Why Contextualizing Facts Matters So Much

[Music] facts don't interpret themselves people interpret facts and the People Best equipped to most accurately interpret facts are those who understand the contexts in which those facts were originally embedded this is especially important in understanding church history because a fact from church history especially a potentially shocking or scandalous sounding fact isolated from its context is a fact certain to be misunderstood this reality is too often leveraged by critics against church members as a weapon of mass deception which has troubled many a testimony this is why in today's episode of church history matters Casey and I discuss the crucial skill of properly contextualizing facts so we know what kind of meaning to give them and how to feel about them and we then demonstrate how this skill works with some real life potentially shocking examples I'm Scott Woodward and my co-host is Casey Griffiths and today we dive into our seventh episode of this series dealing with truth seeking and good thinking now let's get into it Cas see what's going on not much how you doing Scott you're ready for another mental Jiu-Jitsu round is that what we're doing here I think we're doing some mental Jiu-Jitsu I think that's mental Brazilian jiujitsu yeah our metaphors have gone from pickle ball to ju-jitsu oh I forgot I forgot this is like another round of mental pickle ball with h with church history topics I kind of like jiujitsu cuz then we can use the term grapple yeah we need to Grapple with these issues you know these difficult topics it's more like visceral right it's not like you're hitting a little ball it's like you're wrestling with the the issue and slamming it to the ground and everything like that blood sweat tears yeah yes no no no we don't we don't Advocate any violence this is friendly mental Jiu-Jitsu no blood yes maybe a few tears um plenty of sweat though yeah plenty of sweat yes should we review what we've been talking about here mhmh in this series we're not really tackling a single church history topic as we have in past series we're trying to do something harder we're trying to slow down and examine the Frameworks of thinking and the mental moves that durable disciples make as they encounter potentially Faith challenging material about our history or our Doctrine we're trying to communicate and illustrate the mindset and the mental processes involved in seeking by study and also by faith as DNC 88 says that's what we're trying to do case you want to summarize what did we talk about last time what was our skill from last episode so our skill from last time was what we call mental flexibility which is basic Al the idea that you're not so rigid in your thinking that when a new fact is introduced it sort of shatters all your perceptions and everything that's there you have a new fact introduced you kind of go oh I didn't know that and then you start to make adjustments you're flexible we def find it as the ability to identify Challenge and modify one own's assumptions in light of new information after humble and honest analysis and it does require humility yeah sometimes we get in the mindset of hey I'm the world's expert on this and when something comes up that we don't know all of a sudden it can feel really humiliating but the truth is we're learning new things all the time yeah so when something comes along you sometimes have to ask yourself what are my assumptions about things and this could be things about the nature of God the way he works with people prophets or how the church operates yeah and sometimes when those boundaries are violated it feels like your faith is in Jeopardy yeah when you come across that you find yourself at Crossroads and you have two choices you throw out everything that you believe about God prophets in the church or you recognize that you could be wrong yeah you be a Seeker you go back to the sources or the best books and then you re-examine your expectations against the truth of the word of God and maybe modify your assumptions accordingly yeah just to give you an example A lot of people in the church struggle with this idea that prophets are not perfect that they can make mistakes even when they're acting as prophets but if you go back and look in the scriptures you can find dozens of examples of this where a person is acting in a prophetic calling and they make a mistake yeah and the Lord corrects them and they move on everything from you know Moses neglected to circumcise his son so Zapora has to do it for him to josea Smith loses the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon wasn't really his fault it was Martin Harris but he made a mistake sending it with Martin Harris yeah so on and so forth Paul and Barnabas got into an argument and couldn't go on their mission anymore we're dealing with flaw and perfect people Jonah was a racist who wanted the entire city of Nineveh to burn uh I mean you got some whoers right you've got some big ones you've got some big ones Jonah oh my goodness Jonah it's just once you really delve into the scriptures you find that this is not a museum of statuesque Perfect People they're flawed people that are really struggling and that kind of brings the scriptures to life yeah so going back to that if your assumption is prophets never make mistakes well you need to actually reassess that and it shouldn't break your faith in prophets but it should allow you to kind of grow in faith and recognize that while prophets are wonderful and they do speak to God and they do receive their callings from God God allows them a fair amount of leeway and sometimes within that leeway they make mistakes yeah so you identified like three mental moves are we going to call these mental Jiu-Jitsu moves are we are we keeping the Jiu-Jitsu metaphor or what do you what do you think let's see if we can keep it going yeah so first move is sweep the leg that's a cobra Kai move Scott that's that's a dirty play yeah we don't want to do anything dirty here when we're grappling with difficult issues no mental move number one is we called it identify your assumption can you slow down in your thinking enough to be able to say like what is my assumption here why do I feel so uncomfortable what rubs me wrong about this situation and if you can slow down enough to identify that you're a third of the way there right yeah cuz then the next move move two is then challenge that assumption just ask yourself like is that actually true maybe we hear about we're reading through church history and we find uh that the bank of 1837 failed we talked about this a little bit last time right the Kirtland Bank failed along with a lot of banks in America in the panic of 1837 but uh a lot of people lost their money and it was money that they wouldn't have lost if they hadn't invested in the bank in Kirtland most likely but Joseph Smith had endorsed the bank MH and so you're kind of grapple with that like hold on I don't like that I don't like that a profit endorsed the bank and then the bank felled and members of the church lost their money like I don't like that at all slow down what's your assumption my assumption is prophets of God don't endorse Banks to fail I think something like that M well okay move number two is that true is that true can prophets like you just said could prophets make a mistake like that could there be an error in judgment or maybe not foreseeing the future I mean it's not a bad idea