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I only share this because he has. I also perhaps wrongly have assumed this is accurate but it seems to be all over at the moment. If proven incorrect, I will be the first to apoligize and I ask you take this with a grain of salt.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54979428-78/twede-church-lds-mormon.html.csp apparently this is the response from him when his stake president cancelled the council due to a member not showing. I have left out the Stake president’s email as it was sent in confidence though nothing in it would raise an eyebrow. My problem is with this fella sharing these communications and attitude is apparent from his response. Not sure how this displays a desire to remain in the church and work with the church?
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From what I know, the bishop is not directly part of the process, per pp. 112-114 of the Handbook for Stake Presidents and Bishops. Bishop Dollar had never met me before you met me. I have no reason to believe he is required. If you are calling him as a witness, I have a right to know well before hand.However, I am glad you are canceling the court, as we know it is ridiculous. I have asked members that as they fast for Mitt Romney this Sunday, they wear paisley for the poor. The corporate empire building of the business class leadership needs to reform and move toward helping the needy, the hungry and the homeless.
I only share this because he has. I also perhaps wrongly have assumed this is accurate but it seems to be all over at the moment. If proven incorrect, I will be the first to apoligize and I ask you take this with a grain of salt.
Mods…close the thread…or expect honest discussion. You can’t have it both ways. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
This thread isn’t a bad discussion. Anyway can choose to ignore it. Good football game last night. DBMormon wrote:But in the Church, they can not outwardly teach things that diminish faith.
Diminish faith in what though? I think that is key to the problem.
I agree that we should not promote things that reduce or diminish hope in the basic gospel of Jesus Christ: Faith, Repentance, Baptism and the experience of transformation through the Holy Ghost.
We should not diminish hope. We should not distract from goodness.
The problem I see is conflating the earthly organization with the gospel. The controversial information posted at MT (and also at FAIR, let’s be “fair,” pun intended) has a tendency to reduce faith in the institution, or at least diminish what I believe can be a harmful attachment and dependency. Personally, that’s what I think the bulk of fear and angst comes from.
Our history is our history. The sooner we deal with it, facing it honestly, the sooner we can incorporate it into our religious narrative. There are REAL answers to all those controversies. They just aren’t all going to be ones that promote a “14 Fundamentals” paradigm. They threaten that — which is why it is viewed as dangerous.
I know all that stuff on MT. So do most of the others who contribute here regularly. I still love our religion.
cwald wrote:Mods…close the thread…or expect honest discussion. You can’t have it both ways.
Answer: Honest discussion.
Everyone just needs to keep things within our rules of etiquette, and keep our community purpose in mind. We are looking for ways to resolve the problems, find alternative ways of looking at the issues.
Nobody has to be a cheerleader for the church or their decisions. They are wrong sometimes. But on the other hand, we also don’t use this community as a platform to launch attacks.
Brother Tweade’s situation touches very close to home for many of us. There’s a lot of emotions about what happened. It tends to bring out strong opinions. We just need to keep that in mind and stay focused on our community purpose.
Brian Johnston wrote:DBMormon wrote:But in the Church, they can not outwardly teach things that diminish faith.
Diminish faith in what though? I think that is key to the problem.
I agree that we should not promote things that reduce or diminish hope in the basic gospel of Jesus Christ: Faith, Repentance, Baptism and the experience of transformation through the Holy Ghost.
We should not diminish hope. We should not distract from goodness.
The problem I see is conflating the earthly organization with the gospel. The controversial information posted at MT (and also at FAIR, let’s be “fair,” pun intended) has a tendency to reduce faith in the institution, or at least diminish what I believe can be a harmful attachment and dependency. Personally, that’s what I think the bulk of fear and angst comes from.
Our history is our history. The sooner we deal with it, facing it honestly, the sooner we can incorporate it into our religious narrative. There are REAL answers to all those controversies. They just aren’t all going to be ones that promote a “14 Fundamentals” paradigm. They threaten that — which is why it is viewed as dangerous.
I know all that stuff on MT. So do most of the others who contribute here regularly. I still love our religion.
I don’t think one can long term be at work to diminish faith outwardly in other members in regards to the same church it wants to ascribe/belong/participate to/in.
In other words If I knew someone who was a Baptist and they were trying to diminish the faith of other baptist members in the baptist church, I would not have a problem and would actually expect the baptist church to excommunicate him or remove him from the rolls. Bro. Tweed is taking the church on and doing so with sarcasm and animosity. While I respect his feelings and completely understand first hand how he got to where he did, he is going about it in a fashion that will lead to his no longer being a member. I see no fault in his local leadership for doing so having caught a glimpse of the way he is conducting himself.
The picture he paints with the “Facts” is not a faithful approach. One can no be a member in good standing while advocating unbelief in the church. Now he has a right to do what he wants, but the church is not at fault for holding it’s standards for membership.
Brian, I wish these facts were more available as well. But if one shared the same facts from the standpoint of putting them and other information in a faithful perspective, this discussion wouldn’t be happening.
His effort to make this as public as he can and his site’s slant which seems designed to tear down the faith of others and cause doubt is not conducive to also being in good fellowship with the church.
