If the Articles of Faith were written today, what would they say?

I don't think they'd be the same, and that's not a bad thing.

Somewhere—possibly in an old photo album, or possibly lost forever—is a photo of me at 8 years old or so, holding a certificate and absolutely beaming. I’d just memorized all the Articles of Faith, and in our ward’s Primary that came with recognition. I’m sure I didn’t understand what all of them meant, with the admonition of Paul and paradisiacal glory and all that, but I absolutely committed the words to memory. And judging by the photo, I was pleased to have done so.

There’s no question that the Articles of Faith play a significant role in our Church. I’m sure most wards don’t give out certificates, but the Articles are still big in Primary. In our ward, one is recited at the beginning of the meeting along with the talk and prayer (this is normal), and they sing the Articles of Faith songs from the Children’s Songbook.

It all makes me wonder if this was what Joseph Smith intended.

The Articles of Faith, of course, came from a letter written by Joseph Smith to John Wentworth in 1842. Wentworth was the editor of the Chicago Democrat, and he had asked for a summary of the Church's history and beliefs. The letter is long—you can read the whole thing on the Church website here—and the Articles of Faith show up as a list of statements (not numbered) at the end.¹ They were added to the Pearl of Great Price in 1851, seven years after Joseph Smith’s death.

Brother Joseph clearly meant for the statements, as part of the overall letter, to be made public. But could he have imagined how much attention they would be getting almost 200 years later? Would he have written them differently if he’d known that thousands of Primary children would memorize them every year, that they’d be printed on cards and posters, and that they’d be in our scriptures?

We think of the Articles of Faith as being a summary of our beliefs. And while that’s true, if you look at them with a critical eye, are they a good summary?

Or, put a different way, if you could write thirteen statements to summarize our faith, would one of them be about the literal gathering of Israel? Would one be about obeying the laws of the land? We absolutely believe these things, but are there other things you would choose to emphasize?

Why do we have the ones we have?

Despite those questions, it’s generally assumed that Joseph Smith did not write the Articles of Faith to be comprehensive; instead, he wrote some of them in response to what other churches believed at the time, or where the Church found itself at the time. RoseAnn Benson describes it this way:

During the twenty-two years that had passed since Joseph’s First Vision and twelve years since the official organization of the Church, scores of revelations and Latter-day Saint newspapers and pamphlets had set forth important doctrine. Many of these seminal doctrines, however, were not included in these thirteen brief statements of belief. Instead, it appears that the Prophet Joseph responded primarily to many of the conflicting philosophies and traditions of the day espoused in Catholicism, Deism, Calvinism, Arminianism, Lutheranism, Universalism, and Restorationism, as well as to millennialist expectations, in the process of clearly setting forth some central Latter-day Saint beliefs.

Sister Benson’s article sheds light on a few specific entries in the Articles of Faith that appear to be written specifically to set the Church apart from others’ doctrines. The first Article of Faith (We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost) is an example here. Within the larger context of the Wentworth letter, it’s clear that the first Article of Faith recognizes God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost as separate beings, and not as the Trinity as found in some other faiths.²

Another example is the twelfth Article of Faith (We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law). With the growing Latter-day Saint movement in Joseph Smith’s time having been viewed as a threat to communities and governments in their movement westward, it probably made a lot of sense for him to include an article that demonstrated Latter-day Saints’ deference to both governmental authorities and their laws.

The one that jumps out at me, though, is the second Article of Faith (We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression). While important, this is a curious doctrine to include, second only to the Godhead, when so many glorious doctrines came forth in the Restoration.³ Sister Benson suggests that this article specifically refutes Augustine’s idea that we are all born sinful and guilty (read her whole article here, it’s great).

But let’s also look at this through our modern lens. It’s striking to me that our second Article of Faith begins with “We believe that men will be punished.” As I have studied the gospel and come to understand it more, I lean less on the idea of a God that’s trying to catch me in the act of sinning so He can punish me, and more on the idea that I have loving Heavenly Parents who want me to return to Them. Which makes it seem all the more likely, to me, that Joseph Smith may have been running up against faiths that did believe we are born sinful because of Adam’s transgression. In which case it would make sense to try to differentiate the Church on this point.