to start a bank a lot of banks in America that that time are going to fail in the Panic of of 37 there was some Shenanigans there's grandis and N there's some other historical context people trying to break the bank but the point is people lost money in a bank that the profet endorsed and that hurt a lot of people and that hurt their faith in him because it challenged their assumptions about prophets so slow down like is that okay can a prophet make that kind of a mistake I don't know let me go to the best books let me go to the best books Let's go to scripture first and see if prophets can make that sizable of a mistake right just let's just go see and what you find is yeah there's plenty of prophetic mistakes in scripture that doesn't mean God doesn't work through them it doesn't mean Revelation doesn't come through them it doesn't mean that God doesn't guide prophets to fulfill his purposes with his children but it also means that sometimes he lets them make mistakes right that's just it yeah so that's mental move number three I'm already starting to do it mental move number three is then okay modify your assumption in light of new information after humble and honest analysis is that too high of a standard to hold a prophet to that he can't encourage people to invest in a bank that fails is that too high a standard do I think profets are just going to be guided in every single thing that they do in every move every business move every whatever yeah maybe I'm being a little too rigid in my thinking let me back up a little bit on that then you start to kind of after my humble and honest analysis I can create a space in my soul for a prophet to make that kind of error and still be a true Prophet MH yes he endorsed the bank like that but we also got the Book of Mormon through that same person we also got the Doctrine and Covenants we have some of the most remarkable Revelations that have ever been vow shaed to Mankind through that weak servant right right we have the temple ordinances and on and on and on like what else came through him you're just evaluating everything trying to identify what's rubbing you wrong challenge that go to the best sources and then see if you can modify that assumption in light of scripture especially or other really good scholarship right that's basically the the Jiu-Jitsu right there it's move one move two move three yeah for instance you use the example of the Kirtland Bank yeah when I read more about that it was a little challenging but the assumption that people were making was that Joseph Smith was scamming people it was a get-rich quick scheme that that failed right this is going to sound weird but when I actually studied it and found out that Joseph Smith probably lost more than anybody it actually helped me to say hey he wasn't doing this because he was trying to get rich he lost more than anybody else he genuinely believed in it and then he worked as hard as he could to pay off the debts that he had incurred there it feels like he was honest his dealings with other people was just an unfortunate combination of circumstances then when you learn about the we ought to do a whole episode on the ctland financial crisis I agree when you learn about the wider forces at work like the panic of 1837 and Andrew Jackson killing the National Bank it really does all come into focus and you say this is an unfortunate and it may have been a mistake to encourage people to invest in the bank but it doesn't seem like there was any Mal fence there was no ill intent right just an unfortunate combination of circumstances yeah if we have an assumption that prophets can foresee everything then that just got violated yeah might need to modify that prophets can foresee some things things that the Lord wants them to foresee but prophets can't foresee everything this would be a good example of maybe modifying that assumption right Joseph didn't see that coming is that okay I think that's okay yeah and in our discussion right now we've already been doing the skill we want to talk about today which is contextualizing yes you're going to talk about the Kirtland bank for instance you got to talk about the wider economics situation in 1830s America you got to talk about the panic of 1837 which caused hundreds of banks to fail yeah and in doing all those things you just have to recognize that these stories didn't take place in a vacuum often times a person whose antagonistic towards the church will reduce the story down to its Bare Bones and provide no contextualization and then make the assumption that this is wrong based on uh 21st century contexts that exist yeah when we go back and we look at the world that these things took place in actually a lot more stuff makes sense especially on some of the most challenging issues in church history yeah so mental flexibility super important skill crucial to seeking learning by study and by faith because so much of learning is the work of unlearning and modifying our assumptions right you must unlearn what you have learned a wise Master said that once that's right a master of mental flexibility mhh okay so should we talk about context let's talk about context yeah contextualization is the skill of the day let's talk about it let's talk about it we're going to Define that as the ability to put true but often shocking or uncomfortable facts into their historical theological and cultural context this is useful when you're studying any kind of scriptural text absolutely you're studying the Bible you have to take into account what's the context they lived in right and what were they doing within their context and was it okay in their context even if it's not okay with in my context I would feel very uncomfortable going to the temple and killing an animal for instance I got to be honest with you I'm sort of a coward I don't think I've ever like killed an animal I went deer hunting with my dad watched him gut the deer and just thought oh I don't know if this is for me not for me not for me yeah in the world the ancient Israelites lived in killing an animal was something you did on a daily basis to feed your family and the Lord just takes that kind of mundane daily thing and turns it into an act of devotion or worship it's weird to me but I don't think it was weird to them and so I've got to do the work to put myself in the mental space that they occupied and get out of my head a little bit it's kind of a historical empathy in a sense right yeah we can't get out of the need for attributes in our previous skill modifying assumptions we talked about humility is really important honesty is really important yeah and now we're talking about empathy is really important like being able to get into the head space and the time space of those that we are learning about and that's that's an act of empathy that's an empathetic move good historical thinking requires not just thinking but important attributes like humility and empathy maybe that's an important thing to highlight yeah well let's talk about context okay context matters because it helps you know what assumptions to bring to the facts that you're hearing about reading about learning about so that you now know what meaning to give to those facts MH you used the example in scripture of animal sacrifice let's do maybe a modern example where we don't have to go even back in history but let's just try a really simple one okay so Casey I'm gonna ask you three questions okay all right I just want