The descriptions of the pioneer trek from Nauvoo to the Rocky Mountains have been somewhat vague in my mind until recently. I had always envisioned a kind of rough camping trip taken by thousands, but this barely scratches the surface of the immense ordeal. Fourteen hundred miles of desolate country, want of food and shelter, mosquitoes and larger predators, hostile Indians, and other wagon trains on the trail, each presented their own challenges to the Saints.
That last reference to the other wagon trains came as a surprise to me. The vanguard company led by Brigham encountered Missourians from the very counties the Saints had been driven from. Their common hardships allowed a kind of friendly truce to develop; the Saints repaired the Missourian wagons, while the Missourians bartered food with them in return for the use of their boat, the Revenue Cutter, to ferry supplies across a river. Wilford Woodruff records, "It looked as much of a miracle to me to see our flour and meal bags replenished in the midst of the Black Hills as it did to have the Children of Israel fed with manna in the wilderness..." His next statement is instructive: "But the Lord has truly been with us on this journey. We have had peace and union in our midst..." (Journal of Wilford Woodruff, 17 June 1847, p. 204). Though they offered him food and hospitality, he contrasts the saint's unity with the disunity found among the Missouri travelers: "I found that there was a great difference between these Missouri companies and our own, where there was no thing as cursing, swearing, quarreling, contending with other companies, etc., allowed or practiced" (Ibid., 20 June 1847, p. 210).
"The Mormons were dismayed by the cursing and brawling they could hear in the gentile camps. Brigham Young even made the contrast between the Saints and the Missourians part of the subject of a Sunday discourse. 'They curse and swear, rip and tear, and are trying to swallow up the whole earth,' he said, 'but they do not wish us to have a place on the earth.' He drew a contrast between the Missourians and the Saints, explaining that the most acceptable way to worship God 'is to do each day the very things that will bring the most good to the human family'" (Proctor & Proctor, The Gathering: Mormon Pioneers on the Trail to Zion, p. 137).
"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35). Unity is more than a sign of maturity or goodness in a group; it is evidence that the Lord Himself owns them as His. It might have been on Wilford Woodruff's list of characteristics of the true Church of Christ, derived from the Bible, before he found it. Kindness is not the only characteristic of relationships between true disciples—unity of mind is another.
Jesus was attacked for stating, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). Far from a mystical or unattainable unity, Jesus prays that His disciples may also be one with Him in exactly the same way: "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me" (John 17:22-23). This unity was to be presented to the world as a credential that the disciples were actually called of God. Also, it was not to be achieved through the wrangling of a committee voting on policy; it was to be established by divine intervention, "glory." How, exactly, is this achieved?
Strangely, the answer can be found in the Pearl of Great Price, where Joseph Smith received revelation about parts of lost writings of Moses that quote Enoch, who describes the conversion of Adam: "And he heard a voice out of heaven, saying: Thou art baptized with fire, and with the Holy Ghost. This is the record of the Father, and the Son, from henceforth and forever; And thou art after the order of him who was without beginning of days or end of years, from all eternity to all eternity. Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons. Amen" (Moses 6:66-68).
This conversion is internal, but its effects are not private. As suggested by the Lord, the symptoms manifest themselves in appearance, attitude, actions, and interactions with others. "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them" (Moses 7:18). That is a tall order to fill—one heart, one mind, one pantry, one checkbook. Have we even gotten as far as a unity of mind? Isaiah 52:8 is quoted at least seven times elsewhere in the standard works, including by the Savior in 3 Nephi: "Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion." The Lord elaborates on this idea in the Doctrine and Covenants: "...all shall know me, who remain, even from the least unto the greatest, and shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and shall see eye to eye, and shall lift up their voice, and with the voice together sing this new song, saying:
The Lord hath brought again Zion;
The Lord hath redeemed his people, Israel,
According to the election of grace,
Which was brought to pass by the faith
And covenant of their fathers.
The Lord hath redeemed his people;
And Satan is bound and time is no longer.
The Lord hath gathered all things in one.
The Lord hath brought down Zion from above.
The Lord hath brought up Zion from beneath.
The earth hath travailed and brought forth her strength;
And truth is established in her bowels;
And the heavens have smiled upon her;
And she is clothed with the glory of her God;
For he stands in the midst of his people.
Glory, and honor, and power, and might,
Be ascribed to our God; for he is full of mercy,
Justice, grace and truth, and peace,
Forever and ever, Amen." (D&C 84:98).
To sing our firmest beliefs together in agreement and harmony may be the very antithesis of strife and debate.
You may be asking after all this, "What's your point?"
I recently read a blog in which a female member of the Church described a date she went on with a male member of the Church. In the course of their conversation, he said something to the effect of, "Since we are both members of the Church, we can assume we agree on the important, fundamental things." While she said nothing at the time, she vented vitriol online, recoiling at the suggestion, and listed her unorthodox beliefs as proof that his statement about members sharing common beliefs was an unwarranted generalization.
Regardless of who is right or wrong, wherever there is a disagreement among Latter-day Saints, it is safe to assume that the Holy Ghost is absent in at least one of the parties, if not both. The kind of oneness and unity ascribed to the Saints described above is the result of divine intervention, not intellectual exercises or disputations (see 3Ne. 11:28-30). To borrow an analogy from Truman G. Madsen, the Spirit allows ideas to jump in purity from one person to another, the way electricity can arc between two electrodes. "Both are edified and rejoice together" (D&C 50:22). Anything less is not of God.
