- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I’ve been working on this for some time. http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/ces-letter/ I know my views are not mainstream, but I worked a long time trying to make the language and views as palatable as possible. I’m hoping even conservative LDS would feel comfortable recommending this to their friends and family struggling with CES Letter issues. What do you think? I’m asking for help promoting this. If you think this article would be helpful to the LDS community, please share on social media, make links from your blogs or websites, etc. Thanks.
It’s not bad. I discovered the CES letter well into my faith crisis and it had little impact. That’s partly because my issues weren’t historical and partly because I already didn’t believe in the one true church and its theology. That brings me to the opening part of the blog. I get you’re trying to make a distinction between historical and spiritual truth and this has given me something to think about in light of my current pondering about truth. However, I think those who have a testimony of the Book of Mormon by following Moroni’s promise and getting their spiritual confirmation won’t see that as an intersection of historical and spiritual truth – I think they see it as wholly spiritual. The belief in young earth is probably seen as less of a spiritual truth than the BoM witness, nevertheless those who believe that (I don’t) seem to be very fixed on it if only because it’s contained in the Bible. It does fit your description of the differences and intersection better than the BoM example, but I think believers might just testify “I know the Bible to be the word of God, therefore creation is as it is described therein.” DarkJedi wrote:It’s not bad. I discovered the CES letter well into my faith crisis and it had little impact. That’s partly because my issues weren’t historical and partly because I already didn’t believe in the one true church and its theology. That brings me to the opening part of the blog. I get you’re trying to make a distinction between historical and spiritual truth and this has given me something to think about in light of my current pondering about truth. However, I think those who have a testimony of the Book of Mormon by following Moroni’s promise and getting their spiritual confirmation won’t see that as an intersection of historical and spiritual truth – I think they see it as wholly spiritual. The belief in young earth is probably seen as less of a spiritual truth than the BoM witness, nevertheless those who believe that (I don’t) seem to be very fixed on it if only because it’s contained in the Bible. It does fit your description of the differences and intersection better than the BoM example, but I think believers might just testify “I know the Bible to be the word of God, therefore creation is as it is described therein.”
Thanks. I don’t want to convince any literal believers of my point of view. I’m just hoping they can recognize it as an acceptable perspective, especially maybe as a “last ditch” effort to save someone already out the door.
I appreciate your effort to reach out to all people in connection to faith crisis or faith transition. The CES letter for me did rattle me a bit when I first read it. Though I was already in the middle or towards the end of my transition. After I cleared away all my beliefs, all my history all my experience. I was left with nothing. It was a beautiful clearing in a forest. From nothing, after considering everything, I choose to believe because I choose to believe. I hold dear the beauty and good fruit I have experienced in the church. I see the most bitter branches being cleared away according to the strength of the roots.
Thank you again.
I read it and I can tell you have put some time into it and you try to give it a balanced review. I appreciate your effort. When the CES letter came out 90% of it was no news to me, so it didn’t have much of an impact on me at all. But I did think, “if a TBM read this and then looked up even a few of the topics, it might start them on the slippery slope.”
I agree a bit with Dark Jedi in that I don’t think TBM’s are going to get much of what you talk about. But as far as a “don’t jump after reading the CES letter and think about it first” it is a good thing for someone to read.
Just a few comments on some sections
whitewashing historyI have been trying to really dig down on this lately. My biggest issue (not just in this area) seems to be that I feel the leadership is overstating many things. You mention that the church changes slowly. I have a hard time because I see that over and over that the church is SLOW to REACT. I don’t think I expect perfection, but that does not jive at all with all the noise about how blessed we are to be LEAD by a prophet. Today I see the pope “in front” of the prophet on a few topics. I am not saying I know where the right end-point is, but going on my gut feel it sure seems that way. I am having a hard time not thinking, “shouldn’t a prophet have foreseen the impacts of the internet?” anti-intellectualismYou state, “The church made it public they did not require all members to believe or vote against gay marriage.” Well that is if you have a short-term memory and live in California. The church leadership ASKED for members to donate quite a bit of money and time to fight this. Some even had hinted their recommends were on the line based on people following. So I can’t say they are CLEAR on this and that is only very recently. There was an interesting (and long) comment.