you to tell me how you feel just tell me how you feel Casey so question number one this is an uncomfortable fact but I'm going to drop it on you how would you feel if I told you that your neighbor has killed people um uncomfortable let's move I always knew there was something Shady about that guy our kids shouldn't play together uh anymore I'm just saying the first things that come to mind here yeah you're doing better than expected okay good job all right let me ask you another question mhm how would you feel Casey if I told you that your neighbor was a war hero who had killed people defending our country okay okay so now I'm I don't want to move okay all right I am proud I definitely won't sneak up and surprise him uh from behind or anything like that no loud noises I actually you know have students the situation that taught in high school and went to Iraq and came back and opened up about their experiences and first of all deeply moved by what they went through and also just felt a need to you know embrace them do what I could to to try and help and heal them from having to do something terrible like that but again you know that's a different ball game right I wouldn't feel as much fear I'd feel a desire to help them and and admiration for the courage that they demonstrated wow so you went from Fear to feeling proud and admiration yeah that's interesting okay let's do it one more let's do one more how would you feel Casey if I told you that your neighbor had been involved in a tragic accident where his car had hit black I slid out of control and killed people in oncoming traffic but he survived sympathy right sorrow for them having to deal with that yeah it's interesting how you know they killed the person and if you put it in context can be three very different things right yeah the context changes what assumptions you bring to the fact the fact didn't change your neighbor has killed people that's the fact you know mhm but wow context affects what meaning you give to those facts and really affects how you feel about the facts and how you feel about your neighbor right mhm mhm you went from feeling fearful to feeling proud and admiration to feeling pity and sorrow and and that's not because the fact changed but it's because the context in which the fact was embedded changed right yeah and that right there that is so incredibly important and true with church history right sometimes there are uncomfortable facts which are totally true that shock people people when they don't have the context but they become much more palatable when we learn the context yeah and they can even change the way that we feel about those involved like Joseph Smith for example I think so much of what troubles church members faith today is when they come in contact with facts from our history that are stripped of their original context whether that's a doctrinal context or cultural context or historical context as I've mentioned in a previous series I've said that a fact stripped of its context can be like an electrical wire stripped of its protective sheath it's quite shocking when you come in contact with it right your neighbor has killed people right let's give that some context let's give it some context context helps to wrap such bare and shocking facts back into their kind of protective sheath right to neutralize the shock Factor yeah that's the skill right the skill of contextualizing facts is the skill of learning the background behind the facts whether that's a historical background or cultural background a doctrinal background whatever you need to know to to get into the context and then bring that background to bear on the facts and you'll notice right away the way you feel about the facts shifts and changes MH we've been doing this throughout different Series right we just haven't really drawn specific attention to the skill that we were doing Casey I think you and I sort of do this naturally it is a mental skill that has to be developed when someone brings up something shocking you pause and go what's the context of that I wasn't born being able to do that like where did you learn it when did it first click for you like context matters a lot so now that's just it's kind of second nature to you oh well you know it starts with good teachers that are well read and think deeply about things and like we've mentioned a couple times on this podcast that also think slowly about things that don't rush to assumptions which is sometimes what a church antagonist want you to do they just throw something out there and don't contextualize it at all and you get mad and say o that's that's wrong yeah it's cheap and easy to throw out shocking facts it's difficult and it requ a price to contextualize those facts yeah but if you can pay that price it really does present you with a richer version of almost every story and that's not just church history that's American history and world history like I said they're still right and wrong yep but sometimes context helps us understand why people do what they do what I hear you saying is this is a skill that you've developed over time as you've seen other people model it and you've seen the value of it this is just how you've come to think it is a learnable skill right Casey it's not something that you either have it or you don't would you say that you can learn it you can see other people who do it well and you can you can pick up on it so yeah I hope we've modeled this well in our podcast too just to give you an example yesterday I was at my chiropractor I was in an accident a couple weeks ago so I have to go to a chiropractor MH and this lady came in and my chiropractor is a huge fan of our podcast oh really shout out to Casey's the chiropractor so yeah every time I go he's like popping my spine in and going what do you think about this whole race in the pre thing and all this stuff and this lady comes in and I mean without knowing it we all engaged in the conversation about our podcast on race in the priesthood oh wow and almost immediately my chiropractor goes hey do you know all the stuff that was going on about race in the early American Republic and he was explaining this to his his assistant he's explaining this to a client that came in yeah that's so cool and he started to say hey the the scientific leaders of the day the political leaders of the and he started to contextualize the racial environment that the church was restored into and it was sort of like beautiful because this guy who is an excellent chiropractor but has probably had very little historical training picked up on how to do this by listening to us do it so that was a a major win for me I love it that's so cool it was really neat to see and like I said it's not something that you start out doing but it's a skill that you gradually pick up as you carefully and thoughtfully study history yeah now what are some examples in previous series that we've done where we've been trying to illustrate this I'm just thinking through we started out the first vision and we walked through every account of Joseph Smith that he gave of his first Vision MH and uh sometimes people want to bring up multiple accounts of the first Vision as a point of contra y right try to do these cheap shots if we're still going with the Jiu-Jitsu analogy here they do a little cheap shot by not giving you any context whatsoever and just saying stuff like did you know there's differences did you know that there's some discrepancies