We’re going to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ – The Assured Way of the Lord, and it’s first leaders, Otto Fetting and William Draves. Adam Stokes is an apostle for them. Check out our conversation…
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Otto Fetting’s Visions & Revelations
GT 00:35 All right, well, let’s jump in then, because we’ve kind of been dancing around it. But, I want to dive deep into, shall we say Fettingite theology. So, let’s talk about Otto Fetting. He’s kind of the Joseph Smith of the movement. Can we say it that way?
Adam 00:55 Yeah.
GT 00:56 So, for my listeners, because I’ll bet you most of my listeners–we haven’t talked [him.] I know about Otto Fetting because Paul gave me some literature that I read. And so and I’m a little familiar with Draves. But, let’s talk about Otto Fetting. What can you tell my listeners about Otto Fetting and how he kind of started the Fettingite movement?
Adam 01:22 Yeah, absolutely. So, Otto Fetting is an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ -Temple Lot in the early 20th century in the 1920’s.
GT 01:32 Before that, he was a member of the Community of Christ. Right?
Adam 01:35 Member of the RLDS, yes.
GT 01:37 Yeah. They were known as RLDS back then, yeah.
Adam 01:38 And [he] joined the Temple Lot. In around 1927, he says that he has visions and revelations from John the Baptist. In fact, he sees John the Baptist in physical form. There’s a very famous statement in message number one, where John the Baptist hits Otto Fetting on the shoulder. He basically tells him, “Wake up. I have a revelation for you,” and gives him the revelation. He starts–so, he is still a member of the Temple Lot Church, and they accept, at that time, the first 12 messages. Now, the content of all these messages is that the temple is going to be–there’s going to be a temple built. There has to be a temple built on the temple lot grounds. I don’t know how much you’ve talked about the Temple Lot Church, but the temple lot is kind of the Mecca of the restoration. So, you LDS guys have a Visitor Center there. Community of Christ has their big spiral temple there, and the Temple Lot has their church there. And next to the church is the actual lot where the temple is supposed to be built. The cornerstones that Joseph Smith mentions in the Doctrine and Covenants, you can see on the temple lot. That is the most sacred space in our tradition. That’s basically Mecca for the Elijah Message Church and the same for the Temple Lot Church.
Adam 01:40 So Otto Fetting, at the time, in the late 1920s, is saying that the temple is going to be built on these grounds and the Temple Lot people are cool with that. They like what he’s saying. They believe what he’s saying up until the 12th message where Apostle Fetting is highly critical of some of the leadership in the Temple Lot Church. And so at that time, they reject his messages. He’s excommunicated. And he formed his own church called the Elijah Message Church.
Adam 01:43 And so he has 30 revelations between 1927 and, I believe, 1933. He’s an old man at this time. He’s had a whole career as a construction worker. In some ways, that explains why a lot of the initial revelations, if you read revelations one through six, it gives very specific details about the construction for the temple, because Otto Fetting, himself, was a construction worker. So he would know all of what needed to be done from a construction perspective. He dies in 1933, with his own church, and nothing really happens until 1937, where another apostle from Fetting’s church, W.A. Draves, also says that he’s receiving revelations from an angel. Now to make this even more complicated than what I’ve already said with the split between our three groups and everything, there are some churches that are purely, purely, Fettingite which means that they only accept the first 30 messages that were delivered by Otto Fetting. And they do not believe in the messages of W.A. Draves. So there’s some small groups, they’re about 100 members here, 10 members there, who still do that. But most of the people who accepted Otto Fetting’s messages, accept the messages of W.A. Draves. And W.A. Draves continues to have messages from around 1937, all the way to 1994. So [for] almost a period of 60 years, he has these messages. And there’s some really amazing things in them.
Adam 05:33 From a faith perspective, I believe that they’re revealed by God. But they seem to predict events such as World War Two, the fall of the Soviet Union, and even some of the events, Armageddon, some of the events in the Near East, in the early 20th century, the war between the West and the Near East in the early 2000s. So, there’s a lot of really interesting stuff in them. But that’s the basic history. And then in 1994, when Apostle Draves dies, that’s when you start to have these further splits. Before his death, there was some controversy, there were some things that were going on financially and involving the leadership of the church. In fact, Brother Draves, was excommunicated from his own church, and then brought back in right before he died. So things were kind of very messy in 1994. And that just led to further and further schism and division after that.
