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Cadence wrote:
Being a GA for the church just has to be about the worst job ever. Everyone thinking you know stuff you do not.
Yes, and having to say you know stuff you don’t know which leads others to do the same.
Fwiw, I’m not sure there is an apostle alive today who says he knows things but doesn’t feel he knows them. We can disagree about what “know” means, but I really don’t believe there is a hypocrite in that way among them. Maybe the question should be if presented with the information systematically would they still believe? Perhaps they just do not have all the information. I to once believed but then I had compelling evidence to the contrary and I had to adjust. These men are isolated. They are told how great they are. Their very identity is contingent on what they say being true. It is very easy to get full of yourself and start thinking because something pops into your head it is correct. They all suffer from extreme confirmation bias. I am not sure I blame them. They were brought into a system that is structured to perpetuate bias. It would take a very strong individual to break the mold and look at things objectively.
Quote:These men are isolated. They are told how great they are. Their very identity is contingent on what they say being true. It is very easy to get full of yourself and start thinking because something pops into your head it is correct. They all suffer from extreme confirmation bias. I am not sure I blame them. They were brought into a system that is structured to perpetuate bias. It would take a very strong individual to break the mold and look at things objectively.
The social role you assume (whatever it might be) is a powerful influence over your identity and behavior. And we are often unaware of such influences. If you look around, you can often see the initial effects of assuming a “GA” type role. My wife and I sometimes make fun of “bishop wannabes”: men we know who wear dark suits, shake hands with everyone, and talk like funeral directors (and then we later repent). Another man I know in a leadership position seems to be aspiring for GA status. His manner of addressing people has changed a bit. His talks were pretty straightforward initially and now he “loves us” and tells us that frequently with that familiar General Conference cadence in his voice (I hate how people in the Church throw that word “love” around…but that’s for another day).
The First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 (and all general authorities) are not immune to such effects and I think it would take a strong person to do things differently. These men are selected precisely for their faithfulness, their leadership ability, and their willingness to support the Church. Any deep knowledge they may have about gospel topics or Church history is purely incidental (though I imagine a few of them do have that kind of knowledge). That said, I don’t doubt their good intentions.
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.
I never viewed it that way, but I guess that’s because I was unfamiliar with the origins. The first time I saw “TBM” was here. To me it’s just a three letter acronym that replaces a paragraph’s worth of explanation. I think it’s in the same camp as “I know the church is true.” To some “I know the church is true” is a vapid phrase that means absolutely nothing, to others it’s a simple phrase that quickly relates many nuances of belief.
I think it’s dangerous for one person to project their interpretation of a term or phrase onto someone else in their use of the term… especially when people know that a term or phrase can have various interpretations.
Alternate non-offensive thread title:
Do the GAs believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, believe in the one true church claims made by the church, and take all points of doctrine and teachings in the church to be literal?
or
Are the GAs TBM?
Cadence wrote:Maybe the question should be if presented with the information systematically would they still believe? Perhaps they just do not have all the information.
Gerald wrote:Any deep knowledge they may have about gospel topics or Church history is purely incidental (though I imagine a few of them do have that kind of knowledge). That said, I don’t doubt their good intentions.
I can understand some of the 70 not knowing all the information, but it’s hard to believe that the Q15 don’t. Don’t they have access to just about every original church document that makes up our history? Maybe they’re just sitting in a vault somewhere in the Church History Library and nobody actually looks at them.
nibbler wrote:
Alternate non-offensive thread title:Do the GAs believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, believe in the one true church claims made by the church, and take all points of doctrine and teachings in the church to be literal?
or
Are the GAs TBM?
Thank you.
This is a really good discussion. I’ve thought about the same question myself with the brethren in Salt Lake City. I guess it depends on the general authority. Most people in the church are in stage 3, so they probably never though about it. It would be good if we could find out these things. I think we can be pretty confident the Q15 know everything that’s in the recent essays published on LDS.com, so they know the multiple accounts of the first vision, the peep stone, etc. A friend of mine wrote about discovering that Elder Nelson had written an article about the translation of the Book of Mormon in which he quotes from the same source as Bushman in Rough Stone Rolling, only Nelson conveniently left out the part about the peep stone. He must have read it in the original though. Based on statements I’ve heard from Packer about the relative value (or non-value as he sees it) of teaching particular points of church history, I would be surprised if he doesn’t know most of the details as well. I’d be really surprised if anyof the Q15 don’t know it all. There’s probably more diversity among the Q70. As for the use of “TBM,” I have never considered it a specifically negative label at all, but I have always avoided using it because I feel too much like I’m stereotyping when I use it. I don’t like being called inactive or less active or apostate or any other label that puts me in a category that’s just too simple for reality, so I don’t want to do it to anyone else regardless of how widely their beliefs diverge from mine. Instead of “TBM,” I type out “true believer” as the broadest label I generally use.
I had to do a double take there – I thought I read “Are the GAYS TBM?” – there was this article and the one about gays below it. Now there’s an interesting thought. I suppose there may be gay TBMs but they just keep quiet about it.
