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It’s something of a monster, but Verschlimmbesserung is one of those concepts that German has a word for and English doesn’t. It means to make something worse by improving (or “updating”) it. Think Windows updates, Hotmail etc where the new features actually destroy a level of practicality.
In the case of the COJCOLDS, one can see plenty of Verschlimmbesserung. An obvious example are all the various versions of FamilySearch… but this is not just a computing concept. Getting rid of paid cleaners in our chapels is Verschlimmbesserung in my view.
Can you think of other examples?
The November policy. Kind of like — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, because you end up taking something that already works and potentially ruining it even more. For me the one year waiting period policy is like that.
SilentDawning wrote:
The November policy.
Definitely – and I believe no one has benefited including its supporters.
SamBee wrote:
Definitely – and I believe no one has benefited including its supporters.
You could argue that fence sitters who were miserable in the church benefited when their shelves broke, but yeah, the PoX was a bad move.
Gesundheit. There’s an element of people responding to change differently. Like facebook rolls out a new change, some people hate it and want things to go back to the way it used to be while other people love it. So when we talk about verschlimmbesserung in the church I think we mean personal verschlimmbesserungs, or was the intention to think of verschlimmbesserungs that are nearly universal among all members?
November Policy definitely counts as it did not have the desired effect, unintended consequences and they had to do a U-turn. And I say that from the POV of its supporters (I’m not one.)
SamBee wrote:
November Policy definitely counts as it did not have the desired effect, unintended consequences and they had to do a U-turn. And I say that from the POV of its supporters(I’m not one.)
Did they do a u-turn? I have heard of no such u-turns. Usually church-related u-turns are like trying to turn a massive ocean liner. Happens really slow!!
SilentDawning wrote:
SamBee wrote:
November Policy definitely counts as it did not have the desired effect, unintended consequences and they had to do a U-turn. And I say that from the POV of its supporters(I’m not one.)
Did they do a u-turn? I have heard of no such u-turns. Usually church-related u-turns are like trying to turn a massive ocean liner. Happens really slow!!
Yes, they did. They had to issue a second statement to try and undo some of the unintended consequences, namely how the policy affected active children and heterosexual children of LGBT.
SamBee wrote:
Yes, they did. They had to issue a second statement to try and undo some of the unintended consequences, namely how the policy affected active children and heterosexual children of LGBT.
That’s hardly a u-turn. If anything, it was merely an apology/explanation for lack of tact. Although, in the end maybe that
WASthe biggest issue with the November policy. In its defense: Persisting in a long-term homosexual relationship is explicitly contrary to the doctrines of the Church. It is also one, which, is very resistant to change.
- The Church’s doctrines, by doctrine, are not influenced by man’s desires (though reality is a little more iffy).
- The blessing of Children is not a saving ordinance.
- The primary reason why it is done is to turn them into a “child of record”. In other words, for all intents and purposes, they
area member without making the consious decision to be so. That means missionary visits, home teachers, and certain callings even IFthe child decides they have nothing to do with the Church. - Contradictory messages on proper living from two different sources of ultimate authority, Parents and God (through the Church), can be very confusing and even harmful to the child.
Honestly, if I was LGBT, I would’ve been almosy psyched about the November policy. I could have the child blessed in the comfort of my own home, and given a name and a blessing WITHOUT forcing the child into the Church. Right now, being a married-heterosexual with a child on the way, my extended family doesn’t understand why I am so opposed to blessing the child in Church, thereby creating a membership record for my child.
What would’ve been a better approach, IMHO, would’ve been to extend an official Church statement, addressing the issue without enforcing any strict implementation. If any LGBT couple is made aware of the challenges and potential consequences of having a child blessed in Church, and is not under pressure from any TBM family members, I don’t think anyone in the LDS Church leadership would’ve been opposed to it. But there is a strong difference between a “policy change” and a “suggestion”. The leadership had to make a call.
Not a U-turn on the entire thing but certainly a hasty retraction on some of it. SamBee wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:
SamBee wrote:
November Policy definitely counts as it did not have the desired effect, unintended consequences and they had to do a U-turn. And I say that from the POV of its supporters(I’m not one.)
Did they do a u-turn? I have heard of no such u-turns. Usually church-related u-turns are like trying to turn a massive ocean liner. Happens really slow!!
Yes, they did. They had to issue a second statement to try and undo some of the unintended consequences, namely how the policy affected active children and heterosexual children of LGBT.
I missed that one. If anyone has a thread on it or a press release I’d be interested in reading about it.
Extremely high level: The changes to the handbook are made November 5, 2015.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/3144035-155/new-mormon-policy-would-make-apostates ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.sltrib.com/home/3144035-155/new-mormon-policy-would-make-apostates Elder Christofferson appears in a PR video on November 6, 2015.
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/handbook-changes-same-sex-marriages-elder-christofferson ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/handbook-changes-same-sex-marriages-elder-christofferson The First Presidency issues a clarification to the policy on November 13, 2015.
https://www.lds.org/pages/church-handbook-changes?lang=eng ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.lds.org/pages/church-handbook-changes?lang=eng Yes exactly “clarification”! dande48 wrote:The primary reason why [blessing a child] is done is to turn them into a “child of record”. In other words, for all intents and purposes, they
area member without making the consious decision to be so. That means missionary visits, home teachers, and certain callings even IFthe child decides they have nothing to do with the Church. - Contradictory messages on proper living from two different sources of ultimate authority, Parents and God (through the Church), can be very confusing and even harmful to the child.
I hadn’t thought that not allowing children to be children of record is part of the reason. Interesting. It sounds to me like more fully cutting the family off from the Church, and because it goes both ways, more fully cutting the Church off from the family.
Children get contradictory messages from competing authorities all the time. The most generous interpretation I can give is that the Church doesn’t want to compete with parents. That happens all the time, too, but I think the Church usually wins via its culture of members shutting up about points of disagreement. But when the Church is calling your parents’ marriage “Satan’s counterfeit,” no amount of shutting up on your parents’ part will hide the fact that it’s obviously not. Just living it is a loud and clear contradictory message.
Children raised like that will trust their parents’ teachings more than the Church’s on that one point, and probably many more besides. And they’ll look, talk, and act like Mormons in every other way.
At the Q15 level, the culture of shutting up about disagreements looks like agreement, and agreement on all aspects of morality is seen as good. So I have no reason to think the explanation Elder Christofferson gave misrepresents the Q15’s thinking. I do think he left something out, though: I think most of the Q15 think that children being raised to think SSM is good is one of Satan’s insidious inroad into the Church, a canker that has to be stopped at all costs for the sake of eternal families.
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