GT 06:40 Wow, that’s interesting. I didn’t know about that. Jumping back to Otto Fetting, he was the one responsible for them actually starting to dig the foundation for the temple, is that correct?
Adam 06:53 Yes, exactly. There’s a famous revelation, where Otto Fetting says the cornerstone will be found, that was indicated for the temple, will be found here. And the Temple Lot uncovered that and found it. Even to this day, there are some members of the Temple Lot that will at least have to accept the first 6or 12 messages because of that prophecy.
GT 07:17 Okay, so..
Adam 07:19 But, officially, the Temple Lot doesn’t accept the messages.
GT 07:23 Oh, that’s interesting. Okay, so they started breaking ground, was it in 1927? Or soon after there?
Adam 07:30 Soon after that.
GT 07:32 Okay. So soon after that, that’s when they got that big hole that lasted for decades until Harry Truman–I guess he’d served his time as President of the United States, and then the city of Independence was like, “That’s a pretty big eyesore. We’re going to help you fill that hole in, because we don’t want Harry Truman to see it,” right?
Adam 07:53 Yeah, it was right down the street, wasn’t it?
GT 07:57 Exactly. Yeah, that’s fun. Independence is fun, because there’s so much Truman history, and then…
Adam 08:02 There is. You go down the street and it’s all Truman history. And then further up the street, it’s all– like, every single Restoration branch has a church around the area.
GT 08:10 Right. Those stones that you mentioned, because I’ve been to the temple lot a couple of times in the last 10 years, and they’ve got them encased in glass and like, “Yeah, we found the these markers for the temple.” So that’s still very important to them. They just, I’m sure they wish they had money to build the temple. But, the Depression hit, I think that was a big reason why the temple never got finished, right?
Adam 08:40 Exactly. So, in the first revelation, in 1927, the Lord tells Apostle Fetting, Brother Fetting, that he’ll have seven years to complete [the temple,] but the depression hits 1929. Fetting goes broke. He actually had the money. He was a very successful construction, person in construction. And he actually had the money, but he goes flat broke. And there’s a famous statement, at the end of, I think it was either message 30 or message 29. He’s like, “What does it matter? Your riches have perished. But you’ve been faithful to the end.” I’m very much paraphrasing it. “But you’ve been faithful to the end, but your riches have perished,” when he lost all his stuff in the Great Depression.
GT 09:27 So the Lord forgave him for not finishing the temple. Is that right?
Adam 09:34 Yes, he did. And another–basically, the reason that’s given them given in the messages for the lack of finishing the temple, is basically the unfaithfulness of the people. So, that particular generation wasn’t worthy to build the temple. And it seems like, if you read the rest of the messages, we haven’t really found a generation that’s worthy enough to build the temple. Now, that’s something that should always be on our mind, building the temple is is is important, but there hasn’t really arisen a generation that is righteous enough, that’s holy enough that God sees fit, to build the temple.
GT 10:11 Okay. All right. So, then he died in, did you say 1933?
Adam 10:18 Yeah, 1933.
GT 10:19 Okay, so he died in 1933, basically, with a big hole in the ground, but now he’s got a new church, the Church of Jesus Christ with the Elijah Message. Is that the right name?
Adam 10:28 Yes.
W.A. Draves’ Leadership & Splits
GT 10:29 Okay. And so then Draves kind of takes over that. It’s William. Right? Is his name William?
Adam 10:35 Yes.
GT 10:37 Okay. So he takes over in around 1933. Basically, he was kind of the head apostle?
Adam 10:42 Yes, he was the head apostle.
GT 10:44 Because you guys have schism-ed a few more times with Draves. Is that correct?
Adam 10:50 Well, there’s been the three major schisms I was telling you about.
