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Wallace Stegner’s book of essays “Mormon Country” is interesting for any that may not remember what the church was like before correlation. Very different though I’m not sure I’d say better, just different. It was suited for a time when the church was small in just about every way. I don’t think it would work so well now though. Just too big. Thanks, GB. I will have to check that out. I like it that the church changes as needed. I like having my iPad with all conference talks, lesson manuals, and scriptures at my fingertips. I just don’t think the church could provide that if it wasn’t correlated.
I agree, it is different, not necessarily good or bad, just different.
But I want to make sure that even if the church changes its administration practices…I still have access to go to God for answers, and not have to go through church leaders to get God’s answers for my areas of stewardship (basically, me and my family).
I understand the concept of personal revelation compared to priesthood revelation – and I believe in it the way JS envisioned it and practiced and taught it. That kind of church ceased to exist in the early 1900s when polygamy was discontinued and the fundalmentalist movement was born. I understand why the church has gone that route — but it doesn’t make it “true” or divine IMO. Where the cog dis comes from is when the two lines are in conflict. Such as was addresses in Oct conference with the two lines of communication and the 14Fs. What happens when your personal revelation doesn’t match up with what the church says, such as gay rights, gay marriage, blacks and priesthood, polygamy, two sets of earrings, wearing blue shirts to church, the evils of drinking tea and the ERA, the 14Fs themselves etc etc.
I mean, yeah, it’s great that the church tells us to go to god and get an answer to all these commandments and policies and doctrines, but the problem is, is they already have determined the correct answer for you – and if your personal revelation from god isn’t what they want it to be – then you are supposedly getting from a “difference source” because the prophets are ALWAYS right and will NEVER LEAD the people astray. So in affect, the priesthood ban was absolutely gods will until the moment that SWK said otherwise, and if you had questioned it the week before and made a big deal about it being wrong – you very well could have ended up in a church court, and lost your priesthood blessings, temple sealings and in effect your entire exaltation and salvation. Man>church>God.
So really, what is the point of EVER going to god to get confirmation about what a prophet says. The answer IS ALWAYS “yes, it is true and you must obey it if you want to get TR and received exaltation.” Why ever pray to know if the BoM is true. If you get a “no” answer, your revelation is coming from “a differet source,” and your leaders will just tell you to pray harder until you get a yes answer. (thanks Cadence)
Also – perhaps another grave false teaching of the church, is that if members don’t follow ALL the commandments they will “lose the spirit” and no longer be able to commune with god and receive their own personal revelation. Yes, that IS what we teach. So in affect, they are claiming that one must go through them and obey the “churches commandments” like abstaining from tea and doing home teaching etc if the individual wants to keep the spirit and have a personal relationship with God. Man>church>God
These kind of beliefs and teachings make no sense to me, and I actually don’t think all of the Q15 believe them — but no one is speaking up “loud enough” to do anything about it — no one stood up in CG this April and countered the Two lines of communication and 14Fs debacle from the Oct GC. Why not?
Because we are correlated to spiritual death– and have painted ourselves into a corner and have no way of getting out. Maybe correlation is like democracy. It’s a system that allows a way to move forward, even though it comes with flaws and baggage. Is there a better way? Yes and no, IMO. Listening to Damon Smith’s Mormon stories tapes was a total epiphany for me (last year or so). The basic reasons for my apostasy became clear. As you will be able to tell from just a post or two from me today, I come from a very uncorrelated experience. For example the person in this thread speaking about the Waco wasted year of the person relating what Calling and Election meant, would be me if they allowed it. (sure there is a second anointing ordinance, which involves the washing of feet that is done in the temple, but the true calling and election can only can in done in as It sounds like was taught that wasted year – who is it with the pink floyd album cover icon – “wish you were here”).
I noted that the thread brought out some important aspects of the church’s need to separate itself from the fundamentalist and listed that as correlation. Damon Smith’s work was a two part deal – evolution of the manifesto and then correlation. I believe true correction, as we know it today, did not start until the late 70’s to mid 80’s (sorry bad memory).
The interesting part to me is that a type of correction started big time with Joseph Fielding Smith (my hero BH Roberts era) as he started the slow but sure steering the church in its doctrines, starting with the removal of the Lectures on Faith from the D&C. This lead to a few generations of indoctrination changes that led to the likes of what some of us used to negatively refer to as “The Gospel according to Bruce” (i.e. Mormon Doctrine).
Of course the large majority of members at that time (60’s-80’s). Totally embraced Mormon Doctrine, this was the bible of Mormon theology to them.
