Lectures On Faith - Status As Part of The Latter Day Saint Canon

Status As Part of The Latter Day Saint Canon

The Lectures were published in 1835 as the Doctrine portion of the volume entitled Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God (better known simply as the Doctrine and Covenants). The Lectures were selected for that volume by a committee appointed on September 24, 1834 by a general assembly of the church to arrange the doctrines and revelations of the church into a single volume. That committee of Presiding Elders, consisting of Joseph Smith, Jr., Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams, stated that the Lectures were included "in consequence of their embracing the important doctrine of salvation," and that the Lectures, together with the church-regulatory sections that followed, represent "our belief, and when we say this, humbly trust, the faith and principles of this society as a body." (See 1835 D&C, Preface.) Accordingly, the church body accepted the committee's compilation on August 17, 1835 as "the doctrine and covenants of their faith, by a unanimous vote." (History of the Church 2: 243-6).

Some Latter Day Saint denominations have subsequently removed the Lectures from the Doctrine and Covenants volume. They were removed from the Community of Christ version of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1897, although that denomination began publishing the Lectures in a separate volume in 1952. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints removed the Lectures from the Doctrine and Covenants in the 1921 edition, with an explanation that the Lectures "were never presented to nor accepted by the Church as being otherwise than theological lectures or lessons". (See Introduction, 1921 edition.) This is in contrast to the remaining pages of the original Doctrine and Covenants which are officially recognized by nearly all Latter Day Saint denominations as divine revelation given specifically to the church.

Mormon apologists give several reasons to explain why the Lectures were removed from the scriptural volumes of the church. According to Joseph Fielding Smith, at the time an Apostle-theologian in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the reasons were:

"(a) They were not received as revelations by the prophet Joseph Smith.

"(b) They are instructions relative to the general subject of faith. They are explanations of this principle but not doctrine.

"(c) They are not complete as to their teachings regarding the Godhead. More complete instructions on the point of doctrine are given in section 130 of the 1876 and all subsequent editions of the Doctrine and Covenants.

"(d) It was thought by Elder James E. Talmage, chairman, and other members of the committee who were responsible for their omission that to avoid confusion and contention on this vital point of belief, it would be better not to have them bound in the same volume as the commandments or revelations which make up the Doctrine and Covenants.’ " (as told to John William Fitzgerald, A Study of the Doctrine and Covenants, M.A. Thesis, Brigham Young University, page 344).

Brigham Young University's Dr. Thomas G. Alexander, Professor of History, has stated quite assertively in his controversial July–August 1980 "Sunstone" article, "The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine," that:

... Revision (of the Doctrine and Covenants) continued through July and August 1921, and the Church printed the new edition in late 1921. The committee proposed to delete the "Lectures on Faith" on the grounds that they were "lessons prepared for use in the School of the Elders, conducted in Kirtland, Ohio, during the winter of 1834-35; but they were never presented to nor accepted by the Church as being otherwise than theological lectures or lessons." How the committee came to this conclusion is uncertain. The general conference of the Church in April 1835 had accepted the entire volume, including the Lectures, not simply the portion entitled "Covenants and Commandments," as authoritative and binding upon Church members. What seems certain, however, is that the interpretive exegesis of 1916 based upon the reconstructed doctrine of the Godhead had superseded the Lectures...

Other commentators have theorized that the Lectures represented official church doctrine in 1835, but that by 1897 or 1921 when the work was decanonized by the major Latter Day Saint denominations, the doctrine concerning the Godhead had changed, and the Lectures were no longer generally consistent accepted doctrines. For instance, in Lecture 5, paragraph 2, it defines the Father as a "personage of spirit, glory and power." Whereas in section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verse 22 states that "the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's." In addition, the Father and Son are said to possess the same mind, "which mind is the Holy Spirit" (Lecture 5, paragraph 2). The Holy Spirit is not a personage, as defined at the beginning of paragraph 2: "There are two personages who constitute the great, matchless, governing and supreme power over all things...They are the Father and Son." This could cause confusion when compared with Section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants: "The Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit." Section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants was added in the 1876 edition and hence co-existed with the Lectures on Faith.

One theologian in the LDS Church praised the Lectures as follows:

"In my judgment, it is the most comprehensive, inspired utterance that now exists in the English language - that exists in one place defining, interpreting, expounding, announcing, and testifying what kind of being God is. It was written by the power of the Holy Ghost, by the spirit of inspiration. It is, in effect, eternal scripture; it is true." (Bruce R. McConkie, lecture at Brigham Young University).