GT 10:55 But, that didn’t happen until 1994?
Adam 10:58 That didn’t happen until 1994, but we had–there’s some, if you look at Scattering the Restoration, I think that what the book is called, looking at all the different Restoration branches. There were a couple of ones before then. So, in the 1970s, there’s kind of a new age movement that comes into the Elijah Message Church. And basically a lot, because it’s the 70s, so, Sitar music, and Eastern religion and stuff like that, so that kind of comes on the scene. So, there’s a lot of talk about reincarnation and New Age doctrines. And so that gets rejected in the Messages. And so those people form their own group. There’s another dude, who, I think it was the 79th message. He said, There was a contradiction between the 79th message and the 78th message. And so he splits and forms his own small group, which actually mixes the messages together with Judaism, and Islam. Really interesting. I can’t remember that name. It’s in the Scattering of the Saints book, I believe.
GT 12:04 I think I have that [book] around here somewhere.
Adam 12:06 So, there were schisms before then, but the three the major ones come after 1994. Usually, for the most part, the church is intact until 1994.
GT 12:15 Okay. So, in 1994, after Draves died–so, there were how many total messages, 80 or something, is that right?
Adam 12:29 One hundred and twenty.
GT 12:30 So, 30 from Fetting and 90 from Draves, is that correct?
Adam 12:35 Yes, that’s correct.
Theology/Beliefs of Assured Way
GT 12:36 Okay, and then what do these messages have to deal with? Is it the temple, or something else?
Adam 12:41 A lot of them have to deal with the temple. That becomes less of a focus in the later messages, more about predicting future events, more about situations in the church, who’s going to be ordained? Who’s ordained to different callings and who is not, kind of like what you get in the Doctrine & Covenants, doctrinal issues. So, the messages make it clear that kind of a, what’s the word I’m looking for, modalistic view of Jesus, that Christ is God the Father, they’re not two separate persons. So, Christ is God the Father, and some revelations on the priesthood as being connected with the Holy Spirit. So, there’s a variety of concerns that can be found in the messages.
GT 13:30 So, you guys are modalistic instead of Trinitarian?
Adam 13:36 Yes, the Assured Way is yes. Some of the other groups are not. But we are modalists. So, Jesus is the same as God the Father.
GT 13:45 Okay, that’s interesting.
Adam 13:47 And that’s one of the reasons why we prefer to use the Palmyra edition of The Book of Mormon, the 1830 edition. We call it The Record of the Nephites. But, in that edition, there are a lot of the modalist statements that correspond with our theology, which were kind of toned down and removed, or modified, I should say, in later addition to the Book of Mormon. So, in the Palmyra edition, the 1830 edition, it says Jesus is the Eternal Father. In later editions that Joseph Smith edited, it says Jesus is the Son of the Eternal Father.
GT 14:26 Hmmm, that’s interesting. I guess it’s time to start diving into theology, then. So you go back to the 1830 edition, okay. Like the Temple Lot [Church,] do you believe in the Book of Commandments?
Adam 14:42 Yes. Okay, so we believe [in] the Book of Commandments, over the Doctrine and Covenants. However, in contrast to the Temple Lot, I think it kind of has a Deuterocanonical status with us. So it’s canon. It’s scripture. Its revelation, not as great as the Holy Bible, which is the King James Version, the word of the Lord, the revelations from John the Baptist, and the Record of the Nephites, but the Book of Commandments is there. But it’s kind of subordinate to those.
GT 15:14 Oh, so you would put the Fetting revelations above the Book of Commandments.
Adam 15:19 Yes.
GT 15:20 Oh, that’s really interesting, and then Draves, as well.
Adam 15:24 Yeah. Whereas the Temple Lot Church is Holy Bible, Book of Commandments, Book of Mormon.
GT 15:29 Right. Okay. That’s really interesting. So, Is that a separate book, like the Doctrine and Covenants? The messages from (what do you call them?) The Elijah messages. Is that what you call them?
Adam 15:47 The Elijah Messages. We have it together in one book. All the messages, all 120 messages are in one book.