between the accounts did you know you know it's kind of like I don't know why I use my like deep Shady voice but that's kind of how it feels right when people are doing cheap shots but we went through and showed how every single one of those four accounts that Joseph gives in the context totally determines like how he would share the first Vision right if it's private there's so much in the first in the 1832 account he doesn't intend this to like be published and it's so personal right then his 1835 accounts to this like strange like Jewish guy but Joseph thinks he's talking to a Jew and so he tells the story in like a Jewish friendly way yeah that context matters right then 1838 39 like the church is being completely like persecuted they've just left Kirtland he's in Far West about to go to Liberty Jail when he starts writing the history he gets out of Liberty Jail when he finishes that part it's all about kind of this persecution response right like in owing to the many reports that have been given about us like I want to set the records straight I want to give you the facts about what's happened I want you to hear it from me and so he's very factual and very technical then 42 he's super bold and people are asking him like tell us about your church you guys are growing so fast this is so impressive and so interesting like tell us about you right in the Wentworth letter and so he's kind of like more missionary minded like each of those contexts matters and the details in the various accounts the first Vision make the sense that they do when you understand the context and so we tried to point it out there we did it in Book of Mormon translation we've done it in Joseph Smith's polygamy we've done it in the book of Abraham series we've done it in the race and priesthood series if you want like real deep Dives we just invite you to go back and just pick an episode and see if you can spot this in action because this is the stuff of historical analysis yeah and I remember on the first Vision one for example I hadn't realized until we were recording the podcast that when Joseph Smith used the term pillar of flame as opposed to pillar of light he was generally talking to Jewish people he was talking to Robert Matthews who he thought was Jewish and Alexander neber who actually was Jewish and it feels like you know rather than him smudging the details it's him trying to reach out to them and use their religious background as a way of saying yeah Pillar of Fire that's something you would recognize from the Old Testament so yeah I hope we've tried to model this for you in our podcast yeah let's do a couple short examples just to show kind of how this works okay give me a scenario Scott and and we'll walk through it all right how about this I'm just going to make up a name all right you have a friend named Carly and Carly is struggling because of Joseph Smith's polygamy when you ask her well Carly what what exactly is it about Joseph's polygamy that you're struggling with she kind of blurts it out she's like did you know that Joseph Smith married a 14-year-old girl like I already knew he practiced plural marriage but I just found out he married a 14-year-old KZ that is just so wrong on so many levels she says all right so first of all let's let's just ask this question is that actually a true fact Casey that is a true fact yes so okay so that's a true fact mm and it's a shocking fact that's an example of a shocking fact that actually rocks a lot of people's world right right this is a good way to tell like this needs context right it's like it's like ah I don't like this I just I just learned a fact that it's hard to like say it's not true CU it's actually true the more I look into it it looks like it's true so all right let's do it so what are some points of crucial context Casey historical or doctrinal would help your friend Carly to help neutralize the shock factor of this fact okay well a couple things first the way we think of ceiling today in the church is almost near synonymous with marriage we think of it as kind of the same thing we say a couples going to the temple to get sealed this week and it's just a a synonym for marriage yeah in in navoo it was much more complicated and ceiling was used the way that we still use it a little bit today but not as often which is the the idea of creating a connection mhm a ceremony that creates a connection to people like when children are sealed to their parents right right and it appears that a lot of the ceilings that Joseph Smith engaged in an NAU were ceilings in the sense that they were going to connect a family but they weren't marriages in the traditional sense where they live together as husband and wife where they're going to be intimate where they're going to have children and it feels like this is one of those examples too now how do we know this we know this because that's what Helen said wait who's Helen Helen Mark Kimble is the 14-year-old oh okay that's another thing is it drives me crazy when this is oh he married a 14-year-old and they don't talk about her they don't talk about what she had to say about it they completely dismiss her and she just becomes a 14-year-old like in the last week I had somebody bring this up and say well the church covered up the fact that he married a 14-year-old and I'm like no they didn't the reason why we know any of this is because Helen wrote a book on plural marriage yeah years later that she was encouraged by the church to write so there was no cover up in fact we wouldn't even be having this conversation if the church hadn't urged her to tell her own story yeah and allow her to be an actor within the story that has agency Freedom Valic that can say how she felt about it so that's one context is what is sealing to them is sealing to them the same thing that it is to us and if it's different how is it different so it was a marriage though right like Joseph would count hell Mar Kimble as one of his wives I suppose so and yet even that needs to be contextualized a little bit doesn't it yes I think so Helen and several of the women that Joseph Smith were sealed to introduced a concept of an eternity only marriage M that it was a marriage that connected the Smith and Kimble families in the eternities but did not act as a functioning marriage the way we think of marriage today wasn't this type of marriage yeah specifically and this is the question that kind of is lurking behind everybody's concerns was were they intimate with each other yeah was there a sexual relationship right no there wasn't this was an eternity only ceiling and there were no sexual relations happening that's really important right cuz that's like that's what's underneath everybody's concern here yeah back up a little bit you said that this was a ceiling to connect the Kimble and the Smith families that seems really important mhm were Helen's parents involved in this ceiling at all yeah deeply involved Heber and Val Kimble were some of Joseph's dearest and closest friends this is a pattern we see amongst a lot of Joseph Smith's connections which is they were using ceiling as a way to connect families almost like kind of the ancient like dynasties right where this dynasty would have a son that dynasty would have a daughter and their marriage would connect the two dynasties together something like that so this has been called dynastic connections Joseph Smith's doing these dynastic connections connecting families together through