I said before the best idea is to share both the damaging factual info and the faith promoting factual info on one site and try to keep bias out and let people make up their own minds. Like Mormon Think and Jeff Lindsay smashed together…. that would be perfect and it wouldn’t catch any flack as you are sharing truth but allowing for faith.
As it is, MormonThink is very one sided
Brian Johnston wrote:[The problem I see is conflating the earthly organization with the gospel.
In argument you can separate them but in real life it’s all wound up together. That’s why it seems that when people leave the organization their faith in the gospel takes a hit as well. I’ve felt for a long time that more emphasis on the Gospel as you define it and less on our pioneer forefathers would serve us better in the long run.
DBMormon wrote:I said before the best idea is to share both the damaging factual info and the faith promoting factual info on one site and try to keep bias out and let people make up their own minds.
This is the ideal. But I have seen even Bushman acknowledge, keeping bias out is nearly impossible.Is it really the content on the website that creates the issue, or the attitude of the author of the website AND simultaneous attitude of authorized leaders where he lives that is creating the problem?
Perhaps we don’t need to demarcate gospel vs the church, but intention of support vs contention, regardless of the context. If my leader came to me specifically and told me directly to stop doing something, I will not turn off my brain and just say “OK, you must be right”, but I think it an absolutely awful choice to post correspondence on websites and publicly fight the battle. I would rather take it behind closed doors and humbly share my views in hopes of keeping my leader on my side, not against me.
Quote:Dissecting doctrine in a controversial way in order to draw attention to oneself is not pleasing to the Lord. He declared:
“Bring to light the true points of my doctrine, yea, and the only doctrine which is in me.
“And this I do that I may establish my gospel, that there may not be so much contention; yea, Satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention concerning the points of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they do wrest the scriptures and do not understand them.” (D&C 10:62–63.)
It is not the sharing of facts that is the problem, IMO. It is how one does it.What Brian said: Honest discussion – but keeping our mission in mind. I don’t want this thread shut down. It has WAY too much potential to be a really good discussion. However, it also has the potential to turn into a train wreck. It’s up to us to “be adults” and have honest discussion that is constructive and respectful – both of Bro. Twede and of everyone who comments here.
I’ve tried hard to separate my opinion of what Bro. Twede is doing from attacks on him personally. Intellectually and emotionally, I understand as well as I can why he has done what he has done – but I can’t chastise the Church for what it might do, given what I see him doing. I think he might have started out trying to “help” people IN the Church, but I think his actions haven’t been doing that lately and aren’t doing that now.
As I just said in another thread, I would NEVER try to shatter what is working for someone, at the individual level, in the name of anything – inside or outside the Church. I would NEVER try to shove someone into Stage 4 who is happy and productive in Stage 3. That’s not loving; it’s cruel and selfish.
Edited by me. Never mind…again.
Deep breath, green dude. He’s already ex’d himself whether it’s official or not. He shouldn’t have come back to build a little street cred as an attending member and I doubt anybodys family’s been ruined. If he’s trying to martyr himself to be on the level with Lavina, it won’t work. For me the best thing to do is to ignore him. Trying to swat him just makes him buzz louder. GBSmith wrote:Deep breath, green dude. He’s already ex’d himself whether it’s official or not. He shouldn’t have come back to build a little street cred as an attending member and I doubt anybodys family’s been ruined. If he’s trying to martyr himself to be on the level with Lavina, it won’t work. For me the best thing to do is to ignore him. Trying to swat him just makes him buzz louder.
Maybe.
I modified my “family” comment to better reflect my honest opinion.
And yes. Ignore him. This would have been the correct action. I’m glad the church was “embarrassed ” into rethinking their decision.
I see this as a local issue. The SP there sees something in his behavior that is of note. Also many keep saying this postponement or cancelation is because the church came to it’s senses. I don’t see that at all, though time will tell. I take the leaders at their word. Soon as his Bishop is back in town and they can get all together I would expect this to proceed. Again I understand where he is coming from and how he sees it, just also see the church’s side as well. He site is not conducive to faith in the church. Again tell the facts but not from the view that the church is awful.
I wish the best for all involved and will comment no further on this post, as it is apparent I am offending. I don’t want that but do wish we could all take a step back and see this from the church’s viewpoint as well as tweed’s.
Your friend in Christ
DB
DBMormon wrote:I see this as a local issue. The SP there sees something in his behavior that is of note. Also many keep saying this postponement or cancelation is because the church came to it’s senses. I don’t see that at all, though time will tell. I take the leaders at their word. Soon as his Bishop is back in town and they can get all together I would expect this to proceed.
Again I understand where he is coming from and how he sees it, just also see the church’s side as well. He site is not conducive to faith in the church. Again tell the facts but not from the view that the church is awful.
I wish the best for all involved and will comment no further on this post, as it is apparent I am offending. I don’t want that but do wish we could all take a step back and see this from the church’s viewpoint as well as tweed’s.
Your friend in Christ
DB
No offense as far as I’m concerned. Your comments have been spot on especially as regards historical “facts” and context. I see it as a local issue as well and if the Bishop and SP feel they have to protect their members, they’ll do what they have to do. At the same time allowing him to portray himself as the broken but unbowed martyr isn’t in the church’s interest either. Hence my comment about ignoring him. So anyway, your comments are valued and welcome and much appreciated.
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