I do appreciate the effort and balance in this. I wish TBM’s could be so balanced when looking at many items.
I think the strongest part of this is just you walking through the issues one by one and commenting. Seeing someone doing this speaks volumes, and could help many by giving them a push to do the same. They see that your conclusions on individual issues are all over the board, and that’s okay. I agree with Ann. But I also want to ask….where was the StayLDS.com plug?? I must have missed it somewhere in there
Heber13 wrote:I agree with Ann.
But I also want to ask….where was the StayLDS.com plug?? I must have missed it somewhere in there
dammit, you’re right. fixing immediately!
churchistrue wrote:Heber13 wrote:I agree with Ann.
But I also want to ask….where was the StayLDS.com plug?? I must have missed it somewhere in there
dammit, you’re right. fixing immediately!
Done. Expect a huge influx of new posters.
I also liked this response. I had similar reactions to many of the CES points. I never finished the CES letter because it is super long and after a while it just seems to be restating the point over and over and over. I get it already. 
Sometimes I read responses to the CES letter that do not seem to address the content of the CES letter at all and instead seem to talk about going to church for personal goodness etc.. I believe that this is primarily because even a nuanced view of some of the content can be very damaging to a strictly literal believer. That is a danger of openly discussing these issues. Even the church essay on the priesthood pan has caused some testimony issues. such a balancing act. How to start the conversations without damaging the old guard?
I was somewhat surprised by your assertion that the church may be willing to accept the Egyptian papyri as merely a catalyst for revelation. In following the link to the church essay I find that you are mostly correct with one difference.
Quote:This kind of nuanced view is similar to the view some LDS scholars take on the Book of Mormon, seeing it as inspired but not historical.
The portion of the church essay that I feel is most relevant is: “Joseph’s translation of portions of the Bible, for example, included restoration of original text, harmonization of contradictions within the Bible itself, and inspired commentary.” and “The opposite could also be true: illustrations with no clear connection to Abraham anciently could, by revelation, shed light on the life and teachings of this prophetic figure.”
From what I read of the church essay, they are suggesting that even if the papyri has nothing to do with the translation the resulting translation is still historical just with a broken chain of custody. Abraham could have written his story and then promptly burnt it and JS could have been transmitting the “original text” from this long lost document or perhaps it was never written down but JS saw the historical life of the prophet Abraham through revelation and recorded what he saw – thus shedding “light on the life and teachings of this prophetic figure”.
I did not read anything in the essay that seemed at all ready to even entertain the idea that the BofA could be inspired and spiritual historical fiction. On the contrary, I am reading it to say that the BofA provides historically accurate information of Abraham even it that knowledge came directly from the mind of JS through revelation. Perhaps I am wrong but that is how I read the church essay (even though I personally fall more into the inspired midrash camp).
The only other comment I had was the behemoth church requiring a “pittance” from the membership.
Quote:It’s easy to paint the church as a corporate behemoth demanding pittance from poor members.
I looked up pittance just to be sure I had the correct definition. Pittance = a small sum. This seemed out of place because 10% seems like a huge sum to many members. In pie charting our family budget I remember tithing being the second biggest piece of the pie (second only to the mortgage payment!). In rereading that sentence I wonder if you meant that the amount of tithing contributed by some members must seem like a pittance compared to the huge financial resources of the church. That is a very valid reading of the sentence but I wonder if some of your readers might have the same reaction that I did. Perhaps a different wording or sentence structure would limit the different possible readings of that sentence.
This was a fairly long post and those two points were the only things that I might suggest modifying. Overall it seemed to be very solid and even-handed. Keep up the good work!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.