The stable societies

What do the other civilizations leave behind, the ones I call the stable ones? The ones after the manner of the old people. They leave themselves behind. Their next generation takes over and carries on. Time means nothing to them. It's an eternal order of the law. The law of consecration is an eternal order. We will just leave ourselves, the culture, behind, without any loss of product. People will have plenty to do and plenty to think of. ("Law of Consecration", Approaching Zion)

That which is of the most importance

There is no free lunch, we say; you get yourself financially fixed, and then you might consider some of the other things. Of course acquisition soon becomes the measure of existence; we become hooked on the idea of "success" and everything goes into it. Yet once you have "succeeded," what else is there? Only retirement. I know of a number of men who looked forward to retirement, only to find when they had reached it that it was too late for the things they knew in their heart all along were the most important. Like the young man with a fine singing voice who worked in a boiler factory to get enough money for music lessons. By the time he had enough, he was stone deaf. ("Goods of First and Second Intent", Approaching Zion)

Does our knowledge equal our zeal?

To keep the Saints always reaching for the highest and best, the utmost of their capacity, requires enormous motivation—and the gospel supplies it. Nothing can excite men to action like the contemplation of the eternities. The quality in which the Saints have always excelled is zeal. Zeal is the engine that drives the whole vehicle: without it we would get nowhere. But without clutch, throttle, brakes, and steering wheel, our mighty engine becomes an instrument of destruction, and the more powerful the motor, the more disastrous the inevitable crack-up if the proper knowledge is lacking. There is a natural tendency to let the mighty motor carry us along, to give it its head, to open it up and see what it can do. We see this in our society today. Scientists tell us that the advancement of a civilization depends on two things: (1) the amount of energy at its disposal, and (2) the amount of information at its disposal. Today we have unlimited energy—nuclear power; but we still lack the necessary information to control and utilize it. We have the zeal but not the knowledge, so to speak. And this the Prophet Joseph considered a very dangerous situation in the Church. Speaking to the new Relief Society, "[he] commended them for their zeal, but said sometimes their zeal was not according to knowledge." What good is the power, he asks, without real intelligence and solid knowledge? ("Zeal Without Knowledge", Approaching Zion)

The Book of Mormon a momentous achievement

A century and a quarter ago, a young man shocked and angered the world by bringing out a large book that he set up beside the Bible, not as a commentary or a key to the scriptures, but as original scripture-- the revealed word of God to men of old--and as genuine history. The book itself declares that it is an authentic product of the Near East. It gives a full and circumstantial account of its own origin. It declares that it is but one of many, many such books that have been produced in the course of history and may be hidden in sundry places at this day. It places itself in about the middle of a long list of sacred writings, beginning with the patriarchs and continuing down to the end of human history. It cites now-lost prophetic writings of prime importance, giving the names of their authors. It traces its own cultural roots in all directions, emphasizing the immense breadth and complexity of such connections in the world. It belongs to the same class of literature as the Bible, but, along with a sharper and clearer statement of biblical teachings, contains a formidable mass of historical material unknown to biblical writers but well within the range of modern comparative study since it insists on deriving its whole cultural tradition, even in details, directly from a specific time and place in the Old World. The Book of Mormon is God's challenge to the world. It was given to the world not as a sign to convert it but as a testimony to convict it. In every dispensation the world must be left without excuse. It is given without reservation or qualification as a true history and the word of God. ("Historicity of the Bible", Old Testament and Related Studies)

The double standard of anti-Mormon Christians

For your readers, Mormonism is what you [the anti-Mormon writer] say it is. It is to establish the thesis that you have been at such pains with your personal buildup. Once entrenched as an official guide, you can take the readers where you please. It is not the thing you are showing them from then on, but your interpretation of the thing. It has been the practice of religious polemic in every age to attack not what the opposition practice and preach but our impression of what they practice and preach. "Blasphemy!" was the heading of the first published report on the Book of Mormon, and Alexander Campbell sincerely believed it was blasphemy. The early anti-Christian writers were just as sincere. Blasphemy had been from the beginning the stock charge against Jesus and the apostles, just as it is the favorite word of anti-Mormon writers. Didn't Jesus recommend publicly that those who "offended" should be glad to have a millstone hung about their necks and be cast into the sea? Blood atonement! Didn't he instruct his followers to hate-yes, hate-their own mothers and fathers and children? Horrible, horrible! To hate their own lives? A cult of suicide, no less! And then to have innocent babes and venerable ancients damned eternally for no other sin than not having had the ridiculous dunking that so shocked Ann Eliza; and to proclaim that an offender should cut off his own hand or pluck out his own eye-a cult of self-mutilation! And didn't the founder spend his time in private "conversations" with women, including women of ill-repute? And weren't his followers the dregs of society, who admitted that respectable people avoided them? Didn't they preach the shocking doctrine of a physical resurrection?--even doctors of the Church like Origen and Jerome squirm uncomfortably. Their notorious "love feasts"--too indecent to write about--show they meant it literally when they called each other "brother" and "sister" and then proceeded to intermarry in a cult of incest. ("Sounding Brass", Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass)

Joseph Smith offered a plot

Religion has no plot. Science has no plot. This means that Joseph Smith is the only entry. He, at least, has given us a picture. . . Joseph Smith gave the world something that nobody else could. That is why I say that Joseph Smith, with nothing going for him and everything going against him, simply could not lose. He told us what the play is all about. If you can come up with a better story than his, more power to you, but up until now no one else has had any story at all to place before us. If only for that reason, I believe, the Prophet's story deserves a hearing. ("Before Adam")

Christianity's paralysis the result of relativism on teachings of salvation

Every church that has an independent organization once claimed exclusive possession of the saving truth. If it did not, it should never have been organized, for the organization of every church creates divisions in Christendom, and nothing will justify that, short of a peculiar and special claim to enlightenment on matters vital to salvation. In the days of their pristine vitality and conviction, all the churches that now accuse others of thinking they have something better than anybody else thought the same way themselves. If Christianity is anything more than an ethical code or an agglomeration of sentimental attitudes and platitudes, it must be specific in its teachings and clear and uncompromising on matters which by its own profession are of transcendent importance. It is a sorry day when churches apologize for ever having been definite and outspoken on the subject of salvation. Today the fashion is to be neither hot nor cold- and that is the worst state of all. The alternative to being firm and specific is a slippery relativism that leads to nothing but paralysis. ("What Makes a True Church?", The World and the Prophets)