21 March 2001 Editorial:
The Adventists Go To Temple Square:
Part 1: Reflections On Who We Are

Larry Kirkpatrick

Recently my wife, father-in-law and I visited "Temple Square," a point of interest for many who visit Salt Lake City, UT. Adventists and Mormons share points of commonality, just as we diverge by a variety of stark differences. Because Latter-day Saints are, in so many ways, our exact opposites, there are special lessons for us in their work. Let me describe our visit and the free tour we took and follow that with some insights. You'll be surprised.

By the way, we forgot to bring our camera, but I found a website that will show you a good deal of what we saw. Just Click here.

Let's get oriented. A wall surrounds the square, but there are openings about one per side. Vertical iron bars at those gates demonstrate that the place is kept secure. Upon entry you find lush flower beds and several buildings. At the center of Temple Square is the flag-pole, which is where the tours begin. Milling about are many knots of "missionaries," and they are almost all LDS young women. They are dressed quite conservatively, are invariably smiling, and tend to travel in pairs. Miniature hand-carry walkie-talkies are much in evidence.

Think of the lay-out of the Square much as the letter "H." The flag-pole is at the center. Directly above the H, the Salt Lake City Temple is cradled between the lines of the top of the H, while the "Tabernacle" rests between its legs. Non-LDS and even Mormons lacking a "Temple-recommend" are not permitted to enter the temple, but visitors are welcomed in the tabernacle.

At the flag-pole you discover a wall and on the wall are carved various writings, including the Ten Commandments (the Sabbath commandment text is abbreviated), a section of freedom of conscience/religion, a section on the United States Constitution, and another section of various Bible verses. The missionaries approach you and indicate that if you wish to take the tour you should linger around the flag-pole where the group will gather in a few minutes.

When a group develops there, the missionaries introduce themselves and ask your names. They asked us also whether we attended any church. After friendly introductions they walk you over and up the right side of the "H." Eventually you stop and find yourself standing before the massive granite walls of the Temple. This is the first stop on the tour, and something interesting happens here; historical facts about the building of the temple are shared and so forth, but then they make a statement about how peaceful everything is here. Next, we were asked whether we felt the peace. We were also asked whether anyone present had ever read the Book of Mormon. When I answered that I had read it and all the "Standard Works" at least twice through,¹ this answer evoked a surprised response. Inevitably the question arose, "What did you think of the Book of Mormon? How did you feel after you had read it?"

We had not gone there with any predetermined speech in mind, or plan to witness to them. I recognized right here that I was responsible to give them an answer that would be helpful. I might add that on this particular occasion the only persons on that tour were us three plus the two young ladies. Carefully I explained that while there was much in the book that was of interest, I had been troubled by the Mormon epistemology, or "way of knowing."

You see, when you read the Book of Mormon, you come to the end and are confronted with this text: "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost."²

Now fellow Adventists, pay attention: our guides were already leading us toward their "way of knowing." One is to read the "inspired" works and then ask God whether they are true. You are supposed to get back a good feeling about it if it is true. This is understood to be the "Holy Spirit" manifesting the truth of it to the reader.³

It would be hard to over estimate the importance of one's "way of knowing." Your way of knowing is how you determine what truth is and what untruth is. If your way of knowing is flawed, then your conclusions about your world will be flawed. The LDS way of knowing is to feel; it has an essentially subjective and internal center. The Seventh-day Adventist way of knowing focuses as much as possible on the objective, external location of truth. It has been called, disparagingly by some, a "canonic" locus. That is, it looks outside of oneself for primary revelation. Why is that?

Here is an insight: this goes back to what you think happened to human nature at the fall. If, as the Mormons, you think that human nature was only minimally impacted by the fall, then you can trust your feelings more, because they will give you a better "reading." Since humanity is understood scarcely to have been affected by the entrance of sin into the world and the curse, a person's rational faculties, their feelings, every aspect of the workings of heart and mind are less untrustworthy; more reliable.

If however, as a Seventh-day Adventist you realize that the fall impacted humanity in a vast, deeply destructive sense, rendering virtually all our faculties unsound, broken, twisted, and untrustworthy, then you will naturally have caution toward inward revelation and seek for a more reliable source outside of yourself. Hence, Adventists' strong approach to the ultimate authority of Scripture. We believe that the Holy Spirit reveals Himself internally to us too, just as the Mormon does. But whereas he (the Mormon) finds it consistent with his theology to trust sensations as inward revelation, we find it consistent with our theology to trust external sources. Feelings are so subjective, so unreliable. Here is one of the deep problems of our world; and the electronic culture of the past half-century, combined with and propelled forward by secular Capitalism, has pushed us relentlessly toward this radical primacy of sensation in the life.

