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I actually agree with both Ray, and Tom. Parsing does not a complete interpretation make. However, challenging our emotional response, and carefully reading words with open understanding is essential. I agree with Ray that Elder Holland did not say what is being implied here. However, he was very bold, emotionally charged, and used controversial words in such a way that, to me, marginalized those like me.
Having said that, my response was also emotional, and Elder Holland, for both better and worse, draws out strong emotions in me. I also have some insight into Elder Holland’s real opinions on tent broadening and so forth, and I don’t believe that he intends to marginalize people on the fringes. My initial reaction was much like Cadence’s. But upon another reading I got a different view and my initial emotional response seemed hasty.
Quote:“I agree with Ray that Elder Holland did not say what is being implied here. However, he was very bold, emotionally charged, and used controversial words in such a way that, to me, marginalized those like me.
Having said that, my response was also emotional, and Elder Holland, for both better and worse, draws out strong emotions in me. I also have some insight into Elder Holland’s real opinions on tent broadening and so forth, and I don’t believe that he intends to marginalize people on the fringes. My initial reaction was much like Cadence’s. But upon another reading I got a different view and my initial emotional response seemed hasty.”
I struggle with what you are saying here. I do not know Elder Holland personally, but I would agree with your opinion that he does not intend to marginalize people. Yes, intent I think accounts for something. My question is what does action account for? What does the real effect of his actions say about how strong that intent is?
Elder Holland sure said a lot on PBS, but what does he say in conference where the church membership is listening, and listening emotionally. If he really wanted to reduce marginalization within the church why does he not do something real about it? Yes, when talking to a largely none LDS audience he is very persuasive about how we do not want to marginalize these groups, yet in conference where Mormons are expected to listen he says things that come across as marginalizing , or at the very least condones the marginalizing that is happening. He does nothing to directly intervene where the clearly marginalization is happening, in conference or otherwise. I do not believe that he is unaware of the marginalization that is happening within our church. For him to say we do not want to marginalize these groups to mostly none Mormons I do not believe is doing anything to change the culture of marginalization. When he chooses inaction in the places he clearly could have great effect, than what does that tell us about the strength of his intent?
MWallace57 wrote:I enjoy reading the BofM, but don’t feel the need to have a conviction about its origins, just its content.
My daughter found our favorite cat in an alley about 10 years ago. She was abandoned, cold, wet, hungry and about 2 weeks old. Can’t I just love her without worrying about how she came to be?
I do know where you’re coming from on this. I have similar feelings about evolution vs creation debate. Doesn’t the present mean as much as the past? And if we get too hung up on minutiae of things we don’t know, might we be missing the bigger picture?
I also have some insight into Elder Holland’s real opinions on tent broadening and so forth, and I don’t believe that he intends to marginalize people on the fringes. That also colors my initial reacion. I know he sincerely wants to have a place in the Church for those who are heterodox but not publicly oppositional. He says so privately and publicly – just like he did at our Stake Conference a few weeks ago and in a private, personal chat with a friend of mine.
I really do want to parse the entire talk, just to show everyone my main point. Until then, let me share an analogy:
Quote:I can’t stand peanut butter. To me, it has to have been concocted in Lucifer’s private Hell kitchen. Nasty stuff, imo.
I also hate chocolate flavoring. Chocolate itself is ok, but chocolate flavored stuff was spawned right after peanut butter.
Say I believed there was a very important reason why people should not eat peanut butter and chocolate flavored stuff – and I firmly believed that reason. Say I wrote a book about that reason and published it to the world, in a sincere attempt to share my profound insight into better health. Say I turned it unto a marketing campaign that led lots of people to practice what I was preached. Say I died still loudly and passionately proclaiming what I believed with regard to those substances.
Later, some people claim that I was a fraud – that I didn’t really believe what I had been preaching – that I did it only for any number of selfish or nefarious reasons. Someone who believed in me and my reason wanted to address those people – NOT people who said I was crazy or deluded or wrong, but people who said I was an intentional fraud. This “disciple” made a passionate defense of me and my work – based solely on the idea that I was not an intentional fraud – that I really did believe what I said I believed.
Again, I will parse the talk, but that is all that Elder Holland did in it – address those who claim Joseph was a deceitful liar and knew it. Really, that’s all.
I will parse the talk, but this link is to a thread where we talked a lot about it: http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=877&start=0&hilit=holland Gail wrote:I struggle with what you are saying here. I do not know Elder Holland personally, but I would agree with your opinion that he does not intend to marginalize people. Yes, intent I think accounts for something. My question is what does action account for? What does the real effect of his actions say about how strong that intent is?
You bring up a very important point.Gail wrote:He does nothing to directly intervene where the clearly marginalization is happening, in conference or otherwise. I do not believe that he is unaware of the marginalization that is happening within our church. For him to say we do not want to marginalize these groups to mostly none Mormons I do not believe is doing anything to change the culture of marginalization. When he chooses inaction in the places he clearly could have great effect, than what does that tell us about the strength of his intent?
Yes, you’re absolutely right. He most certainly could do more to reduce the marginalization of those like many of us here, and I struggle with this on my worst days. And for me, I do think it had harmful marginalizing effects, though he definitely did not condemn those who question the BoM. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not apologizing for Elder Holland (it’s not my place anyway). The talk definitely didn’t work for me. The real question though is what should I do about it?I will add one more thing here: This post is about the “middle way” – NOT Elder Holland’s talk about the Book of Mormon. I posted the other link largely because there is an existing thread that IS focused primarily (at least in the later comments) on that talk. I would rather the discussion of that talk happen on that thread and this thread remain focused on the “middle way” quote than to have this thread derailed and have BOTH threads end up focused on the same talk.
I hope everyone understands and respects my reason for wanting to maintain two distinct conversations – and uses the other thread to continue to discuss the Book of Mormon talk. Thanks!!
Again, the link is:
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=877&start=0&hilit=holland Good call Ray! I moved my attempt at parsing the talk over to that thread. Thanks for keeping us in line! Ray, I have made this mistake before. I am struggling to understand how this line of discussion is not about the middle way. Discussing were we think the church is on this middle way or where Holland is on the middle way, or more importantly what we can do to effect the middle way all these seem directly connected to the topic at hand. Elder Holland’s conference talk seems to give us pertinent information on how to interpret his comments on PBS. Please help me understand how to stay with in your topic guidelines. Are you really suggesting that when a discussion leads into a related discussion line that we should jump to a discussion line that we have not been involved in and has not been active for some time to continue our discussion. The with and depth of the different discussion topics on this site is prodigious to say the least. I am not sure I will ever have the impressive command of it as you. What are you recommending for us here?
Now I am confused. The opening two paragraphs in the initial entry to this thread, one by John Dehlin, the other by Apostle Holland, both speak of the Book of Mormon. How can we divide that from the ongoing discussion? Perhaps I’m looking through a smoky glass, but all elements of the dialogue seem worthy in helping to reach conclusions. I seek the middle way (having stood in the NO way camp). Just to clarify: Certainly, any discussion of how the talk affects “the Middle Way” is fine here. I just don’t want two threads running simultaneously that both are discussing the exact same thing – namely, the talk rather than the Middle Way.
I hope that makes more sense.
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