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I definitely don’t see Harry Reid doing the same thing, but it’s unsavory to hear church leaders making disparaging remarks about Democrats in these meetings. I agree with Sheldon, though. Try to get elected as a Mormon in the wake of this video. You’d better be prepared to demonstrate your willingness to break with the church on issues. This mornings SLTrib has a front page story on the leaks and there were several references and quotes that I thought were instructive
Quote:Former Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. and a Mormon, spoke to church leaders in 2009, shortly after his term expired, saying he regarded “his [LDS] temple recommend as more important than an election certificate.”
Ralph Hardy, then an LDS authority who served in the Washington, D.C., area, introduces Smith and describes the senator’s staff, who were not Mormon, as “church broke.”
“In fact,” Hardy says, “not many months ago, [Smith’s] legislative director called me on the phone and said, ‘Ralph, you haven’t called us in six weeks. What are we supposed to be doing?’ ”
The senator also explains he voted to support the start of the war in Iraq “because I felt the Lord’s hand in it,” believing that the conflict eventually could open the Middle East to Mormon missionaries.
I agree that I wouldn’t give a Mormon Republican candidate for high office much chance outside of the corridor.I’ve seen the videos generously described as “humanizing.” So sad, really, that they’re going to be strung up for attitudes that they may not even have anymore.
But the interactions with Smith are upsetting.
I think these information meetings are good thing. I do not believe in a God that micro-manages, or is aware of every little birdy that falls from a nest. I believe in a God that sets the world in motion and then lets man take it from there, with a little adjustment here and there. Thus, God lets men make mistakes (insert favorite here; Polygamy, blacks, women’s issues). In the meantime, these men have to do the best they can, getting information everywhere they can. What this meeting does show is that like any multinational corporation, the board of directors (Q15) is going to be influenced by their personalities. Also, they will act much different when they are in their private board rooms, than when they are speaking to their shareholders. That’s just the way it is. I also expect that the Q15 meetings in the temple are not much different from these videos. Dominate personalities will take control. Personal bias will show through, and God will let them make mistakes.
The interesting thing in the “Why YA are inactive” video, is that it just confirmed what we already had speculated, that the lowering of the missionary age had nothing to do with making it easier for young people to go on missions, and had everything to do with keeping the 18-19 years olds active in the church. Again, this was not revelation in the typical sense, but it was the Q15 studying the problem (inactive YA) out in their minds (lots of meetings and presentations), then coming up with a solution, praying about it, and not getting a “stupor of thought”, and make it a new policy. God just let them do their thing. 30 years ago they did something similar, with shorting the length of missions to 18 months. No stupor of thought, so they made it a new policy. Big mistake and they walked it back 2 years later. God did not micro-manage.
mom3 wrote:Gerald, I like the town hall idea.
But that would shatter the myth that they all receive clear and detailed stone tablets direct from Mount Sinai, and only get together to make sure that they all have the same revision before declaring it to the Church.
If someone would summarize key points from these vidoes, as Hawgrrl kind of did, that would help. The idea of watching all these videos is daunting for a few nuggets of information that is relevent to the future of the church. I do think it will make the Q12 more paranoid. I suspect that Mormons running for office will indeed have a harder time of it. But I would like to know what are the key talking points from the video without having to invest a morning.
DarkJedi wrote:I have not watched much from these videos, but I have some free time tomorrow and plan to indulge. However, the ex senator is now an area authority who just happened to be our visiting authority recently (a term I am using relatively). He actually “brags” about the ability he had as a senator to get meetings for the church in foreign countries and specifically talks about some relating to temples and missionary approvals. He lost his reelection bid in 2008 and is now a lobbyist as well as controlling some interest in the family business. He is a politician through and through.
That said, I generally liked him. In our conference he also talked about mental illness and the pain he and his wife felt when his son committed suicide. And he talked about “gospel hobbies” and how important it is to stick to Christ centered messages in our church meetings which he illustrated with a story about a meeting he took a friend to where the topic was preparedness – and his friend told him why people don’t think Mormons are Christians and never came to another meeting.
I live in the same area as Gordon Smith’s hometown. I know his story and read the book he wrote about the suicide of his son. He is well respected. A local businessman (yes, it is a family business that he seems to have very little to do with anymore) and a hometown hero with fountains, benches, and a library dedicated to him and his deceased son. That Bro. Smith is in the middle of this is a very sad day for our local LDS community.
