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SilentDawning wrote:
I once posted regularly on TBM site and I tried to open a discussion on alternate organizational models for the church — such as splitting the Temporal and Spiritual role of the Bishop by having someone look after practical welfare matters while the Bishop concentrated on the spiritual. The person would report to the Stake, where I understand the fast offering funds lie anyway (??).
Holy Backlash Batman!!! The fact that I was even CONSIDERING an alternate model in the divinely revealed order of the church was sacriledge.
This made me smile. Truth is, there already is… He’s called the Elders Quorum President. Problem is, everyone but everyone wants a direct line into the Bishop and often the Bishop is too willing to let them.
When I read the history of blacks receiving the priesthood it’s clear that no significant change will happen as long as there are 2-3 Apostles opposed to a change in the approach. Black priesthood could have happened decades earlier, but for the prejudice of a few. mackay11 wrote:When I read the history of blacks receiving the priesthood it’s clear that no significant change will happen as long as there are 2-3 Apostles opposed to a change in the approach. Black priesthood could have happened decades earlier, but for the prejudice of a few.
I have a bit of a different view on this one, though I admit that this is my own perspective, and based solely on preconceived notions about motivations of Church leaders… but I do think it is relevant for the present discussion.To me, I am not ready to say that bigotry or racism or prejudice was the cause… but rather, plain old hard-line thinking. What I mean by this is that the apostles who protested and stonewalled the policy change did so from the standpoint that this was “God’s law” and that the Church was not able to make a change like this without specific revelation from God. In other words… my opinion… they became paralyzed by their own dogma. For all their lives, they had defended the practice as being the will of God. They talked themselves into it. It’s pretty obvious with the benefit of distance, that this was a man-made policy and that God had nothing to do with it. But when these Church leaders had the opportunity, they balked at it, probably out of a sincere belief that God was at the helm and that he wouldn’t have set up the Church this way if he didn’t have a reason, and that only God could redirect the policy. The unfortunate side-effect of hard-line approaches is the taking of no prisoners… it’s absolutist, no matter how many have to be trampled. Preventing black Church members from going to the Temple was awful, but when you think it is the will of God, well, there’s just no room for compassion or re-evaluation… only justification.
Fast-forward to 2013. The Church say’s regarding policies toward gay/lesbian Church members, “God’s law is not ours to change.” Yet there is a shocking lack of evidence that this is “God’s law.” Just like the priesthood/temple ban, we are asserting that our customs and practices could only exist the way they are if God wanted it that way, so what we now do is exactly what God wants. The Church’s policies must be God’s policies. Because we do it, it must be right.
In keeping with the topic of this thread, I simply wish that there were a direct and acceptable way to bring up these issues IN the Church.
Old-Timer wrote:DA, fwiw, strictly as a personal opinion, I believe your description might have been true, generally, about the leadership a few decades ago (and absolutely was true about some of the individual leaders), but I believe
it is not accurate about the current leadership. I think it is patently obvious that they don’t believe everything is perfectly from God and that earlier leaders were totally inspired in all their actions, since they have made significant changes…The youngest half of the Q12 were moderately young adults, by Mormon standards, when the Priesthood ban was lifted in 1978…Nearly all of them have lived and worked outside of Utah and the Mormon bubble…They are not my father’s Q12 – in a lot of important ways. The reason I don’t feel very optimistic about the current apostles and Church presidents making significant reforms any time soon is because some of the youngest ones like Bednar and Cook don’t really sound that different to me than Packer and Oaks. It is the same basic message we have been hearing as long as I can remember, I.E. the Church is almost always right, all these sacrifices will be worth it, obey the prophets, you should have a testimony of all this, the world is evil and Satan is out to get you, etc. Sure they will generally acknowledge that the Church has already made some mistakes and they don’t know everything but I don’t believe that most of them ever really make the connection that if they could be wrong about the racial priesthood ban then it only makes sense that they could just as easily be wrong about things like the WoW, tithing, homosexuality, etc.
Roy wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:Even though the majority of members have already been voting with their feet for decades this vote is basically ignored and dismissed as if these inactive members are always the ones with the problem and the only acceptable answer is that they need to repent of their pride, laziness, selfishness, “bad” habits, etc.
Ironically staying in the LDS church and being the friendly reminder of the diversity of needs, wants, and perspectives seems to be much more effective at producing change than walking out…I believe that respectfully participating in opportunities like the Faith Crisis Survey will increase the chance of being heard. The problem is that as far as we know the top Church leaders that get to make the major decisions about what exactly to include in lessons and official publications, what instructions to pass down to stake presidents and bishops, etc. are not really looking to make major changes, listen to suggestions, or gauge how the majority of Church members really feel about all this whether active or inactive. It is mostly one-way communication going on. So whatever influence to change things most individuals can have will generally be restricted to their own local ward or branch and we have a very small group of men basically dictating the way it should be for millions of Church members with little or no feedback from them.
The Church does extensive research and conducts focus group studies about lots of aspects of church membership. They might not change things individuals want changed, or change at the pace individuals want to see it, but there have been lots of changes over the last couple of decades that have been in direct response to feedback from the local levels. Yes, there is an apostle here and there who appears to be a hardliner (and very well might be), but there are more of them that appear not to be, imo. I don’t have a view of unhearing, unaware and/or uncaring leaders – largely because of what I know about how they have operated and do operate in some unpublicized areas.
For example, the concern was expressed about the possibility of demanding information about online commenters. I know for a fact that the top leadership is aware of what is written at the major Mormon group blogs, and I am positive (for a number of reasons) that some of the (positive, imo) changes I have seen recently have been influenced by the discussions that occur online in those settings. I know it can be scary for people remembering the September 6 (and in situations like cwald) to think that Church leaders can read what they write and know who they are, but it also can be a wonderful way for bottom-up input.
