Tom Christofferson on the policy change and Easter

Someday I hope Tom Christofferson receives the wholeness he bravely gave up. If we made Saints in this church – he would be my suggestion.

Saint Tom – I love that thought.

Saint Jane – Saint Darius – Saint Lavinia – We have plenty of people worthy of the title.

Wonderful article! thanks for sharing. Some of the comments are disheartening.

I have to believe that the views expressed by some of the more strident old guard members are not representative of our current church leadership – otherwise the POX would never have been reversed.

Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world. We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness, and all the views and all the thoughts of the past…. It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them. We now do what meridian Israel did when the Lord said the gospel should go to the gentiles. We forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the house of Israel, and we start going to the gentiles. – Bruce R. McConkie

Our church presents itself as being a restoration of the same church as was had in all dispensations of time back to Adam.

Our church presents itself as receiving new instruction that overrides and supersedes everything past (including our scriptural canon).

There is tension and paradox here, but also progress.

See this is what gets me. We are expected to do all kinds of things because everything is inspired. Yet there are “unanswered questions” about people who are not main stream sexually oriented our religion can’t answer. If this life is the time to prepare to meet God, and there are so many people that are not straight, shouldn’t we have an answer to these basic questions? I’m not claiming we need answers to every single mystery, but heck, sexual orientation, particularly when say, a man sees an attractive man, he has a “involuntary physiological reaction”?

The thing is, the Church teaches it is all inspired/revelation when it is recieved. In hindsight, after “new revelation” is recieved, the former revelations get redefined to “personal opinion” or “our best judgement at the time”. It’s the way revelation works with all religions who profess revelation, not just ours. I suspect it happens with “personal revelation” all the time too. As we recieve new “revelations”, we redefine our past, in order to keep things congruent.

In fairness, societies’ views on sexual orientation have shifted drastically, even in the past century. There are a lot of factors at play. Science is complicated. The vast majority of opinions are formed with very little knowledge. If you’d like to put it this way, God can only work with what He has to work with. He’s not going to be able to give a revelation which goes against prior held beliefs. Though personally, I believe God is who we make Him to be. If there is a God, I suspect his views are wildly different from any society’s in any age, including our own. Maybe God doesn’t talk, because we wouldn’t like what He has to say?

Then in my view, it’s all opinion. For me, it means to take very seriously the advice to get personal confirmation of all revelations that affect you.

This reminded me of a joke I heard a while back:

Confirmation Bias (n): The study of how other people think.

Ironically, the first thought most people have after reading this is, “Haha, that’s exactly how other people think of confirmation bias!” 😆 :problem:

As for “getting your own personal confirmation” goes, that feels to me like saying “Allow me to get my equally uninformed opinion on your opinion.”That’s one of the issues I have with the “gospel”, is that it causes people to cement themselves into what they feel as “revelation”, rather than think things through, come to a conclusion, and reserve the right to change your mind later. In fairness Christofferson has come as close as anyone (that I know of), to expressly declaring something wasn’t revelation when they honestly thought it was.

We are expected to do all kinds of things because everything is inspired. Yet there are “unanswered questions” about people who are not main stream sexually oriented our religion can’t answer.

We are asked to take leaps of faith to discover whether something is inspired. Look at the brass serpent. See if you are cured. Pay an honest tithe. See if it doesn’t improve your relationship with the Lord. Go to the temple. See if it doesn’t improve your sense of fulfillment. Minister to others. See if it doesn’t bring joy into your life. Repentance is a leap of faith.

We are asked to take leaps of faith to discover whether something is inspired. Look at the brass serpent. See if you are cured. Pay an honest tithe. See if it doesn’t improve your relationship with the Lord. Go to the temple. See if it doesn’t improve your sense of fulfillment. Minister to others. See if it doesn’t bring joy into your life. Repentance is a leap of faith.

Many people have taken such leaps of faith. But what about those who fall and crash? Are we supposed to take only the words of those who survived?

[img]https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/survivorship_bias.png[/img]

With the LGBT, there have been many over-the-pulpit doctrines taught that have had disasterous results when “tested”. There have been teachings that if parents are faithful in teaching their kids the gospel, it will prevent them from being gay. There have been teachings that certain “bad practices”, such as masturbation, are responsible for turning young men gay. And there been other teachings that if you do “struggle with same sex attraction”, that if you have enough faith, struggle and try hard enough, and trust in the atonement, such feelings can be conquored.

Any many people have trusted in these things. Many have taken “leaps of faith”. Many have felt that being gay is your own “fault”, or your parents “fault”, and if you have enough faith you can overcome them through the mercy and grace of the atonement. And when those feelings persist, it only makes them feel worse. This has lead to suicide on no small number of occasions.