King Follett Discourse

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The King Follett Discourse is an address delivered by Joseph Smith, Jr., founder and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, on April 7, 1844, less than three months before Smith's assassination. The discourse was presented to a congregation of probably more than ten thousand Latter-day Saints at a general conference held shortly after the funeral service of Elder King Follett, who had died on March 9, 1844 of accidental injuries.

A verbatim account of the speech does not exist, but among others, Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, Thomas Bullock, and William Clayton took notes of the address. A version reconstructed (by Bullock) from the Bullock and Clayton records was published in the Church paper Times and Seasons of August 15, 1844. A later version resulted from amalgamation of the Richards, Woodruff, Bullock and Clayton texts. This amalgamation was done by Church employee Jonathan Grimshaw roughly ten years after Smith's death and is generally regarded as the "official" version. It contains some text not found in any of the primary sources and contains redundancies resulting from the naive reconstruction. On balance, the "Times and Seasons" version is perhaps closest to the original speech. One author (Searle) estimates that current versions contain roughly 30% of the actual address, however topically either the "Times and Seasons" or Grimshaw version are no doubt close to complete.

The sermon was not always viewed in a favorable light by LDS leaders. It was not published in the annals of Joseph Smith's life ca 1902 ("History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints") because of then Church President Joseph F. Smith's discomfort with some ideas in the sermon which he felt suffered from inaccuracies of the original note takers. By 1938 it had begun to regain favor and gradually became a part of trusted Latter-day Saint doctrinal texts.

[edit] Topics

Doctrinal topics in the sermon include:

the fundamental nature of reality --

man is not a contingent being, moreover God made the world from preexisting "chaotic matter."

"I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man ... because it has no beginning"

"The pure principles of element, are principles that can never be destroyed." (Times and Seasons, 5:615)

the character of God --

"It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another." (TPJS, p. 345)

"If the veil were rent today, and ... God ... (were) to make himself visible ... if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form -- like yourselves in all the person, image, and the very form as a man." (TPJS, p. 345)

Humanity’s potential to become Gods themselves. --

Smith discussed the potential of mankind by referencing Romans 8:17, then stating that men may go: "...from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation ... until (they) arrive at the station of a God." (TPJS, p. 346-47)

Smith taught, "You have got to learn to become Gods yourselves, the same as all Gods before you have done."

the tie between the living and their progenitors --

"Is there nothing to be done? -- no preparation -- no salvation for our fathers and friends who have died without having had the opportunity to obey the decrees of the Son of Man?" (TPJS, p. 355)

"God hath made a provision that every spirit in the eternal world can be ... saved unless he has committed (the) unpardonable sin." (TPJS, p. 357)

Regarding his personal religious experiences, Smith stated: "I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself." (TPJS p. 361) Concerned with difficulties facing the Church and threats on his own life, he closed the two hour and fifteen minute address with a plea for peace and invoked God's blessing on the assembled Latter Day Saints.

Although the discourse is considered by Mormons to be one of the most important given by Smith on the nature of God and exaltation, it is not part of the Church's canonized scriptures.

The topics in the discourse were not new to Smith's preaching. Nearly all the subjects treated were continuing threads from earlier sermons. However, this discourse brought these ideas together in one connected narrative, and has had much wider distribution than most of the rest of his public utterances.

[edit] References

Times and Seasons, August 15, 1844
History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, Volume Six, pp. 302-317.
Cannon, Donald Q. and Dahl, Larry E., editors. The Prophet Joseph Smith's King Follet Discourse: A Six-Column Comparison of Original Notes and Amalgamation. Provo, Utah, 1983.
Ehat, Andrew F. and Cook, Lyndon W., "The Words of Joseph Smith," (Orem, Utah: Grandin, 1991).
Ludlow, Daniel H., Editor, Church History, Selections From the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, UT, 1992. ISBN 0-87579-924-8.
Searle, Howard C., "Early Mormon Historiography: Writing the History of the Mormons," Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA, 1979. pp. 270ff.
Smith, Joseph Fielding, editor. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (TPJS), Salt Lake City, 1938. Section Six 1843-44, pp. 342-61.
Smith, W.V., editor, "The Parallel Joseph" at www.boap.org.