- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I heard a story about OW on KUER yesterday. This issue really is a distraction from what matters. Unfortunately, non-members who hear about this through KUER, the NYT, etc. are going to come away with the main idea that “the Mormon church is a backward, oppressive organization.” This if course misses the main point about the church.
The media is a reality distortion field. It reports the unusual or exceptional negative things that happened that day. It is easy to miss the larger picture and all the good things that happened that day.
To accurately reflect the balance of reality, the daily news summary should read something like: “A tiny percentage of people commuted crimes and caused problems today. A few wars are happening around the world. Congress made some bad calls. But, overall, billions of acts of quiet heroism and kindness occurred around the world. Parents sacrificed to work and take care of their kids. Teachers taught, engineers built useful things, governments kept order. Almost all countries remained at peace today. Their citizens overwhelmingly obeyed laws and lived decent lives of personal dignity.”
Likewise, a balanced summary of reality about the church this week should read something like, “A few members actions were apparently leading people astray, so unfortunately they may lose their memberships. But the good news is that God lives and his church has been re-established on the earth. A living prophet teaches. The gospel of love is being preached to the world. The kingdom of God is growing and blessing the lives of millions.”
The news about these possible excommunications is a distraction, like most of these “controversies” are. The things that matter are: Am I becoming more like Christ? Am I growing in faith, hope, charity, humility, forgiveness? Am I becoming more wise and knowledgeable? Am I repenting so I can stay clean and continue to grow spiritually? Am I learning to love better? Am I becoming more free from pride?”
Speaking of pride, I think pride is a point of relevance to this topic. I think everyone on this planet should memorize that great talk by President Benson about pride.
“Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of ‘my will and not thine be done.'”
Beware of Pride
President Ezra Taft Benson
shoshin wrote:This issue really is a distraction from what matters. Unfortunately, non-members who hear about this through KUER, the NYT, etc. are going to come away with the main idea that “the Mormon church is a backward, oppressive organization.” This if course misses the main point about the church.
It might miss the main point but does it raise a small point that needs to be addressed? Maybe it can serve as a point of introspection. Am I contributing toward oppression?
shoshin wrote:Likewise, a balanced summary of reality about the church this week should read something like, “A few members actions were apparently leading people astray, so unfortunately they may lose their memberships.
But the good news is that God lives and his church has been re-established on the earth. A living prophet teaches. The gospel of love is being preached to the world. The kingdom of God is growing and blessing the lives of millions.”I don’t think any news organization, at least a non-church news organization, would print something like that. And that’s not balanced at all, that’s biased. Those comments presuppose that the reader accepts the CoJCoLDS as the one true church. Think of the non-member. How are they going to read “the church has been re-established on the earth” in the NYT and come away thinking that it’s balanced? Swapping out the news outlet’s agenda for furthering the church’s agenda doesn’t make it balanced, it just tips the scales in the other direction.
shoshin wrote:The news about these possible excommunications is a distraction, like most of these “controversies” are. The things that matter are: Am I becoming more like Christ? Am I growing in faith, hope, charity, humility, forgiveness? Am I becoming more wise and knowledgeable? Am I repenting so I can stay clean and continue to grow spiritually? Am I learning to love better? Am I becoming more free from pride?”
I think the worry by people that have doubts is: Will they come after me despite me doing my best to do all those things? I’ bet KK feels like she could answer all of those questions in the affirmative.
I know all about media bias. I’ve been interviewed by the media and I was amazed at the warped slant that they put on my comments. Media is sensationalism and just like you say… they’re going to try to make things look scandalous, it’s their business. I agree that the media loves to focus on the negative. I even think that some of that has rubbed off on human culture. Still if someone shines a light on a problem that could be addressed I’d prefer to address the problem as opposed to shooting the messenger. One could argue that there’s no problem to address here, many have. Other people feel differently.
shoshin wrote:Speaking of pride, I think pride is a point of relevance to this topic.
BOTH sides can exhibit pride.
shoshin wrote:I heard a story about OW on KUER yesterday.
This issue really is a distraction from what matters. Unfortunately, non-members who hear about this through KUER, the NYT, etc. are going to come away with the main idea that “the Mormon church is a backward, oppressive organization.” This if course misses the main point about the church.