Sheldon wrote:I think these information meetings are good thing. I do not believe in a God that micro-manages, or is aware of every little birdy that falls from a nest. I believe in a God that sets the world in motion and then lets man take it from there, with a little adjustment here and there. Thus, God lets men make mistakes (insert favorite here; Polygamy, blacks, women’s issues). In the meantime, these men have to do the best they can, getting information everywhere they can.
I have come to agree, but then that brings up, “what (if anything) should I be doing?” I mean I could be as incorrect as they are on some of my beliefs and conclusions. Am I innocent if people are hurt by their actions, or as long as I don’t participate in the bad behavior? Or should I be raising my hand in opposition and raising a bit of hell to help get things fixed?
Sheldon wrote:What this meeting does show is that like any multinational corporation, the board of directors (Q15) is going to be influenced by their personalities. Also, they will act much different when they are in their private board rooms, than when they are speaking to their shareholders. That’s just the way it is. I also expect that the Q15 meetings in the temple are not much different from these videos. Dominate personalities will take control. Personal bias will show through, and God will let them make mistakes.
Agreed. But I think for the average TBM, (if they would watch this) probably would be surprised they are not all kneeling down asking for guidance. (yes – I am being A BIT sarcastic).
Sheldon wrote:The interesting thing in the “Why YA are inactive” video, is that it just confirmed what we already had speculated, that the lowering of the missionary age had nothing to do with making it easier for young people to go on missions, and had everything to do with keeping the 18-19 years olds active in the church. Again, this was not revelation in the typical sense, but it was the Q15 studying the problem (inactive YA) out in their minds (lots of meetings and presentations), then coming up with a solution, praying about it, and not getting a “stupor of thought”, and make it a new policy. God just let them do their thing. 30 years ago they did something similar, with shorting the length of missions to 18 months. No stupor of thought, so they made it a new policy. Big mistake and they walked it back 2 years later. God did not micro-manage.
I only listened to one of these for about 5 minutes and it was the one saying that 71% (if I remember right) of the youth are inactive by the time the reach the age of 20. I was taken back when someone (with a south american accent) said essentially that his is a failure of parents. That to me was a bit shocking. I bet that person hasn’t had a child leave the church even though they tried to follow all the rules the church has for a family to follow.I liked being on my mission for only 18 months. I think it can be different for those that have to learn another language. I was plenty ready to come home. But then again I went to a “well canvased” area and all we did was tract all day long and most days never get in a door or even have more than a 2 minute conversation with anybody.
SilentDawning wrote:If someone would summarize key points from these vidoes, as Hawgrrl kind of did, that would help. The idea of watching all these videos is daunting for a few nuggets of information that is relevent to the future of the church.
I do think it will make the Q12 more paranoid. I suspect that Mormons running for office will indeed have a harder time of it. But I would like to know what are the key talking points from the video without having to invest a morning.
Here are somehttp://jsamueledwards.blogspot.com/2016/10/mormonleaks.html ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://jsamueledwards.blogspot.com/2016/10/mormonleaks.html http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4423214-155/leaked-videos-show-mormon-apostles-discussing?fullpage=1 ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4423214-155/leaked-videos-show-mormon-apostles-discussing?fullpage=1 I won’t link to any of the more “hostile” groups like redit as I don’t think those are exactly objective and doing so goes against this site’s purpose.
I’ve heard someone is working on transcripts of the videos, but personally I think it’s valuable to watch them. You can do 2x speed on Youtube. One that I did watch end to end (only 8 mins!) was this one on science that talked about Jonathan Haidt’s 5 moral pillars from an article in NYT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFI5J-W7Wc The speaker punched up the fifth moral pillar “Purity,” with a comment about it being great that it’s a universal principle that all agree is important (I’m sure his audience loved to hear that), but he failed to note that there were clear differences between how liberals and conservatives value these pillars, and that it’s a pretty important difference in our understanding of morality. This would have been a great opportunity to instruct, but instead he chose to confirm their conservative biases. He put an article on the Light of Christ by Pres. Packer on par with those scholarly pieces (although he didn’t actually discuss the content of that article).
