I do believe that the Lord, in his mercy, has given us the commandments because we are so in the dark. His prophets, when speaking as prophets, guide us as to behavior that will assist us in our earthly pilgrimage. The words of the Lord are the “iron rod” we are to hold to. We are in a fallen and dark world where human intention and problems infect all sorts of communication–and no one is totally above it.

So whenever a human being says anything–even good things–we are told to go to the Lord himself and ask for guidance. Agreed? I don’t think the Lord is monolithic or He wouldn’t have asked us to do that.

“The only question is what does ‘truth’ mean, a point that your post promises but does not deliver.”

How much more do the prophets and apostles of the Church have to say for TT to understand what “truth” means? Saying that the Brethren have not expounded quite clearly what “truth” means in these many statements is being quite blind, and I’m not going to be shy in saying it. It’s not that TT didn’t read or interpret the quotes like I did; it doesn’t look like he read them at all.

The “true” church expression, I believe, began to be seriously expounded when the early church spread to the 4 winds after the death of Joseph Smith. Brigham and the Saints who followed him stated almost continually that theirs was the “true” church (meaning, the church that claimed the mantle of Joseph)….as opposed to those who stayed with other apostles in Illinois or Texas or Michigan.

If you do not think that the prophets have defined what truth means here, in direct quotations I have listed at length, then you are truly blind. In the gospel, we understand truth by the standards of the gospel, only, and not by anything the world might present. President Benson said, “The gospel encompasses all truth.” The Church is true in every sense of the word.

If not one of the Brethren has ever used the term “authentic” as an adjectival modifier to describe the Church, in place of “the true church,” then I believe it heresy to use it. Period. Doing so is just mystifying the point. “The true church” is the expression that is generally known and used. Are we holding to the iron rod, or wandering into mists of darkness?

Love the quotation from President Richards! Couldn’t agree more! I NEVER let students use technical vocabulary without some attempt at understanding. One of the words they struggle a lot with is “truth.” They tend to cite various authors on truth without analyzing what those authors are actually saying about truth. But “I agree with Professor X” does not an argument, or an analysis make, no?

So I concur, it’s important to define the words we use. For example, I think the best way to get at the question of whether or not “the true church” might be adequately or profitably expressed as “the authentic church” in some contexts probably rides on the overlap between “true” and “authentic” in those contexts. Although church leaders seem to have used the former expression more often than the latter this does not mean, as you correctly note, that we must invariably use the former when we talk about our exclusiveness.

Mogs

At this point I wish to submit a caution to teachers, particularly those within our Church. I deem it to be regrettable that academic practice not infrequently seems to dictate terminology and types of expression and explanation which often confuse more than they clarify and expound. There are those who apparently regard it as a mark of scholarly attainment to be able to mystify others. I don't. I look upon clear explanations as the expressions of clear thinking and a high order of intelligence. In religious teaching I believe in calling principles, concepts, and practices by the name by which they are generally known. God and the devil, holiness and sin, faith and apostasy are better understood and have more significance when designated by their right names than when disguised and camouflaged in terminology that not even all the professors can understand.