having just finished up general conference weekend and thinking about the calling and role of the prophet and apostles in the church, I thought this tied in well with part of our class discussion from thursday. dr. holzapfel described how there was a cultural war within the church because of church members in nauvoo who wanted a prophet who preached to them on sunday and didn't impact them for the rest of the week. they were fed up with Joseph as a prophet who encompassed every sphere of society and religion. by 1844, enemies within the church had left and formed the reformed church of Jesus Christ. many who saw Joseph as a "fallen prophet" cited his involvement in economics, politics, plural marriage, and the new doctrine of progression towards godhood. they failed to distinguish the prophet's humanity and ability to make mistakes in things other than the Lord's truth and doctrine and the direction of his church and kingdom.
what's interesting today is that the prophet, while refraining from explicit political affiliations, discusses and councils on every aspect of life, including doctrine, family, economics, media, etc. it's just that today, for some reason, members are able to listen or not listen when they want to. maybe it's an issue of justification or rationalization or just hypocrisy. before, members believed the prophet or thought he was a fallen prophet. these days, it seems that members are able to believe when they feel like it and disregard when they don't happen to like what they hear or think they can rationalize it for themselves. in a way, it's a flippancy for the sacredness of the prophet's calling. I don't excuse myself from this tendancy -- I think all of us do it to some extent -- it's just something to think about.
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