It is not just reasonable to expect agreement between Latter-day Saints—it is mandatory. Otherwise, we are empty vessels. We have not yet received the Holy Ghost to be spiritually reborn. He is the third party in all relationships between members of the Church.
In popular Latter-day Saint parlance, "Atonement" refers to the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. This is correct, but the sense of the word includes more. This first half of the definition refers to building a bridge; the other half refers to things achieved through them, by crossing that bridge. Our spirits and dead bodies are reunited in the resurrection, made "at one." Disparate Male and Female are united for time and eternity, "at one." Families, scattered across time and space, are reunited in heaven, eternally "at one." Parties rent with disagreement and strife are brought to sweet forgiveness, softness of heart by the Savior, until they become "at one." Justice and mercy are both allowed to function because Jesus Christ acts as a mediator to pay debt; both virtuous principles can therefore operate without contradiction, "at one." Sin that separates us from God is wiped clean, and we can return to His presence to be with Him forever, "at one." This is the fuller sense of the word "Atonement." Suffering, death, and resurrection built the bridge; full atonement happens when we cross that bridge.
No, it is not unreasonable to expect Latter-day Saints to agree on fundamental issues. We can see eye to eye because of the power of the Atonement, and become of one mind. Individuals may have more or less knowledge than each other, but what little we each have in our cups of knowledge should have been poured from the same pitcher—knowledge comes through the Spirit. "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26). "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things" (Moroni 10:5).
As a very young child, I remember being in a sacrament meeting when new callings were being announced by the Bishop for a sustaining vote. When he asked if there were any opposed to those callings, I raised my hand. (Fortunately my dissent was ignored by the authorities on the stand.) When my mother asked me why I had voted against sustaining and appointing whoever to whatever calling, my response was as follows: "Because no one ever votes against them." In my childish mind, I had conflated callings via revelation through established channels with the tug-of-war of opinions characterizing politics. It seemed aesthetically pleasing to me to spice the placid tranquility of sacrament meeting with the sport of debate and dissent.
Sustainings are not our chance to put our two cents in. It is our opportunity to support those who have been called "by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority" (A of F 5). It also conforms to the instruction that all callings are to be made public. No one receives position or responsibility in the Church in secret. D&C 26:2: "And all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith, for all things you shall receive by faith. Amen." D&C 28:13: "For all things must be done in order, and by common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith." Notice the unity here presupposes that all parties involved have direct access to revelation. It is not sheepish conformity that breeds this unity; it is "much prayer and faith."
"I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self security. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not" (Journal of Discourses, 9:150).
I remember after President Hinckley's death, I determined to simply accept President Monson as the new leader of the Church without question. But the prompting came that, no, I should rather get a testimony that he was actually called of God, not simply the default inheritor of the calling due to seniority in the Twelve. (This testimony came as I read his First Presidency Message article in the Ensign printed shortly after President Hinckley's death—President Monson addressed concerns I had mulled over and sweated about, and the Spirit brought quiet assurance and peace about his calling as the new president.)
"A good many people, and those professing Christians, will sneer a good deal at the idea of present revelation. Whoever heard of true religion without communication with God? To me the thing is the most absurd that the human mind could conceive. I do not wonder, when the people generally reject the principle of present revelation, that skepticism and infidelity prevail to such an alarming extent. I do not wonder that so many men treat religion with contempt, and regard it as something not worth the attention of intelligent beings, for without revelation religion is a mockery and a farce" (John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, 16:371).
The unity I hope for, of seeing "eye to eye" among members of the Church, requires several difficult things. First, it requires minds that are more interested in the truth, however inconvenient to themselves, than in convenience or self-serving ideas. The restored gospel is not a cafeteria or buffet, from which we can choose a few principles and disregard whatever lacks personal appeal. Second, it requires us to have our brains turned on—revelation is dispensed after we have considered and mulled and pondered. Third, it requires Latter-day Saints who are actually saints, sanctified (the words are cognate) by the Spirit. None of these are easy; all require enormous effort. But these are part of the standard implicit in the Savior's command that we be "one."
Elder Holland states: "Since it is clear that there were Christians long before there was a New Testament or even an accumulation of the sayings of Jesus, it cannot therefore be maintained that the Bible is what makes one a Christian. In the words of esteemed New Testament scholar N. T. Wright, 'The risen Jesus, at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, does not say, "All authority in heaven and on earth is given to the books you are all going to write," but [rather] "All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me."' In other words, 'Scripture itself points … away from itself and to the fact that final and true authority belongs to God himself.' So the scriptures are not the ultimate source of knowledge for Latter-day Saints. They are manifestations of the ultimate source. The ultimate source of knowledge and authority for a Latter-day Saint is the living God. The communication of those gifts comes from God as living, vibrant, divine revelation" ("My Words...Never Cease," April 2008 General Conference).
The Pharisees at the time of Jesus were intimately acquainted with the scriptures, but estranged from God. Being familiar with both is required if we are not to go spiraling off into apostasy or false ideas. We are to treasure up the word of life, and learn to discern the source of revelations we receive. When interpretations of doctrine disagree, we are not to dispute with one another, but it is evidence that one or both parties need to reexamine their beliefs, pray for guidance, and get the real doctrine firmly in their minds and hearts.
