The Come, Follow Me lessons covering D&C § 58 & 59 present messages of scrupulous obedience and strict Sabbath observance. Both sections are presented largely without mention to their historical context. Let’s take a closer look.
History
Giving Your All: Consecration and Coercive Allegiance
This week’s lessons focus on instilling commitment to the church while covering the Law of Consecration, the perils of covenant breaking, and the church as the lens through which truth is discerned from error.
The Man of Sin Revealed: The High Priesthood and Discernment
This week’s Come, Follow Me lessons use the revelation addressing the Shakers, and another on spiritual discernment, as a platform to propagandize heteropatriachal marriage as essential to God’s “plan of exaltation.”
The Spirit of Ecstasy Like a Fire is Burning
In this week’s Come, Follow Me response, we’ll take a look at the expressions of religious enthusiasm that emerged in Kirtland and how Joseph Smith responded to them. Then we’ll look at what lessons the 2021 curriculum has for members today.
Fear and Loathing in the Imminent Mormon Eschaton
This week’s Come, Follow Me lessons focus on the Second Coming of Christ and mix fear-mongering with comfort—fear of the dreadful events to come, and comfort which can only be found in the safety of the church.
The Law of the Church: Authoritarian Roots in Kirtland
The culture of authoritarianism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on full display in this week’s Come, Follow Me lessons. Covering Doctrine and Covenants § 41–44, the manuals focus on the revelations comprising “the law of the Church” that Joseph Smith produced shortly after arriving in Kirtland, Ohio.
Going to the Ohio: Building and Gathering Zion
The themes of this week’s Come, Follow Me lessons are the gathering of the saints and the building of the community of Zion in preparation for the impending second coming of Christ, and the way the church wields coercion in their efforts to instill conformity.
Every Member a Missionary to the Lamanites
This week’s lessons focus on the theme of missionary work. In the latter half of 1830, Joseph Smith received a series of revelations calling newly ordained elders to serve a mission to the Lamanites, and today the church says you can too!
A Critical Look at Come, Follow Me – Easter Edition
The Easter lessons in the 2021 Come, Follow Me manuals focus primarily on reinforcing Joseph Smith’s charismatic authority, and secondarily on promoting the penal substitution model of atonement characteristic of Christian fundamentalism.