marriage which were not intended to be sexual relationship but an eternity only ceiling to bind two families together right not the way we think normally vertically about this don't we like I'm going to seal my parents to their parents their parents to their parents that's a vertical ceiling yeah but Joseph's doing these horizontal ceilings which we don't see much today at all where you would seal this family horizontally laterally to that family by a marriage connection that's what they understood was going on here yeah the way Richard Bushman describes it is it's like they were trying to create this web of familial connection I like that where everybody would be connected to each other and they're making one grand family and that's why there's other sort of wrinkles to the story too like the law of adoption where someone could be sealed to someone as their child even if they were an adult and they had no relationship for instance one of my ancestors a man was sealed to Brigham Young as his son today we wouldn't do that but in the early church where they have this wonderful sealing power and they're seeing you know the power of sealing to create in family relationships they employed it in sometimes unexpected ways at least unexpected from our perspective but if we go back to their context there must have been power in a group of people where almost everybody's a first generation convert right and many people have had to give up their families to join the church to go to a person and say hey I I love you so much I don't want to just be your friend I want you to be part of my family yeah I want you to be sealed yeah and that's how Joseph and Emma approached Jane Manning James right they wanted her to be adopted as one of their daughters yeah that's the way Jane tells the story yeah super cool expression of Love deeper than a friendship that's a familial type of Love yeah okay so this is good so that's a good example I think if Carly understands those things Joseph Smith married a 14-year-old girl as sketchy as that sounds on its face as we dive deeper into it using by the way the best books or best sources and you can't get better than Helen marah Kimble's own book on this her experience M mhm her parents were involved it was actually her dad's idea if I remember right that he suggested the connection between the Smith and the kimbles and that his daughter would make a fine linkage point between them and Helen consented and there was no sexual relationship and that was it and they never lived together they never there's no record of them ever like even spending time this was simply a a connection of two families right yeah another maybe piece of context we could add in here is it's uncommon for a 14-year-old to get married in our age in our society but in 1840s America was it there was a study a few years ago published in a book by n Bringhurst where they looked at median ages of marriage in the 1840s and when they pulled up all the census data that they could they found out that 14 was on the younger side but it was in the ballpark for a person to get married back then at that age by the way it still is in some places what last week I was listening to a podcast and uh Steven colar you know the host of The Late Show said he went in to get his marriage license in South Carolina and the guy at the desk said first thing he said was the girl has to be 14 and the boy has to be 15 at least so I mean this was the '90s I guess that that was common enough in South Carolina that you know that's the first thing the marriage clerk says to you minimum age yeah minimum age at any rate okay what are some sources Scott that we could read and access this cuz not everybody's going to have access to Helen Mar Kimble's book yeah but there's plenty of places where we could go and find out a little bit more and hear her voice so that she's not marginalized in her own story best place is her own voice if you don't have access to her own book back in our plural marriage series we actually plugged Brian hell's work pretty strongly we recommend his website his free website Joseph smithp polygamy. org he's got a little short biography on every one of Joseph Smith's plural wives and you can click on Helen's name and read what Brian has summarized there he quot from her summarizes some stuff and then in the footnotes if you want to go dig deeper and see where that takes you that would be good too the gospel topics essay mentions this and gives it some good context where else would you go Casey I'd say Saints as well yeah if you haven't read Saints volume one I think they do a pretty good job dealing with some of the complexi surrounding plural marriage and Saints goes out of its way to emphasize the voices of these women what they had to say about it what their perspective was and and what the context is that they exist so Saints is a great example of all this stuff kind of put together in one place and to be honest Saints doesn't pull its punches you know they bring up some stuff that is challenging but I think can be understood if if you put in the effort yeah great historians doing exactly what we're talking about today yeah well let's do another one okay another another Jiu-Jitsu Round Here ding ding ding fight and I'll introduce this one okay so here's this scenario your cousin Lacy stumbled across a website critical of the church which pointed out there are many similarities between the clothing and rituals of Freemasonry and the endowment ceremony performed in Latter-Day Saint Temples the similarities are so striking in fact there's only one conclusion according to this website and that is Joseph Smith secretly plagiarized the Freemason stuff and pond it off on the church as revealed restoration of an essential ordinance Lacy is floored by this information her head is spinning she calls you a bit upset and tells you about what she's learned seeking your perspective have you heard of this she asks so what are some of the context she'd need to know about masonry and the temple endowment oh we need to do an episode on this too we'll we'll get to it eventually but yeah yeah I think we should do a series on like the development of the temple ordinances I think that'd be a really cool series don't what you think you and I did a pretty good video on that that is on YouTube but we need to do a deeper dive yeah we were just skimming the surface there mhm so give us some context yeah no this is this is good right this is super real super raw yeah someone notices connections between Freemasonry the endowment and We're Off to the Races here right accusations of plagiarism Joseph being a fraud trying to pwn this off on gullible church members M but we're not going to let him get away with that are we you know that kind of a Vibe okay so that's it dirty jiujitsu move right the round's over and uh you turn your back and you know they kick you in the back when you're yeah put them in a body back Johnny that kind of thing yeah yeah so dirty move no context it's not inaccurate it's not inacurate there are definitely similarities between Freemasonry and the endowment let's first of all confirm the fact that's I guess move number one here is is that actually a true fact and in this case yes that's a true fact yep that is a true fact yeah that's true so what do we do with that fact well we need more context to know how to feel about the fact right because the fact itself isn't telling us what we need to know so how am I