Would you want to be a leader in the celestial kingdom?

I don’t think that there is any way it could be. I think we’ll all be surprised when we get out of this life and we see whatever is on the other side, how drastically different it ended up being.

I’ve taken a few leadership courses, and my take is that these are only applicable to man, and ultimately only applicable in certain societal and cultural areas.

In general the idea of God being a ‘King’ makes sense coming from a society where the king was the ultimate Authority.

I hope that we as individuals we will be equals because we’ll all be one.

I really don’t think the afterlife is going to be much like this place in form or content.

I really don’t think the afterlife is going to be much like this place in form or content.

But JS or the D&C said the same sociality that exists here on earth will exist in Heaven….

I really don’t think the afterlife is going to be much like this place in form or content.

But JS or the D&C said the same sociality that exists here on earth will exist in Heaven….

If that’s the case then:

Leader says something. I roll my eyes and go back to doing whatever it is I’m doing. Hey, I can ignore them now, right?

If you’re in the CK you’re either a god or on your way to becoming one. To channel Captain Kirk, “What does god need with a leader?”

Maybe it’s to make sure all the gods are ticking their planet creation and have lots of babies boxes. I can imagine it now, “How are you coming along with the stake president’s goal of having 50 babies and reading the Book of Mormon by the end of this month?”

Maybe that’s why I’m not CK material. If someone whooshed over from the next cloud and ordered me to do something entire civilizations would rise and fall while I’m still minutes into my childish “now I’m not going to do it just because you didn’t ask, you told” petty spite stage.

99.44% of this is tongue in cheek but I am serious on this point. Do gods need leaders?

I have a question about leadership in the celestial Kingdom — the temple ceremony, and church culture clearly subscribes to a command method of leadership. It is rather autocratic, where people at the top make decisions and then assign specific tasks to people under them. There is an expectation of obedience and that instructions will be followed with ‘exactness’.

You could say that in the temple ceremony god is the parent and everyone else is one of his children. The relationship is less leader:follower and more parent:child and maybe it’s all the children than need tiered leadership.

I agree with LDS_Scoutmaster and SamBee, I think that we have fashioned an idea of a celestial management system and leadership style that is patterned after what we know here that seems to make sense to us. I think that a lot of what we believe about God and especially about the atonement comes directly from a feudal world view. God is the Lord of the Realm who has to have his laws upheld to have order in the Kingdom. Someone broke the law and there needs to be a punishment, or he will lose his power. So, someone steps in and takes the punishment, God is satisfied because his law is upheld and the law breaker is in debt to the one who took the punishment. I think we figure God’s Kingdom is a house of order and it will look like a very orderly kingdom here. I think that is strictly a human construct and that no one really knows what the afterlife will look like. So let’s focus on the here and now!

In general the idea of God being a ‘King’ makes sense coming from a society where the king was the ultimate Authority.

This idea is discussed in The Christ Who Heals. Givens basically asserts that theology changed from original Christianity where God was the benevolent Father to people becoming servants of a God whose main interest was in his own glory. Likewise, LDS theology asserts that God is more of the loving Father whose aim is to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Therefore, essentially the God as king/ruler with us as his servants is false doctrine or at least pseudo-doctrine. Your point about God and the king being the ultimate authority (usually declaring himself as such by divine right) in former times fits what Givens asserts.

And I agree that I think we’re all going to be surprised at what it’s really like after this life, if only because most of what we “know” is really supposition/speculation.

One of the things I fairly often hear said about the temple is that we’re all equal there. We all dress the same, it’s not readily apparent who is rich and who is poor, etc. If that is indeed the pattern of heaven (and I’m not saying it is), would we really have leaders there other than perhaps God? Going back to Nibbler’s point, would we even need leaders?

(ETA, I was typing at the same time as Dande, and agree with his remarks.)

I think that is strictly a human construct and that no one really knows what the afterlife will look like. So let’s focus on the here and now!

I agree.

The kingdom system means most of us are peasants for eternity. I mean…a king or queen rules over others, right? We can’t all be Kings and Queens. Just like eternal families have moms and dads and their children, except those children are moms and dads and children…and so on. What’s it gonna look like?

A leadership position in what? Will we be organized geographically into wards with leaders and followers? Who is leading doing what?

So many questions.

I’m not sure how the construct will work, but agree with others it is likely very different than anything we know.

So…we just go with the Heavenly parents model as the church teaches. But I don’t know if it makes sense to me.

I hope it’s not the very inefficient King and serf model of the dark ages, or the 1950s church model of control and correlation. I hope it’s more a heaven with the internet and everyone has access to everything and no one needs a leader over them to get access to anything.

It should all be a self serve cafeteria plan, not authoritarian or codependent plans.