Richard D. Poll - "Iron Rod" and "Liahona" Metaphor

"Iron Rod" and "Liahona" Metaphor

Poll wrote on various topics in Latter-day Saint history and thought. His religious approach was influenced by his studies at TCU, where he examined and rejected creationism, scriptural literalism, and prophetic infallibility. He remembered one professor saying "the purpose of religion is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." In 1963, Poll prepared a paper called "What the Church Means to People Like Me", which he delivered in the Palo Alto Ward sacrament meeting in August 1967 and published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.

The paper drew upon Book of Mormon imagery. In Lehi and Nephi's vision, people held onto an "iron rod" that followed a single path to salvation. In another story, a mysterious instrument, called the "Liahona", pointed righteous travelers toward their destination. Poll's paper set up a dichotomy between church members who see the gospel as clear and exact, or "hold to the Iron Rod", and those who follow the guidance of the church as a compass to lead their lives. He explained:

"The Iron Rod Saint does not look for questions but for answers, and in the gospel he finds or is confident that he can find the answer to every important question. The Liahona Saint, on the other hand, is preoccupied with questions and skeptical of answers; he finds in the gospel answers to enough important questions so that he can function purposefully without answers to the rest."

The subject caught the attention of LDS intellectuals and leaders, becoming a poignant metaphor in cultural discourse. It would become Poll's best known article, and was in republished several other times.

In a 1971 General Conference address, church Apostle Harold B. Lee alluded to and denounced Poll's ideas, saying:

If there is any one thing most needed in this time of tumult and frustration, … it is an "iron rod" as a safe guide along the straight path on the way to eternal life, … There are many who profess to be religious and speak of themselves as Christians, and, according to one such, "as accepting the scriptures only as sources of inspiration and moral truth," and then ask in their smugness: "Do the revelations of God give us a handrail to the kingdom of God, as the Lord's messenger told Lehi, or merely a compass?" … Wouldn't it be a great thing if all who are well schooled in secular learning could hold fast to the "iron rod," or the word of God, …?

Lee also quoted the phrase "A liberal in the Church is merely one who does not have a testimony."

Poll and his wife considered themselves "Liahona" Mormons.