As for gay GA TBMs, no comment there!
Old-Timer wrote:Fwiw, I’m not sure there is an apostle alive today who says he knows things but doesn’t feel he knows them. We can disagree about what “know” means, but I really don’t believe there is a hypocrite in that way among them.
I agree that the apostles truly do believe they know what they know. I’ll also note how rarely they actually use that word. I’m not so sure all the 70s are in the same position, I think they are far more likely to parrot what they have been taught their whole lives, although I also note they don’t use the word know as often as the general membership does in a fast and testimony meeting (at least where I live).
On the use of TBM. I have never seen it as derogatory in any way, but I do understand how some might see it that way. I do use the term as descriptive of those who are fully active int he church and follow all of the beliefs/teachings without question. I sometimes use the term orthodox to describe those same people.
Quote:Now there’s an interesting thought. I suppose there may be gay TBMs but they just keep quiet about it.
I personally know one. He’s married in the temple and has three kids. I think very few people know he is gay.
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Not to derail the topic – and maybe it should become it’s own, but I also know a gay TBM. DarkJedi wrote:Not to derail the topic – and maybe it should become it’s own, but I also know a gay TBM.
I think there are lots. I don’t think they make it a point to let everybody know about it. But in many cases the bishop is aware of it. I believe the church has put out statements that the attraction is not a sin and as long as you keep the law of chastity (celibacy), you can be an active temple goer. I can only imagine the mental anguish that a gay believer would have to endure.
Unknown wrote: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?!?” Yes, I think most of them are TBMs. By TBM I simply mean that they still believe in the general idea of the restoration story and that the Church has special authority and approval from God, not that they necessarily take everything the scriptures and past Church leaders have said literally. Even if they know about some of the same issues we do I doubt most of them have ever really connected the dots as far as facing the most likely implications of this and my guess is they try not to worry about it and hope the Church is still what it claims in spite of some of the embarrassing history and contradictions. If TBM apologists can know about every single issue without losing their testimony then I don’t see why the top leaders couldn’t maintain faith in a few central points as well. If anything many of them are even more invested in the Church than the typical apologist and they don’t even need to try to provide an answer to many of these questions.
Even if some of them have suspected that there’s a good chance some of the Church’s claims are not true I think they typically rationalize that it is supposedly still good for members to believe in this as if there will be widespread despair, nihilism, and moral degradation without something like the Church to give people a sense of meaning and purpose and they also feel like they need to go along with this because it’s what others around them expect sort of like the story of the emperor with no clothes. What I don’t believe at all is the cynical idea we hear sometimes that the Church is just a profit oriented corporation masquerading as a sincere religious organization and the main thing the leaders care about is collecting tithing and exploiting members for their own selfish interests. Personally I think they continue to repeat the tithing doctrine more or less the same way they have heard it from others not necessarily out of any deliberate maliciousness or greed but mostly because they don’t want to admit to themselves and/or others that the Church could have been wrong about this all this time.
This is one reason I still like to watch conference even though I don’t believe most of what they say; it is interesting try to get a feel for what they are thinking especially now that the Church is facing new issues and threats they didn’t have to worry about as much if at all in the past. If most of them weren’t TBMs then I would expect them to be much more careful about what they say and how they react to things but some of the things they say only make sense from a TBM perspective and some of these ideas would be hard to even think of if they were mostly trying to put on an act for whatever reason. I think the essays and the mission age change show that they realize the Church is facing some serious difficulties but it looks like they are still in a state of denial where they think they can still hold on to the current idea of what prophets and revelation are supposed to be in spite of all the evidence that things don’t necessarily work that way in reality.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:
If TBM apologists can know about every single issue without losing their testimony then I don’t see why the top leaders couldn’t maintain faith in a few central points as well.
That’s a good point.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:
Even if some of them have suspected that there’s a good chance some of the Church’s claims are not true I think they typically rationalize that it is supposedly still good for members to believe in this as if there will be widespread despair, nihilism, and moral degradation without something like the Church to give people a sense of meaning and purpose and they also feel like they need to go along with this because it’s what others around them expect sort of like the story of the emperor with no clothes.I suppose this is the heart of my question. Could there be GAs who don’t necessarily believe this is the one true and living church, but do believe that the organization is a good influence in peoples lives and in the world, and find valuable meaning in its teachings?
DevilsAdvocate wrote:
What I don’t believe at all is the cynical idea we hear sometimes that the Church is just a profit oriented corporation masquerading as a sincere religious organization and the main thing the leaders care about is collecting tithing and exploiting members for their own selfish interests.
I do agree with you here, or at least have a strong hope that this is the case. I know many people have had positive experiences with some GAs and believe they are good caring individuals. I have also had this impression in watching conference, but in my (very limited) personal interactions with GAs, at ALL levels, I had a nagging suspicion that they were quite simply businessmen. One such experience was on my mission and was a little difficult to process because I loved the church and had a deep respect for the Bretheren. I cannot say my impression is solid evidence, it was just a feeling, but it really bothered me and I hope it is baseless.
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