the RLDS, now Community of Christ, canon. It was during the Nauvoo, Illinois period that many of the doctrines that so many of us find objectionable developed. The Utah Mormon church was a transfer westward of Nauvoo Period theology, which they then developed further.
In the late 1800s a prominent Mormon scholar was trying to persuade the Mormon leadership that the Book of Mormon could not be true. About that time Martin Harris showed up in Utah testifying that the Book of Mormon is true. Harris so inspired the membership that abandonment of the Book of Mormon by the Mormon leadership could not take place. It is the Mormon church that has published millions of copies of the Book of Mormon, while the RLDS has not done much with it, due to some of its own scholars teaching that the book is a fraud.
The best edition of the Book of Mormon is the Restored Covenant Edition, which is based on the two original manuscripts, the dictated manuscript owned by the Mormon church, which has been only partially preserved, and the printer's manuscript owned by the Community of Christ, which has been preserved in completeness. I notice that a new Mormon edition has moved the text back towards the original manuscripts, no doubt inspired by the Restored Covenant Edition published by the Zarahemla Research Foundation, which was founded by Mesoamerican archaeologists who are convinced that Mesoamerica is the region in which Book of Mormon peoples lived.