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I have learned something from this discussion — particularly given the comments regarding the Apostles that described their credentials. I once spoke at a community meeting and took about 30 seconds to introduce myself, the general area in which I lived, what I did for a living (as I felt it gave me credibility), and then went into the organization I represented. Afterwards, I heard criticism from one, influential person used to this kind of thing. He said I talked about myself too much. My intention was to build credibility with the crowd that was there, and also, to let them know I was “one of them” given where I lived — right in their community. So, my motives were pure. It wasn’t about self-aggrandizement at all, it was about setting up my little presentation for the best impact — or so I thought.
I think it’s best to let others introduce you if you want the crowd to know your personal history, lest a certain portion of the population think you are being self-absorbed. I wouldn’t ascribe any self-aggrandizement motives or tendencies to any of these apostles. They are probably a bit overwhelmed, and I question whether any of them had been at a press conference before.
They didn’t really seem like apostles during the press conference. At a Church conference, they have the context, the preparation, and the “stilt” of the conference to protect their true personalities. But in this case, they were vulnerable at the press conference. They seemed just like average men. Some good answer, some not-so-great answers.
SilentDawning wrote:I was interested in this talk, so I watched it a couple times. Here are Elder Bednar’s points.
1. Older leaders are chosen given the depth and breadth of their experience.
2.
Even ill health has its advantages.He quoted Elder Hales who said that being in ill-health makes you do only those things that are important. 3. The talk summary from LDS. org is below, but these are the key points I got from the message.
I had a bit of trouble with this one. Point #1 is a good one. I understand there are certain parts of the brain that actually get better with age, based on a documentary I watched about aging. With an international organization to lead, and thousands of members and a massive amount of assets at stake, it makes sense that you would bring on men with experience. I am not convinced that only aged men have those skills, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there is a correlation between age and experience/ability on complex matters…For number 2, I found this one very hard to take. For these reasons:…
I don’t see it as fair and kind to these men who are often serving as Apostles for life, while battling cancer or even dementia.Even Thomas S. Monson looked like he was going to keel over during his talk on sunday afternoon, seems to slur his speech, and even started stammering/repeating inconsequential phrases at the end of his talk. I felt for him. It doesn’t surprise me that Bednar would praise this system when it basically means that he can become the president of the of the Church without really having to do anything significant other than simply outlive the other apostles which is already likely to happen simply based on the fact of how young he was relative to the others when he was called. I could see people having more wisdom, experience, etc. when they are 70 than when they are 50 and that being an advantage while they are still relatively healthy but having these leaders over 85-90 years old that can’t even hardly talk coherently, can’t stand up, have dementia/Alzheimer’s, etc. is something else entirely. They should definitely be able to retire instead of being expected to serve in this role publicly until the day they die and as far as I’m concerned the main reason for this policy that doesn’t make much sense overall is mostly because that’s the established tradition the same as the WoW, tithing, garments, etc. that the Church continues to hold onto mostly because that’s the way we have always done it (in recent memory).
Ninety year old men do not run major corporations for a reason.
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