Correlation?

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

That was a great series. I can’t believe I didn’t remember it.

Yeah, it really is a superb primer on the subject of Correlation. After reading it, and listening to the Daymon Smith interview on Mormon Stories, I pick up a fascinating number of ques and clues about this in General Conference talks and other materials. BKP brings it up now and then when he strolls down memory lane. He will mention “correlation” by name. Most members are not old enough to have such a conscious memory of being a part of this transformation. It just IS how it is now, and we assume it has always been that way — which is the whole point. Correlation pulls the past into the present, right into our own personal history and experience, and filters the whole of reality into a consistent and eternal mythological narrative. Adam all the way to the present, we all have the same church.

Someone really has to delve in Daymon Smith’s dissertation concept, the power of the transformation in language tools we use, to really get how profound this shift was. We use many of the same words, but the meaning and thought processes are radically different. When we read sermons from 19th century pioneer mormons (JS, BY, John Taylor, Orson Pratt, etc.), we here familiar “Mormon” language … BUT, they are often (almost always) talking about something very different in their minds and their spiritual experience. Words like Faith, Priesthood, Spirit and their whole perspective on what it means to be Mormon is NOT the same.

[Anonymous]

DA I’m with you as well, “bend but don’t break” sounds like a great policy. I also think the church will go that way in the future. In my view reality dictates it. Humans are too imperfect to hold such a rigid line, I think a lot of the present day disaffections demonstrate what happens with too narrow of a view.

[Anonymous]

Orson wrote:

DA I’m with you as well, “bend but don’t break” sounds like a great policy. I also think the church will go that way in the future. In my view reality dictates it. Humans are too imperfect to hold such a rigid line, I think a lot of the present day disaffections demonstrate what happens with too narrow of a view.

Really? With the exception of an occasional talk by Urtchdorf, what has the church done to indicate it will accept a “bend but don’t break” attitude? Where does your hope come from? I understand it SHOULD be this way. But… If anything, the church is going more hard line and stressing obedience and conformity —- not diversity. Especially when one considers all the propaganda from GC from Oaks, Costa, Packer, the 14 principles, and now the CHI stressing TR in order to perform ordinances etc. These kind of talks and policies are designed to make the devout, devouter, and the unorthodox, middle way mormon on the fringes choose whether they want to be in, or out. IMO, the leadership is pushing guys like us OUT, not doing anything to help us feel welcome and stick around.

I wish you were correct Orson— but wishing gets you no where. I use to believe and have faith the church would evolve and change. Not anymore. There is no indication of it. Tell me if I’m wrong. I want to be wrong on this one. I have been waiting for some honey and milk for years, and actually thought the church was making progress. Not so. I’m tired of waiting for milk and honey, and getting salt and vinegar instead.

[Anonymous]

mormonheretic wrote:

DA, I agree with your sentiments. I think there should be a bit more leeway with the Gospel.

Orson wrote:

DA I’m with you as well, “bend but don’t break” sounds like a great policy. I also think the church will go that way in the future. In my view reality dictates it. Humans are too imperfect to hold such a rigid line, I think a lot of the present day disaffections demonstrate what happens with too narrow of a view.

cwald wrote:

Really? With the exception of an occasional talk by Urtchdorf, what has the church done to indicate it will accept a “bend but don’t break” attitude? Where does your hope come from? I understand it SHOULD be this way. But… If anything, the church is going more hard line and stressing obedience and conformity —- not diversity.

I don’t think it’s simply a matter of personal preference at this point, it looks to me like the Church has already reached the high point of what they can realistically expect to accomplish with some of the same old inflexible doctrines and policies and an intolerant all-or-nothing attitude and it will only be downhill from now on as long as they continue to deny some of the evidence stacked against some of their absolute claims. Of course, it looks like some hardliners like Packer and Oaks don’t really mind alienating members that don’t quite fit the mold and maybe they sincerely think they are just trying to hunker down against the big bad world and separate the wheat from the tares in preparation for the imminent second coming and end of time.

It could easily take more than 50 years for the reality that some of these same old doctrines and policies just aren’t working quite as well as they did before to really sink in at the highest levels of Church leadership. What bothers me the most about this is that much of this “doctrine” is based mostly on pure opinions, speculation, trial and error, etc. but now members act like this is the way it has always been and the way that it always needs to be and have elevated things like not drinking coffee and paying tithing as if they are more important than loving your neighbor like Jesus said we should. Seriously, you can be a complete jerk to your neighbors, family, etc. and still get a temple recommend and feel satisfied with yourself as if you are completely righteous simply because you obeyed a few rules like tithing and the WoW.

