- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I did read the whole quote properly and thought GBH’s answer was shifty and evasive. Not good. As for the couplet, it even appeared on an Osmonds concept album. So hardly obscure.
swimordie wrote:I agree with Ray. I don’t think the concept of God as mortal man on some other planet (or this one) has been taught or even mentioned in my adult life.
I have heard it outright or alluded to numerous times.
I’ve heard some of the references to this concept have been toned down, e.g. the Gospel Principles book used to say we could “become gods” and now it’s something like “become more like Heavenly Father/Christ” With the changes in the gospel principles manual, it does seem like the church is changing things to become more mainstream and gently lead new members into the deeper beliefs of the church later. That may work if one has the trust in the person speaking as we teach line upon line. Other times, it is a shock, like when people go to the temple for the first time. It was only recently the church took out the parts about Heavenly Mother for example, which is understandable as there is no definite teaching on it, only rational deductions made. I was surprised that they took out the part that we ‘need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Everything in the temple ceremonies leads to man becoming gods and goddesses. I do recall a tv show “2001 space odessy,” where I was shocked when they used that line of “as man is, god once was, as god is, man may become.” I heard that couplet often while growing up. I always liked it because it made me feel that God could understand me, having been mortal once. I mean, how can I pray to a God that had never experienced what I have gone through. Being gods in embroyo also made sense to me because a child can become like its parent. When the pearl of great price talked about 3 intelligences that God did not create, it was an aha moment for me because I had always thought that God made me just the way I am and so I could blame him for how I turned out. Knowing that I, as a thinking intelligence, decided to become like God in the pre-existence made me realize I was responsible for how I turned out, not God. So, I tend to think it was political too, but it did disturbe me and my husband when we saw that interview, because it made us feel confused and wondering if the church was changing its teachings. Since, I see church leaders as alot more falliable the past 5 years, I do have a hard time knowing what I can believe when they say something. My only check sourse is the the spirit confirming to me whether what they say comes from God. Cadence, have you heard it (that God was once a mortal man) in General Conference or from “the Church” – or have you heard it from members of the Church? I’ve heard it from members of the Church, and I’m positive there is a very large percentage of members who believe it. I don’t think there’s any legitimate way to assert otherwise. I just can’t remember the last time I heard “the Church” teach it or emphasize it.
Let me relate this to another topic, while begging everyone not to derail this thread by making it about the priesthood ban just because I’m using it as an example:
“The Church” hasn’t taught or emphasized the previous justifications for the ban in a long time, and, in fact, there have been some very strongly worded statements over the past couple of decades, especially, about how we need to let go of those justifications. However, too many members still cling to them, because previous leaders used them.
If Pres. Hinckley had been asked the exact same question about the former justifications for the ban, and if he had said that he wouldn’t say that we teach or emphasize them anymore, he would be correct – regardless of how many members can’t let go of them. If he said, “Those things are never taught anywhere in the LDS Church today” – well, that obviously would be wrong. However, if he simply said, “The Church doesn’t teach them or emphasize them today” – well, he would be correct.
So, based strictly on what he was asked and what he answered, it really doesn’t matter if members still believe the first half of the couplet – when it comes to evaluating the interview. Does it matter in the sense that we want to know if it’s correct or not? Sure, if we care and want to know; not at all, if we dont’ care and don’t want to know. How much emotion we invest in it is up to us, but I’m just pointing out that I think we do him a disservice if we support the idea that he lied in his answer, or that he should have given a doctrinal discourse to someone who didn’t want one (in a setting where it wouldn’t have been appropriate in the first place).
Did he “duck” the question a bit? Maybe, since he might have been able to elaborate a little more – but maybe not, since he might not have been able to elaborate a little more, given the constraints of the interview – and maybe not, since he might have answered more fully in the unedited version or afterward in person to only the interviewer – and maybe or maybe not for a number of other possible reasons. I accept his answer as carefully worded (even with the use of a colloquialism that some didn’t understand) and “political” in that sense – but I also accept that it was an answer to the question asked, and that it actually might have been the best answer possible in the circumstances of that interview.