Where would modern Articles of Faith come from?

If we want to speculate on what modern Articles of Faith would look like, we should look at other things that have been published by the First Presidency and the Church more in recent decades. This can give us insight into the principles and doctrines these recent Church leaders find most precious and worth talking about. Things like:

• Proclamations. In the last 30 years, we’ve seen proclamations from the First Presidency about families, Jesus Christ, and the Restoration. Jesus Christ is certainly mentioned in the original Articles of Faith, but not the other two proclamation topics—families and the Restoration.

• The mission of the Church. When I younger this was the threefold mission of the Church, as introduced by President Kimball, but this now has four points to it, as outlined in the Handbook here. While the mission of the Church and articles or declarations of faith aren’t the same thing, we still might expect these four points to be represented. They look like this:

  • Living the gospel of Jesus Christ (used to be “perfect the saints”)

  • Inviting all to receive the gospel (used to be “preach the gospel”; this one is not currently represented in the Articles of Faith)

  • Uniting families for eternity (used to be “redeem the dead”; this one is not represented either)

  • Caring for those in need (also not represented currently)

• The Preach My Gospel manual. What better place to find the Church’s most key beliefs, than in the manual missionaries use when teaching people those beliefs? We might expect to find these things in a newer incarnation of the Articles of Faith. This manual has five major sections of doctrine to teach:

  • The Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the Restoration isn’t specifically mentioned in the Articles of Faith, outside the idea of continuing revelation)

  • The Plan of Salvation (not mentioned, outside of the atonement of Jesus Christ)

  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ

  • The Commandments (not mentioned)

  • Laws and Ordinances (not mentioned outside of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost)

Okay, then, what would modern Articles of Faith say?

Let’s do the thought experiment. If the Articles of Faith had never been written, and were being written now for the first time, what would they say?

This isn’t an exercise in what to take out, or what to replace with what. This is simply saying, what would they be? What topics would be included? What would concisely summarize official doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

This is purely subjective, of couse. But if the Articles of Faith were written today, I’d expect these topics to be represented:

• Families. This is clearly a differentiating doctrine for Latter-day Saints, and given how frequently families are taught about in General Conference recently—4-6x more in the last 50 years than before⁴—I’d expect it to be included.

• Temples. Is there a stronger symbol of our Church than our temples? We’re to the point where CTR rings are out, and we’re giving our kids rings and necklaces with temples on them.⁵ Combine that with the sacred work for the dead that we do in them, uniting the entire human family, I’d expect temples and temple work to show up.

• The Restoration. Maybe Joseph Smith didn’t include the Restoration as a discrete article because he was living it; the start of the Restoration wasn’t far enough in the past. We’re still living the Restoration, of course, but this is a foundational principle of our faith. It gets included.

• The Plan of Salvation. I think there’d be a statement about our belief that we lived before coming into mortality. It could also include some indication of what we believe happens after this life (maybe just in a general sense that we can live with God again? Any more than that and you’re trying to pack an entire Sunday School lesson into one sentence). This would also be the opportunity to include the idea that we can, in some way, become like God.

• Commandments. I’m not sure on this one. Clearly the Church’s adherence to some external commandments (the Word of Wisdom, keeping the Sabbath Day holy, the law of chastity, etc.) set us apart from some others. But are they so key to our faith that they’d be included? Given how we already index heavily on obedience, I’d say leave these out—but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them included.

• Topics already included. I’d definitely keep at least these topics, that are part of the current Articles of Faith (and which number):

  • God (1)

  • The atonement of Jesus Christ (3)

  • Principles and ordinances (4)

  • Priesthood (5)

  • Scriptures (8)

  • Continuing revelation (9)

But they’re not really going to change, right?