[Anonymous]

I am really glad I opened up this thread as it has been very enlightening for me. As I said in my initial post I was unaware of this policy until recently and wanted to know more about it, and the list members have definitely supplied that. I believe my initial thoughts on it are right, that it did more harm than good. I think I would have been far more willing to continue in the church if it hadn’t adopted such a cookie-cutter outlook that made me, at least, feel ostracized. This, even way before I learned about some the problems with the orthodoxy. The church simply didn’t fit who I was as a person, and therefore made me feel unwelcome. But knowing now about correlation I can see how that happened. Not much insight, I realize, but just my two cents.

I would really love to know what it was like being a Mormon in the early days. It’s impossible to totally capture the past, and I don’t agree with the polygamy, but just wonder what kind of licenses there was in believing. It seems it was a much more open church then than it became. I don’t like the authority aspect that correlation seems to have imposed on the church; it’s fascistic, is it not? I am not surprised that I got turned off by the church for the very reason of it, having grown up in the church when it happened. I suppose the elders had no idea that some of us would have reasons to disagree. They totally misjudged/misunderstood/could make no sense of the revolution in drug use that gave some of us a deeper reason to question authority. So it is.

[Anonymous]

curt, fwiw, the grass always is greener.

Back in the day, some members were excommunicated over quite trivial things – and there were some really wacky things that were taught at the local level. Adam/God is absolutley tame compared to much of what was preached then.

It’s easy to hold up a former “Golden Age” as idealic compared to the present, but I personally wouldn’t trade places with the early Saints for anything. I am very serious when I say that. I’ve read enough about their lives and their times to not envy them.

[Anonymous]

[Warning, incoming tsunami wall of text, hehe]

HOMOGENIZATION OF THE RELIGION AND CULTURE:

An important aspect to remember with Correlation, is that it didn’t happen in a vacuum, for it’s own sake. It was a direct response to the need to differentiate from other Mormons (future “Fundamentalists”) who would not give up the practice of plural marriage. There are two main challenges they faced:

1. We are NOT them!

Much of what we ended up with in Correlated LDS Mormonism was a response to making a clear line of separation from another faction in the same original culture. If we are not them, then the “we” have to decide what is the new normal. This creates a homogenization process, flattening the existing diversity to accentuate the sameness and mutual association of the newly emerging non-polygamous LDS group (The CoJCoLDS).

2. Connect the dots back to Joseph Smith and the foundation/restoration.

The church JS formed in 1830 was in fact dissolved by the Federal Gov’t. It no longer exists as a legal entity. Not only that, it simply wasn’t the exact same religious and theological construct anymore in the 1920’s-1930’s. It had evolved. The “Fundamentalists” were claiming a lineage from the original 19th century Pioneer Mormonism. So the CoJCoLDS had to form that connection back to the source as well. This is where Priesthood Correlaton comes in (redefining what the word “priesthood” means), and a focused effort to see the current religion as having been eternal and unchanging (they were the same in 1830 as now, so was Moses, Noah, etc., all the way back to Adam).

So the new “Mormon” created through the homogenization of Correlation is narrowly defined, and all the past “Mormons” are hammered into the new shape, like they were always this way. This is why it is so hard to be different and have different beliefs as a Mormon today — being different is uncorrelated, even if our style resembles a more accurate historical snapshot of 19th century Pioneer Mormons.

BEING MORMON:

Pre-Correlation LDS Mormonism was more focused on the physical world and the body, the individual experience. Post-Correlation Mormonism is highly concerned with the mind and with orthodoxy — “correlation” means the degree of relationship between two variables. Is a member correlated with the organization? Is the present correlated with the past?

Pre-Correlated Mormons were focused on building a tangible utopia — Zion. It was a real geographical location (Kirtland, Independence, Nauvoo, Salt Lake, etc.). It was land, commerce, government, family, community. The speculative theology talked a lot about physical and tangible topics: God has a body. God physically procreates. God creates an Earth in a “void” of unorganized matter (like making a civilization in a desert). Members are working towards becoming gods like God, and making their own earth planets, just like pioneers make farms. The religion reflected their personal experiences living life. And most importantly, the religion was assumed to EVOLVE and be REVEALED as one progressed through the journey.

