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I just read the January Ensign. Usually there are any number of things that I object to in the Ensign and this time was no exception. But this time there were also signs of what I might term progress. Especially in light of the discussion of the December Ensign, I felt it appropriate to also acknowledge these things. The biggest thing for most of us would be the article “Great and Marvelous are the Revelations of God” by Gerrit Dirkmaat of the Church History Department.
“They understood that the process of revelation was not static and that the Lord sometimes commanded Joseph to revise, update, or correct the written revelations.”
“He also applied the term (Urim and Thummim) to other stones he possessed, called “seer stones” because they aided him in receiving revelations as a seer. The Prophet received some early revelations through the use of these seer stones.”
“The Prophet and Revelator inquires of God. He spiritually sees, hears, and feels, and then speaks as he is moved upon by the Holy Ghost.” (reference to spiritual visions that might be later described using more physical visitation event terminology)
Quote:While many members today may look at the revelations as being static and unchanging, the Prophet Joseph Smith saw the revelations as living and subject to change as the Lord revealed more of His will. Members of the Church relied upon Joseph to receive continued revelations for the Church. As former Church Historian Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy has explained: “Joseph seemed to regard the manuscript revelations as his best efforts to capture the voice of the Lord condescending to communicate in what Joseph called the ‘crooked, broken, scattered, and imperfect language’ of men”8 (see also D&C 1:24).
I also enjoyed the article “Faith & Intellect” By Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, PhD in Chinese History
Quote:As I studied histories written by renowned scholars who were also believing Latter-day Saints, I came to appreciate the fact that the early Saints in Nauvoo, the pioneers who had crossed the plains, and other significant figures in Church history had been real people with strengths and weaknesses. This understanding ultimately strengthened my faith. The more I realized that the early Saints weren’t superhuman—that they were people just like me and other Church members I know today—the more I understood how God uses imperfect people to accomplish a divine work. God had led them, blessed them, and spoken to them just as God leads, blesses, and speaks to us today.
“I still think that it is healthy to ask questions and to pursue answers.”
Finally the article “God will pour out a blessing.” I was prepared to hate this article, and actually came away pleasantly surprised.
A woman who has paid tithing all her life sees her 25 yr marriage end in divorce. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Then she lost her job due to her illness. She appears to have been given Social Security Disability payments. After 5 years, the cancer came back. Around this same time her ex-husband died. Also during this 5 year interval circumstances occurred that left this woman with the full time care of her grandchild. (I assume this resulted from either a teenage pregnancy or the parent of the child being declared unfit).
She continually points to the blessings of family, priesthood blessings, friends, coworkers, well-wishers, community, peace, comfort, hope, and strength.
Quote:Throughout these years, the Comforter has given me peace of mind and heart. The kindness of a loving Father in Heaven and the tender mercies of the Savior,
working through the hands and sacrifices of others,frequently cause me to “stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me.”1 I know that all will be well according to God’s will for me. Emphasis mine.
I do believe that God is mindful of this sister, but her experience is not enviable. This is in contrast to stories where people pay tithing and then experience some amazing windfall or stroke of good luck that more than makes up for their financial sacrifice.
So in summary, I was rather impressed with the content of January’s Ensign. Perhaps these things are only impressive when compared to the white-washed way things have often been in the past and sometimes still are. However, I have heard multiple calls here for inoculating the church membership against testimony wreckers and these articles that I have referenced may be part of an effort to do just that.
Thanks, Roy. I haven’t read the issue and appreciate what you shared. Sounds encouraging. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
Thanks for the summary Roy. I’m glad they’re being more open about the stones. It was among the shocking discoveries of 2012 for me.
mackay11 wrote:I’m glad they’re being more open about the stones. It was among the shocking discoveries of 2012 for me.
Just a few weeks ago I mentioned in conversation with DW about the “head in hat” translation process. (the context being that I don’t feel that physical plates are necessary and God could have sent the whole of the BOM down through revelation without the burden of having to haul around and protect heavy gold plates all the time). She was incredulous and asked for my source. I later found a very informative article on FAIR about the translation process. This article was defending a claim by MormonThink that some details in the translation process were being “covered up.”
In defense of this claim the FAIR article relies chiefly on 2 references to the seer-stones in church magazines.
Quote:“It would be strange to try to hide something by having an apostle talk about it, and then send the account to every LDS home in the official magazine!”
But the references they used were from 1993 and 1974 respectively. I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed at the church’s disclosure of this detail during my adult lifetime (roughly 15 years).That is why the following quote from January’s Ensign is so significant:
Quote:“He also applied the term (Urim and Thummim) to other stones he possessed, called “seer stones” because they aided him in receiving revelations as a seer. The Prophet received some early revelations through the use of these seer stones.”
I returned to the FAIR site this morning to let them know of the more recent reference, but they had already beaten me to it and updated their page. (someone was quick on the uptake)
I have reason to hope that this is part of a movement towards more disclosure and inoculation and not just a plausible deniability screen for apologists.
Roy wrote:mackay11 wrote:I returned to the FAIR site this morning to let them know of the more recent reference
That’s nice of you!
Roy wrote:mackay11 wrote:I’m glad they’re being more open about the stones. It was among the shocking discoveries of 2012 for me.
Just a few weeks ago I mentioned in conversation with DW about the “head in hat” translation process. (the context being that I don’t feel that physical plates are necessary and God could have sent the whole of the BOM down through revelation without the burden of having to haul around and protect heavy gold plates all the time). She was incredulous and asked for my source. I later found a very informative article on FAIR about the translation process. This article was defending a claim by MormonThink that some details in the translation process were being “covered up.”
In defense of this claim the FAIR article relies chiefly on 2 references to the seer-stones in church magazines.