GT 15:55 Okay. And so the official name of the book is..
Adam 16:00 The Word of the Lord brought to mankind by an angel. The angel being John.
GT 16:05 Okay. But the shorthand would be the Elijah Messages.
Adam 16:09 Yes, we consider John the Baptist to be a resurrected angelic being similar to Moroni in the Book of Mormon.
GT 16:17 Okay, so Bible is on top. Is the Book of Mormon equal with the Bible or below?
Adam 16:24 Oh, yes. Yes. So in the Messages, you’ll get a phrase a lot, “Draw on the teaching in the Bible, the Record of the Nephites and the word of the Lord sent by me, the Messenger. This is John the Baptist referring to himself.
GT 16:39 Okay. Book of Mormon and Bible are kind of on equal ground, then?
Adam 16:45 Yes.
GT 16:45 Then, just below that is the Elijah Messages, and then just below that is the Book of Commandments.
Adam 16:49 I would say the Bible, Book of Mormon and Word of the Lord are equal to us, that’s our three scriptures. That’s the most important, and then the Book of Commandments is below that.
GT 16:59 Lectures on Faith, I guess that’s the Sidney Rigdon thing. So you guys don’t use it.
Adam 17:03 Yeah, no. I love the Lectures on Faith. I have a couple of copies when I was– in fact, when I was in Iowa at the Phoenician museum, shout out to John Lefgren. I bought a couple of copies and actually gave some of them to my friends who were working with me at the museum. So, they’re all Mormons, they’re LDS Mormons like you guys. I was like, “I love the Lectures on Faith. This is my way of saying thanks to you guys.”
Adam 17:24 So yeah, I love the Lectures on Faith. But no, it’s not officially accepted as canon. I love the Inspired Version. I have that sitting right here, and that’s not accepted. We accept the King James version, but a lot of us, with that said, Rick, a lot of us come from the Community of Christ or RLDS tradition. So a lot of us, personally, including myself, read the Inspired Version as our Bible.
GT 17:25 Oh, nice. Okay, so your official version of the Bible is King James, it’s not the Inspired Version.
Adam 17:33 Yeah, it’s like you guys. Yep, yep.
GT 17:56 Okay, so like us, you’ll look at JST for additional things.
Adam 18:02 Yeah, I mean, for me, personally, it’s scripture. But, yeah, it’s much more like you LDS guys. It’s kind of more like a commentary.
GT 18:13 Okay. Okay. That’s very interesting.
Adam 18:15 We have a copy in our church library.
GT 18:20 So and then–I wish I remembered my John Hamer interview a little bit better. Because this whole 1830, 1833 thing is very interesting, because we went into that, but I don’t have that quite memorized yet. It seems like David–go ahead.
Adam 18:37 It’s funny because we don’t accept the Inspired Version. But the Inspired version is actually mentioned in the Book of Commandments. It’s in the one where Joseph Smith is translating the New Testament. That’s actually one of the revelations in the Book of Commandments. So I think we accept the King James, I think that’s just from our Temple Lot tradition, from the influence of the Temple Lot. But if you want to– or you can make a case that we should be using the Inspired Version if we’re using the Book of Commandments, but that’s just me.
GT 19:05 Oh.
Adam 19:06 That did not come ex-cathedra, not from the Quorum of the Apostles. That’s just my own personal opinion.
GT 19:13 So I’m tried to remember my John Hamer, because it seems like in the 1830 church, Church of Christ, was what it was known, you had elders, teachers and priests. And then in 1833, they expanded that to have high priests, but not apostles. Apostles, I don’t think, came till 1835, if I have that…
Adam 19:35 That’s correct. In the Book of Commandments there’s no apostles, it’s just elders.
GT 19:39 Okay, but you guys have, is it 12 apostles? Or how many apostles do you guys have?
Adam 19:44 We have—a lot of our apostles have passed. So we have, currently, about six or seven apostles now, but the quorum should be, if we had a suitable number, it would be 12.
Demographics of Assured Way
GT 19:54 Okay. And then how large is your church, roughly how many?
