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wayfarer wrote:
i, for one, am looking forward to peter jackson’s next scenic tour of new zealand this december…If you can, try and go to Northland to the Bay of Islands. In Russell you can still see bullett holes in the old Anglican chapel from the time when the Maori burned the town and across the way in Pahia there’s a little LDS chapel in a converted store front. It’s great place.
GBSmith wrote:wayfarer wrote:
i, for one, am looking forward to peter jackson’s next scenic tour of new zealand this december…If you can, try and go to Northland to the Bay of Islands. In Russell you can still see bullett holes in the old Anglican chapel from the time when the Maori burned the town and across the way in Pahia there’s a little LDS chapel in a converted store front. It’s great place.
ah… I was referring to the “hobbit”, due to release on December 14th…
As for travel to NZ, we were once involved in my type of work (national id and border control systems) in NZ, but a few years back my company shut down NZ operations as not being ‘profitable’ enough. it’s too bad — NZ actually is quite forward looking in my space.
InquiringMind, as I read your last post it crossed my mind that much of this irritation may be better understood if we broke up the church into separate individuals. True, there is a sort of group think that comes across as the views of “the church”, but I think it’s fair to ask if a lot of these impressions are more accurately attributed to individual members. For example:
Quote:it is better to lose all your friends and live a life of social isolation than to have a single sip of alcohol
That does not strike me as an official position of the church, but I can imagine some or even many members feeling that way. The reality is different members have different ideas and ideals, many of them are bound to clash in some way – some of them are bound to clash in big ways. Obviously when a strict and black/white outlook is supported it aggravates these clashes, as you so clearly demonstrate. My question is: what is the most productive action that we can take from this point of frustration?
In my view it makes the most sense to accept that many different opinions and views are expressed in church meetings and classes, seminary and institute — even general conference. Since all messages don’t perfectly agree we are to become adults of God and let our own conscience be our guide. Easier said than done I am well aware, and I am open to more productive suggestions.
Again, my own answer is pretty simple: Quote:It also seems that the Church is shooting itself in the foot by selling products . . .
It isn’t selling any products.The Church doesn’t own anything in the mall, so it isn’t selling anything.I understand nuance. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. However, frankly, InquiringMind, I think you’re taking something and making something of it that simply is illogical.
There’s a HUGE difference between saying, “I don’t think the LDS Church should have built a mall that allows other people to sell things of which it doesn’t approve,” and saying, “The Church is selling things by building the mall.” I respect the first position, which is what m&g and others are saying; I think the second position is a straw man, and so I dismiss it without any difficulty.
I’m going to say this pretty directly:
It’s inconsistent, to put it mildly, to criticize the Church for not being totally honest in the way it presents its history and then turn around and say the Church is selling things through the building of the mall. Making that type of leap invalidates complaints about inaccurate portrayals of things that happened over 100 years ago.
I share that for a very specific reason: Until you can start looking a little more dispassionately and accurately about something that is current, you have no chance to begin to see things in multiple lights that are not current.
It disgusts me that the church spent 3 billion on a mall. BUT, I am glad they at least sell alcohol. I enjoyed a beer at the cheesecake factory last month when I visited.
A good friend of mine served his mission in Las Vegas where several church leaders ran casinos. They paid tithing on those earnings. Bill Marriott used to sell Adult Pay per View in his hotels. When I was in my first jobs, I served coffee and tea and registered unmarried couples to hotel rooms in which they could break the law of chastity. Does the church have ongoing management oversight or just up front investment?
hawkgrrrl wrote:Does the church have ongoing management oversight or just up front investment?
I’ve heard that GA’s have given up positions on boards for awhile now, FWIW. My guess is it’s just investment but the whole notion of what’s “moral” becomes so subjective that somebody is going to be upset about almost any financial move. The church’s decision on where to put it’s money becomes a test of commitment to the prophet on one hand or that it’s going or gone to hell in a hand basket on the other.
InquiringMind wrote:The reason I find the Church’s hypocrisy so outrageous in this situation is that that the Church is so firm with its people (especially youth and college-age people) about what kind of behavior is unacceptable. In seminary, it was better to lose all your friends and live a life of social isolation than to have a single sip of alcohol. I remember watching a video in seminary about a kid who was a recent convert and refused to take an excellent job that required him to work on Sunday, and his faithfulness in refusing to take a job that required Sunday work was portrayed as the epitome of valiance.
