In this post I will compare and contrast the more beuacratic Godhead -- and resulting Corporate Church (or Coporate View) based on Brigham Young's autocratic leadership style and Joseph Feliding Smith's Protestant-Fundamentalist mentality -- as compared to Smith's more science-based Hebrew mysticism and Widstoe and Pratt's more rational theology (or what I call the Smith-Pratt paradigm).
In my view, the Coporate Church began to develop with Brigham Young presenting a more bureaucratic godhead by reformulating the temple ritual based on his "pet dogma" that Adam is god. I think Young was intimidated by LDS scholars and thinkers, after lacking the intellectual ability to study Hebrew in the School of the Prophets with the others. Instead of learning Hebrew Young focused on construction of the Kirtland temple. Young came to represent the bureaucratic leader who is not scholarly and lacking in Joseph's mystic qualities. Bringing Young is more construction oriented and business minded, focusing on becoming wealthy and in fact he became one of the richest men in Utah. Orson Pratt was then snubbed from his rightful place as the next Church President. Therefore a future LDS Leaders after Young, eventually become anti-science like Joseph Fielding Smith (who was Bruce R. McConkie father-in-law). From this line of Leaders, the trajectory changes from Joseph Smith as a mystical poet philosopher and Parley Pratt as poetic philosopher and Orson Pratt as science educator and theologian forming Church doctrine and the scripture canon, to instead a series of LDS leaders who are mostly lawyers and businessmen. This is a result of the more bureaucratic godhead and interpretive lens of Young on down down to McConkie. In recent times, there's been resurgent of LDS scholarship and poets like a Terryl Givens. But the top LDS leadership remains mired in the Brigham-McConkie mindset and the a corporate structure. I began to notice this on my mission in the 1990s, where there was a kind of business structure and salesmanship quality, a focus on "numbers" over a more slow amd genuine conversion or character development in the missionary himself. Some of my companions lacked Christian character but being good salesmen were promoted and approved of by my Mission President.
Thus the Corporate Church unfortunately is more likely to produce a pharisaical type of Mormon, just like Jesus battled among the pharisaical Jews of his day with Jesus being a more mystical poetic Jew telling parabolic stories about caring for "the least of these."
As I discussed in this blog post, the fact that Orson Pratt attempted to insert new scripture into the D&C in the 1870s and 1890s, proves to me that in actuality the Scriptures itself promotes more the Smith-Pratt paradigm.
Let's begin with a brief summary comparing the two worldviews. The Coroprate view being a product of Young to McConkie:
Coporate View:
Anti-science
Smith-Pratt View:
Pro-science
Coporate View:
A concept of a companion Holy Ghost as marker of feeling "worthy" in contrast to feeling inadequate and "unworthy" based on a perfectionist path with zero security of what actually earn's one the status and label of perfect worthiness.
Smith-Pratt View:
The Holy Ghost as acting out a process of a fiery alchemy type transformation via the baptism of fire: as the literal transformation into a pneumatic ("noomatic") body by being saved by grace through faith and the merits of Christ alone; while enduring to the end as in growing more anti-fragile.
Coporate View:
The Godhead based on Brigham Young's early formation of a more bureaucratic council where Adam is our God.
Smith-Pratt View:
The Godhead as personages constituted by spirit atoms as a mystic-oriented empowering Godhead; similar to the ideas of Thomas Dick, Emerson, the Stoics, and Nietzche, etc.
Coporate View:
The emphasis on the Spirit producing more feminine emotions in men in order to encourage more obedience to the male leaders.
Smith-Pratt View:
The Spirit as Fluid Nooma as both masculine and feminine energy, producing both the Strength of the Lord and Zion.
Coporate View:
Anselm and Calvinist Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory
Smith-Pratt View:
As I was doing the research for this blog series, I began to realize that everything changes when you start with the Smith-Pratt Godhead. For example, if you start with Jehovah is our Heavenly Father -- and not the new God "Elohim" as invented by Brigham Young through his version of the temple ritual: in order for him to present a more bureaucratic Godhead with Michael (Adam) as God -- and instead return to the Godhead of Scripture as produced by Joseph Smith and the theology of Orson Pratt, you get a less bureaucratic godhead and everything changes from there.
With the Smith-Pratt Godhead, Jehovah is our Heavenly Father (as the LDS scholar Blake Ostler points out). Elohim is a word for the Council of Gods described in Abraham 4. Jesus becomes the literal son of Heavenly Father (Jehovah) and Heavenly Mother. Thus, Jesus says things like he who has seen me have seen the Father. He says this because they look almost identical, as He has the same divine genes of the Father-Jehovah, hence they look alike. This would by why the LDS painting The First Vision by Del Parson depicts Jesus and Father-Jehovah looking alike, as the painter likely based the painting off of the many descriptions of the Father and Son looking alike in scripture.