The media is a reality distortion field. It reports the unusual or exceptional negative things that happened that day. It is easy to miss the larger picture and all the good things that happened that day.
To accurately reflect the balance of reality, the daily news summary should read something like: “A tiny percentage of people commuted crimes and caused problems today. A few wars are happening around the world. Congress made some bad calls. But, overall, billions of acts of quiet heroism and kindness occurred around the world. Parents sacrificed to work and take care of their kids. Teachers taught, engineers built useful things, governments kept order. Almost all countries remained at peace today. Their citizens overwhelmingly obeyed laws and lived decent lives of personal dignity.”
Likewise, a balanced summary of reality about the church this week should read something like, “A few members actions were apparently leading people astray, so unfortunately they may lose their memberships. But the good news is that God lives and his church has been re-established on the earth. A living prophet teaches. The gospel of love is being preached to the world. The kingdom of God is growing and blessing the lives of millions.”
The news about these possible excommunications is a distraction, like most of these “controversies” are. The things that matter are: Am I becoming more like Christ? Am I growing in faith, hope, charity, humility, forgiveness? Am I becoming more wise and knowledgeable? Am I repenting so I can stay clean and continue to grow spiritually? Am I learning to love better? Am I becoming more free from pride?”
Speaking of pride, I think pride is a point of relevance to this topic. I think everyone on this planet should memorize that great talk by President Benson about pride.
“Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of ‘my will and not thine be done.'”
Beware of Pride
President Ezra Taft Benson
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1989/05/beware-of-pride Epic fail.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
Classic “The emperor has no clothes” mentality. Nice. Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
“It’s not that simple,” is a really good summation, imo. I’ll just say I don’t agree with much of Pres. Benson’s talk on pride. And I think there is pride on both sides of the issue at hand. cwald – What will you know on Sunday? The following was posted by John on his facebook page this morning. Quote:A quick update – My stake president has agreed to meet with me on June 29th, expressing a desire for de-escalation. The June 18th timeline has been suspended.
The Pride talk, one that I personally liked a lot at the time, is mostly plagiarized from C.S. Lewis. No wonder it was so good. It’s starting to look to me like maybe this isn’t entirely top down given the flexibility being shown John. However, what a disaster if the church exes Kate, who has never in her life experienced a faith crisis and simply wants women to be ordained but used liberal tactics to get her points across, but doesn’t take any such action on John.
I didn’t know that about Benson’s talk. Where did you find that out? From a post on cougarstadium.com: Quote:“most of the poignant, often-quoted lines from the talk come from Lewis’ Mere Christianity chapter on Pride.”
I’ve read Mere Christianity years ago. There are also exMo sites that make this claim. I call it plagiarism, but those unwilling to go so far say he neglected to cite his sources. Tomato, to-mah-to. Bear in mind that there is anecdotal evidence he didn’t write the talk, so the error was not necessarily his. It’s just funny that more people don’t notice it since so many Mormons eat C.S. Lewis up with a spoon and he is regularly quoted at GC along with Broadway plays.
mom3 wrote:cwald – What will you know on Sunday?
Knowing my church leaders and family read this site, I need to wait until tomorrow afternoon to respond and have this conversation.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
I hope I don’t put you in jeopardy. PM me if you want. Good luck. mom3 wrote:The following was posted by John on his facebook page this morning.
Quote:A quick update – My stake president has agreed to meet with me on June 29th, expressing a desire for de-escalation. The June 18th timeline has been suspended.
Sounds like the stake president got a phone call.
GBSmith wrote:mom3 wrote:The following was posted by John on his facebook page this morning.
Quote:A quick update – My stake president has agreed to meet with me on June 29th, expressing a desire for de-escalation. The June 18th timeline has been suspended.
Sounds like the stake president got a phone call.
Not necessarily. In the letter the SP offered to meet with John and John requested the meeting. I continue to believe that the vast majority of local leaders are good men just trying to do what they think is right. I think he may see that talking to John, especially since they have never met, is the right thing to do especially given the gravity of the situation.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.