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The people who hear the Voice of God speaking to them all the time and feel everything they do is always inspired — those are very scary people.
That is true no matter one’s religion.
I have worked for more than one person who had that mindset, and they weren’t Mormon. It would be one thing if they were amazing, well-qualified, reasonable people whose perceived inspiration/revelation was excellent and insightful and implementable – and, above all else, loving. When it isn’t. . .
This ^^^^ Old Timer wrote:I have worked for more than one person who had that mindset, and they weren’t Mormon. It would be one thing if they were amazing, well-qualified, reasonable people whose perceived inspiration/revelation was excellent and insightful and implementable – and, above all else, loving. When it isn’t. . .
Yeah, I’ve met one missionary who seemed to speak with the Spirit’s voice as much or more than his own. Everybody else that was convinced they were inspired 24×7 was a homeless, alcoholic street preacher.
On the mission, I had a couple zone leaders who were the super inspired type. The were remembered long after as having gone off the deep end. My whole mission was one big lesson that “inspiration” is mostly people feeling good about their decisions because they did the best they could with all the information they had. The organization of the LDS church claims to represent Christ. Christ is stated to be perfect.
Christ is over the church organization and individuals are under the hierarchy of the church. The church is the middleman between God and individuals.
Because Christ is above the church and perfect,the church is not going to apologize for Christ. Individual authorities decide what the Church does in Christ’s name. Things that are erroneous are obviously just an individual’s error in judgement.
This puts the church in an interesting position. The church would see no need to apologize for an individual’s poor decision. That apology is left for the individual.
This duality of speaking for diety .. yet having individuals make decisions would make it very difficult or the church to apologize.
I understand the mindset, but I think they are wrong.
Roy wrote:A few month back I was in a SS meeting taught by our former SP (recently returned from a 3 year call as MP). He was talking about how church leaders are lead by inspiration but not in every moment.
This same former SP said yesterday that “The gospel is perfect. The church is the vehicle that directs us to the gospel and is not perfect. This means that our local leadership is not perfect. This means that our prophet is not perfect. This means that Nephi was not perfect.”
I hope that this is part of a more widespread inoculation effort. Yes, people continue to be creatures of their own time and cultural influences even when the spirit of God acts upon them to accomplish a task. Yes, they still have biases, prejudices, and shortsightedness. Yes, they are still working out their own salvation before God with fear and trembling and looking through a glass darkly – just as we all endeavor to do.
I believe that this type if teaching can help prepare us to better handle finding out about some of the crazy stuff that happened in our history.
Quote:“The gospel is perfect. The church is the vehicle that directs us to the gospel and is not perfect. This means that our local leadership is not perfect. This means that our prophet is not perfect. This means that Nephi was not perfect.”
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I believe that this type if teaching can help prepare us to better handle finding out about some of the crazy stuff that happened in our history.I would add – the spiritual pain that happens in personal lives.
We (all of life) have created a god whom we do not know. Our expectations of Him, I now believe, are just as outlandish as the assumed perfection of humans. I don’t fully understand divine deity at this point in my life. I can not answer the inconsistency I am learning about. How one prayer gets answered just as the person wants and another seems entirely ignored. He and I still talk on a daily basis. I don’t live in anger with Him, as I did for a while, but He has changed in my mind and heart. He had been set up to be something that doesn’t fit reality. It’s not his fault.
The gospel – the instructions found in the Sermon on the Mount take a life time to even hear, let alone master, but I believe they can be the best guiding star for a more healthy, loving world.
I concur with your SP. I am comforted to know members of his mindset do exist.
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