going to decide which assumptions to bring to this how am I going to decide how to interpret that fact well that's where we now need to go step two let's look deeper into the context historical context doctrinal context what should Lacy know in order to neutralize the shock factor of this true fact let me just walk through a few so one important context is that two months before Joseph introduced the endowment ceremony he had actually become a Mason in navoo a Freemason and for those out there that don't know what a Mason is and your only context for masonry is National Treasure which is not a bad place to start if you don't know what masonry is I like to summarize it by saying it's kind of like Boy Scouts for grown-up men it's man Scouts that's what masonry is it's a group of men who are dedicated to bettering their country doing their duty to God to better their Community if you've ever noticed with Boy Scouts you know they have like certain hand signs like you shake with your left hand in Boy Scouts you hold your arm to the square to make ODS you know you have three fingers up if you're is it a wolf or weblo shoot starting to fade in my mind but anyways there's different things you do with your hands and that kind of shows that you're part of the in group there's badges there's degrees that you can go up start as a where do you start at as a wolf then a bear and then uh what's next oh man you are you are pushing me Bobcat you start as a bob you start as a bobcat the goal is to get up to Eagle right this is masonry actually Lord bayen Powell from what I understand like the founder of Boy Scouts right got his ideas from masonry so masonry is the grown-up version of Boy Scouts there's degrees of Masons you start out as like a what was it like an apprentice and you can go all the way up to these different like degrees of Master Mason like third degree or something like that you go up by degrees kind of like the badges and boy scouts there's hand clasps of brother motherhood Fellowship right there's different ways you could put your arms like to the square that kind of stuff you wear certain uniforms like in scouting there's certain uniforms there's like a handkerchief in masonry there's there's also uniforms there's like aprons that you wear they have symbols like there's a compass not the kind that tells you true north but the kind that draws circles there's compasses and squares cuz the idea of masonry I mean if you Google like Mason work what that means is someone who works with bricks works with building right right and so there's these kind of these building tools that are some of their signs their symbols so there's a square used to make perfect 90° angles on a room there's compasses and you'll see the square and the compass superimposed over each other as the Masonic symbol because their history they say goes all the way back to Solomon's Temple where people worked on the temple to help build that to God and that there was kind of this Guild that was formed this Guild of Brotherhood that is meant to advance the common good of mankind that kind of thing yeah so it's really cool Joseph was attracted to it his brother ham was involved in masonry long before he was his dad yeah his dad yeah and so this is a kind of a club or a group that is respectable in a lot of ways some people didn't like it because there's kind of like some secrecy with masonry you're not supposed to talk about the rituals of masonry unless you are a Mason and so and let's be honest here most people's knowledge about masonry comes solely from the Nicholas Cage film National Treasure right great film great flick great movie watch it tonight but it's not the best representation of masonry because it does sort of play on these stereotypes that it's a secret society that controls the country or something like that yeah when it came to contextualizing masonry for me I went to the Masonic temple in Philadelphia such a cool Temple I strolled in expecting to be told to leave instead it was like do you want to go on a tour yeah okay 15 bucks I paid 15 bucks and then went on a lovely tour had a long conversation with a Mason went through their Museum where I saw George Washington's Masonic apron Benjamin Franklin was the founder of the lodge 14 presidents have been Masons all good guys no recent president has been a Mason I think the last one was Gerald Ford I sort of Saw oh yeah I mean in the 19th century especially this was a a big thing among men and it was a way that they made connections yeah but it doesn't seemed like there was anything Sinister about it no I mean it's dedicated to like bettering the community right yeah you have to be a good man to be able to get in you know kind of a thing you have a good reputation in the community already and and so that's so there's nothing weird about it mhm mhm it's not a religion you just had to be religious you just had to believe in God yeah you didn't have to be a certain denomination you just kind of like with Scouts you know On My Honor I'll do my best to do my duty to God and my country you don't have to be a a latterday saint you could be anything you could be Muslim you could be you know Protestant as long as you believe in God like that's enough yeah in fact in the Masonic temple they told us you have to believe in a higher power there you go that's their only standard so it makes sense in context if we're going back to context here yes Joseph Smith becomes a mason in navu he does they are in navoo because they have been pushed from place to place to place and in navu there's a lot of circumspection of hey why does this keep happening are we too insular and so they invite the Masons to set up a lodge in navoo as a way of reaching out to other people creating connections right yeah if we can create these con CS maybe the next time a crisis comes up people will know who we are and they'll support us Masons were also well known for part of their ceremonies or they make a commitment to uphold and assist their fellow Mason yeah this all makes sense that they would do this but what about the idea of the Masonic ceremonies being in the temple yeah okay good so two months before Joseph introduces the endowment ceremony he had become a Mason in navu mhm now another key piece here is that all those to whom Joseph gave the endowment were Masons yeah there were nine men this happens on the 4th of May 1842 we have all their names we could go through them if we want but hyam was there Bishop n k Whitney's there man named George Miller Brigham Young heby Kimble Willard Richards these are men who are already Masons yeah what Joseph does is introduces to them the endowment he says he instructed them in the principles and Order of the priesthood attending to Washings anointings endowments and the communication of key pertaining to the ironic priesthood and so on to the highest order of the mesic priesthood so already you start to say wait a minute that kind of sounds Masonic in the sense that there's orders there's grades you go from Apprentice up to Master Mason and he's saying that you start with this lower order of ironic and you go through all the orders of all the way up till the highest order of mezic so you already start to see some similarities there yeah there's Keys there's certain things that you're doing with your hands like a Boy Scout left handshake close to your heart at symbolic meaning there's some of those kinds of things that are being introduced which is also