An Apostle’s Letter to a Missionary Son:

 

Elder Spencer W. Kimball discusses being “In” and “Out of the Spirit,” Testimony,

and Constructive Gospel Study

Transcribed and Edited by Dennis B. Horne

 

Editorial Note: The Church Archives has just recently scanned and posted a letter written in 1947 by Elder Spencer W. Kimball, by then an apostle for only a few years. The letter is largely doctrinal in nature, being answers to questions posed by his missionary son Andrew. The below text constitutes about half of the letter (and a couple of bonus excerpts of another). Anyone can read all or part of the original scans on the Church Archives site. Some small portions of the explanations given are now obsolete and some policies have changed, but much of the doctrinal reasoning from the scriptures is still sound and insightful—some exceptionally so, such as the below:

Prophetic Warnings Against Teaching False Doctrine

  (McConkie, Petersen, Clark, Benson)

Compiled by Dennis B. Horne

 

Elder Bruce R. McConkie [self-explanatory letter to a private individual, 1982]:

I have just read for the first time your letter . . . in which you spend six pages presenting the general thesis that [mentions a false doctrine]. As you might surmise I am inundated with a flood of letters and manuscripts which set forth quaint and cranky and bizarre and false doctrines. . . . It is my practice to discard them because I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in discussions or debates on doctrinal matters of the sort contained in your letter. You have indicated a sincere desire for a response and I think in your case I will make a few comments.

Personal Doctrinal and Scriptural Responsibility

  Assembled by Dennis B. Horne from the writings and counsel of

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

            I include below some emphatic counsel that Elder McConkie gave to his son and others regarding how to approach and search the scriptures. I underline salient points that the Ben Spackmans and Grant Hardys and Joseph Spencers and others of like ilk in and out of the Church could surely benefit from. These are taken from Joseph Fielding McConkie’s biography of his father, Elder McConkie:

Ben Spackman Attacks the Prophet Lehi’s Teachings

 

By Dennis B. Horne 

In a recent blog post, Ben Spackman wrote:

“I believe Lehi in 2 Ne 2 was doing as prophets do; he “spoke in part and prophesied in part” per 1 Co 13:9. Lehi was reading Genesis through his sixth-century Israelite “experience and knowledge,” as is apparent from some other things in that chapter; the fact that it appears in the canonized and inspired Book of Mormon does not automatically render it an ultimate revelation of eternal scientific fact from the mind of  God, which overturns all evidence to the contrary.”