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Old-Timer wrote:
President Uchtdorf has said from the General Conference pulpit that church leaders have made mistakes in the past, and I am 100% certain that he would say the same thing about himself and our current leaders. The recent official statement from the Church about the Priesthood ban also says clearly that former leaders have made mistakes. I support and sustain them as prophets, seers and revelators, but they absolutely do make mistakes.
I will trust President Uchtdorf and the current Church leadership on this one. If anyone disagrees with them, feel free to say so.
Well said.
Yep. The mormon people refuse to listen to their own prophets.
cwald wrote:Old-Timer wrote:President Uchtdorf has said from the General Conference pulpit that church leaders have made mistakes in the past, and I am 100% certain that he would say the same thing about himself and our current leaders. The recent official statement from the Church about the Priesthood ban also says clearly that former leaders have made mistakes. I support and sustain them as prophets, seers and revelators, but they absolutely do make mistakes.
I will trust President Uchtdorf and the current Church leadership on this one. If anyone disagrees with them, feel free to say so.
Well said.
Yep. The mormon people refuse to listen to their own prophets.
I often want to stand up in testimony and re-iterate what Michael Ash said in his book “Shaken Faith Syndrome” of
Quote:Some LDS have noted with amusement that the official position of Catholicism is that of an infallible pope, yet few lay Catholics really seem to believe it, while conversely, the official position of Mormonism is that of a fallible prophet, yet few Mormons really seem to believe it.”
Dang that is so true with so many.
But where does that come from? I would say mostly from the leaders and a bit from the correlated gospel.
I wonder how much heat Pres. Uchtdorf took from the other 14 to say that “leaders had made mistakes.” From what I understand from many sources, among the apostles they have an ‘agreement’ or a rule that they will never criticize each other. To a very large extent this is good and they need to stay united or they would probably cause the church to move into Uchtdorfites, Hollandites, and Packerites. OK – that may be happening a bit anyway, but I do thing it would be worse if they were to air their differences publicly. It would be VERY interesting to have a set of somewhat older meeting minutes published. I for one would like to have been a fly on the wall after Elder Benson’s “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet” talk. You hear second-hand that there was not agreement within the 15 brethren after that. But not unpredictable, the more staunch “we have ALL the truth / we are the ONLY true church” contingent grabbed on to this and considers it absolute gospel and anybody not agreeing with it is just weak in testimony. It would be so interesting to hear if SWK and ETB got into it after that talk. It would almost be like Brigham Young and Orson Pratt publicly disagreeing on the Adam God doctrine. It might make for conference being a bit more exciting though!
LookingHard wrote:I often want to stand up in testimony and re-iterate what Michael Ash said in his book “Shaken Faith Syndrome” of
Quote:Some LDS have noted with amusement that the official position of Catholicism is that of an infallible pope, yet few lay Catholics really seem to believe it, while conversely, the official position of Mormonism is that of a fallible prophet, yet few Mormons really seem to believe it.”
Dang that is so true with so many.
But where does that come from? I would say mostly from the leaders and a bit from the correlated gospel.
I wonder how much heat Pres. Uchtdorf took from the other 14 to say that “leaders had made mistakes.” From what I understand from many sources, among the apostles they have an ‘agreement’ or a rule that they will never criticize each other. To a very large extent this is good and they need to stay united or they would probably cause the church to move into Uchtdorfites, Hollandites, and Packerites. OK – that may be happening a bit anyway, but I do thing it would be worse if they were to air their differences publicly. It would be VERY interesting to have a set of somewhat older meeting minutes published. I for one would like to have been a fly on the wall after Elder Benson’s “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet” talk. You hear second-hand that there was not agreement within the 15 brethren after that. But not unpredictable, the more staunch “we have ALL the truth / we are the ONLY true church” contingent grabbed on to this and considers it absolute gospel and anybody not agreeing with it is just weak in testimony. It would be so interesting to hear if SWK and ETB got into it after that talk. It would almost be like Brigham Young and Orson Pratt publicly disagreeing on the Adam God doctrine. It might make for conference being a bit more exciting though!
I thought I had responded to this before, but maybe I did something wrong or it somehow disappeared into cyberspace.
At any rate, I have quoted Ash before, and usually gotten a chuckle. Nevertheless, I think the point gets through – people do see what I’m (Ash is) saying.
I think there is far more disagreement, or perhaps vigorous discussion, among the Q15 than any of us are aware of or some would like to admit. I agree with their unwritten rule to not dis each other in public, though, and I think we would not be better off if they did openly disagree. That said, I also believe Pres. Uchtdorf’s words were carefully chosen and his talk was vetted – I don’t believe any of the other 14 were surprised at or unaware of what he said. I also see subtle things sometimes that make me wonder if one is trying to get a dig in at another, but in the interest of civility I will keep those to myself. I might suggest, though, that you read Elder Christofferson’s talks closely.
I’ve been reluctant to share this, and I don’t know why, but I’m going to now (at least part of it). My SP recently shared some thoughts he had and bore testimony that the Brethren are very aware of us, they are very aware of the issues, and they are aware of faith crises (although they may not understand FC). The essays are a concerted effort to address some of those concerns. The entire Q15, including and perhaps even especially Pres. Monson, are intimately involved with and keenly interested in the essays. There is more that he said that I’m not willing to share yet – but I have felt the Spirit confirm this to me.