A classic example of this thinking is when Joseph Smith defended someone in a church court saying:

“I did not like the old man being called up for erring in doctrine. It looks too much like the Methodist, and not like the Latter-day Saints. Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be asked out of their church. I want the liberty of thinking and believing as I please. It feels so good not to be trammeled. It does not prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine.” (History of the Church 5:340)

You will see this time and time again. Joseph didn’t care so much that people had other viewpoint (their mind), so long as they were his allies and friends — they were helping BUILD this tangible Zion (their bodies).

Post-Correlated Mormons are very concerned about what is in your mind, that you believe a certain way. There is no central Zion, no single physical community. We are now stakes of a tent (figuratively) and the “Zion” is all in the mind (no longer in the body and the individual). It is VERY important if a “man errs in doctrine” because it puts cracks in the mental construct of a consistent and eternal group mind — which is the same mind of God (a set of beliefs).

PRIESTHOOD AUTHORITY:

Pre-Correlation Mormons saw the Holy Order of the Priesthood like a fraternal order, like a Masonic order, where everyone is working on becoming equals with God (meaning implicitly that we are all equal to each other in the end). Then it is finished. There is no eternal hierarchy. And this is VITALLY important. They saw “Priesthood” as a creative force that animated the Church, in addition to their exaltation, salvation, family, even government and civilized society. The priesthood power flowed from the individual to the group, as friends and co-workers in building utopia.

Post-Correlation Mormonism turns this on it’s head. It was a MAJOR contention between the Fundamentalists and the Monogamists. The main body of LDS Mormons insisted that Priesthood ended when someone was excommunicated, cut off from the church organization. This implies that Priesthood flows from the church (which is mental, a pure thing of the mind, not the tangible world like a body-individual), to the person.

Contemporary correlated Mormonism has this Priesthood structure:

God –> Church –> First Presidency –> Stake President –> Bishop –> Priesthood Holder (the individual)

Before it was:

God –> Priesthood Holder (Individual) –> Church (animated by the power of the priesthood of people) –> Leaders (given power to organize and use the Church to create utopia)

So before, it was more decentralized. Now it is very hierarchical and tied to belonging to a mind-construct called The Church.

[Anonymous]

Well, if you are correct Brian in this explanation – than I have to agree with Curt. I’m not sure the “grass is greener” but I, and probably most here, could discover many of the causes of our faith crisis stem back to correlation.

I think your explanation, “explains” a lot of my angst about the church. The “church” want’s it’s members to all fit in a uniform box – both in belief and behavior. JS never intended for all the members to fit in a box. It is no longer a personal journey. It is a community journey. I think the part about the priesthood chain is brilliant and accurate and explains a ton of why I no longer can keep playing the game.

Quote:

Contemporary correlated Mormonism has this Priesthood structure:

God –> Church –> First Presidency –> Stake President –> Bishop –> Priesthood Holder (the individual)

Before it was:

God –> Priesthood Holder (Individual) –> Church (animated by the power of the priesthood of people) –> Leaders (given power to organize and use the Church to create utopia)

IMO, this was the WRONG way to go! This kind of thinking is stymieing my spiritual growth. IMO – spiritually is a personal journey that each of has to make on our own. I think JS would agree. I have always said the church today does not resemble what I believe JS intended for it to become. I doubt he would even recognize it today to be honest.

I don’t begrudge the “brethren” for correlation and changing the structure of the church. The church has just grown TOO BIG, and has lost many of the meaningful ideology and practices that JS set up that made it beautiful. Some may still be able to find the truth within. Some may be able to grow spiritually within the correlation structure and the contemporary Mormon priesthood structure. Some are better at community worship and growing together in spirit. It is what it is….and it doesn’t work for me.

[Anonymous]

cwald wrote:

IMO, this was the WRONG way to go! This kind of thinking is stymieing my spiritual growth.

I get what you are saying because I realize that I am also not someone who gets as much benefit from sameness and structured hierarchy.

It’s hard to look back and say it was the wrong way to go. It was a response to an internal social crisis. It did successfully split the polygamists from the monogamists, and finally did get the message through to LDS Mormons that the Manifesto was REAL. It did allow Utah to become a state, and for LDS Mormons to start becoming integrated into the United States as a non-rebelling group.

