When I was a kid in primary (give or take thirty years ago) the Articles of Faith were a main topic of indoctrination. We were required to memorize them and "pass them off" one by one. We regularly sang the (not-too-bad) musical settings by V. Y. Watkins from the children's songbook. I could probably still recite them for the most part.

Thinking about them now, though, there is a lot in there that seems pretty foreign to the mormon church's mainstream teachings of the last few years.

Take number ten, for example:

"We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory."

When was the last time the Big 15 gave a conference talk about "literal" gathering of the ten tribes and the "literal" building of the New Jerusalem, etc.?

Another odd one is number seven:
"We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth."

Seriously? Speaking in tongues? Modern Mormons make fun of pentacostals who do this. And no, foreign missions do not count.

Glaringly absent from the articles of faith: temples, tithing, eternal families, what else?

As a convert in 2018 I wasn’t told about them.

I was always told (by my Mormon friends, before I joined) that "gift of tongues" did not mean the mindless babble of the Pentacostals, but the ability to speak and understand another language without much effort. You know...so you can convert people in their own language!LOL

But later on when I started getting into the history, it soon became clear that in the early Church days the "gift of tongues" in Mormonism was exactly the same kind of mindless babble that the Pentecostals get into...but with a twist. The early Mormons were often told that the mindless babble was the "pure Adamic language". Brigham Young was reportedly very famous for his "gift of tongues."

I often like to imagine the modern, sleepy monotone "water and wonder bread sacrament" Mormons being transported into a church meeting of Mormons in 1831 or thereabouts. They wouldn't recognize it. The babbling. The clapping and shouting. People passing out. The sacramental wine. It would shock modern Mormons out of their mind. Seeing the erstwhile "exhorter" Joseph Smith winding them all up with one of his wild-eyed sermons would probably make them faint. They have no idea.... They have no idea.... Nowadays, if a member of the congregation were to shout out a random "hallelujah" in the middle of someone's sacrament meeting talk, the other members of the congregation would be shocked and annoyed.

Wally Prince Wrote:
-------------------------------------

> Nowadays, if a member of the congregation were to
> shout out a random "hallelujah" in the middle of
> someone's sacrament meeting talk, the other
> members of the congregation would be shocked and
> annoyed.

I've seen it happen during F&T. Ths guy was told off afterward.

That's what I was told, too. They pushed that narrative pretty hard in the MTC, talking about all of the "amazing" foreign language skills we were all getting. Yeah right.

Back in Joseph Smith's day, when he came up with the AofF, training full-time missionaries to go to South America was definitely not what was on anybody's mind.

Try reading the accounts of the Kirtland Temple dedication if you want to see how radically different the current LD$ church is from Joe Smith's original group.

he talks about the leaders' wives getting together and one would speak in tongues and another one of the women would sing the interpretation.

I mean COME ON!! You've got to be kidding me.

But I've read about it before in other church history books.

I've now been out so long that I'm not in a great position to know how much emphasis is put on them, but over the years I've met with TBMs and missionaries and sometimes checked in on official church publications and websites to see what they're getting up to these days and I rarely ever (almost never TBH) see the Articles of Faith being mentioned anywhere. They were constantly being brought up in talks and lessons when I was a kid.

When was the last time the Big 15 gave a conference talk about "literal" gathering of the ten tribes and the "literal" building of the New Jerusalem, etc.?

I am going to guess that it was likely Kimball or Benson. I can't imagine the Hinkster or Monson touching that with a 10 foot pole. I think Nelson is too busy pushing his covenant path.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2019 01:19AM by messygoop.

Wow! That was a blast from the past. I almost completely forgot about the "lost" ten tribes. They too were part of the standard indoctrination package when I was a kid. I was eagerly looking forward to hearing the news on TV when the ten tribes made their long-awaited appearance. IIRC, they were supposed to come down from the north, after hitting some ice with a stick and making the ice melt until they could get through whatever ice barrier it was that was keeping them "lost".

Sometimes my whole young life in Mormonism seems like it was just a weird drug trip. Looking back it's hard to believe that we got all excited about the weird things that we got excited about...especially now that most of those weird things have been swept under the rug and the leaders are trying to pretend that they never were a thing.

I was born in 1979...and today's Mormonism looks almost nothing like what I grew up with. The articles of faith were definitely a huge push for us to memorize, which of course I hated. LOL

Not sure what they're shoving down the children's throats these days, but my 7 year old nephew sure does talk about going on a mission a lot...like all the time. I have to wonder what he thinks he is talking about. As in what does that mean to him? He talks about saving money for his mission and everything. Did I mention he was only 7?

An excuse to get away from home for a while? I might have thought that, as a kid.

me: It's somewhat of a strain to find objections to the 13, but with Russ in charge, … Who Knows?

literal gathering of Isreal?

I think U'd be hard pressed to find a missionary who could explain that to Brother Brown...


just sayin', we know missionaries get easily derailed if they let the investigators go off script, don't we?

at this time. Our Heavenly Father has certain things that he wants to teach us now and other less important things will come later. What's really important, Brother Brown, is that I know that this [gospel/book/teaching] is true and I know that you can receive this testimony or knowledge too from the Holy Ghost, if you are willing to pray and...."

