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In May 1993, apostle Boyd K. Packer said the church’s three greatest threats came from feminists, gays and intellectuals. That’s the origin of the issues with BKP. This was in the wake of the September Six – the excommunication of six prominent LDS intellectuals in September of 1993. I was just out of college when that happened, and I still remember how scary it was. Up to that point, it seemed that we were (as a church) very excitedly seeking further knowledge and revelation, exploring the church theology openly, and discussing ideas in fresh ways, finding common ground between theology, science, interfaith dialogue, and so forth. Anyway, this basically felt like the church outlawed free speech and personal truth-seeking, establishing the brethren as the only source of truth. I didn’t know any of the excommunicants personally, hadn’t read their books, but there was a palpable cultural change throughout the church, and it has affected us all.
I’m sure there are two ends of a spectrum here. We don’t want the political to usurp the spiritual, but this action felt violent to me at the time. I wasn’t in any direct danger, but when you see a parent do something scary, even if they did it ostensibly to protect you, you never view that parent the same. I felt the same way when I found my dad’s gun in his nightstand drawer. I had nightmares for years that my dad was dangerous and might kill us all in our sleep.
I was in a leadership meeting in the DC area and Brother Packer was the main speaker. The only thing I remember for his talk was he said that the church fears the far right a lot more than the far left. That really surprised me. I guess, church, that that makes sense. It seems to be , but I could be wrong, that many Christian churchs that move to the far right end up repelling too many than attracting them to those religions. Quote:In May 1993, apostle Boyd K. Packer said the church’s three greatest threats came from feminists, gays and intellectuals. That’s the origin of the issues with BKP. This was in the wake of the September Six – the excommunication of six prominent LDS intellectuals in September of 1993.
He might think that, but the biggest threat to the church right now is the Internet. Not because it is a bad thing, but because the church, a) hides things, and b) cleans them up. We should be honest and deal with them.
As for intellectuals… what does he think about Talmage, Lorenzo & Eliza R Snow or even McConkie & Nibley? All of them qualify as intellectuals in some way. Isn’t “the glory of God intelligence”. What happened to “seek ye learning out of the best books?”
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