Adam 19:59 We’re smaller here in the United States. We have a large, large, speaking of the Bickertonites and African Americans, we have a large congregation in Africa. So, we have an African ministry that’s very big, a couple thousand members, there. Were a small church here, just maybe a couple hundred here, the Assured Way the Lord. Now, if you combined all the groups, it’d be a little larger than that. I believe Wikipedia has like 10,000 Elijah message adherents, but we’re small. We’re a couple of hundred people here in the States. But we have a much bigger group, a couple of thousand in Africa.
GT 20:41 Which country in Africa?
Adam 20:43 Kenya, mainly Kenya, and I believe Nigeria, as well.
GT 20:51 Okay. Interesting. Do you run into LDS missionaries very often?
Adam 20:59 Sometimes we do, actually. Yeah, sometimes we do. So they’ll want to talk about us. And we’re like, “We already have know about the Book of Mormon.” So, yeah, sometimes…
GT 21:10 And they were like, what?
Adam 21:14 It’s funny, Rick, because when I was in Iowa, I drive over there. I take my busted car that has 200,000 miles on it, and I drive to Ohio. I drive about seven hours to Ohio, spend the night. Then, I drive from Ohio, to Iowa. On the way, in fact, where I stay is in Nauvoo, I stay in Nauvoo, and right about 30 minutes from Nauvoo is Carthage. So, I go to Carthage every time that I’m over there, just because it’s the place where the prophet was martyred. And the guy asked me where I was from, he asked if I was from the LDS Church, because he was like, “You seem to have a very spiritual connection here. I can tell this place means a lot to you. And then I pulled out my Records of the Nephites and said, “I’m from the Elijah Message Church.” That happens all the time.
GT 22:02 Okay, and are they–my guess is most people are like, what’s The Elijah Message Church?
Adam 22:09 Yeah, they’ll always ask me. The one dude did know it. He was like, “You guys have a very big African population in your congregation, don’t you?” I was like, “Yeah, we do.” So one of the dudes who was doing his work at Carthage, his mission at Carthage, he knew about the Elijah Message Church. Most of the people I run into do not. They’ll be like, “Elijah Message, what’s that.?”
GT 22:32 Yeah, until I met Paul Savage, I had no idea.
Adam 22:39 We’re pretty small. And most people have heard about the Community of Christ, you may have some people who’ve heard about the Bickertonites, but not a lot of people have heard about us.
GT 22:46 Yeah, definitely. Okay, well, let’s talk about other beliefs, then. You know, Community of Christ is very gay-friendly.
Adam 22:57 Yes.
Beliefs about LGBT, Polygamy, Consecration, Temple
GT 22:58 Is your church gay-friendly, would you say, especially in comparison with Community of Christ?
Adam 23:04 Yeah, I want to preface this by saying that I have many friends, many dear friends, and colleagues, and people who I call family, who have a variety of orientations. But my church, I will say, is very traditional. We, in our articles of faith which accompanies every word of the Lord, that has been published. The articles of faith, there’s an article there that basically says that marriage is between a man and a woman. So, one man, one woman. It’s a paraphrase, kind of a paraphrase of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, the revelation on marriage. So, it’s kind of a loose paraphrase of that. Other churches, so the Temple Lot, actually, they put into their article of faith, an explicit condemnation of homosexuality. We have not, we’ve not done that we just left the articles of faith as it is. But the traditional view, at least in my church tradition, is that marriage is between a man and a woman.
GT 24:09 Okay, so we’ve got the articles of faith in our Pearl of Great Price. Are they the same as yours? Are they the Wentworth letter, basically, or is it?
Adam 24:15 Excellent question. They are a modification of the Wentworth letter. So, in some ways, they’re very similar. So, we believe–in your articles of faith, it’s, “We believe in the…” What do you guys call them, the different aspects of the Gospel, so faith, repentance, baptism. We keep that wording in our articles of faith. But there are other things that we add, such as administration of different branches in different churches, a lot more church administration stuff, in short, than the original articles of faith have. But the wording is very similar. It’s actually taken from the epitome of faith, the articles of faith that you guys have, that the RLDS Church uses, as well, but with some expansion.