Right. That’s why it’s just a thought experiment.

I think we can agree on two things:

1. The Church has changed in many, many, many, many ways since the time of Joseph Smith.

2. Given that, the Articles of Faith that we have are surprisingly durable, and still relevant today.

If you think this whole exercise comes from criticism of the Articles of Faith, you misunderstand me. Instead, this is coming from a place of joy. The fact that we belong to a Church that has ongoing revelation from God, where things can actually change when we have new light, is an amazing gift we’ve been given.

And, if you’ll oblige me splitting hairs on terminology, the difference between “faith” and “belief” is useful here. We tend to use the two interchangeably. To me, “faith” is how we make sense and meaning of life; “belief” is agreeing that something is true.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a scholar of comparative religion, puts some meat on these bones. He describes “belief” as “the holding of certain ideas.” But he has a great deal to say about faith (bold added):

Faith is deeper, richer, more personal. It is engendered by a religious tradition, in some cases and to some degree by its doctrines; but it is a quality of the person not of the system. It is an orientation of the personality, to oneself, to one's neighbor, to the universe; a total response; a way of seeing whatever one sees and of handling whatever one handles; a capacity to live at more than a mundane level; to see, to feel, to act in terms of, a transcendent dimension.

The Articles of Faith are useful in that they designate core tenets of our religious organization; maybe “Articles of Belief” would be a better name, per this terminology distinction. What they don’t do is prescribe the depth or breadth of our individual, personal faith as individual, separate people. My faith has grown and evolved in extremely meaningful ways that don’t have anything to do with believing the things listed in the Articles of Faith are true (I do believe those things to be true, incidentally). But that deeply-held personal faith is, as Smith says, a quality of the person and not of the system.

Some people have even written their own personal Articles of Faith, which don’t replace the official ones but rather supplement the organization-level beliefs with deeply held personal beliefs and express one’s deeply-held faith. My wife Anne wrote her own here, and they’re a beautiful personal addition to what we already have.

We all have the ability, and even a mandate, to receive personal revelation to guide our lives, to not only shape our beliefs but our orientation toward ourselves, others, and the Lord.

As Nadia Bolz-Weber put it:

I guess I just no longer think of faith as intellectually assenting to theological propositions, or as regularly confirming in myself that I believe all the wildest stories in the Bible are literally, factually, historically accurate. Faith functions in my life as something closer to gravity than ideology.

The Articles of Faith don’t need to exactly describe the 13 things that are most important to my faith at any given time. That happens at the personal level, not the organization level. And even if a few of the articles made more sense in the context of Joseph Smith’s time, they still assert meaningful, powerful truths. And while our Primary children can’t necessarily tell us what they all mean—and same for some of us adults, really—it’s a start as we develop our own personal faith, one that’s a lot harder to put into words.

1. Joseph Smith’s one request in the letter was that it be published “entire, ungarnished, and without misrepresentation.” Which makes it strange that most of us Latter-day Saints have not read the whole thing, and are content to instead hyperfocus on one part of it.

2. The first written references to Heavenly Mother, not mentioned in this Article of Faith, show up after Joseph Smith’s death in 1844. Zina D. H. Young, and others, have stated that Joseph taught them this doctrine as early as 1839, before he died. It’s unclear when this truth became clear to Joseph, but it does not appear that it was a prominent idea during his lifetime and it would likely have been a surprise to many Church members if She was included with the typical Trinitarian godhead members in the Articles of Faith. That said—can you imagine how different our understanding of God would be today, if we’d grown up memorizing an Article of Faith that mentions Heavenly Mother?

3. Of course not being guilty from Original Sin is a glorious doctrine. But stick with me here.

4. Per the General Conference Corpus, mentions of family/families started going up dramatically in the 1970s. Consider that there were ~1,900 mentions per million words in the 2010s, vs. ~440 in the mid-1800s and ~270 at its low in the early 1900s.

5. Is your ward doing this successfully? We can’t seem to make all of these things catch on in our ward.