The Smith-Pratt Godhead also better explains the will of the Son being swallowed up by the will of the Father in Mosiah 15, as this would mean -- based on Pratt's theory of miny intelligences as self-moving powers -- that when Jesus' material body was being formed in the womb of Mary, the mini intelligence (agential spirit atoms) composing his human form began to contain the "will" of Father-Jehovah. For the miny intelligences constituting the personage of Father-Jehovah were expanded into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, thus he became "the Father and the Son," because He had a mixture of Mary's spirit atoms and Father-Jehovah's self-moving or willful spirit atoms.
After doing a deep drive into what the Scriptures actually say about sex and purity, I realized that you not find the Protestant Purity Culture within the LDS Scriptures. Instead, The Protestant Fundamentalism of those like Joseph Fielding Smith was transposed onto Mormon Sculpture reinterpreting it. All that changes when you begin with the Fortunate Fall of the Book of Mormon and it's defining of sin based in the levitical law of the Old Testament (not Augustinian dogma of the Puritans); as the people of the Book of Mormon are still Jewish following the Mosaic law for most of the content of the Book of Mormon. Then with D&C 130, 131, 132, as added scripture by Orson Pratt, you have a complete reevaluation of morality where Protestant Puritanism is rejected, and the Old Testament sexual ethic is restored. This leads to the Happiness Letter and Parley Pratt's essay Intelligence and Affections. For with God the Father Himself having a body of flesh, the sectarian god without parts or passions (which caused the Christian believer to despise their own body) is corrected and Bodily Life is affirmed through Pratt canonizing D&C 130:22. When this combined with the D&C 131:7-8, that all matter or atoms are spirit matter or spirit atoms, then you don't not have room for the Augustinian Calvinist dogma of All Flesh is depraved; for All Flesh is holy being composed of the Holy Spirit as miny intelligences. So the Augustinian idea of inherited sin through the sex act itself is rejected not just in the Book of Mormon but in the Articles of Faith. Furthermore, atonement theory is recalculated as well and there is no more room for penal substitutionary atonement with the theory of many intelligences as Cleon Skousen explains in his Talk.
This removes any space for perfection-seeking of a "worthy" title, because as I explain in my blog series on true theosis or deification, what is actually happening during the process of salvation and exaltation, is the miny intelligence or spirit atoms are morphing the material atoms human soul into a glorious noomatic soul beginning after the baptism of fire.
When one understands that Orson Pratt was likely trying to curb any autocratic tendencies in future Leaders by canonizing D&C 121, with the section on condemning unrighteous dominion, you can see that Pratt likely did this based on his theory of spirit atoms. As in, according to this blog post summarising Andrew Miles, LDS theology would have it that God works within a relationship with the spirit atoms in an up-building synergistic process; so not through domineering and manipulating, but through building a relationship of trust, gentle persuasion and voluntary compliance.
Even plural marriage is re-understood, becoming in my view the process of up-building a People, by actually selecting for certain genes and personality traits in order to better up-build a core base for what would become the Mormon People, which I discuss in my blog series Respecting your Heritage & The Selective Birthing of the Mormon People as a Quasi-Ethnic Cultural Identity and a Peoplehood. From this point of view, the meaning of mini intelligences working within cells and DNA, would be in part a selection process of higher men, noblemen, practicing polygamy in the 1800s in order to filter the noblest mini intelligence or genomes into future generations of Mormons. This would explain why the Book of Mormon speaks of polygamy being allowed only for raising up a righteous seed (i.e. "good genes"); and it's why the Book of Mormon describes the "seed" of one set of brothers (Laman and Lemuel) growing into spiritually dark and degenerative people or culture, and Nephi's seed producing a people that at first flourishes in righteousness. Yet, descending from a righteous seed or pioner stock does not guarantee that you will not degenerate into wickedness as well. However, it does mean you will inherit certain spiritual traits that will give you a "leg up" in my opinion. We in fact have evidence of this as a discussed in my birthing the Mormon People blog series, where I show that in fact LDS are more agreeable and conscientious, i.e. more Christian or civil, kind, giving, charitable, and capable of orchestrating a Peoplehood.
So it's not about a top-down bureaucratic corporate control system, but a ground up, up-building of spirit atoms and cells and DNA to produce the Mormon People. Producing a People with a deep rooted devotion to their ancestry, turning the minds of the sons to the fathers and the fathers to future sons, etc. So it does not need as much top down control because there is a genealogical devotion to one's ancestry and Future People. In other words, the individual soul with free will and the Great God -- via miny intelligences within righteous human genomes who worship (i.e. revere the attributes of) the personages of the Father and Christ -- all orchestrate something closer to the ideal of Zion.
According to scholars, Brigham Young tried to snub Orson Pratt from his rightful line in seniority of succession to becoming one of the next LDS Pesidents, because Young was trying to position his own sons into leadership and block Orson. As I cover in this blog post, Orson was likely trying to course correct this process of "leadership worship" -- and undying loyalty to the President which could result in authoritarianism -- by publishing D&C 121 as scripture. Unfortunately, Brigham Yong ignored the new scripture against "unrighteous dominion" and went on to establish his the concept of the godhead as more of a bureaucratic structure. So when James Talmage was commissioned to deal with the tension in ideas between Orson Pratt and Brigham Young, he went more with Brigham Young and the establishedment, and kept the godhead structure of Brigham Young for the most part.