in masonry their clothing is Masonic looking they they wearing aprons they'll do robes stuff like that and so is this a coincidence it turns out no and Joseph wasn't trying to hide the fact that this is not a coincidence he Kimble who was there for instance he said quote there is a similarity of priesthood in masonry Brother Joseph says this is in a letter he wrote to parley pep he says Brother Joseph says masonry was taken from priesthood but has become degenerated but many things are perfect so Joseph Smith is saying like oo this has some really strong parallels to priesthood it's kind of a dilapidated version but it's a lot of things are still quite legit his close friend Benjamin F Johnson said this he said Joseph told me Freemasonry as at present was he called it the apostate endowments or like the degenerated endowment not not meant to be a portive term pstate in that sense but just he says as sectarian religion was the apostate religion so is Freemasonry the apostate endowment again not using that term as an attack but to say it has become degenerated or dilapidated and it needs restoration it needs life breathed back into it it needs recontextualization that kind of thing so Joseph sees a vestage here a vestage of the true thing in masonry yeah and he sought to incorporate those elements from Freemasonry that were true into the endowment which was the more perfect thing mhm and so Joseph is trying to restore that in the sense of think of an old broken down building restoring that building like building it back up some of the walls get to stay but you're also going to add a whole different side to things and polish it up and make it bring it back to the original or better yeah and I got to say one item of context that really helped me resolve this cuz this was something that bugged me when I found out about it mhm mhm was the charge that Joseph plagiarized the endowment pretty much every adult male in Nauvoo was a Mason yeah and none of them accused Joseph Smith of plagiarism so if Joseph Smith was trying to pull a fast one here and be like oh I totally came up with this ceremony on my own he did a terrible job yeah they all recognized it yeah they all recognized it they all saw it and Joseph Smith himself wasn't saying this is Holy original he was saying I'm restoring something that has broken down a bit but that has true principles within it yeah and like I said everybody was a Mason that was involved something like 3,000 Masons or something like that in navoo at its peak the Saints in navoo Embrace masonry so enthusiastically that it starts to scare the other Masonic lodges because now there's so many masons in navoo so there's no cover up and there's no attempt to pass this office his own thing in fact quite the opposite he's taking what's good about masonry and basically saying this is good but it's corrupted and it can be used for something higher and better and that was another assumption I guess we're talking about assumptions that I brought to the endowment was that it was you know wholly original that it was a revelation yeah directly from God when you realize if you go through the endowment the person that Joseph Smith plagiarized the most was himself the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible the book of Moses contains a significant portion of the endowment yeah and that is revealed in 1831 like way way way before anything happened in navoo and so yeah it feels like he may have adapted some of the Masons pedagogy their methodology for sure but he's putting it in a whole new context especially if you understand that the Masonic ceremonies don't have anything to do with the creation fall and atonement which is what our endowment focuses on yeah I think that's really important context one other item I'd add is this doctrinal context of early on in the Doctrine and Covenants what is the restoration all about and Jesus gives a a pretty clear explanation in Doctrine covenants 27 where he says that this dispensation of the gospel for the last time and for the fullness of times is the time in which there's Jesus speaking I will gather together in one all things both which are in heaven and which are on earth both things which are in heaven and which are on earth I think we're down with what restoration means when we're talking about things in heaven right that's normally what we think of when we think of restoration we're thinking of Truth being revealed that was not on Earth and visions of truth that we didn't have on Earth and angels of God coming from Heaven to Earth priesthood keys that were not on the earth coming back to earth right things in heaven coming on Earth but it's that second piece which is a little bit like puzzling what does it mean that this dispensation be the time when he gathers together all things in heaven and on Earth what does that mean truth that's already on Earth is going to be gathered in what we find with Joseph Smith practice is that he's Gathering truths from other religions philosophies practices sacraments structures symbols rituals that are already on the earth you know I'm thinking of things like you know something simple as hymns the hymns that we sing at church there's already some really good hymns and Joseph pulls him in Emma brings him into the hym book the fact that we use the Bible that's a great example of a truth that's already on the earth that gets gathered into the whole restoration right let's bring the Bible into this it's already here we don't need to bring the whole thing back wholesale let's just let's bring it in let's use it mhm so masonry is another good example of truth that's already on the earth as Joseph said there's some things that are in it that are that are true some things that are even perfect in masonry and so Joseph as a restore of truth that's already on Earth we could kind of typify his methods as modifying adapting reassembling borrowing recontextualizing reworking salvaging all these words are useful in understanding what the project of restoration is yes it's truth coming from heaven but it's also Gathering the truth that's already here on Earth in one in Christ yeah and so with masonry here's a researcher his name's Clark Goble he says in designing the endowment Joseph made use of both Protestant elements as well as Masonic elements it was not a straight borrowing some elements he followed others he broke with right he's taking the true good pulling it in other things he's leaving out the the things that you mentioned for instance the ritualistic teaching form the the pedagogi is good he keeps it ritualistic teaching form outward forms symbolic gestures with your hands keeps them clothing aprons that kind of stuff keeps it adds to it a little bit with some robes he's modifying he's he's reassembling he's assimilating he's recontextualizing he puts this in a very different context than the Masonic ceremonies now it's about creation fall atonement journeying through Covenant into the presence of God nothing like what the Freemason ritual is yeah and so that part he ditches and gives the better thing but keeps some of the forms right some of the gestures some of the clothing in the ritualistic teaching style and so I'd say it like this the endowment is a fusion of masonic elements that are already on Earth with inspiration from Heaven it's a great example of what Jesus was talking about in DNC 27 right it's this Fusion of Truth on Earth with truth from heaven so that's what we get