- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I can’t help but wonder how literalist the GA’s are. From what I can tell, they are intelligent men. Many members know very little about the church history issues that can shake a testimony. I think a lot of members know about some of the church history issues but choose to ignore them. It’s hard for me to imagine that GAs, especially the Q15, don’t know just about everything. So I wonder, do they ignore them? Have they found some way to reconcile their testimony with the attitude that “it will all be made known to us in the next life”? Could there be a few StayLDSers in high positions? Just a few? A lot? All? The testimonies given in GC obviously suggests that they are literalists. Surely they have, at some point, asked the hard questions just like us. Not just, “is the church true?” But questions like, “How could the church be true if …. and ….. and. …. happened?!?” Great questions and I don’t know the answer. I agree that they are intelligent, and Pres. Uchtdorf indicates that he believes everybody has questioned. Judging by his comments, I do believe he has questioned but I don’t know what conclusions he has come to beyond that he clearly believes in the church. I also believe that some of the GAs have not actually deeply questioned or examined and are much like the general membership, sort of just floating along and parroting what they have been taught their whole lives. I am convinced they are a mix – and the Q15 probably are more mixed than they appear and more mixed than the Q’s70. Pres. Uchtdorf is the most obvious example, but I have heard Elder Holland use alternative scriptural interpretations in more than one talk – and he said explicitly in the PBS documentary that nobody is going to be asked to leave the Church if they don’t view the Book of Mormon as a historical document. There are a number of apostles who talk much more often about concepts and principles (love, forgiveness, atonement, service, etc.) than about anything that is blatantly literalist in nature. I think Pres. Monson is much more concerned about service and love than about specific interpretation models.
I would say Pres. Packer, Elder Oaks, Elder Bednar and Elder Nelson are probably the most obvious literalists in the current Q15 – but even Pres. Packer has been very progressive in quite a few ways over the years. His obsession with all things sexual tends to obscure that fact and make him seem much more hardline, conservative and literal than he is overall.
Quote:I also believe that some of the GAs have not actually deeply questioned or examined and are much like the general membership, sort of just floating along and parroting what they have been taught their whole lives.
Absolutely. Leadership doesn’t automatically change natural mindsets.
Certainly something to consider. I know that for the longest time I felt like someone that is more TBM should have the calling I’m currently holding, I even get a bit of anxiety in that department for future callings – like I should be okay with thiscalling should they ask but I should flat out reject thatcalling due to my beliefs. If a Q15 believed something similar to what I believe what does that say? Unknown, Well, first, you used the term “TBM” in the title of your post, but you used the term “literalist” in the post itself, so a couple of thoughts about those two terms to help frame the discussion. “TBM” is a term that I don’t think I’ve ever used, because I think it’s a bit pejorative, but in the context of this site, it usually refers to a Church member that still believes, without significant reservations. The term “literalist” is not the same as “TBM”, IMO. Long, long before I had my faith transition, I believed in evolution, thought of Job as a fictional character, believed that nobody lived to be 969 years old, saw the story of Jonah and the “Whale” as purely figurative, and recognized that everything that an Apostle or Seventy said wasn’t doctrine, and that even the President of the Church spoke his own opinion unless he expressed it as the will of God. These are just some specific examples that I can remember decades later. There were other non-literal positions I held, I’m sure. But these were all beliefs I held as a completely faithful and active and committed Church member. So, “literalist” is not aligned with questioning. It is about how we frame our understanding of the Church and its doctrines, not whether we believe in the Church or the doctrines.
Now to the more important issue… how do GAs reconcile their knowledge with their faith? This is a pretty simple one, in my mind. They don’t analyze the information the same way we do. We don’t analyze the information the same way they do. I’ve intentionally written this as a couplet to underscore that neither approach is right or correct. We like our approach, they like theirs. You’ve kind of asserted that faithful members of the Church only stay because they don’t know the facts… and that has left you in a position of wondering how GAs can know the facts and still stay faithful. I think the premise itself is off. To you and me, we look at the Gold Plates, the Urim and Thumim, the Seerstone, the head in the hat and say, yeah… that’s kind of out there… I’m not sure I can get behind that. Faithful members of the Church accept it as not only “not weird” but also as divinely appointed and beautiful. I’ll give you a very specific example. To me, when I think of the lost 116 pages, I think that the most likely way it played out was that Lucy Harris burned the pages in her fireplace. JS must have been crushed by this. He then had to concoct an outlandish story to allow the continuation of the translation to cover the same story, but from the perspective of Nephi, as opposed to Lehi, complete with recounting Lehi’s Tree of Life, and then expanding on it. But faithful believers point to the inclusion of the Small Plates as clearly demonstrating not only God’s foreknowledge, but also his divine intervention, to ensure that we would get the important teachings, in spite of Lucy Harris. I think that is wonky. God? All powerful God? He couldn’t just prevent Lucy Harris from burning the manuscript. He had to direct Mormon to put duplicate histories in his Gold Plates, 1500 years before Lucy Harris, so that she couldn’t thwart the Marvelous Work and Wonder? But to the faithful, it is awe-inspiring… you see, they don’t look at it with my cynical eye. They see it through their lens and I see it through mine. I assume God had nothing to do with it while they assume God had everything to do with it. End of discussion. It’s not a matter of intellect versus faith; it’s a matter of prejudice. Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, John Taylor… these people came to think of polygamy as a lifestyle that God wanted us to live. They didn’t have to wrestle with conscience. They were very intelligent people; more so than most of us (I’d say
anyof us, but don’t want to offend anyone). They could debate polygamy on an intellectual level, and I’m sure that they felt that they won every such debate, but intellect wasn’t whythey believed in it. With our GAs today, I have no doubt that they are fully faithful and believing. They see power in spirituality that you and I have a hard time grasping. For them, that obliterates any concern about the Kinderhook Plates, et al. This is actually a very interesting topic and of current interest to me as I have been having an ongoing discussion with a member friend of mine about the more conservative (hardline) GAs as opposed to the more progressive types. It is a very civil conversation that started when I turned down his invitation to stake conference because I didn’t care for the particular GA (70) who was attending because of my perception that he was more of the “floating along parroting” variety. We have come to the point where we are naming names, and while I hate to pigeon hole them it turns out we somewhat agree on where they all fit. On Own Now wrote:I think it’s a bit pejorative
I agree and think pejorative is the perfect word to describe it. And I appreciate you drawing a distinction between the two terms. I also agree that the questionable “facts” that are known by the general membership can be framed in a way that is faith promoting. There are other issues that are not known or accepted by many members, but that the GAs are undoubtedly aware of, that would be very difficult to frame as faith promoting and would likely shake the faith of any member were they not already convinced that they were nothing more than false accusations made by those who oppose the church.Quote:There are other issues that are not known or accepted by many members, but that the GAs are undoubtedly aware of, that would be very difficult to frame as faith promoting and would likely shake the faith of any member were they not already convinced that they were nothing more than false accusations made by those who oppose the church.