Quote:“It would be strange to try to hide something by having an apostle talk about it, and then send the account to every LDS home in the official magazine!”
But the references they used were from 1993 and 1974 respectively. I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed at the church’s disclosure of this detail during my adult lifetime (roughly 15 years).That is why the following quote from January’s Ensign is so significant:
Quote:“He also applied the term (Urim and Thummim) to other stones he possessed, called “seer stones” because they aided him in receiving revelations as a seer. The Prophet received some early revelations through the use of these seer stones.”
I returned to the FAIR site this morning to let them know of the more recent reference, but they had already beaten me to it and updated their page. (someone was quick on the uptake)
I have reason to hope that this is part of a movement towards more disclosure and inoculation and not just a plausible deniability screen for apologists.
http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Seer_stones Thanks for letting me know. It’s good news that Rough Stone Rolling style accounts are increasing.
Thanks for sharing it, Roy. I will check it out. I wish I could be optimistic, but . . . I once read an article from a mainstream news source that talked about how the idea that saturated fats are bad for you has never been proven. It talked about how the idea came about (from a study that was clearly rigged to produce the desired results) and how it was politicized and thus became “truth” for millions of people across the world. And yet in the 50 years since that initial study, with billions of dollars and countless man hours being poured into research on the subject, no one has conclusively proven that saturated fat is bad for you.
The article ended with this line: “But you probably shouldn’t go out and start eating as much fat as you want.”
People have been brainwashed to the point where no amount of actual evidence will allow them to let go of their previously held notions.
And so I don’t feel particularly encouraged by Ensign articles or anything else that leans toward being more truthful. In the end, the programming takes over and people still cling to the things they’ve been taught through fear to believe. It seems that generally nothing short of a crisis snaps people out of it–something scarier than the consequences that they are afraid of facing if they don’t live up to the brainwashed principles.
CtS, 1) I can’t call what you describe “brainwashing”, as much as I agree with you about the overall tendency. “Human nature” / “natural man” / “nature and disposition of almost all men” covers it very well for me.
2) That said, I still am encouraged by the messages I’ve been hearing in this regard from the top leadership recently. The general tone of many statements and the openness of some leaders to tackling difficult things from our past pleases me.
Quick, radical change across the entire culture? Probably not. Progress? Absolutely, imo.
In the most recent Ensign (February?) there was a little story in the back titled “We joined in!” It was about this family that lived in a small town back east where they were the only LDS in town. It said that because they knew that small town social connections centered around church activities, they joined in. The sent their kids to the non-LDS youth programs, volunteered where needed, their daughter sang in a local non-LDS church choir, when one local protestant church sponsored a weekend bible camp some distance away – the pastor commented that the only youth from their area that went was “our sweet little Mormon girl Susan.” They later moved and were saddened by having to leave all the great friends and associates that they had made (none of which ever became LDS).
I love this piece particularly because I don’t feel that my local LDS church offers anything for the 5 to 7 age group of my kids so I take them to the activities of other churches. We have met so many good people and our 7 year old and very social daughter has an eclectic collection of friends. I also know that some of our LDS neighbors that do not think our participation in other churches is appropriate – so it was extra nice to see this in print.
It seems worth acknowledging that almost every time I read the Ensign there is at least one thing in there to lead me to believe that “change is happening.” I am thankful for that.
:thumbup: Roy wrote:In the most recent Ensign (February?) there was a little story in the back titled “We joined in!” It was about this family that lived in a small town back east where they were the only LDS in town. It said that because they knew that small town social connections centered around church activities, they joined in. The sent their kids to the non-LDS youth programs, volunteered where needed, their daughter sang in a local non-LDS church choir, when one local protestant church sponsored a weekend bible camp some distance away – the pastor commented that the only youth from their area that went was “our sweet little Mormon girl Susan.”
They later moved and were saddened by having to leave all the great friends and associates that they had made (none of which ever became LDS).
I love this piece particularly because I don’t feel that my local LDS church offers anything for the 5 to 7 age group of my kids so I take them to the activities of other churches. We have met so many good people and our 7 year old and very social daughter has an eclectic collection of friends. I also know that some of our LDS neighbors that do not think our participation in other churches is appropriate – so it was extra nice to see this in print.
It seems worth acknowledging that almost every time I read the Ensign there is at least one thing in there to lead me to believe that “change is happening.” I am thankful for that.
:thumbup: Thanks for sharing this. I agree that there’s a ‘printed endorsement’ for this kind of activity.
Being from UK this is quite common (and I’m grateful for it). My siblings and I were the only LDS at school. My friends at church lived 30+ minutes away. One of them was home-schooled, but followed an Evangelical sponsored curriculum which meant they went on many multi-faith camps.
A few years ago we took our kids to a 3-day combined churches summer group. On the last day I was even trusted with a lesson on the journeys of Paul
My daughter also went to a catholic-led Brownie group every week.
The advantage for us is that every UK lds family is in a similar position. There are never disapproving ‘tuts’ as everyone’s doing it.
Come to UK staylds-ers… It’s great here! (Well… There… I’m an expat in Asia, but always a brit at heart).
That was in the February issue. Nice real-life account. The December 2013 Ensign featured a prominant article on interfaith service. http://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/12/becoming-better-saints-through-interfaith-involvement?lang=eng Mackay11 also referenced this great article here.
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4876 This makes me hopeful.
I understand the church’s need to spin everything now. With all the troubling info coming out they need to respond. But in the end it is spin because it is just adapting the official story to more closely match the facts. The conclusion still is Joseph was a prophet, he church is true, nothing to see here move along. It is near impossible to get to the truth of any story when you always retrofit the story to fit your conclusion.
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