But what happens now, 50 to 80 years later, that the crisis is solved? We made the split. Both groups are on their own tracks now, more or less. I am hoping we can start to put this tool away and more freely explore what it means, on a personal and individual level, what it means to be “Mormon.”

I want more diversity now. The problem is solved.

[Anonymous]

cwald wrote:

Orson wrote:

DA I’m with you as well, “bend but don’t break” sounds like a great policy. I also think the church will go that way in the future. In my view reality dictates it…

Really? With the exception of an occasional talk by Urtchdorf, what has the church done to indicate it will accept a “bend but don’t break” attitude? Where does your hope come from? …

From where I sit it comes from all around me. Local leaders play a big part, and I look at young local leaders becoming the next aging GA’s. Also I take a lot of what I see coming from the LDS.org Newsroom as being friendly to broader views. The talks from pres. Uchtdorf and others also help obviously — as well as visiting with all the good folks here and other places online. When the membership shifts the whole church goes with it, I see constant evolution in the history of the church.

I also realize there will always be “hard-liners” …there will always be a full range of personality types; but my experience says broader views are becoming more accepted. I sit in GD class on sunday and hear a stake leader say “there are many things about the atonement that I don’t understand…” to me he even implied that he doesn’t get why it is necessary to meet the demands of justice. Maybe I’m one to pick up on all these little cues and form my own view with them with the spin that I like to put on it. Maybe I’m just fortunate to be among some great people locally. I don’t feel inhibited speaking with local leaders in a way that I am comfortable with.

That’s where I’m coming from anyway.

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

But what happens now, 50 to 80 years later, that the crisis is solved? We made the split. Both groups are on their own tracks now, more or less. I am hoping we can start to put this tool away and more freely explore what it means, on a personal and individual level, what it means to be “Mormon.”

I want more diversity now. The problem is solved.

Agreed – I don’t blame the church for doing what it had to to survive. Perhaps the church has outgrown it’s original purpose???

However, I have lost hope. I have no faith that the church will “come back”, at least not in my lifetime. I hoped for too long, and seen nothing to indicate things are going to change – it’s led me to bitterness. I think guys like us will just have to glean a bit here and bit there from our limited participation in the church, and move on with life.

I understand the purpose of the LDS church, all churches and religions for that matter. They serve a role in developing civic, community, family and personal faith relationships. Religion, or believers, can find a certain amount of spiritually from following a prescribed method of worship and theology. Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people. As the Dalai Lama so eloquently explains, religions in and amongst themselves, are not really necessary. (I know that the LDS leadership would disagree with that thought )

Forgive me for the long Dalai Lama quote – but I think it is pertinent.

Quote:

There are two levels of spirituality: one is spiritually without religious faith, the other with religious faith. I feel that the first category is very important, because most people, even though they are born into one religion or another, do not pay heed to religous belief in their daily life…It is wrong to think that concepts of love compassion and forgiveness are purely religious subjects. It is a narrow understanding that makes one think that these moral issues cannot be practiced without religious faith…Of course these issues are covered in all world’s major religions. However, if we think deeply, religious faith and the concepts of love, compassion, kindness and forgiveness are essentially different

Sometimes, major religious traditions place too much emphasis on ritual and ceremony without having a proper understanding of its meaning. Therefore the religious contribution and influences are also limited…

Once you adopt and accept a religion, you should be very sincere and very serious. However, if you are too serious and narrow-minded, there is the danger of becoming what one calls a fundamentalist. If religion is not properly practiced, then there is is a danger of believing only in one’s own relgion and dismssing the others, thus becoming fundamentalist…

People with different mental dispositions need different religions. One religion simple cannot satisfy everyone. Therefore, for the individual, the concept of one religion and one truth is very important. Without this, one cannot develop genuine faith and follow it faithfully. With the regard to the community, we obviously need the concept of several religions and several “truths”…

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

…An important aspect to remember with Correlation, is that it didn’t happen in a vacuum, for it’s own sake. It was a direct response to the need to differentiate from other Mormons (future “Fundamentalists”) who would not give up the practice of plural marriage.