GT 25:06 Okay. If you’re a Temple Lot break off, I’m sure polygamy is a big no-no, right?
Adam 25:15 No polygamy. In fact, I mentioned this before on another podcast that we don’t actually believe Joseph Smith really practiced polygamy. We believe that he was influenced by Brigham Young, but that he didn’t do it, himself, and that Joseph Smith’s big sin was not polygamy, but it was not building the temple, in his lifetime, on the temple lot. So, Joseph Smith had a threefold mission, bring forth the Book of Mormon, as a revelation in the modern world, reestablish God’s Church on earth that had not been around for thousands of years, and to build the temple so that Christ can come back on Earth and usher in the millennium. Joseph Smith did not do that. And that is his big sin. So, yeah.
GT 26:11 So, Otto Fetting got a break, but Joseph Smith doesn’t get a break, then, right?
Adam 26:18 Yeah, that’s a good one. I never thought about that. Yeah. He held Joseph Smith to a higher standard. Yeah.
GT 26:27 All right. So consecration one time was a big deal in our church and I know with some churches, it’s still a big deal. How does consecration fit in with your church?
Adam 26:41 We don’t really have consecration. I know some of the other churches, Cutlerite and stuff, that’s still kind of a big deal to them, but we don’t actually do anything with that.
GT 26:48 Okay. And then are you trying to build a temple or do you have any other temples?
Adam 26:54 No, we just, right now, we hope that a righteous generation will arise that will build the temple on the Temple Lot, but we don’t have a temple ourself. We just have meeting houses.
GT 27:06 Oh, okay. And what do you anticipate, would it be–and I don’t know how familiar you are with like, Kirtland-style versus LDS-style temples. Would you envision more Kirtland-style, probably?
Adam 27:22 Probably more Kirtland style. There’s actually a couple of books. Several people have written on what the diagram of the temple would be like. And several people have tried to piece it together from the revelations given to Brother Fetting. So, there are actually some books out. I know Price Publishing, has a book, The Temple of the Lord, where they kind of go into it. We have a publication where I think it’s– I have it over there somewhere, where we go into what the temple would look like. If you don’t mind, I can grab it for you.
GT 28:00 Yeah, sure.
Adam 28:00 So this is the word of the Lord. This is our sacred scripture, or one of the three.
GT 28:06 That’s the Fetting revelations, basically.
Adam 28:09 The Fetting and Draves’ revelation, so they’re combined. And then we have this, which is The Temple of the Lord. And I’ll show you a picture here, Rick. This is what the temple is supposed to look like when it’s rebuilt.
GT 28:25 Oh, that looks very Greek style.
Adam 28:27 Yes, it does. Yeah. So the class assistant in me. My other occupation is a Latin teacher. So the class assistant in me loves to design the temple. But based on the revelations given to Brother Fetting, that’s how the temple is supposed to look.
GT 28:45 Very good. I’m trying to think of what else. Oh, priesthood, that would be interesting to talk about. Because in the LDS Church, we have Aaronic and Melchizedek–I know, especially talking with John Hamer, it was just kind of the priesthood.
Adam 29:01 Yeah, that’s the same thing with us. So, we have one priesthood. W don’t believe in a lineation of the priesthood, separation of priesthood into Melchizedek and the Aaronic priesthood. It’s just one priesthood. Yeah, just one holy priesthood.
GT 29:17 Okay. So you’ve got offices. What offices of the priesthood do you have?
Adam 29:22 We have teachers, we have evangelists. We have, within the priesthood, bishops. We have deacons. I think those are it. Yeah, I think those are it.
GT 29:43 Okay, so deacon, teacher, do you have a priest?
Adam 29:47 Yes. Just a general priest, yes, we do. Yes.
GT 29:50 Okay. And elder and high priest, no or yes?
Adam 29:56 No high priest.
GT 29:56 No high priest, so, teacher, deacon, elder. Deacon, teacher, priest and elder and then apostle and evangelist.
Adam 30:06 Yes.