As a result of the beuacratic godhead and punishing Orson Pratt with losing his seniority, one can see how things began to change historically: how many LDS Leaders had previously felt free to speak up and even disagree more freely. Joseph Smith himself is on record saying that he does not like to be tremelled and we do not have Creeds like the sectarians. Many leaders would question and doubt and even leave the Church and come back and not have that affect their seniority. But when Brigham Young changed things it struck fear into all future LDS Leaders and so you had less creativity and innovation, and more dogmatic rigidity. You had more leaders becoming businessmen and lawyers, people already likely to be more rigid and stiff in their personality, making it so Brigham Young's racist seed of Cain dogma he inherited from Protestantism, would last in the LDS church for over a decade.
The good news is that when we return to the original Godhead of the Smith-Pratt paradigm, you begin to see that Mormonism comes alive and is bright and beautiful and less rigid, gloomy and pharisaical.
We can see that this is flowering forth here and there, for example in 2021 an Area 70 condemned the Augustinian shaming puritanical attitude of past LDS leaders. You have many LDS Scholars publishing books through the Church owned Deseret bookstores, publishing books like the Givens' book All Things New, which aligns more with the concept of holy mini-intelligences and so we are not depraved and sin cursed. A lot of Scholars like Terryl and Fiona Givens are trying to counteract the former shame based puritanical culture, which grow out of Joseph Fielding Smith's Protestant-Fundamentalism and Brigham's underlying bureaucratic structure: which became a business and like any business producing commercials that make people feel unworthy and inadequate unless they buy the product, Corporatized and Protestantized Mormonism through Brigham's godhead and Protestant-Fundamentalism, became a "purity culture" structure, a shame and tame loyalty or else system to a large degree. Members began to worship the "Brethren" more than the attritubutes of God and the gospel principles and values described in scripture. I call this Brethrenism.
The bureaucratic structure in the correlation system and the policies began to shame the human body just like Augustine did and commericals do to sell a product. So books like All things New and this area 70 above, are trying to return to the original Mormon Doctrine and LDS scripture: where we are not punished for Adam's transgression, in other words we do not inherit an original sin; and so there is nothing to seek to be "worthy" of, as we are all made permanently worthy through the merits of Christ and the baptism of fire. So that the purpose of the Christian path is to simply grow into maturity in Christ having his divine genome and his sharing of his miny intelligences (spirit atoms) with our soul body; as we grow more and do good continually by walking in the dust of Rabbi Jesus. So it's not about chasing a worthiness label or status and trying to be pure or perfect but realizing we are good enough and enduring hardships gowing stronger through Christ who strengthens us.
With the original Godhead from scripture produced by Smith and Pratt, it removes any sense of scrupuliosity, for one cannot feel unhealthy shame when they are composed of the Great God, the Holy Spirit. For if one is in fact composed of miny intelligences there is no room for feeling shame or scrupuliosity. For one's instictive drives are the product of the miny intelligences or spirit atoms, and so one is simply called to dominion, to undergo a process of learning to orchestrate and manage these natural drives so that one overcomes the "natural man," the impulsive, selfish, and greedy man, etc., and learns to do good continually and build the atmosphere of Zion. So that it's not as Augustine emphasized, a focus on despising the sexual organs, but a focus on building good character.
The Smith-Pratt Godhead theology completely reorients things back to the original LDS Movement, when people did not even attend church chapels but met in homes or outside and the focus was on the temple itself which according to Don Bradley was ultimately about enforcing bonds of friendship.
In this view of the Godhead, one can commune with God anywhere, as the diffuse substance of the Holy Spirit, the Deity of Lecture 2, is an omnipresent presence. Thus Jesus, through the omnipresent nooma, is wherever two or three are gathered together in His name. So you do not need to only go to a church chapel to commune with God. This is why some Restoration movements have formed home churches and take communion in each other's homes. This would fit with the Smith-Pratt model. It is only the corporate structure that demands one attend a chapel building to be considered "worthy," which again is a control mechanism (unrighteous dominion in my view) based on the corporate structure of the authoritarianism of personalities like Brigham Young.
In the Smith-Pratt Godhead paradigm, people instead simply want to go to church and go to church of their own free will because there is ideally a genuine atmosphere of Zion and authentic bonding in genuine friendships. In such an atmosphere there would be less of a need to demand church attendance through unrighteous dominion: like making an LDS member feel like they could lose access to the temple or not be able to baptize their child with their priesthood removed, if an ecclesiastical leader deemed them "unworthy." I think this is why Pratt added D&C 122 to the canon, to avoid such coercive methods.
