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NightSG wrote:Kipper wrote:
How does it benefit the individual to do something he knows is wrong? What is power of discernment for? What about free agency used for doing what’s right? What the heck are we teaching and going along with? Every time I go to HP meeting, half way through the embellishment begins. I am really close to opting out completely.
This is interesting, considering that three different bishops and a SP have never asked me to do anything major without the comment that I should go home and pray about it…
This is a very important piece of our personal responsibility to ourselves.NightSG wrote:…the fallible men in these positions sometimes act without clear guidance, and use their own judgment, which, while hopefully always benevolent and well thought out, is sometimes still going to be wrong.
Infallible men in local leadership positions seem to be non-existent except in historical content.SilentDawning wrote:I once shared this concept of blind obedience to my Bishop. First, he’d never heard it, and second, he said he didn’t agree with it.
I sent an email to my bishop about this because it is close to being a deal breaker to me, not by itself but one of the proverbial straws that broke the camels back. I also thought it to be unfair for me to gain understanding only from forums like this one although this is the only place where conversation can be run to finalization. He replied that we need to meet and discuss soon, many of these questions and assumptions are not accurate. It makes me feel hopeful.
SilentDawning wrote:Also, there is a principle I have applied that has helped me StayLDS, and this story is at the heart of it — elevate nothing above your conscience — not doctrine, not the church, not its leaders. I find I am much more at peace when I am the captain of my soul — not some church leader that doesn’t know my situation, my life, my trials, and my capabilities, or my own sense of morality.
Ok if I adopt that principal in my own life?SilentDawning wrote:I hope that if I was a Mormon at the MMM, I would have objected to the massacre order and refused to kill the person I was assigned to.
It is very disturbing to me to follow blindly precisely because of this and other incidents like this. Another example is the Willie Handcart Company where(IMO) many were told to do something wrong but it was not morally wrong and they did it anyway. This I think captures Heber J. Grant’s quote more accurately. Some were blessed, some were not. I am pretty sure this would have been a deal breaker for me and I would have stayed behind. Of course I was not there and don’t know for sure if the consequences of staying behind were more risky than going.youngadult22 wrote:I guess my ward is a week behind because we just had this lesson. My teacher went straight from the manual which drove me crazy and even more frustrating, OW and the any opposed group were mentioned and criticised during the lesson which I think took the spirit away from the meeting. When this quote is brought up (because it has been brought up 3 times in the last 2 weeks in my ward) what do you say? I wanted to say something so badly but I didn’t know what. It think it’s because I still haven’t figured out a comfortable balance between following the prophet and personal revelation. Or is it best just not to say anything at all?
You need to understand Ray’s advice about individual situations but also develop a way to validate what is being said before it makes you nuts.
HJG’s advice to Marion G. Romney makes a lot more sense now that I have him positioned in history. I commented in a different thread about Michael Quinn’s interview in Year of Polygamy series at fMh, but, long story short (if it ever can be), HJG was the prophet for the huge, seismic about-face on polygamy. No more wink, wink, nudge, nudge, God-bless-you-if-you-can-find-a-way of Joseph F. Smith’s tenure. And it appears it was a nearly overnight transformation for Grant himself because he had been trying to enter in to polygamous marriages. But the wall went up at some point and the church became completely inflexible. I think HJG had a LOT to work out in his own mind. And the second part of his comment (“But don’t need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray”) is how a person can process or comprehend having been involved in polygamy in the first place. There was a lot to work through. The president of the church told people to do something, and it was wrong, and we did it anyway, and the Lord, to some people’s mind, blessed us for it. If I’m ever in this lesson again, I will probably try to “contextualize.”
Ann’s comment is incredibly important – and it is not easy or natural for most people. We complain, rightly, when someone pulls a scriptural verse or passage out of context and presents a message / lesson / nugget / doctrine that simply isn’t supported by the overall volume of the text. We ought to try our best to understand, first with as much charity as possible, the overall context in which something was said, before we dismiss or reject the statement and/or the person who made it.
We still can reject the statement, in the end, but contextualization helps tremendously in being able to find peace and let go of anger.
Ann wrote:HJG’s advice to Marion G. Romney makes a lot more sense now that I have him positioned in history. I commented in a different thread about Michael Quinn’s interview in Year of Polygamy series at fMh, but, long story short (if it ever can be), HJG was the prophet for the huge, seismic about-face on polygamy. No more wink, wink, nudge, nudge, God-bless-you-if-you-can-find-a-way of Joseph F. Smith’s tenure. And it appears it was a nearly overnight transformation for Grant himself because he had been trying to enter in to polygamous marriages. But the wall went up at some point and the church became completely inflexible. I think HJG had a LOT to work out in his own mind. And the second part of his comment (“But don’t need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray”) is how a person can process or comprehend having been involved in polygamy in the first place. There was a lot to work through. The president of the church told people to do something, and it was wrong, and we did it anyway, and the Lord, to some people’s mind, blessed us for it.
If I’m ever in this lesson again, I will probably try to “contextualize.”
OK…this is new information for me….so I want to be sure. You are saying that the HJG statement was contextually part of the flip-flop related to the cessation of polygamy?
This “contextualizing” is about putting the statement into proper context of events, so as to understand what it was originally related to?
This being the case, then the church has taken it out of context in large measure. I want to be sure, because what is being said here could shift me on this. Am I reading this right Ann?
Quote:This being the case, then the church has taken it out of context in large measure.
Yep.
We do the same thing to other statements, including verses in our scriptures. We are humans, and we generally love to proof text – even when we change the original meaning greatly by doing so. For example, it is quite easy to make a case that there are no references in the Bible to a long-distant second coming of Jesus as Christianity generally teaches it – when the passages that we interpret that way are read from an ancient Jewish perspective. It is not the words that differ; it is the perspectives.
I am a history teacher and educator by inclination and training. This has happened since the dawn of civilization.
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