…Joseph Smith defended someone in a church court saying:

Quote:

“I did not like the old man being called up for erring in doctrine. It looks too much like the Methodist, and not like the Latter-day Saints. Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be asked out of their church. I want the liberty of thinking and believing as I please. It feels so good not to be trammeled. It does not prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine.” (History of the Church 5:340)

cwald wrote:

Well, if you are correct Brian in this explanation – than I have to agree with Curt. I’m not sure the “grass is greener” but I, and probably most here, could discover many of the causes of our faith crisis stem back to correlation.

I think your explanation, “explains” a lot of my angst about the church. The “church” want’s it’s members to all fit in a uniform box – both in belief and behavior.

Maybe correlation made more sense 50-80 years ago and maybe it still makes sense to some extent now. It’s not the correlation itself that bothers me; I just think they’ve gone way too far with the level of importance they have attached to so many different doctrines. Maybe for members that are already accustomed to doctrines like tithing, callings, and the WoW it may not seem all that difficult and for many of them the good still outweighs the bad. However, the problem is that many of these doctrines are common deal-breakers that also make it difficult for many lukewarm members to get along with true believers very well which will continue to divide families in a cult-like and un-Christian way.

Personally, I think the leaders haven’t worried that much about the uphill battle it has become to retain members with so many hard-line doctrines that are difficult to accept simply because the number of converts and children raised in the Church have always been more than enough to make up for any losses so far. However, smaller families and anti-Mormon propaganda on the internet have really thrown a wrench into things and started to erode the membership base. Sure some membership losses and inactivity are inevitable, I just don’t think we need to give people so many different reasons to leave the Church feeling bitter about it. Even without making any official changes there are already enough positive feel-good doctrines in the Church that they could focus on instead rather than harping so much on things like the supposed necessity of extreme sacrifice, unquestioning obedience, etc.

[Anonymous]

A big focus of correlation was to reorganize the reporting structure of the church to make adminstration more efficient and manageable. In the days of my youth the ward RS president was responsible to the stake RS pres. and from there to the RS general board in Salt Lake. The bishop could advise her but in reality she was fairly independent. Same with the MIA programs. The feeling was that if the church was to be able to become world wide it needed to have streamlined supervision and authority based on priesthood hierarchy. The sad result was the RS losing control of their curriiculum, magazine, funds and autonomy but at least they go to keep the building. The general boards have continued by now mainly for training and curriculum development but without the independence they once had.

[Anonymous]

I’m going to post here as to not entirely hijack the other To what extent is the Church responsible for our experience? thread. We started a conversation about how correlation has changed the structure of the church

GOD>Individual>Church to what we have today which is GOD>CHURCH>Individual.

Here is Brian very long but very insightful explanation of how this happened.

Brian Johnston wrote:

[Warning, incoming tsunami wall of text, hehe]

HOMOGENIZATION OF THE RELIGION AND CULTURE:

An important aspect to remember with Correlation, is that it didn’t happen in a vacuum, for it’s own sake. It was a direct response to the need to differentiate from other Mormons (future “Fundamentalists”) who would not give up the practice of plural marriage. There are two main challenges they faced:

1. We are NOT them!

Much of what we ended up with in Correlated LDS Mormonism was a response to making a clear line of separation from another faction in the same original culture. If we are not them, then the “we” have to decide what is the new normal. This creates a homogenization process, flattening the existing diversity to accentuate the sameness and mutual association of the newly emerging non-polygamous LDS group (The CoJCoLDS).

2. Connect the dots back to Joseph Smith and the foundation/restoration.

The church JS formed in 1830 was in fact dissolved by the Federal Gov’t. It no longer exists as a legal entity. Not only that, it simply wasn’t the exact same religious and theological construct anymore in the 1920’s-1930’s. It had evolved. The “Fundamentalists” were claiming a lineage from the original 19th century Pioneer Mormonism. So the CoJCoLDS had to form that connection back to the source as well. This is where Priesthood Correlaton comes in (redefining what the word “priesthood” means), and a focused effort to see the current religion as having been eternal and unchanging (they were the same in 1830 as now, so was Moses, Noah, etc., all the way back to Adam).

So the new “Mormon” created through the homogenization of Correlation is narrowly defined, and all the past “Mormons” are hammered into the new shape, like they were always this way. This is why it is so hard to be different and have different beliefs as a Mormon today — being different is uncorrelated, even if our style resembles a more accurate historical snapshot of 19th century Pioneer Mormons.