Intellectually Ray, I agree with you. On a practical level, Pres Hinkley was a leader of a very large organization and in the spotlight before the Church and the world. If there one thing that’s true about making statements in that context it is the political truism: “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
On an emotional level though … well, a great many people that understood even what he was talking about (historically and doctrinally) were some of those people he wasn’t going to please. I was one of them, although it doesn’t bother me that much. I personally wish he has said more, but I am not sure if the Larry King Live audience would have benefited at all from more details without a lengthy theological primer to even understand why it was an interesting question.
So yeah. My jaw hit the floor too when I saw the interview. I was like “What do you mean you don’t know anything about this? It’s in tons of prominent books by Church authorities, and I have heard this all my life as a member.”
I admit that none of my sources for hearing this growing up were general conference talks or official teachings in Church, but few people in their 30’s to 40’s today and older who have been members all their life would be unfamiliar or “not know” what Larry King was talking about. I accept Pres. Hinkley’s culturally linguistic response as you say … but a lot of people didn’t hear it that way.
I really don’t think he was lying. I am fine if he was crafting a careful answer. Seriously, that’s a lot of pressure making statements on national television for the Church as its leader. He wasn’t going to please all the people all the time … and that’s just how it ends up.
I agree, Brian. I really do – and I don’t argue about that at all. I can’t. And for all we know, he was might have been kicking himself for a week, wishing he had said it differently too. I don’t know how much preparation Larry King gives his interview guests. Does he give people the interview questions in advance? I don’t know… not sure that matters really either. I can think of many times I said something and mull it over endlessly afterward with all kinds of brilliant responses … too late!
FWIW, I think Larry King treated GBH with kiddy gloves, I don’t think he gave him particularly challenging or nasty questions, and they were probably vetted by a committee beforehand. I suspect he may have been worried about alienating other Christians with this unusual belief. But America, and much of the Western World has moved on. The USA has increasing numbers of Muslims, and non-Abrahamic religions, both Dharmic, and more exotic, e.g. Scientology, which make most Christians and Jews look very mainstream… I think most of the weirdness in Mormonism, eternal progression especially, may have been heady stuff in the 19th century, but is quite tame by 21st century standards, and is much less wild than some of Oprah Winfrey or Shirley McLaine’s New Agey views.
I don’t really have anything to add that is probably useful to this discussion but it is another example, IMNSHO, of church members (or “the church”) trying to have its cake and eat it to, in a sense. Whenever some troubling problem comes along that severely tests the canon they escape it by tortured logic designed to make it appear that the church really never taught this or that thing in the way the critic is saying. I was born and reared in the church. The teaching that “as God is, man may become; as man is, God once was” was absolutely central to the church’s theology and in many respects (along with the belief that God and Jesus are distinct beings made of flesh and bone) what made it unique. If that belief goes, it seems to me the whole thing goes. That’s the biggest problem the church has for those of us who feel disaffected. We were taught one thing growing up and now it’s all changed. The Hinkley thing was an absolute embarrassment and not what one would expect from the “prophet.” Old-Timer wrote:Sam and Silent Dawning:
Perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough in the post that the interviewer himself quoted ONLY the part in parentheses above – that the interviewer actually asked about, and ONLY about, the idea that “as man is, God once was”. The interview question and answer DID NOT deal with the second half of the couplet – man becoming like God. It dealt ONLY with the first half of the couplet – God once being a mortal man. That idea (that God once was a mortal man) is NOT taught or emphasized by the modern Church; it is NOT “the teaching of the church today”.
That really is critical to understanding what he said, and you are totally missing the entire interview message if you expand his answer to include us becoming like God.
Got it — you’re right. I didn’t read it carefully enough. I assumed the it meant the entire couplet even though the latter half wasn’t stated — as if it was short hand. My fault. When you put it that way, you’re right, we tend to emphasize the latter half of the couplet, and not the first half of the couplet, and yes, there isn’t much about God’s origins out there.
Thanks for couching your language explaining your intent wasn’t to put us on the defensive by the way; I appreciate your attendance to the emotional side of the post; it certainly helps keep the mind open.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.