“Adam fell that men might be. And men are that they might have joy.” Lehi’s declaration in 2 Nephi 2 is transformative in Latter-day Saint theology, transforming an event portrayed often in negative terms throughout Abrahamic faiths into something fulfilling and meaningful. 

That isn’t the only way that Latter-day Saints understand the Fall differently than Jews, Christians, and Muslims. In today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,  we explore the scriptural narratives of Eden, post-Eden life, agency, and much much more.

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In October 1995 at the General Relief Society meeting of LDS General Conference, then President Gordon B. Hinckley presented “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” It was the 5th of 6 proclamations–we now have 7. the most recent being the Proclamation on the Restoration in 2020. Church communications come in a variety of modes. Official Declarations as we talked about on out last podcast, are faced inwardly and dictate a significant shift in church doctrine or policy. They are then accepted by the body of the church by the law of common consent. The first proclamation in 1841 was given to the Saints scattered abroad–but in contrast since then proclamations have been generally oriented outwards toward the rest of the world. 

President Hinckley considered the proclamation a “reaffirmation of standards, doctrines, and practices relative to the family.” While not canonized as scripture, the proclamation holds an important place in Latter-day Saint thought, practice, and belief. 

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Spencer W. Kimball, his counselors, and their fellow apostles prayed about the revelation that Latter-day Saints have canonized as Official Declaration 2 in June 1978. They immediately let it be known that the Lord had told them that all worthy people, of any race, color, creed, or nationality, would be eligible for temple blessings and that men could be ordained. This lifted a racial restriction that had lasted for more than a century that denied ordination to men of Black African descent and the endowment and sealing ordinances to men, women, and children of Black African descent. 

Importantly, President Kimball’s journey to receiving the revelation began decades earlier. Even as a boy he recognized how his neighbors treated Native Americans with distrust and disdain. He saw inequity and wanted to correct it. Although he did not know as a lad that he would receive a revelation with global consequences, it’s remarkable to me that something President Kimball noticed as a child would change The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ global trajectory.

My name is Joseph Stuart, I’m the public communications specialist at the Maxwell Institute. Janiece Johnson, is a Willes Center Research Associate at the Institute, and we will be discussing each week’s block of reading from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. We aren’t here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block that we believe will help fulfill the Maxwell Institute’s mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engages the world of religious ideas.”

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In September 1890, Wilford Woodruff, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, met with his counselors with a vexing problem. How could they, as prophets and the First Presidency of the Church, prevent their religion from being squashed by the federal government over the practice of plural marriage? They ultimately decided that the Lord had confirmed to them that “the time [had] come…to meet the requirements of the country, to meet the demands that have been made upon us, and to save the people.” When his counselors and apostles vowed to support him, Woodruff called for more than 1000 copies of his Manifesto to be sent “to the President, Cabinet, Senate & House of Reps & other leading Men” in order to end the arrests of polygamists. The Declaration was accepted and sustained by common consent at the next week’s General Conference.

Most Latter-day Saints seem to have approved of the decision. However, some Saints abstained from voting, tacitly rejecting the Manifesto. At least one Latter-day Saint “remained silent,” his arm remaining at his side “like lead,” unable to approve the revelation.[1] Another Mormon man wrote, “Many of the saints seemed stunned and confused and hardly knew how to vote, feeling that if they endorsed it they would be voting against one of the most sacred and important principles of their religion, and yet, as it had been promulgated by the prophet, seer and revelator and the earthly mouthpiece of the Almighty, they felt it must be proper for some reason [or] other…A great many of the sisters wept silently & seemed to feel worse than the brethren.” 

In this episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,” we discuss the origins and implications of the revelation canonized as Official Declaration One, also known popularly as the Woodruff Manifesto.

My name is Joseph Stuart, I’m the public communications specialist at the Maxwell Institute. Janiece Johnson, is a Willes Center Research Associate at the Institute, and we will be discussing each week’s block of reading from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. We aren’t here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block that we believe will help fulfill the Maxwell Institute’s mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engages the world of religious ideas.”

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Though raised as a Latter-day Saint in Utah, Samuel M. Brown was an atheist from an early age and proud of it. Yet, by his own account, God became an undeniable presence in his life. Now a faithful Latter-day Saint, this practicing research physician narrates some of the waypoints on his journey into believing and belonging. Some are dramatic–his wife’s cancer diagnosis or working in a hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic–while many are simple yet profound: being mistaken for a homeless person while a student at Harvard, growing to like little children and opera, and learning to bake cookies for others. 

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The Constitution of the United States guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Despite that promise, Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century sometimes found themselves as victims of legal and extralegal violence against their leaders and lay members alike. When Joseph Smith ran for President in 1844, he made religious freedom a central component of his campaign. In this episode of the Maxwell Institute Podcast, we speak with Dr. Spencer McBride, Associate Managing Historian of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, and the host of the Joseph Smith Papers Podcast, about his book Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom (Oxford University Press).

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