In this day and age, change doesn’t have to be requested formally to come to the attention of the leadership. When enough voices online are saying the same thing – and doing so in a non-combative, sincere way, the collective voice is heard more often than most members realize.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:The problem is that as far as we know the top Church leaders that get to make the major decisions about what exactly to include in lessons and official publications, what instructions to pass down to stake presidents and bishops, etc. are not really looking to make major changes, listen to suggestions, or gauge how the majority of Church members really feel about all this whether active or inactive. It is mostly one-way communication going on. So whatever influence to change things most individuals can have will generally be restricted to their own local ward or branch and we have a very small group of men basically dictating the way it should be for millions of Church members with little or no feedback from them.
In addition to what Ray said about study groups etc…
Let’s say that a future apostle is a young boy (girl?
😯 ) right now in your sunbeams class, SS class, Scout troop. What if this future leader is at this very moment your Bishop or SP? I look at what BKP said about God not making someone homosexual (“Why would He do that?”) as evidence that BKP has never counseled with a sincere and struggling gay youth that very clearly would do anything to become heterosexual. Our leaders to not come from a vacuum – they come from us.If you take a long-term perspective, look how far we’ve come from the days of plural marriage, magic, VERY hardline approaches to SSA etcetera. If you take a long-term perspective, we may find that in 50 years things that are entrenched in our culture gradually wear away, or become more mellow. I also wonder if privacy laws regarding Personally Identifiable Information (such as email addresses, names, and even IP addresses(?)) prevent the church from rooting out dissent or divergent opinon they don’t like online. That would take research, I’m afraid, to answer that — does anyone with extensive knowledge and experience with online discussion forums have a credible answer to that one?
Call me cynical, but members withholding tithing money would force change. I believe money talks! I have decided to not seek change in the Church. What I do desire is to find a way to feel comfortable with my membership in the Church.
I think witholding tithing money would only promote talks on tithing at church. I don’t think our orgranization would bow to that pressure so long as they had reserves to weather the withholding. I do think that people naturally withhold tithing though, when they go less active. Quote:prevent the church from rooting out [online] dissent or divergent opinion they don’t like online.
They don’t try.
On Own Now wrote:mackay11 wrote:When I read the history of blacks receiving the priesthood it’s clear that no significant change will happen as long as there are 2-3 Apostles opposed to a change in the approach. Black priesthood could have happened decades earlier, but for the prejudice of a few.
I have a bit of a different view on this one, though I admit that this is my own perspective, and based solely on preconceived notions about motivations of Church leaders… but I do think it is relevant for the present discussion.To me, I am not ready to say that bigotry or racism or prejudice was the cause… but rather, plain old hard-line thinking. What I mean by this is that the apostles who protested and stonewalled the policy change did so from the standpoint that this was “God’s law” and that the Church was not able to make a change like this without specific revelation from God. In other words… my opinion… they became paralyzed by their own dogma. For all their lives, they had defended the practice as being the will of God. They talked themselves into it. It’s pretty obvious with the benefit of distance, that this was a man-made policy and that God had nothing to do with it. But when these Church leaders had the opportunity, they balked at it, probably out of a sincere belief that God was at the helm and that he wouldn’t have set up the Church this way if he didn’t have a reason, and that only God could redirect the policy. The unfortunate side-effect of hard-line approaches is the taking of no prisoners… it’s absolutist, no matter how many have to be trampled. Preventing black Church members from going to the Temple was awful, but when you think it is the will of God, well, there’s just no room for compassion or re-evaluation… only justification.
Fast-forward to 2013. The Church say’s regarding policies toward gay/lesbian Church members, “God’s law is not ours to change.” Yet there is a shocking lack of evidence that this is “God’s law.” Just like the priesthood/temple ban, we are asserting that our customs and practices could only exist the way they are if God wanted it that way, so what we now do is exactly what God wants. The Church’s policies must be God’s policies. Because we do it, it must be right.
In keeping with the topic of this thread, I simply wish that there were a direct and acceptable way to bring up these issues IN the Church.
That’s a very generous attitude.
Views on homosexuality will change when the views of Those in power change. That is maybe 30 years away. No change will be made in tithing until it is in the financial interest of the church to do so.
The church from my perspective does not have a good track record of making changes that are in the best interest of the members but those that are in the best interest of the church.
So if you want change you have to convince the leaders it is in their best interest to do so not yours or the members at large
I was very much instructed once upon a time that the church is not bottom up, but top down. It discouraged me then as it does now. When a letter is read from the pulpit from the FP telling us not to write them but to talk to the stake president, it discourages me. I always hope they are paying attention to what is being discussed on the blogs. It seems to be the only way to help those who are higher up to see what really goes on at the local level. Cadence wrote:The church from my perspective does not have a good track record of making changes that are in the best interest of the members but those that are in the best interest of the church. So if you want change you have to convince the leaders it is in their best interest to do so not yours or the members at large
I think that sums up how I feel about this.
I remember a couple conferences ago (a few), JR Holland commented on how the church was going to subsidize couples serving missions — their living expenses. He mentioned how he thought that was pretty nice. At the time, there was a flare-up in leaders approaching older couples in our Ward and stake to get more couples on missions.
This told me the numbers of couples willing to serve missions had fallen and they were trying to notch up the numbers. Therefore, they incented the adults with the housing subsidy. A good example of change occurring based on organizational needs rather simply trying to ease the burden on members. If they were teaming with couple missionaries, I don’t think we would have seen the subsidy that JR Holland described as generous.
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