The White Horse Prophecy apocrypha still gets talked up from time to time

I wrote this column a while back in late 2010. I thought it's interesting enough to post on blog. Perennial candidate Rex Rammell is still running for political office as late as 2018. ... After a few recent conversations with some older members of the LDS Faith, I know the White Horse Prophecy still fascinates some.

Most of us Mormons, if we are long-timers in the church, have heard that the “Constitution will hang by a thread” in the last days and that the LDS prophet, or church leadership, will save the United States from destruction.

This all comes from the “White Horse prophecy,” a bit of Mormon lore, where two devout followers, Edwin Rushton and Theodore Turley, apparently had a conversation with the prophet Joseph Smith. A “transcript” of Smith’s part of the conversation, 10-plus years later, ended up in Paradise, Utah’s John J. Robert’s private journal.

I have to admit, growing up, I thought the White Horse prophecy was Mormon doctrine. Many of the LDS adults I listened to spoke of it as if it were church doctrine. As I grew older, and couldn’t find it propagated in any priesthood or Sunday School texts, I realized it was apocrypha. It’s not impossible that Smith actually said that, it’s just that it doesn’t mean it’s a revelation by LDS Church standards.

When an LDS prophet receives revelation from God, it is submitted to the church’s Council of the 12 Apostles and discussed — and I imagine debated — in detail before it passes muster as prophecy.

In other words, a secondhand, 10-year-old journal transcript of an alleged conversation a late prophet might have had doesn’t cut it for inclusion in LDS General Conference. In fact, as early as 1918, church leaders were discounting the White Horse prophecy. The church leader at the time, Joseph F. Smith, described it as “trash” and “false.”

There is an excellent article from the FAIR LDS site on the White Horse prophecy, that includes the entire journal account, at Read

So why does the White Horse prophecy have such an ability to hook more credulous members? I think it’s human nature. We all want to have a little of the Indiana Jones in us. We romanticize our church existence, fantasize that there is more to it than a two-year mission, counting members during sacrament meeting, home teaching, collecting fasts offerings and Gospel Doctrine lessons. We admire our faith and want its important to be inflated more in the world than it is. Also, let’s face it, the White Horse prophecy makes for great LDS conversation. But even Bruce R. McConkie, in his once-revered “Mormon Doctrine,” called it “false and deceptive.”

Other faiths are no different. Look at the rapture fantasies of fundamentalist Christians. Another example, that twists into hate and sin, is radical Muslims or — to a far lesser extent, radical Christians — killing infidels or abortionists.

In short, though, to the rest of the world, the White Horse prophecy can only embarrass the Mormon church on those occasions when it, for some reason or another, makes the media wires. And that has occurred with fringe Idaho gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell, a Republican, calling for a Jan. 19 meeting — open only to 100 handpicked LDS priesthood holders — that will discuss the White Horse prophecy in detail. (Hat tip to Top of Utah Voices columnist Neal Humphrey) (Note: Rammell had a change of heart on making the meetings LDS Priesthood exclusive.)

Sigh.

“I am tired of people telling me that I can’t bring God and the Constitution into my campaign speeches. ... We are in America’s second Revolutionary War to save our freedom, which we paid for with blood. We need God’s help and I’m not ashamed to ask for it,” Rammell was quoted in 2010.

And, as Rammell explains in an Idaho Statesman article on his crusade, he is willing to discuss the issue with non-Mormons and expects them to join his efforts to defend constitutional principles. Read

Personally, I would like to see as many religions as possible involved any of these types of crusades that the Rammells of the world engage in. I believe in an equal distribution of outlandish theories.

As for his crusade, Rammell is probably a longshot toward bringing the White Horse prophecy into the Idaho statehouse. In 2008, he won only 5.4 percent of the vote in an independent candidacy for U.S. Senate. (Note: He didn't do too bad in 2010, gaining 26 percent of the vote but losing the GOP primary to then-incumbent Gov. Butch Otter.)

--- Doug Gibson

Mormons don’t really believe in a rapture, but we also obsess about the end times

There’s an old Mormon joke: A cardinal says to the pope, “I have good news and bad news.” The pope replies, “Good news first.” The cardinal says, “Christ has returned.” The pope says, ‘What could be the bad news?” The cardinal replies,” He’s in Salt Lake City.”

Come on, it’s funny. I used to chuckle hearing it. I was thinking of that “joke” when reading a piece from Religious News Service on multimedia preacher Tim LaHaye, co-author of the wildly successful “Left Behind” series of books. The books are entertaining but violent religious “gorenography” that contain more violence than all the “Saw” movies combined and feature Jesus Christ as an “End Times” Godzilla who slaughters millions, creating rivers of blood. 

Afterwards, LaHaye’s prose lovingly focuses on the immersion of the Antichrist and his false prophet in a lake of molten fire that will eventually consume billions of others who fail to heed the lessons of “Left Behind.” The weirdest thing about this fairy tale — that would be too obscene for the Brothers Grimm — is that its most devoted readers are southern housewives with children.

Back to Latter-day Saints and the End Times. We’re not that grim, or eager for retribution, as LaHaye is. In fact, a little-known fact about Mormonism is that we teach near universal salvation. Our version of Hell, called Perdition, has no fire. From what I can garner from 50-plus years in the LDS Church, Perdition is perpetually overcast place where “Sons of Perdition” (apparently there’s no daughters) will be forced to listen to impotent debates between Cain and Judas, with Lucifer the moderator. In other words, boring.

Mormons throw a quantum twist to all this, though. We believe that God knows everything that we will do while we are alive, which presents the non-theological but still mulled-upon idea that perhaps everything has already happened and life as we know it is a re-run. (That is definitely not LDS Church doctrine)

But Mormons obsess about the End Times as much as anyone else, even if we don’t believe in a rapture. How else to explain the consistent popularity of Glenn Beck? The “Beck influence,” — and this used to be called the “Skousen influence,” is evident anytime I have a conversation with a member who refuses to believe that anything is going to get better in the next undetermined years or decades before the second coming of Christ. Pessimism is a requirement for a Beckian.

There’s also the dubious legend of the prophet Joseph Smith claiming that the Constitution will hang by a thread before the Second Coming. There’s also the prophecy of three missionaries who will be murdered in Israel and resurrect. This is a variation of the Left Behind Apostles of Christ who do the same during “the tribulation,” or apocalyse. And of course we fervently believe that the Three Nephite apostles, along with the Apostle John, are hanging around providing perfect directions to bewildered LDS travelers.

LaHaye and scores of millions of others believe that the rapture can occur at anytime. Mormons and scores of millions of others believe that Christ can return at any time. True or not, there’s a wonderful hook if all this is actually a con. 

Bad things always exist, and bad news can always be used as proof these are the End Times. In the meantime, we better all pay our tithing.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNet in 2010.