"The CES Letter"

It certainly does sound like your locus of authority has moved internally to you and you are accepting that. I agree it feels good and it can help feel more stable and not so reactionary.

I have never fully read the CES letter. By the time I found out about the CES letter and decided to read it, I was already aware of 95% of the issues. I got bored reading it. But I certainly see how this is quite impactful for someone that doesn’t know of any of the issues.

Just some random thoughts as I read through the posts here.

Runnels is an anti and his arguments are in fact just rehashed and consolidated anti arguments that have been around forever. Frankly I do believe Runnels may have been well intentioned at first but lost it along the way. But I also agree that the FairMormon response is weak – as are many apologist arguments. On a personal level there are two things about the CSE letter: 1) by the time I read it, it was all old hat, nothing new; 2) I don’t care. I’m not being flippant, my FC was not based on historical stuff like it is for many, but nothing in the CSE letter rattled my cage.

Yes. You can absolutely talk about the essays in Sunday School. There is a FINALLY a new adult SS curriculum due out next year. I am expecting it to be a huge departure from the current very old curriculum, based much more on Teaching in the Savior’s Way, and much more in line with the new PH/RS curriculum. But even before that you can absolutely talk about the essays. (With the usual caveat that there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about that, and the right way does not entail keeping our mouths shut.)

Agreed, making your own choices about what you believe is very liberating, and I believe that was Joseph Smith’s church. I don’t believe Joseph would recognize the modern church as the same thing he founded. Let go of the guilt/fear – it does no one any good.

The truth is always a sticky mess. But the gospel shouldn’t be.

I don’t think the gospel is a mess. I think people make it much more complicated than it really is. And let’s never conflate the church and the gospel.

There is a FINALLY a new adult SS curriculum due out next year. I am expecting it to be a huge departure from the current very old curriculum, based much more on Teaching in the Savior’s Way, …

YASS!!!!

…and much more in line with the new PH/RS curriculum.

Wait, does that mean we’ll take turns reading conference talks during SS?

:angel:

My suggestion – Anchor in Jesus Christ. Whether he was merely a Rabbi from Nazareth or truly The Holy Redeemer, you can read, live, and teach his teachings while you let the church history particles float around.

It’s an honorable safety net.

Leaving the CES Letter historical insights aside, the LDS church I grew up in is totally different than it is today. The way we meet, the lessons we teach, the callings we extend and how (I am thinking of TR’s required for certain leadership), even our focus on the BoM has changed so much. Our hymn book, our cultural activities, our church mission – all of it. Even the temple ceremony has changed. It’s the nature of religion. 200 years from now, we won’t recognize it.

Be a good person, love your family, be nice to your ward members – and breathe.

I believe that many of the items in the CES letter are presented in the most negative, “gotcha” view point possible.

OTOH, Fair Mormon cannot really get into discussing each point because to do so would validate that there is troubling information. Instead of saying that XYZ is mostly correct except that Z is actually an N, they say that XYZ is incorrect. Dismiss the point without getting into precisely why it is wrong and especially how much of it might be true.

I really wish that the church would transition to more of a continuing restoration, revelation, and work in progress mindset. For too long we have been committed to “the church is perfect” and “follow the prophet – he knows the way”. I wish we could make room for JS and others to have been wrong about important doctrinal issues (polygamy) while still being the right person at the right time for God to accomplish the task of setting up the church.

The truth is always a sticky mess.

There is no mechanism for questioning policy or doctrine in the church that is effective or charitable, in my opinion.

I agree. History and people are messy, yet we have a very sanitized and distorted narrative and there does not seem to be any church approved place to have that discussion (although I do believe the church is moving slowly in the right direction with inoculation efforts).

I personally view church history as a “based on real events/true story” movie. These were real people that lived, worked, dreamed, loved, fought, and died. We (as church members), for the purposes of our narrative, have decided who the heroes are and who the villains are. For over 100 years we have been whitewashing and sugarcoating the heroes and painting the villains with the blackest of intentions. What hero could possibly be that pure?

We set ourselves up for a rude awakening and the CES Letter styles itself to be exactly that.

Many Prophets of whom we have record had something that could be seen as a prophetic disqualification – and the “greatest” often had the worst. That is true especially of those who were founding figures. Noah got drunk and was raped by his daughter; Moses murdered a man and then let his ego take personal credit for a divine miracle; David arranged for a man to be killed in order to marry his wife (I know, king, not Prophet, but still…); Nephi killed a man to get a book; even Jesus went full lion tamer mode in the temple. Ghandhi had some serious sexual issues; Winston Churchill was a mean drunk; MLK, Jr. had infidelity problems; etc.

The type of personality it takes to start a movement that lasts appears to be someone who could be described in the following terms:

Their name will be had for good and evil.

I take that statement about Joseph Smith more literally than most, and I don’t think it disqualifies him from being a prophet in the scriptural sense.

There is a FINALLY a new adult SS curriculum due out next year. I am expecting it to be a huge departure from the current very old curriculum, based much more on Teaching in the Savior’s Way, …

YASS!!!!

…and much more in line with the new PH/RS curriculum.

Wait, does that mean we’ll take turns reading conference talks during SS?

:angel:

Let me rephrase. Much more like PH/RS is supposed to be.

My only lament about the new SS curriculum is that it will begin next year, in replacement of NT. For me, NT is the one and only year of SS that I attend somewhat regularly. I think a study based on the NT is useful. Certainly, Church Members, including myself, could benefit from more exposure to it. I worry a bit that the lesson topics will be “Obedience”, “Tithing”, “Sabbath Day Observance”, and “Be Missionaries!” replacing current NT SS lesson titles like “Take My Yoke Upon You, and Learn of Me”, “Who is My Neighbor”, “Be Ye Reconciled to God”, and “I Can Do All Things through Christ”.