Really, it doesn’t matter.
I see too many, usually of the progressive stripe, constantly trying to determine what Joseph Smith intended to do, where he would have gone – ordain women, have a different church structure, whatever.
This is pointless, really (and I’ll use C.S. Lewis to show how).
Before Lewis, though, I will quote Benson.
Ezra Taft Benson stated:
But it is the living prophet who really upsets the world. “Even in the Church,” said President Kimball, “many are prone to garnish the sepulchres of yesterday’s prophets and mentally stone the living ones.” (Instructor, 95:257.)
Why? Because the living prophet gets at what we need to know now, and the world prefers that prophets either be dead or worry about their own affairs. …
How we respond to the words of a living prophet when he tells us what we need to know, but would rather not hear, is a test of our faithfulness. …
The learned may feel the prophet is only inspired when he agrees with them, otherwise the prophet is just giving his opinion.
This constant speculation reminds me of a passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. Here, a soul from Hell that gets a chance to stay in Heaven opts to return to Hell instead:
“Bless my soul, I’d nearly forgotten. Of course I can’t come with you. I have to be back next Friday to read a paper. We have a little Theological Society down there. Oh yes! there is plenty of intellectual life. . . I feel I can do a great work among them. But you’ve never asked me what my paper is about! I’m taking the text about growing up to the measure of the stature of Christ and working out an idea which I feel sure you’ll be interested in. I’m going to point out how people always forget that Jesus . . . was a comparatively young man when he died. He would have outgrown some of his earlier views, you know, if he’d lived. As he might have done, with a little more tact and patience. I am going to ask my audience to consider what his mature views would have been. A profoundly interesting question. What a different Christianity we might have had if only the Founder had reached his full stature! I shall end up by pointing out how this deepens the significance of the Crucifixion. One feels for the first time what a disaster it was: what a tragic waste … so much promise cut short. Oh, must you be going? Well, so must I. Goodbye, my dear boy. It has been a great pleasure. Most stimulating and provocative. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”
Now, just change a few words (at the risk of falling into the trap where anti-Mormons claim we worship Smith over Christ!):
Joseph Smith was a comparatively young man when he died. He would have outgrown some of his earlier views, you know, if he’d lived. As he might have done, with a little more tact and patience. I am going to ask my audience to consider what his mature views would have been. A profoundly interesting question. What a different Mormonism we might have had if only the Founder had reached his full stature! I shall end up by pointing out how this deepens the significance of the Martyrdom. One feels for the first time what a disaster it was: what a tragic waste … so much promise cut short.
As I usually do, I will leave the readers to draw their own conclusions what relevance this has for several current and recent debates in the Bloggernacle and elsewhere.
[I think I will try and hold off quoting C.S. Lewis in my next few posts, lest people think I’m just a Lewis quote machine].