Of course anyone that had actually read much pre JFS, or BHR, would be some of the very first members to understand the concept of “shelving” those nasty cog dis episodes.
This last year marks a significant event in this history of correlation, with the retirement of “Mormon Doctrine”. It has now successfully been correlated out of even its elements of extremism, which was authorized and common, over the pulpit material throughout my active experience.
Well, anyway, sorry for another wall of text … but indeed it seems the church can remain the only true church on the face of the earth and yet undergo major doctrinal changes in the course of a hundred years or so.
I miss those old waco’s. oh wait, I am one of those old wacos.
Blast from the past. I didn’t want to create a thread for something that probably wouldn’t generate any interest. Recently (sometime in the last few years) the church has correlated the Sunday session of stake conference. Themes and topics may have been handed down from the top but it was still a local production. Now it’s similar to GC, messages prepared by GAs or AAs that are broadcast to multiple stakes at a time. The question is why?
The pros:
This helps take some of the burden off a stake president.
Maybe it was a logistics thing; there’s not enough room in a stake center to host an entire stake. In the past this has meant repeating messages over multiple sessions of stake conference, splitting up the wards to meet at the stake center at different times. I’ve also seen a closed broadcast from the stake center out to the auxiliary buildings. Perhaps the change is nothing more than facilitating everyone getting together at the same time without the need for repetition and it was moved away from the stake center because they aren’t as well equipped for broadcasting.
The cons:
It’s more correlation. I almost get the feeling that leaders don’t trust their stakes to do a good job. What’s next, broadcasting sacrament meetings so everyone in the same area receives the same sacrament talks? Yes, this was hyperbole.
It just strikes me as odd. We had ours a few weeks departed from GC and juxtaposing the two made stake conference feel more like more GC than it did a true stake conference… if that makes sense.
Quote:The function of this Committee is to pass upon and approve all materials, other than those that are purely secular, to be used by our Church Priesthood, Educational, Auxiliary, and Missionary organizations in their work of instructing members of the Church in the principles of the Gospel and in leading others to a knowledge of the Truth. To meet such required standards for use by Church organizations, such materials must: (1) Clearly set forth or be fully consistent with the principles of the restored Gospel. (2) Be wholly free from any taint of sectarianism and also of all theories and conclusions destructive of faith in the simple truths of the Restored Gospel, and especially be free from the teachings of the so‑called “higher criticism.” Worldly knowledge and speculation have their place; but they must yield to revealed truth. (3) Be so framed and written as affirmatively to breed faith and not raise doubts. “Rationalizing” may be most destructive of faith. That the Finite cannot fully explain the Infinite casts no doubt upon the Infinite. Truth, not error, must be stressed. (4) Be so built in form and substance as to lead to definite conclusions that accord with the principles of the Restored Gospel which conclusions must be expressed and not left to possible deduction by the students. When truth is involved there is no place for student preference or choice. Youth must be taught that truth cannot be blinked or put aside, it must be accepted. (5) Be filled with a spirit of deepest reverence. They should give no place for the slightest levity. They should be so written that those who teach from and by them will so understand. (6) Be so organized and written that the matter may be effectively taught by men and women untrained in teaching without the background equipment given by such fields of learning as psychology, pedagogy, philosophy and ethics. The great bulk of our teachers are in the untrained group.
J. Reuben Clark, First Presidency’s 1944 letter on the Literature Censorship Committee, later renamed the Committee on Publications
I get what you’re saying Nibbler. I’m not so sure it’s actually a matter of correlation, but it could be I suppose. I have never liked these “broadcast” stake conferences. I just don’t. I always felt that the point of having a GA come to a stake conference was so that he could meet with us, feel what message we need, and give it to us. I feel it’s supposed to be more intimate. The video broadcasts are the exact opposite of that, impersonal and not intimate. I very much agree that they are more like GC, which I think has a whole different purpose. FWIW, I think this could be it’s own topic. We drove an hour to our last stake conference. (We meet in a stake center, but we have been gerrymandered to a different stake which meets an hour away, which is a rant for a whole different day.) Even my TBM husband was pretty ticked when he found out we drove an hour each way for a satellite broadcast… which we could have watched in our own building that’s 15 minutes from home. But it was more important to drive to another town an hour away to watch a broadcast version of stake conference. That says a lot to me about the way we participate in the correlated church. That the process is important even if it makes no sense. (Stake Conference comes around again this weekend. Pretty sure husband wont be itching to go.
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