Bullet Point Care for Mormon Scripturalism

 

• D&C 34: Orson Pratt is to called to preach. For me, this means that Orson Pratt's formation of 1876 D&C was a form of preaching as part of his calling by revelation. So when Pratt added footnotes referencing his spirit-atoms theology I see his footnotes as close to scripture as part of his preaching he was called to in D&C 34.

• D&C 35, revelation to Sidney Rigdon states: "... preach my gospel and use the words of the holy prophets to confirm his [Joseph Smith's] words as they are given to him" (D&C in Plain English, modernized by Ben Kucenski). In other words, if Joseph Smith's revelations are not confirmed by previous scripture then Sidney Rigdon was to call it out (correct him). Thus you can see that from the beginning there was a clear emphasis on Scripturalism (scripture as ultimately authoritative). This was not Sola Scriptura (scripture alone, or the Bible alone) because the Mormon scripture canon was open to expansion through new revelations, but new revelations were to align with previously canonized scripture. 

• Brigham Young was chosen by Joseph Smith to be an Apostle and Benjamin Johnson was his best friend, and Orson Hyde allowed his wife to be Joseph Smith's plural wife. These men's names are in the revelations themselves in the D&C and so in my mind they are the most authoritative voices. For God directly gives revelations where they're to preach the true gospel. So why should I treat these men's teachings as false speculation and now say that they were all wrong for 100+ years? Why should I then listen to the alleged LDS Leaders after Heber J. Grant (who became the seventh President and prophet of the LDS Church 1918)?