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Okay, I have been taught my whole life to listen to the “still small voice” and he will tell you what is true. When I heard Packer and Oaks talk today, the HG told me, “no, it’s not true.” I prayed about it, it’s been on my mind all day. The spirit tells me it’s not true. Now what?
Of course, Oaks even said in his talk, and I paraphrase, that if my “direct line” says anything that contradicts the priesthood line, that it can’t be from god and it must be from satan.” So basically, using Spock’s logic. Why even pray about it. There is only one possible answer as far as the church is concerned.
🙄 Cwald… I am totally feeling your frustration here! 😥 😡 I have had a couple of very powerful and beautiful experiences when I have prayed about things that according to these talks could have only been attributed to Satan. I didn’t realize that darn Satan could cause such a “burning in my bosom” give me the “warm fuzzies” and cause me to have such vivid and enlightening dreams. Wow.. that satan is one tricky little fella. I guess the only way I can determine if something is from the spirit is to run it past the church for approval.
flowerdrops wrote:I guess the only way I can determine if something is from the spirit is to run it past the church for approval.
😆 Hilarious. I hope you don’t get “moderated” though.
cwald wrote:Now what?
Well … that might very well be what THEY would tell you to do. But maybe you can also just decide they are wrong about what they said???!!! It seems to simple to work …
😆 Decide they are wrong and you are right. That pretty much nullifies the whole argument. If you really believe God gave you a different answer, believe God. Ignore the rest of the noise.
Even though the Q15 and 70s
seema lot of times like a united front, they aren’t. They really are not. I bet there are GA’s and even apostles that cringe when some of their co-workers say stuff like that. You know they have some heated discussions at times behind closed doors. There is only one path tho follow. The one that you think is correct. I would rather face God having to explain myself for doing what I thought was right and being wrong than just getting a pass for doing what I was told. It is contrary to the intelligence that God gave me.
cwald wrote:Of course, Oaks even said in his talk, and I paraphrase, that if my “direct line” says anything that contradicts the priesthood line, that it can’t be from god and it must be from satan.”
Did he actually make an unqualified statement like that? Wow! It throws out concepts like “all calls are not inspired”, “even Prophets make mistakes” etcetera — all the saving graces that make it easier to believe in the gospel as preached in the LDS church….it also puts huge pressure on the priesthood organization to be near infallible, which is never a good thing when men claim to act for God.
For the first time in many years, you have me interested in actually listening to the talks….or reading about them in the Ensign. I usually take GC weekends “off” to add variety to life.
SilentDawning wrote:Did he actually make an unqualified statement like that?
To be fair, I will wait until someone finds and posts the exact quote before I respond to the question.
He said the primary line of revelation is the personal one. Accept your answer for yourself. It’s what I do. I sustain and support both of them in their callings, but my primary line for myself is my own with God.
“ cwald wrote:To be fair, I will wait until someone finds and posts the exact quote before I respond to the question.
“Unfortunately it is common for persons who are violating God’s commandments or disobedient to the council of their priesthood leaders to declare that God has revealed to them that they are excused from obeying some commandment or from following some counsel. Such persons may be receiving such revelation or inspiration, but it is not from the source they suppose – the devil is the father of lies and he is ever anxious to frustrate the work of God by his clever imitations. Unlike the personal line in which our Heavenly Father communicates with us directly through the Holy Ghost, the Priesthood line of communication has the additional and necessary intermediaries of our Savior Jesus Christ, his church, and his appointed leaders.” -Dallin H. Oaks
Cadence wrote:I would rather face God having to explain myself for doing what I thought was right and being wrong than just getting a pass for doing what I was told.
AMEN! Brother Cadence
flowerdrops wrote:“Unfortunately it is common for persons who are violating God’s commandments or disobedient to the council of their priesthood leaders to declare that God has revealed to them that they are excused from obeying some commandment or from following some counsel. Such persons may be receiving such revelation or inspiration, but it is not from the source they suppose – the devil is the father of lies and he is ever anxious to frustrate the work of God by his clever imitations. Unlike the personal line in which our Heavenly Father communicates with us directly through the Holy Ghost, the Priesthood line of communication has the additional and necessary intermediaries of our Savior Jesus Christ, his church, and his appointed leaders.” -Dallin H. Oaks
Look, you all know to some extent how unorthodox I am in both belief and practice. But … I actually think this is true when it comes to fundamental issues of morality, for most people, 99% of the time.