Not necessarily. There are lots of members, including leaders at all levels, who know lots (or even all) of these issues and who simply have a paradigm that allows them not to lose faith as a result. The key, I believe, is different expectations. Don’t expect perfection (and even allow for serious imperfection) and much of the angst that accompanies faith disappears or is reduced significantly.
Also, fwiw, I don’t use “TBM” – ever. It’s not just pejorative (coined as a term of derision among ex-mormons); it also is so broad and ill-defined as to be useless to me personally.
Old-Timer wrote:Not necessarily. There are lots of members, including leaders at all levels, who know lots (or even all) of these issues and who simply have a paradigm that allows them not to lose faith as a result. The key, I believe, is different expectations. Don’t expect perfection (and even allow for serious imperfection) and much of the angst that accompanies faith disappears or is reduced significantly.
I suppose that answers my questions in the original post, somewhat. I guess I am interested in learning more about that paradigm. Richard Bushman has been the only person I’ve heard talk about the hard history questions without pulling any punches and yet seem to walk away unscathed. If there are GAs that have had similar experiences, I understand why they don’t talk about it in GC, but I would love to hear about it.Old-Timer wrote:
Also, fwiw, I don’t use “TBM” – ever. It’s not just pejorative (coined as a term of derision among ex-mormons); it also is so broad and ill-defined as to be useless to me personally.
Good point.My former SP, who is now an MP and on his way to GA-hood, is probably indicative of most of the lower level GA’s. Once during a PPI with him, I asked him if he had read Rough Stone Rolling. He said he started to read it, but then stopped because he did not want to know those things about JS. He didn’t doubt the veracity of the book, he just didn’t want to know about it. I’m not sure that we can understand fully how a GA might have found their own middle way because they’re very unlikely to talk about it. I think that’s part of the whole thing – GAs talk about what they talk about because that’s what we expect them to talk about. It can be a little dangerous to be even a little outside the box in public, especially for a GA. Probably the closest example I know of is Elder Poelman in his 1984 address about the church and the gospel. I think some of them come very close, though, and with a little reading between the lines we can figure some things out – as in Pres. Uchtdorf’s October address. I don’t know any GAs personally but I’ve heard many speak. Elder Causse of the presiding bishopric gave one of the best talks I’ve ever heard in a local meeting. He came across as non literal and gave a terriffic “feel good” talk and left almost all doctrine out of the talk. Even his testimony at the end of the talk was non traditional. About TBM I was unaware it was perjorative. I’ve used it for many years in my family and thought that True Blue Mormon was coined by a pioneer era teenager who was confronted by armed men who asked if he was Mormon. He said something along the lines of “yes sir, true blue, through and through.” Maybe it was Joseph F.
DarkJedi wrote:they’re very unlikely to talk about it. I think that’s part of the whole thing – GAs talk about what they talk about because that’s what we expect them to talk about. It can be a little dangerous to be even a little outside the box in public, especially for a GA.
That’s the problem right there. If there is a GA who has had a real trial of faith brought on by the hard questions of history and doctrine, and has pulled through it some how to where he can bear a powerful testimony to the body of the church in GC, he would have some great insight for those that do struggle. I understand the reluctance to talk about the specific issues that cause one to doubt in GC, for fear of causing others to doubt who wouldn’t have otherwise. But the story of reconciling these doubts, I think, could be beneficial to many members of the church who are questioning their faith, including most of us here.I have heard some heartfelt messages to the doubter like “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief” and “doubt your doubts” (I just reread Pres. Uchtdorf’s “Come, Join with Us), and I think there is a need for more messages like this.
I know there are a few on this board who are quite comfortable with their spirituality now and at ease with their relationship with the church, but does that mean any of us would be comfortable as an SP, MP, or GA? I’d like to hope so.
Being a GA for the church just has to be about the worst job ever. Everyone thinking you know stuff you do not. TBM in the sense of truly believing, yes. Literalists, not all of them, at least IMO. Are there any who don’t believe? Perhaps a few among the 70 (it’s possible), but I really don’t see any of the Q15 not being sincere believers. I know the origin of TBM, but if you simply meant that they are sincere in their beliefs, that’s my opinion. I absolutely think different people fit different modus operandi, even at the Q15 level. Some aren’t interested in hearing anything outside the “approved” stuff (as Sheldon mentions). Some just don’t read a lot and aren’t into study. I think their background probably reveals something about their approach. Guys who came up through CES, my view is they know the least of all, either through choice or perpetual bad information.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.