GT 30:07 Okay. And no seventies?
Adam 30:09 No, seventies.
GT 30:11 Okay, that’s interesting.
Adam 30:12 I don’t think we’ve ever had, I’m trying to think in the messages. No, there’s never been any seventies, just a quorum of 12.
GT 30:17 Okay. So you guys kind of sound like you’re a hybrid of– because you got apostles, because I think apostles didn’t come until 1835, if I remember right. So, you’re kind of 1830, 1835 amalgamation.
Adam 30:34 Yeah, I mean, we try to say, nothing beyond 1833. But, some of that some of that stuff creeped in there.
GT 30:40 (Chuckling) Well, cool. And so you’ve got a few thousand members. It sounds like most of them were in Africa.
Adam 30:48 Yes, that’s correct.
GT 30:49 And then as far as the United States, you’ve probably got a congregation in New Jersey, it sounds like.
Adam 30:54 No, we actually don’t have [one.] We’re really small. We don’t have a congregation in Jersey. I am the district head. So, if somebody is interested in New Jersey, I will talk to them. And if they seek baptism, I can perform a baptism. Most of our members are in the Midwest, so Iowa, and especially the Independence, Missouri area. We also have a whole, kind of going back to your earlier statement with the Bickertonites, we actually have an African American community down in Alabama, Mobile, Alabama. We have sisters there who have been with the church for years. And a couple of the apostles came, went to visit them last year and ordained one of their children, one of their sons, to the priesthood.
GT 31:43 Do you have a headquarters in Independence, like all the churches it seems like?
Adam 31:46 Yes.
GT 31:46 Okay. That’s where your main headquarters is?
Adam 31:49 Yes. That’s where General Assembly is held every year.
GT 31:56 Is that like General Conference for us?
Adam 31:58 General Conference, yes.
GT 31:59 Okay, you just do that once a year?
Adam 32:02 Once a year. There’s quorum meetings four times a year, but then we have our general assembly once a year. We’ll usually rent out a Community of Christ Church for that.
GT 32:10 Okay. And when is that, roughly? Is it April?
Adam 32:18 In June, around Father’s Day, not the same week end, but I think it is the weekend after Father’s Day, yes.
GT 32:25 Okay. Cool. Speaking in tongues, that’s a big Bickertonite tradition. Apparently, the Temple Lot practices a little bit. I think the Bickertonites are more well known for speaking in tongues. How about you guys?
Adam 32:40 Speaking in tongues, interesting, Rick is explicitly rejected in the messages.
GT 32:45 Oh, really?
Adam 32:46 So, yes. So, apparently, and this is in one of the schisms, one of the controversies within the church, around the 1970s, there was a big speaking in tongues movement within the church. And the messenger came and said, basically speaking in tongues was the vain babbling of men, and that it served to bring one–to remove one and distance one from God, rather than bring one closer to God. So messages 90 and 91, I believe it says that.
GT 33:22 Oh, wow. So that was under Draves, then if it was that late.
Adam 33:25 Under Draves, yeah.
GT 33:27 Wow, that’s interesting. Since you’re 1830, 1835, you don’t do baptisms for the dead?
Adam 33:37 No.
GT 33:37 No, I figured. I’m trying to think of what else there would be. What other differences should we, should LDS Mormons know?
Adam 33:49 I’m trying to think of the main ones. I think, the Record of the Nephites, now we believe that the Record of the Nephites, as we call the Book of Mormon, interestingly enough, was given, not by the Angel Moroni, but by the Angel Nephi. Based on some early correspondence, the Joseph Smith papers have this, where it’s the Angel Nephi, who appears to Joseph, rather than Moroni. I think the consensus among Mormon scholars is that that is an error, somebody typed that accidentally, they were supposed to say Moroni. But we accept, we say that’s the Angel Nephi. And we don’t accept the traditional view of the First Vision. So, because modalist, Joseph Smith doesn’t see God the Father and God the Son, but we would accept the really early version of the First Vision, where he just sees Jesus Christ.
GT 34:38 Oh, like the 1832 version, basically.