I think there’s a different set of standards for what I would refer to as “little people” and where real money is involved. I remember David Burton’s talk from many years ago about Joseph Fielding Smith walking past a grocery store that was open on Sundays in order to shop at one that wasn’t. And of course the primary lessons we used to teach about bathing and shining your shoes on Saturday, etc., so as to not work on the Sabbath. There’s the BYU rule about Sunday sporting events, etc.
Of course at the same time the Deseret News is delivered on Sunday, the church-owned TV and radio stations don’t go dark on Sundays, and you can order stuff from Deseret Book on the internet on Sundays. We laud professional football players who play on Sunday, professional golfers who play on Sunday, Larry Miller who owned the Jazz which played on Sunday, the Marriotts who owned hotels open on Sunday, and the list goes on and on.
I had a major WTF moment when the Olympics were held in Salt Lake City and the church encouraged people to volunteer. At the time I wouldn’t even consider allowing the TV to be on on Sunday or to allow the kids to play outside on Sunday. So, I’m not supposed to watch these sporting events, yet I’m encouraged to basically work on a Sunday to volunteer for them? I just couldn’t figure that out.
In general these principles like the Word of Wisdom and observing the Sabbath are fine until there’s real money involved, at which point the church becomes very pragmatic. Where millions are involved or a high degree of prestige for the church, principle is set aside for practicality and accommodation. They are black and white rules for the rank and file members, but subject to interpretation where the leaders and prominent members are involved.
For the record this subject has been hashed and rehashed and will never be settled, but my own personal opinion is that the church should live by its own principles and not be involved in businesses that are open on Sunday, sell alcohol, or broadcast entertainment that is not considered “appropriate”. Financial gain and being a player in the Utah economy should be less a consideration than being consistent with the values expected from the general membership.
Having said that, the church has never operated that way. Polygamy was revealed to the powerful and connected and the leaders have always operated by a different set of standards than the rank and file.
Old-Timer wrote:The Church doesn’t own the stores in the mall.The Church isn’t selling those things.The mall isn’t for Mormons only.I have no problems at all with the things described in the post. If the mall exists for the citizens of SLC and visitors to the city (if it’s a normal mall), it should be providing those things.
This one is easy for me.
I’m not going to be argumentative about it, but I think there’s a high degree of rationalization in these statements. I think the distinction between actually operating the stores and renting the space to the people that do is a pretty subtle one. Maybe if City Creek was organized into retail condos where the stores actually owned the walls and the floors this would be a more relevant distinction, because then the church would have no control over what happened in the space because they didn’t own it. When they knowingly choose to rent to businesses that sell alcohol, coffee, and tea, the church is directly profiting from those things.
I say this with a cup of coffee in front of me. I think the current interpretation of the Word of Wisdom is not in keeping with the original, but there’s an issue of consistency. If they are going to keep me out of the temple over wine and coffee they shouldn’t be in the alcohol and coffee business themselves.
To me the obvious answer is to go back to the original intent of the WoW, which was intended as a law of health and not a metric of institutional conformity.
I remember an article that appeared years ago about LDS farmers in southeast Idaho who raise barley. Guess what barley is generally used for? There are probably members of the Church who work for Bacardi and R.J. Reynolds as well. What about those members working in restaurants that serve alcohol? How about the member-owned chain of motels that offered pay to view pornographic movies? (I think someone may have already mentioned them.) Maybe some of this controversy boils down to “spirit of the law” vs. “letter of the law.” The letter of the law states that Sunday should be a day of rest and would lay out the activities that are and are not appropriate. The spirit of the law would say that Sunday is a day of worship and whatever activities you do is up to you provided you can maintain a mind centered on God and a worshipful attitude. The letter of the law would say that any member of the Church should avoid working in jobs that support, promote, or associate with activities regarded as breaking the commandments. The spirit of the law says well maybe sometimes you have to work at such jobs to get along in this complex worldly world of ours.
We’re not scribes and Pharisees (generally speaking anyway). I prefer to view many of the commandments we’re given as guidelines not rules. In my house, one of our rules is that if you’re a certain age, you go to bed at a particular time during the school year. It’s a clear cut unambiguous rule that my kids complain about but generally obey (with some prodding from parents). We also have guidelines. It is a guideline in our house that you get along with your siblings. This might be done in a variety of ways: being nice, playing games, sharing items, or maybe just AVOIDING the person who’s being difficult.
