Richard Bushman’s Recent AMA by Hawkgrrl

Excellent. Thanks Hawkgrrl & mom3

Love this part:

Should not Mormons have a connection with God that goes beyond the Church? Do we worship God or do we worship Mormonism? What should we teach our people to protect them from this vulnerability?

PROTIP 1: Avoid Mormonolatry. Stay spiritually anchored in Christ, not just Mormonism. Don’t let anti-Mormonism become a replacement religion.

Isn’t that a key element in staying LDS through changes? Accept what mormonism is…not what we wanted it to be. Stretch our minds beyond what we were taught growing up, and still find the value in it. Accept we are still developing our understanding of God, and that is powerful.

I have come to this conclusion. I am sorry that many Mormons that leave move all the way to atheists. I am not trying to belittle anyone or a belief, it is that I still find much comfort in the thought of a loving God. As I have thought about this I can imagine believing there is no God and the thought really bothers me. I may be ignoring facts, but I am willing to give myself some slack – even if it is an emotional/spiritual teddy bear.

We are in a period of transition with regard to our history. The narrative is in the process of reconstruction. Right now that means there is the standard, comforting story, and then a series of controversies. Teachers are wondering how many of the surprises can be brought up in Sunday School without disrupting the spiritual purposes of the class. In time I think this problem will go away. All the controversial questions will be absorbed into the standard narrative and we won’t have a sense of two tracks.

I would love to know more about the curriculum-writing process and how the reconstruction is going. Sometimes I’m not very optimistic about it all, so I wonder what he knows.

It makes me think that he believes the church leaders and the groups writing materials are pretty aware of the problems from past manuals and that updates or “fixes” are needed. They just aren’t sure how to do it. I bet for a long time, when things were brought up, church leaders just weren’t aware if they were valid points of discrepancies or not, coming from unvalidated sources. But now…they pretty much know there is an appetite in today’s society for more accurate teachings. The slower they move, the more difficult they make it for themselves with the change.

Do they care more about the bunches of people that are being put in faith crisis by not having good info? Or do they care more about pacifying the majority with “All is well in Zion”?

The issues are known. It is now a choice on what to do about it that they are dealing with. That’s what I hear Bushman saying.

I suspect the fixes that are needed will have an easier time getting enacted with BKP’s passing.

I hove some hope that is the case. But working in a big corporation myself – change comes really slow. I would have to think within many of the levels of the church corporation there are BKP-ites that will resist to certain levels changes that he was against.

Don’t forget how the revelation about Blacks & the Priesthood occurred.

The controversy happened over many years.

When the revelation came, the change was immediate.

The reactions of the membership in my ward was interesting to observe.

Most members welcomed the change. (It was an historic event to witness.)

A few questioned it.

Some had a FC over it.

A side note: the person who questioned it the most became our next Bishop.

But many have given up on Christ and even on God. Their problem in other words is a Christian, not just a Mormon, problem. I don’t know why that happens. People are left without a spiritual anchor of any kind.

I’m not sure where the confusion comes from. Some people stop deconstructing at the borders of Mormonism, questioning Christianity and religion in general is still off limits. Other people continue on to deconstruct everything. There’s just as much material, if not more, to deconstruct with respect to Christianity, Abrahamic religions, Zoroastrianism, etc.

We see this same sort of thing play out (more dramatically) on every TV show ever filmed. You lied to me about your evil twin cousin wrecking the Jetta? Was the whole story a lie? Do you even have an evil twin cousin?

Humans like to get at the truth of the matter, it’s our security blanket. When we find a flaw in perceived perfection we want to get to the bottom of things so we can redefine our concept of perfection. We think that the surer foundation provides the answer to the discomfort that resulted from discovering the flaw.

I haven’t given up on Christ and god (I’ve redefined them) but I understand why some people do… and that’s a completely valid position from which to anchor oneself spiritually.

My hope is that wherever they land they will have the strength to reconstruct a belief they can live by. I don’t like it when anti-Mormonism becomes their religion. That is not a good way to live.

I agree with this 100%.