-Thou shalt not murder.
-Thou shalt not commit adultery.
-Thou shalt love God, and love they neighbor as thy self.
-Follow Christ’s example to reach your divine potential.
-Don’t do stupid stuff that hurts people or creates suffering.
-etc.
I could go on and on and on. Really, how often is it OK to murder someone so you can steal their stuff? In how many situations is it OK to cheat on your spouse? When should you not love other people and try to find opportunities to serve them with your talents and abilities, as an act of serving God?
Most of the stuff that really matters, it’s pretty solid council and advice.
When it gets down to truly mundane things, like “everyone should read 200 pages of the Book of Mormon before Christmas” (yes, my Bishop said that a week ago in SM), well … I might do that. But I might also read something else if the Spirit prompts me to seek other spiritual nourishment.
I know that a lot of members take this the wrong way, and use it as ammunition to blast other people for not being as blindly obedient as them. They seem to really want to justify their behavior to their self that way … whatever …
🙄 Quote:Okay, I have been taught my whole life to listen to the “still small voice” and he will tell you what is true. When I heard Packer and Oaks talk today, the HG told me, “no, it’s not true.” I prayed about it, it’s been on my mind all day. The spirit tells me it’s not true.
Now what?
I’ve had this problem before. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. I’ve once had an “answer” to something which was almost certainly not from God, unless God uses four letter words…
“Even though the Q15 and 70s seem a lot of times like a united front, they aren’t. They really are not. I bet there are GA’s and even apostles that cringe when some of their co-workers say stuff like that. You know they have some heated discussions at times behind closed doors.”
I’ll name no names, but I was looking at two quotes on the YSA board. One of them was very moving, and what I consider the core of Christianity. The other was the “do what you’re told” line, hardline authoritarian with little apparent love behind it. In the middle, in more ways than one was Thomas S. Monson, with a quote telling people to attend seminary and institute, but in a more positive manner. I felt the authoritarian (who may be identified by certain board members) put over the kind of attitude that gives us a bad name.
One thing I really hope changes is the complete standardization of the church, why does everything have to be the same everywhere? I presume that they wish to stamp out dissension and heresy, but one size does not fit all. A Samoan church will be different to a Utahn church which will be different to one in Sweden – that’s just how things are, and we should celebrate that.
SamBee wrote:One thing I really hope changes is the complete standardization of the church, why does everything have to be the same everywhere? I presume that they wish to stamp out dissension and heresy, but one size does not fit all.
It’s quite an interesting history really, if you like Mormon history. We live in the “Correlation” era of the church. This started in the 1940’s, at a time when things were much much different in the church. They felt there was possibly too much diversity and theological speculation running rampant. It largely had to do with people not letting go of polygamy too. So they consciously carved out a one-size-fits-all core of culture and ideas, literally reducing “The Gospel” to about 70 short statements on index cards.
I think the pendulum has swung too far in the direction, and we are starting to feel the swing back, or certainly a slowing of it before it reverses. Societies and history are like that, reaction to the excesses of previous generations in a never-ending ebb and flow.
Oaks’ quotation above from flowerdrops is pretty clear. It shows the age-old tension between personal will and revelation and the formal authority of the Church. In this case, it seems that Oaks is really pushing the church authority button. But he also gave a talk when he said “All we can do is teach general principles — if you have an exception, then work it out between you and the Lord — don’t ask me to comment on your exception”. So, I think there is a conflicting message from Oaks on this when you look over the landscape of his talks. Usually this means he’s thinking in terms of certain specific circumstances or qualifications that he isn’t expressing here. I like Brian’s interpretation that the quote from THIS conference is for the major commandments, while his previous quote is for matters that aren’t bedrock in the gospel, but are softer commandments subject to individual’s personal circumstances, like keeping the Sabbath Day holy, for example.
I hope so Brian, the mass production and standardization mode of the church derives ridicule from non-members, and probably lessens people’s spiritual experiences. When they see a bunch of people in identical suits all doing the same thing, outsiders do not see this as a display of unity, so much as a display of robots. It makes everything VERY BORING!
On the plus side, I notice that the missionary leaflets now have more variety in them than when I joined.
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