Richard Bushman saying it aloud

It seems to be so short. He had to talk for more than 2 minutes.

Parts are difficult to hear & understand.

Ann, do you know when this was recorded? or, any other details about it?

Just curious.

This link should give the entire 2 hours of the meeting.

https://youtu.be/MA0YS8LWWX4

I found it interesting that he talked of grandmas and grandsons. He switched genders. He didn’t talk of grandmas and grand-daughters. He didn’t talk of grandpas and grandsons. I think it is because in LDS culture, older women are viewed as the least intellectual and weakest link. The culture has set them up to be that.

As an OLDER women, I resent it. I don’t feel less intellectual than my younger and male peers. I don’t feel that I need to have anything dumbed down for me. Even if I chose to live in San Pete.

The church is losing every age and every gender. At some point, they need to address the historical issues. Address them in a very serious way.

A little more focus on Christ would be good too. It seems that Sunday services consist of people repeating “the church is true”. Okay .. So what is next? Maybe it is time to focus less on the truthfulness of the church and just get to work being Christians.

.. A little less talk and a lot more action.

As an OLDER women, I resent it.

I resent that statement. I am older than you, so if you are OLDER, then I am even OLDER. 🙂

I agree with the rest of your comment completely.

I don’t feel less intellectual than my younger and male peers. I don’t feel that I need to have anything dumbed down for me. Even if I chose to live in San Pete.

The church is losing every age and every gender. At some point, they need to address the historical issues. Address them in a very serious way.

A little more focus on Christ would be good too. It seems that Sunday services consist of people repeating “the church is true”. Okay .. So what is next? Maybe it is time to focus less on the truthfulness of the church and just get to work being Christians.

.. A little less talk and a lot more action.

AMEN!

A clarifying note from Richard Bushman posted on a Patheos blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2016/07/richard-bushman-and-the-fundamental-claims-of-mormonism.html

Thanks for coming to my rescue Dan. I had begun to pick up indications of these exchanges a few days ago. I have been using the phrase “reconstruct the narrative” in recent talks because that is exactly what the Church is doing right now. The Joseph Smith Papers offer a reconstructed narrative, so do some of the “Gospel Topics” essays. The short First Vision film in the Church Museum of History mentions six accounts of Joseph’s experience and draws on all of them. That is all reconstructing the narrative. I got the phrase from a young woman who reported that she and her husband had both been through faith crises. She had come back; he had remained alienated. But both of them had to reconstruct the narrative. We have to include, for example, the fact that that the first words to Joseph in the First Vision were: “Your sins are forgiven.” That makes us look again at his life and realize how important a part forgiveness played. Similarly, we now have assimilated seer stones into the translation story. A picture of a seer stone now appears in the Church History Museum display. That would not have happened even five years ago. The list goes on and on.

I consider Rough Stone Rolling a reconstructed narrative. It was shocking to some people. They could not bear to have the old story disrupted in any way. What I was getting at in the quoted passage is that we must be willing to modify the account according to newly authenticated facts. If we don’t we will weaken our position. Unfortunately, not everyone can adjust to this new material. Many think they were deceived and the church was lying. That is not a fair judgment in my opinion. The whole church, from top to bottom, has had to adjust to the findings of our historians. We are all having to reconstruct. In my opinion, nothing in the new material overturns the basic thrust of the story. I still believe in gold plates. I don’t think Joseph Smith could have dictated the Book of Mormon text without inspiration. I think he was sincere in saying he saw God. The glimpse Joseph Smith gives us of divine interest in humankind is still a source of hope in an unbelieving world.

If anyone has questions about what I believe, I would be happy to hear from him or her. I believe pretty much the same things I did sixty years ago when I was a missionary.

Richard

I don’t think Joseph Smith could have dictated the Book of Mormon text without inspiration.

Dictated. Inspiration.

I think he was sincere in saying he saw God.

That’s also an interesting way of putting it. He’s being careful with his phrasing.

This last sentence confuses me. He spent 2 entire paragraphs talking about the need to reconstruct the narrative to make room for new historical facts as they are discovered. Surely he has had to reconstruct his own beliefs as he learned new things about church history over the course of the last 60 years. What do you suppose he means by this? That his ultimate loyalty is as intact as it ever was?

Maybe if you back away from the issues far enough the overall concepts/themes remain the same. “Joseph produced a book of scripture” can take on an entirely different meaning for me now than it did 10 years ago but the statement itself remains unchanged.

I read it as saying he believes the same basic things – but he sees them very differently than he did 60 years ago.

That is true, mostly, of me, as well. There are some things I believed 30 years ago that I no linger believe, but it would be more accurate to say I believe most of the same things differently.

As one example, I beleived Joseph had a vision and was a prophet,and I still believe that – just differently.

Some things I believe slightly differently; some things I believe radically differently; some things I believe pretty much the same.

So many nuanced answers from so many brilliant people.

I feel like I’m watching people try to nail jello to the wall .. It doesn’t work and it’s messy.

Thanks for the compliment, but I don’t know that I’m all that brilliant! I agree that nailing jello to the wall doesn’t work. I guess you could say my belief is more nuanced, there are probably other terms for it. What I say is often nuanced because I wish to do no harm and sometimes I wish to simply not contend with anyone else.

Using Joseph Smith as an example, I believed in Joseph Smith when I was a new convert and missionary, and I believe in him now. Then I took the vision much more literally – an actual physical visitation by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I still believe that could have happened, but in reading Joseph’s descriptions he only ever mentions it as a vision. I believe it more likely that that was the case. I believe visions can happen, and I believe it is possible God could actually physically visit if he wanted to (with the caveat that he is actually physical). Like most things, I can’t say that I know Joseph saw God and Jesus. I have felt what I believe to be the Spirit when I have read the accounts at times, and I believe Joseph – I don’t think he made it up. But there’s also a part of me (perhaps the little devil on the left shoulder) that reminds me I don’t know that he saw anything and he could have made it up, to which my logical mind responds “He believes he saw God and Jesus.” What I say depends on the audience, but I generally say that I believe Joseph Smith (and I have said that several times on these forums). The truth is that to me it doesn’t really matter if Joseph Smith had a vision or not – I have accepted the gospel as I learned it from the CoJCoLDS and while my testimony may differ from anyone else’s, it’s mine and it’s between me and God. I accept the core principles of the gospel, and that’s all that matters to me.