It is worth our noting that the new worship "experiments" amuck among us are all products of the feeling-centered epistemology. That is, the Seventh-day Adventist way of knowing which historically has been centered on Scripture is being shifted to its opposite. When worship becomes a from-the-front orchestrated show and experience, when music becomes the province of soloists and professional "music ministers" rather than the shared Scripture-centered response of a congregation of pilgrim hearts, when we hear stories from the pulpit rather than the Word of God, then we may be sure that the ground is moving. We may have been touring the Square, but it reminded me that Adventism has of late been touring the mall of postmodernism. And one thing at least is sure. That tour is leading some of us away from our solid foundations and into the fog.

We next advanced to another point of the tour. An old stone meetinghouse made of the granite remnant-blocks from which the SLC Temple had been fashioned is also the section of Temple Square associated with the "Seagull Monument." You may not have known it, but the seagull is the official state bird of Utah. It seems that at a time when a horde of grasshoppers had hatched out and begun devastating crops, seagulls had materialized and consumed the grasshoppers, thus saving the day. Of course, the Mormons had done one thing that anyone finding themselves in a similar situation ought to do: they prayed. They believe that God answered their prayers by sending the seagulls. (The Great Salt Lake is a good place to find seagulls.) I do not doubt but that God did indeed help them by sending seagulls to eat the grasshoppers. But this brings us to another point of interest: the centering on prayer.

Again, who can object? Can we possibly expect a revival among us without earnest prayer on our part? Never. Nothing is wrong with prayer. That is, nothing is wrong with prayer in a canonic way of knowing. If the bottom-line material of our faith is always the objective external-to-us source of Scripture, then prayer involves our communion with God within the context of His revealed will. There will be occasions where the Holy Spirit sends us strong impressions, but such will never overrule the testimony of the Bible. We'll talk more about this next time.

But my interest here is the role of prayer in an internally-centered, feeling-oriented faith. When prayer is emphasized within the context of that "way of knowing" its role undergoes a powerful metamorphosis. In a faith such as this prayer becomes the great confirmer or de-confirmer of Scripture. Experience trumps Bible.

How interesting then how in new-modeled Adventism where we find the de-emphasis of Scripture and a strengthened emphasis upon experience, prayer, and worship entertainment, here is where we find a volatile brew. Under such theology our people are told they cannot really overcome, that our very nature is sin (a strongly Calvinist/Augustinian strand of thinking), that interest in character perfection and victory over habits of sin is a pipe-dream.

What is interesting is that such a theology takes the true testimony of Scripture to extreme, making the impact of the fall so devastating that victory is said to be impossible. But then within that sense becomes utterly inconsistent with itself and goes on to exalt our own human-decision-making capacity within the context of this same fallen nature. That is, an internally-centered way of knowing ultimately exalts the capacity of fallen humans to make decisions based upon experience centered mental faculties.

What I am saying is this: While groups such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have their epistemology--flawed though it is--nailed down and have actively directed efforts toward spreading it, Seventh-day Adventists wobbling under the newer trends are getting blurry about their way of knowing and are on their way to not knowing what happened. If this confusion continues to persist unaddressed, we'll be prey to the next new worship fad, and the next, and the next, until one day we'll look up in a swoon and discover that we've changed into something very different and wonderful. Strong delusion will have taken hold and we could find ourselves in a "faith" teaching "sin-and-live" while God's church loses the blessing of God.

Are we still "a people of the Book?" And if we can still claim that, how long can we retain that reputation if we persist in going with the experience-dominant flow round about us that pushes Scripture down into lower and lower depths of obscurity while it exalts an ever more aggressively entertainment-oriented worship experience? Too many Adventists, were Temple Square ours, would bend with the latest breeze and be oblivious to the importance of clarifying and propagating our epistemology--our way of knowing. Kudos to our Mormon friends who know enough about who they are (again, much as I disagree with many of their principles) to press the foundations of their worldview forward. Brethren, we can and should do the same with our distinct way of knowing.

So. A few lines provoked by a visit to Temple Square. Next time, Part 2: A Discussion About the Sabbath.

Larry Kirkpatrick is pastor of the Price Seventh-day Adventist Church in Price Utah. He lives in Price with his wife Pamela and two teenage children, Etienne and Melinda.

1. The "Standard Works" are the four books that the LDS church considers to be "Scripture:" These are the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the KJV Bible ("rightly translated").
2. The "verse" is Moroni 10:4.
3. The Mormon epistemology is discussed at greater length in LATTER-DAY SAINT EPISTEMOLOGY: A Seventh-day Adventist Looks at the Mormon Way of Knowing, one of several somewhat primitive documents I've written and put onto our IASM website. Someday I want to upgrade all of these.

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