BEING MORMON:

Pre-Correlation LDS Mormonism was more focused on the physical world and the body, the individual experience. Post-Correlation Mormonism is highly concerned with the mind and with orthodoxy — “correlation” means the degree of relationship between two variables. Is a member correlated with the organization? Is the present correlated with the past?

Pre-Correlated Mormons were focused on building a tangible utopia — Zion. It was a real geographical location (Kirtland, Independence, Nauvoo, Salt Lake, etc.). It was land, commerce, government, family, community. The speculative theology talked a lot about physical and tangible topics: God has a body. God physically procreates. God creates an Earth in a “void” of unorganized matter (like making a civilization in a desert). Members are working towards becoming gods like God, and making their own earth planets, just like pioneers make farms. The religion reflected their personal experiences living life. And most importantly, the religion was assumed to EVOLVE and be REVEALED as one progressed through the journey.

A classic example of this thinking is when Joseph Smith defended someone in a church court saying:

“I did not like the old man being called up for erring in doctrine. It looks too much like the Methodist, and not like the Latter-day Saints. Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be asked out of their church. I want the liberty of thinking and believing as I please. It feels so good not to be trammeled. It does not prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine.” (History of the Church 5:340)

You will see this time and time again. Joseph didn’t care so much that people had other viewpoint (their mind), so long as they were his allies and friends — they were helping BUILD this tangible Zion (their bodies).

Post-Correlated Mormons are very concerned about what is in your mind, that you believe a certain way. There is no central Zion, no single physical community. We are now stakes of a tent (figuratively) and the “Zion” is all in the mind (no longer in the body and the individual). It is VERY important if a “man errs in doctrine” because it puts cracks in the mental construct of a consistent and eternal group mind — which is the same mind of God (a set of beliefs).

PRIESTHOOD AUTHORITY:

Pre-Correlation Mormons saw the Holy Order of the Priesthood like a fraternal order, like a Masonic order, where everyone is working on becoming equals with God (meaning implicitly that we are all equal to each other in the end). Then it is finished. There is no eternal hierarchy. And this is VITALLY important. They saw “Priesthood” as a creative force that animated the Church, in addition to their exaltation, salvation, family, even government and civilized society. The priesthood power flowed from the individual to the group, as friends and co-workers in building utopia.

Post-Correlation Mormonism turns this on it’s head. It was a MAJOR contention between the Fundamentalists and the Monogamists. The main body of LDS Mormons insisted that Priesthood ended when someone was excommunicated, cut off from the church organization. This implies that Priesthood flows from the church (which is mental, a pure thing of the mind, not the tangible world like a body-individual), to the person.

Contemporary correlated Mormonism has this Priesthood structure:

God –> Church –> First Presidency –> Stake President –> Bishop –> Priesthood Holder (the individual)

Before it was:

God –> Priesthood Holder (Individual) –> Church (animated by the power of the priesthood of people) –> Leaders (given power to organize and use the Church to create utopia)

So before, it was more decentralized. Now it is very hierarchical and tied to belonging to a mind-construct called The Church.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for bringing me to this thread, cwald. I hadn’t read it before.

Here’s my favorite part from Joseph Smith:

Quote:

“I did not like the old man being called up for erring in doctrine. It looks too much like the Methodist, and not like the Latter-day Saints. Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be asked out of their church. I want the liberty of thinking and believing as I please. It feels so good not to be trammeled. It does not prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine.” (History of the Church 5:340)

This thread and your posts help clarify for me your position, cwald.

However, we may be talking past each other a bit. Authority and priesthood and order in the church is one thing. Affairs of the church and the Lord’s will for church policy will always be GOD > CHURCH > Individual, where I get to consent and receive a witness of the truthfulness of tithing or the requirements for baptism or the standards for temple worthiness. Those are church administrated rules, and it wouldn’t work if everyone received their own revelation on how those rules are carried out.

But I still feel the church teaches that we have direct access to God’s power in our lives (GOD > MAN > CHURCH), and the church is there to support and help us. I do not have to go to the bishop to ask who I should marry, in fact, they discourage it and call you an unprofitable servant to require direction in your life for everything.

I still maintain, I do not need to go through the church to reach God. There are things revealed to the church through proper authority, but that my journey to God is personal. I decide if the Book of Mormon is true. I don’t have to go to a priest to receive a witness for me.

Correlation is about how the church functions and how the church teaches individuals and families on a global scale. Conversion is personalized.

[Author]

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