Adam 34:40 Yes, exactly. Yeah.
GT 34:41 Do you canonize it? Is it scripture or?
Adam 34:45 No. Yeah, that’s not been canonized in my tradition. Now Joseph Smith meeting the Angel Nephi, and kind of like what you get in the Pearl of Great Price in the Joseph Smith history, just Nephi instead of Moroni, that is canonized, because that’s in introduction to our Record of the Nephites.
GT 35:08 I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. I’m sure you don’t believe in the Book of Abraham.
Adam 35:20 No. So, I deal a lot with the Book of Abraham. It’s interesting, going back to my association with, well, kind of how I got into the Restoration. My first Book of Mormon [that] I bought– so I told you about the one at the Marriott. And I couldn’t take that because that would be stealing. So. I went to…
GT 35:39 Well, you could have. They’ll just replace it.
Adam 35:42 That’s true.
GT 35:46 Next time you’re there, feel free to take one. (Chuckling)
Adam 35:49 I’ll do that, I’ll take you up on that.
Adam 35:51 There was this used bookstore in Frederick, Maryland called Wonder Book and Video. And the very first Book of Mormon I ever got wasn’t just the Book of Mormon, it was a triple combination. It said the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. So I’m, actually, personally, I’m pretty close to the Book of Abraham. I know what you’ll ask, “What do I do with all the god talk and stuff in chapters four and five.” But I mean, I actually, for my own personal devotions, I’m not speaking as apostle here. I’m just speaking, as Adam Stokes, I valued the Book of Abraham immensely. I wrote a review of John Gee’s book on the Book of Abraham. I’m currently working on an article, another article about the Book of Abraham, now. So I like it, but officially by my church, it’s rejected.
GT 36:35 Okay. Well, and I know you’re an author, I’m going to get to some of your books here in just a minute. But is there anything else? I just want to try to cover everything about the Elijah Message Church, or the Assured Way, is that will you said?
Adam 36:51 The Assured Way, Lord, yes.
GT 36:53 Is there anything else that we should know before we move on to your prolific writing?
Adam 36:58 Yeah, so Brother Draves, he died in 1994. But many of his relatives and especially his daughters, are still alive. They’re very active in our church. They’re very supportive in our church. And so I’ve talked to them several times. And it’s really a wonderful experience, because I get to learn about who Brother Draves was, day by day, from them. So, Brother Draves, when he died, his line didn’t just die out there. They’ve been very active in the church and one of the apostles who’s now passed, Mervyn Johnson, and Leonard Draves. Leonard Draves, specifically, was the son of W.A. Draves. And he often gave testimony about how his dad saw the angel. And there’s a very, there’s a story famous within our tradition, where Leonard Draves, as a child, saw the angel, saw John the Baptist talking to his father.
GT 38:03 Oh, wow, that’s interesting. Now, I guess I should ask this, though. You’ve got six or seven apostles right now?
Adam 38:10 Yes.
GT 38:11 Do you have a president or a prophet?
Adam 38:14 No, no, there is no–so everybody in the Quorum has equal authority. Of course, the elders who have been in the quorum for a while have more seniority. But, in practice, we try to have everybody be equal. So, there is no church president, like you guys have and like the Community of Christ has.
GT 38:37 All right, anything else?
Adam 38:41 I’m trying to think, myself. I think those are the major…
GT 38:44 Oh, Word of Wisdom. I better ask you about that.
Adam 38:48 Yeah, good question. Articles of Faith, at the very end of the Articles of Faith, we are told to abstain from alcoholic drinks and tobacco. So, we don’t have– we don’t accept the actual revelation of the Word of Wisdom, but we have something very similar to it the end of the Articles of Faith.
GT 39:05 Okay, so you generally abstain from alcohol and tobacco?
Adam 39:14 Generally, I mean, I don’t smoke anyway. And on one occasion, usually for family events, I might have a little drink here and there.
GT 39:23 Okay. Coffee and tea. No big deal.
Adam 39:26 No big deal. Yeah.
GT 39:28 Okay, cool.
{End of Part 2}
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