Now how does this relate to City Creek? Well, the church has some guidelines about being fiscally responsible. There are no hard and fast rules as to how this should be done. And so the power that be made a decision to set up a mall recognizing that in the interest of being responsible, some less than ideal businesses would have to be allowed.
We live in a complex world where hard and fast rules probably won’t work. But guidelines allow some flexibility in interpretation. Okay okay, I know some of you are going to say “Hey! To get a temple recommend you have to follow certain rules like Word of Wisdom obedience and paying tithing” and my answer is… :
:I got nothin’! My experience has been that people and organizations they form are complex bundles of contradictions.
On my mission I was chewed out by an AP for eating coffee cake, and was told we should shun the very appearance of evil. If the church wants to teach members that kind of thinking, than the high ground would be to be consistent with their appearances. I can see that point.
But if you ask me, I don’t think the church teaches such extreme and whacky views, but people lean towards more extreme righteousness until sometimes they look beyond the mark on what is being taught and why and how to judge things. So this City Creek can be an example of being smart over “the principle of the matter”. That’s wisdom.
I would rather have a church that is smart, manages their money wisely, invests in the community and builds jobs for people to help the economy, tries to help take care of the poor and needy, and stays out of debt. As long as they were consistent and teaching local leaders to have the same attitude towards me and what they ask of me.
In that view, I’m okay with the investment in City Creek because there are good things for the church and the community that can come out of it.
I’m also glad Pres Hinckley’s told the public on several occasions during the Olympics bars will be open and stores will stay open on Sunday for visitors coming to SLC.
:clap: more of that! More of that! Not less of that!I prefer those reasonable stands, and do not want my church to teach members to say “you should not eat coffee cake” or “we don’t want someone smelling like smoke in our chapels” or “store owners shoud not be given a choice on what to sell or what days they can operate”.
:thumbdown: I’d rather the church be more reasonable. I think it sets a precedence for members to start lightening up about some things too and be smart and reasonable, not so uptight and hung up on the principle of the matter.
So I guess I’m saying, I can see the point, they can’t preach over the pulpit one thing and do anything even closely resembling anything else…they should be held to the highest standard. It can be viewed as hypicritical. So I hope they stop saying such strong words over the pulpit and preach more reasonable and smart things the members should digest.
And let me digest my coffee cake!
:angel: That scripture (“abstain from all appearance of evil”) is one of the most misunderstood, distorted verses in all of our scriptures. It says to avoid all evil, no matter how it appears – NOT to avoid anything that isn’t evil but might look like evil to some people. Those two things are radically different, and the second one is stupid and against the spirit of the Gospel.
Quote:It says to avoid all evil, no matter how it appears – NOT to avoid anything that isn’t evil but might look like evil to some people. Those two things are radically different, and the second one is stupid and against the spirit of the Gospel.
+1000
It is funny how often this small fragment of a verse gets trotted out.
It’s interesting to see opinions on both sides. Quote:Polygamy was revealed to the powerful and connected and the leaders have always operated by a different set of standards than the rank and file.
History shows that holding the leadership to a different standard than the rank-and-file is the norm. Leadership has much more moral freedom than the rank-and-file members, whose job it is to do what they are told. One study showed that people who felt they were in a position of power felt less guilty about lying, even though the power was completely fake. Another study showed that people who felt they were in a position of power were more likely to allow themselves to bend the rules, but at the same time they were hard on rule-benders who they perceived as being lower-status then them. That’s just how humans work.
Heck, people even hold God to a completely different set of moral standards- people make excuses for God’s actions (or lack of action) that they would be embarrassed to make for a human parent.
So I’m curious- for those who think that it’s OK for alcohol and tea to be sold at the City Creek Center, here’s my next question: If an LDS person buys and drinks alcohol and tea from the City Creek Center, are they still worthy to go to the temple?
IM, this may seem ironic but we have to set a higher standered then those that hard line. I ry not not judge others but if I must I judge them by their own standards. The people that hard line with the appearance of evil or standards in absolutes are setting themselves and others up for failure. We(as a people) should try to rise above this. Hard lining and absolutes lead to intolerance which leads to suffering. That is why I won’t take a absolute position or encourage anyone to on this or other matters. I personally can’t be a part of intolerance or suffering. My position is just to do my best with love, and do my best to protect those from suffering around me. I’ll let god sort out the messy details of judgement inbetween.
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