in the endowment of which like you case that took me a while to get there took a lot of digging deeper into some of the best books some of the best researchers on this to look at what's what's actually going on here what's happening cuz my assumption was like yours I thought this all just came from heaven and DNC 27 and other places have helped me to say that's not the point of the whole restoration there's a whole bunch of good that's already here and we need to gather it all in together let's get it and put it back together yeah Joseph M translation the Bible is another good example of this right like the Bible's already here but it's not complete so we're going to get truth from heaven and truth that's already on Earth and fuse it together in the jst right that's good way to think about jst and this is now another cool example that the temple endowment itself is a mixture it's a it's a fusion of both Heaven and Earth hence the term restoration right mhm and when it comes to masonry too it kind of opened my eyes to see what if Joseph Smith saw the way that Masons presented their ceremonies and just said this is a great way to convey information mhm let's borrow their pedagogy you can kind of see the same thing in the 20th century where when we're building temples and we're going to have to do it in multiple languages they decide to borrow the methodology of film making today it's standard for us to go to the temple and use a film to present the endowment right because that's a really effective method of pedagogy that doesn't require a lot of people and can be used in multiple languages Joseph Smith sees the Masons presenting this kind of play where the story is told through acting and realizes oh this is a really effective way to get people to engage with the covenants that they need to make as part of their endowment from heaven so again properly contextualize this one isn't a big deal for me but it may require you to revisit your assumptions about where the temple ceremonies come from and what they are too CU another assumption I think I brought to the table was that what we were seeing in the temple was the most accurate account of Adam and Eve and now when I go to the temple I realize no it's clearly a presentation geared towards the people that are there I mean there are parts of the endowment where they turn and break the fourth wall and speak to the audience I don't think Adam did that in real life turn and start talking to the audience look into the space yeah it's clear that it was engineered to be instructive and that it's less a literal history of Adam and Eve and more of um hey Adam and Eve are going to act as symbols that represent men and women the covenants that they make the challenges that they face yeah and how they return back into the presence of God it's a ritualistic teaching form that is pretty powerful especially in a covenant making context yeah a little context does wonders doesn't it that was good by the way I just saw you do something where you fused today's skill and last time's skill you just used context you see what you just did there you just used context and you said that that context helped to modify your assumption now you just did a little mental flexibility there these tools all work together as you just saw Casey do that Scott under your training I I am becoming a mental jiujitsu SL pickle ball Master cuz I just did that without even thinking about it without even thinking about it realizing oh you know what I had some assumptions that may have been wrong that's okay maybe I was wrong about that but and it could be this way instead very good very good only except that wasn't under my toage you're already a m uh I learned it I learned it by mentally grappling with you so uhhuh nice try you're my yoda whatever [Music] let's see if we can tie this together again today's word is contextualization yes the ability to put true but often shocking and uncomfortable facts into their historical theological and cultural context yeah ask yourself what is the world this took place and and how is it different from mine and is that affecting how I see this so we've been been through some major mental skills here that can help a person Master the complexities of church history and really any tough historical topic or doctrinal or theological topic I think we might need one more episode just to put everything together go back and review what we've done and then maybe provide a few more examples and we want to point out some Scholars that have done a really really great job doing this yes so I think um next time we're going to introduce you to a few more voices like Bruce and Marie H like Anthony sweat Scott who's someone that you really like that does a good job with this yeah no I love the hyphens I like what Tony's done Tony sweat Keith Ericson has a great little book out I think he's done a fantastic job of trying to help us think slowly about some of these skills so yeah we'll probably highlight at least those three and anyone else that comes to mind yeah yeah Spencer fluman has been wonderful Steve Harper is great at kind of helping us think metacognitively about our own thinking yeah so we'll highlight folks we'll highlight some good people and point you to in their Direction yeah and then I think we're going to try and get one of those good people to come on and just walk us through their mental process mhm I guess we'd call them you know mental jiujitsu pickle ball Masters to come on and and finally tell us if we've been doing good or if we're still you know like yellow belts yeah yeah young apprentices yeah I'm totally mixing all my metaphors here I just called this yellow belts which I think is a karate thing maybe maybe we could just call this pickle Jitsu pickle Jitsu yeah mental pickle Jitsu just to add another layer to it so that's going to be totally fun and we hope that you'll join us as we continue to study mental pickle Jitsu pickle Jitsu all right all right all right the point is this is fun for us we hope it's fun for you and we will see you next time so until then Scott all right thanks Casey we'll see you [Music] man thank you for listening to this episode of church history matters join us next time as we dig yet deeper into the mental skill set of durable disciples by considering the important relationship between evidence and faith if you're enjoying church history matters we'd appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe rate review and comment on the podcast that makes us easier to find today's episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick glti and Scott Woodward with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis church history matters is a podcast of scripture Central a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making latterday Saints scripture and church history accessible comprehensible and defensible to people everywhere for more resources to enhance your gospel study go to scripture central.org where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of scripture Central or the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints thank you so much for being a part of this with us [Music] [Music]

Channel: Doctrine and Covenants Central

Views: 831

Keywords: Come Follow Me, Doctrine and Covenants, Church History, Joseph Smith, LDS, Mormon, Latter Day Saint, Latter Day Saints

Id: fqRYE17Xvgc

Length: 57min 22sec (3442 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024