He then talked about how injuries alter the personality of someone and may result in them no longer being culpable for their sins. He cited two odd examples of someone with a brain injury committing murder (the first one did anyway). I thought this was a weird sidebar, but that’s just me. At the end, only two people really said anything. Packer said until science acknowledged that spirituality is what dictates morality, we really shouldn’t pay attention to anything they have to say on morality which seemed pretty belligerent and ignorant. Then Oaks dialed it down, countering the anti-science comments a bit. He said there was an issue in the handbook about whether or not to ordain the mentally retarded, and that some stakes were asking about it. Not exactly on point, but he at least seemed kind of intellectually curious as he spoke.
Felt like a wasted opportunity, and a very superficial treatment, but it wasn’t horrible. Well, maybe Packer’s comments that were needlessly dismissive of science.
SilentDawning wrote:If someone would summarize key points from these vidoes, as Hawgrrl kind of did, that would help. The idea of watching all these videos is daunting for a few nuggets of information that is relevent to the future of the church.
I do think it will make the Q12 more paranoid. I suspect that Mormons running for office will indeed have a harder time of it. But I would like to know what are the key talking points from the video without having to invest a morning.
So in the Senator Gordon Smith video he says in several different ways that his loyalty was always to the church first and foremost to the church – that his parents raised him with the foundation principle of “Follow the Brethren”, That “I know my covenants”, That his temple recommend was more important than his election certificate, that he asked the FP if he might be ok working with Gay groups on issues of equal housing or equal employment, and that if they wanted to know his position on any social issue “they could find them in my bishop’s handbook and that is how I voted.”
He also seems to have acted as a sort of ambassador for the church using the power and influence of his office as a U.S. Senator to get a proverbial foot in the door for the LDS church.
I have been told by a source close to the Smith family that the videos were stored in the “church archives” so that quorum members that might have been out of the area at the time of the presentations could catch up at a later date. I personally interpret the term “church archive” just to mean that they were probably stored on a church owned server.
Does anyone know if this was Gordon Smith’s one-and-only or one-of-many visits to this meeting? It looked very much like an audition of sorts, all the stops pulled out. I just wonder if he had had other visits that were more appropriate. That Gordon Smith video was – IMO of course – utterly disgusting. But I’m not a conservative, nor am I an old white guy who is part of the power system. And from everything I saw, this video was BY FAR the worst one. Most of them aren’t horrible, just more or less what you would expect from the institutional church run by a very non-diverse set of leaders: groupthink, prejudices, ego-stroking, grandstanding, dismissiveness, hobby-horses. Same old crap. These aren’t pastoral meetings. They are highly political. They are very business-like. E. Gong shines like a bright penny, the voice of reason. He’s impressive. Elder Gong has always impressed me as well. He was on my short list of hopefuls for apostleship last round. I have watched many of the videos as well, generally while multitasking, and for the most part they are quite boring. The only other one that really struck me was when they were talking about young adults and brought up the stat that 70% are inactive by age 20. It’s more than I thought, and they knew about it years ago. It does explain the missionary age change for me, but I don’t think it’s going to bring the results they want – I know many RMs who come back with very different views of the church and gospel (including my own son) and I know several who went inactive within a couple years of returning (not my son, at least not yet). I do have an inactive YSA daughter, and I understand her quibbles – which they did not address in that video. [Side note: in the October Ensign Nelson doubles down on “the policy” as revelation.]
I agree with the rest of what Hawkgrrrl says, and I also note that there are very few women’s voices heard although there are women present. In the YSA video one of the GAs (not sure which) does pipe in with a “let’s get a mother’s viewpoint” and only then does an unidentified sister speak up.
DarkJedi wrote:…there are very few women’s voices heard although there are women present. In the YSA video one of the GAs (not sure which) does pipe in with a “let’s get a mother’s viewpoint” and only then does an unidentified sister speak up.
At about 47:20, someone says, “We should hear a mother’s point of view.” President Beck races through two minutes of what I think areverythoughtful observations and suggestions. Elder Packer says, “Finally our time is up.” No acknowledgment. It might have been him whispering or being whispered to during her time. To be fair, the recording cuts off there and he may have said more. Not a very encouraging peek into this process.
I vote for Bro. AND Sis. Gong helping us move forward. I took a class from her at BYU just as they were marrying.
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