White horsing around

I needed to post about glurge before I posted about the White Horse prophecy because so much of what makes the "prophecy" a problem is its suspicious provenance. That wasn't even what I thought would be the important part, but if it had clear provenance, it would probably look very different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Prophecy

First of all, your nutshell of "the Constitution will hang by a thread and it will be up to the Elders of the Church to save it" (or words to similar effect) comes to us from a journal entry of a guy who heard another guy say that Joseph Smith said it, almost sixty years after Smith said it, still according to the one guy.

That is a shaky basis. It doesn't mean that Smith didn't say anything; the references from Brigham Young and Orson Hyde pre-date John Roberts' journal entry. One also can't help but notice that the journal entry is much more flowery and detailed than the other references. That could be more Roberts or Rushton than Smith.

It is very interesting to me that we have Joseph F. Smith dismissing it in 1980 and Bruce R. McConkie dismissing it in 1966, but you still have Charles W. Nibley referencing it in 1922, Melvin J. Ballard referencing it in 1928, J. Reuben Clark referencing it in 1942, and Ezra Taft Benson referencing it in 1986.

That's not a slam at anyone; those are all good men. Getting back to the flowery language thing, none of them referencing the threat to the constitution seem to be mentioning a white horse. I can't rule out that Joseph Smith said something about a threat to the Constitution, or that other people heard it - besides Rushton - and that the idea was carried through.

I also have to know that without having something written down at the time - either by Joseph Smith or by someone who was in the room and then had Joseph check their transcription - it would be foolish to take it too literally.

My point so far is that we get things into our head and repeat them and they become a part of our whole view, quite frequently without thorough examination.

There is definite appeal, right? I mean it's scary - our inspired Constitution will be imperiled, so our whole country is imperiled; drama! But it will all be fine, and we will be the heroes of it. We are such good, smart people!

Then, we we don't question that, maybe we don't question other things.

We might not question our reverence for the Constitution, and if that is justified. 

We also might not question whether our actions - including voting - tend to be more for or against the Constitution. 

I'm going to let that sit for a week.