Prophet Margins

There are quotations from Shakespeare in the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith thought that they were from the Bible, but Pete Hegseth has been known to quote Pulp Fiction on the same misapprehension, which made some of us feel our age as surely as the forthcoming induction of Oasis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Why does Hegseth’s Department of Defense, which is its name, not list everyone in alphabetical order? And how many Jehovah’s Witnesses, Quakers, or members of the Church of the Brethren, are there there in the United States Military? They must have to do a lot of explaining.

Still, that is not for the rest of us to judge, any more than it is for us to judge Hegseth for being on his third marriage, for having impregnated his present wife while still married to his last one, for having had several other affairs, and for having settled a sexual assault lawsuit for $50,000. Or any more than it is for the Secretary of Defense, as such, to judge what is or is not a Christian church. Again I say that he should just have stuck to alphabetical order, and again I ask why he did not.

As to Mormonism itself, the fullness of Christianity does indeed include priesthood, a high theology of baptism, the living Teaching Office of a person on this Earth, an intercessory relationship between those on either side of bodily death, and much else besides.