Yep. I sometimes run into missionaries in the area (maybe 4 or 5 times a year) and I'm always willing to get together with them and have some conversations if I have time. I just find it interesting to see what's up with them and I have some sympathy for their situation. In the back of my mind, I'm also somewhat hoping that one day I'll meet one who will actually have some truly amazing, insightful thoughts and observations about Mormonism that will surprise me and give me something to think about. So far I'm still not having any luck there.

I usually try to throw in some interesting philosophical and historical thoughts and facts at them to see how they respond. Sometimes, they can volley back and forth for a few rounds, but soon we always arrive at a point where one of the missionaries gets that robotic look in the eyes and says something like the above statement. This happens as soon as they realize that the teachings of their church just aren't deep enough to address serious questions and they therefore need to get back on script as fast as possible.

No more paradisical glory.

Damn.

Yup, in Primary in the 60s it was all about the AOF. We got awards for memorizing them. Do you remember the business card-sized pass-along cards that every member had that would have a picture of your closest temple and the missionaries' phone number on the front and the AOF on the back. There were always a stack of them at home, church, you name it. If people asked what Mormons believe we were supposed to give them a card or recite the AOF. We were told that everything that was important about the gospel was contained in them.

My granddaughter was telling me over the phone recently about something they were doing in Primary and I asked her if they still learned the AOF. She said they did and I asked her to ask me any of them and I could still recite it. She was like, "ooookaaaaaay, how about number 5." So I started spouting off "We believe that a man must be called of God..." Then I was like "Did I get every word right?" She said "I think so but I don't know, I only memorize them long enough to pass them off and then I forget them."

So obviously, they don't repeat them at the beginning of Primary every freakin week like we did. But I think she was shocked after being told what a heathen I was that I could do that. I wanted to tell her to test her other grandmother (TBM). Other grannie is much younger than me as my granddaughter's father is my youngest and her mother is the oldest child.

I remember being taught those back in the early 80's... I'd memorize one and would get a round glass sticky with a picture of a temple, JS, or BofM to put on the correctly memorized article of faith. After memorizing them I had a nice poster with pretty pasties to hang on the wall at home to practice with. I am pretty sure my dad tossed that in the trash or burned it... because it disappeared quickly. That's when my parents started moving father from the "faith". They wanted to keep one toe in, but that is almost impossible in that religion.

The 13 Articles are found in The Pearl of Great Price. I think some of them are interesting oxymorons. Take # 6 for example: "We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth." Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't JS told that none of the existing churches were correct. And yet, this is saying that they believe in pastors and evangelists, none of which are in TSCC. What primitive church are they referring to? If they mean a thousand years or more ago, there were no "pastors" or "evangelists". Articles # 12 and 13 are jokes. The laws of the land were broken by them, and as for "doing good to all men"; well, their history speaks for itself.

Number six always confused me when I was a kid. Why did it say we believed in having a bunch positions that the church did not have? My primary teacher tried to explain that they were just different names for the offices the church did have. That seemed dumb to me. Why couldn't we have named the church jobs after the ones in the AofF or vice versa?

13 Particles of Faith

1. » I believe in God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and in mankind’s inability to tell the difference between them and a giant ball of fire or an extremely intolerant political party.

2. » I believe that men will be punished for their own transgressions, including stuff we did completely by accident or because of testosterone. Women will probably just get probation.

3. » I believe that through the atonement of Christ, everyone will one day be able to tell annoying church leaders where to get off.

4. » I believe that the first principles and ordinances of the LDS Church are boring speakers, meetings that last forever, music that sounds like whale sonograms, food storage gone bad and idiotic bickering over caffeine and movie ratings.

5. » I believe that a man must be called by God, by prophecy and by the laying on of hands, by those who are in authority, and that Facebook posts and texting do not apply. Meanwhile, women answer only to a biological clock.

6. » I believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church: deacons, teachers, centurions, lepers, thieves, virgins, lunatics, mustard seeds and demonically possessed swine.

7. » I believe in the gift of tongues and would die a happy man if, just once, some smarta-- would have the guts to try it when I was around.

8. » I believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon to be the word of God as far as I personally can translate them correctly, which I try not to do because it scares me.

9. » I believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal and I believe he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the colossal foolishness of the entire human race.

10. » I believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes, most of whom will work for Microsoft; that the New Jerusalem will be built on this (North American) continent by undocumented migrant labor and that Christ eventually will rain personality on a generally colorless church.

11. » I claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to it being none of your &%#@ business, and allow all men the same privilege, except for megachurch pastors, self-help gurus and some cannibals.

12. » I believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magis. . . wait, no I don’t.

13. » I believe in being honest to a point, true to myself, chased by the police, benevolent to the deserving, virtuous on the Internet and in doing whatever my wife says. Indeed, I may say that I follow the admonition of Paul in believing, hoping and enduring — and that all of this damn well better be worth it in the end.

I was going to skip over this rendering of the articles of faith because it triggers me, but then I noticed that each one started off with "I believe" instead of the usual "We believe". Then I have to admit that I completely enjoyed reading the list. Thank you for the smiles, and I agree with them.

" I believe that men will be punished for their own transgressions, including stuff we did completely by accident or because of testosterone. Women will probably just get probation."

Toxic masculinity! Careful now, just don't mention toxic feminity too.

* Femininity

To think that entire generations of children will never have cause to wonder what it's like to be chased by an elephant.

This made me LOL!

I too remember this diddy,