I think we have a notion in the church that there are somehow degrees or levels of sin. I see where it comes from, with teachings like sexual sin is second only to murder in seriousness, and the only thing more serious than murder is sin against the Holy Ghost which almost none of us can do. On the other hand, there are teachings like “God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.”
What if there really are no degrees of sin? What if shoplifting is in reality just the same as murder in the eyes of God? If sin cannot be looked upon with any allowance, does it really matter that your neighbor appears to be more sinful than you? Maybe there is no double standard, maybe God’s grace and mercy are sufficient for all of us, and maybe we are forgiven just as much as our neighbor according to our need (and perhaps according to our humility and repentance). I believe that part of Brad Wilcox’s teaching – grace really does fill in everything, no matter who we are.
DarkJedi wrote:I’ve been reluctant to share this, and I don’t know why, but I’m going to now (at least part of it). My SP recently shared some thoughts he had and bore testimony that the Brethren are very aware of us, they are very aware of the issues, and they are aware of faith crises (although they may not understand FC). The essays are a concerted effort to address some of those concerns. The entire Q15, including and perhaps even especially Pres. Monson, are intimately involved with and keenly interested in the essays. There is more that he said that I’m not willing to share yet – but I have felt the Spirit confirm this to me.
I haven’t had any discussions with leaders about it, DJ…but I wholeheartedly believe what you just said is very true.Being aware of it is one thing.
Being able to undertstand it is another.
Knowing what to do about it is completely different also.
It is why the essays give hope to me. Baby steps. Baby steps. I would much rather see bold steps when you think of the number of casualties, but…baby steps is better than nothing.
DarkJedi wrote:I’ve been reluctant to share this, and I don’t know why, but I’m going to now (at least part of it). My SP recently shared some thoughts he had and bore testimony that the Brethren are very aware of us, they are very aware of the issues, and they are aware of faith crises (although they may not understand FC). The essays are a concerted effort to address some of those concerns. The entire Q15, including and perhaps even especially Pres. Monson, are intimately involved with and keenly interested in the essays. There is more that he said that I’m not willing to share yet – but I have felt the Spirit confirm this to me.
I believe that the most recent general conference made it very clear that the Q15 are aware of people that have doubts or have otherwise conscientiously reduced their commitment level to the church. Many talks during conference had an almost defensive tone.
Unfortunately I believe conference also showed that they do not know how to minister to people in that group. I’m not blaming them, even people that can fully empathize can have a hard time ministering to people… and they’ve had similar experiences! It’s really no surprise that people that may have never had a crisis of faith don’t know how to succor people that have. The whole situation is further complicated by having to tiptoe around the more ultra conservative members. You can’t please everyone and I think this is why the most recent conference also had a few moments where the doublespeak came to the foreground.
I only mention this because one particular talk during conference hurt, and I mean really hurt. Maybe not me personally (my initial emotion was one of anger) but I know people that have been hurt by it and that makes it hurt for me. A talk during conference should not divide a family. Vague references to half-truths give the orthodox license to claim any information that they do not agree with to be lies. If these sorts of claims must be made they should be very specific, otherwise the sword of distrust will continue to cut both ways.
Sorry, I still haven’t worked out some of the issues created by the last general conference. They’ve been shelved and every once in a while something falls off the shelf. That’s probably why you were reluctant to share… because you might get a negative response like mine.
😥 I think the encouraging thing here is that the brethren are trying. Practice makes perfect and it’s understandable that they might step on a toe or two in the process. When a kid is learning an instrument it’s super annoying at first but give them some encouragement and time and one day they’ll be playing beautiful music. They are trying to understand us and that shows that they love us. I complain but the essays were a very big step for church leaders to take and I appreciate their efforts. It’s how I know that they are ministering to me.
nibbler wrote:one particular talk during conference hurt, and I mean really hurt. Maybe not me personally (my initial emotion was one of anger) but I know people that have been hurt by it and that makes it hurt for me.
Ditto. One of the Saturday sessions I was home alone watching and I recall screaming at the TV with a bit of anger. But I calmed down.
nibbler wrote:I think the encouraging thing here is that the brethren are trying.
When I first heard something saying, “The brethren know more about things than you think” I didn’t quite believe them. After hearing about John Dehlin’s visit with Elder Holland, I started thinking that they get it a bit. After a bit of time I do think they know, but like what was said – what to do about it? I have a hard enough time figuring it out in my head. If you put me in charge of the church and said, “deal with it” I am sure I would send 1/2 the church running no matter what I did.LookingHard wrote:When I first heard something saying, “The brethren know more about things than you think” I didn’t quite believe them. After hearing about John Dehlin’s visit with Elder Holland, I started thinking that they get it a bit. After a bit of time I do think they know, but like was said – what to do about it? I have a hard enough time figuring it out in my head. If you put me in charge of the church and said, “deal with it” I am sure I would send 1/2 the church running no matter what I did.
Well, LH, there are the Givens, there’s Bushman, there’s FAIR, there’s Ash, and there are people like me – and I am aware I’m not the only one out there. I believe these are all attempts to deal with the issues as well. I think local leaders are being counseled to call those who can and will work with those who question and doubt because the only thing that can be really effective must be local and personal. I also think part of the problem with that is that many local leaders don’t know where they can turn for people to do this because we tend to hide our doubts and questions (for good reason, I might add). It’s no secret I have a man crush on my SP (and Pres. Uchtdorf). I recognize his inspiration and his courage – as he does mine. I am amazed at what he shares with us after meeting with the AA and GAs.
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