Reform to what?

[Anonymous]

johnh wrote:

SamBee wrote:

Stop the “mainstreaming”, and say “Yes, we’re kinda weird, but guess what, some of these are cool doctrines.” All the talk about divine potential is actually incredibly tame compared to what New Agers teach, let alone Scientology!!! We’re different, we should be proud to be different, and what’s more, any of the bad crap in the past has been dropped or should be dropped…

Wow….you sound like the end lecture from the Mormon kid in south park “about the mormons” episdoe (i don’t normally watch it but was referred to this episode). Well…then you have to say “Suck my b*lls dude”

Not knocking it…i actually thought it was a fairly profound episode that sort of supported mormonism as a good thing….in fact i the a lot of leaders should watch it and listen close to the last 2 minutes…..and then lighten up.

Can u PM me a link? I’ve been looking for that episode on YouTube for ages.

[Anonymous]

DBMormon wrote:

The only wish I have is that the nonsense that gets perpetuated generation to generation, that there was some way to eliminate it. I know if you asked FP or the Q12, almost everyone of them would say Evolution might be real, the earth may be billions of years old, Joseph used a seer stone, Sealings to already married women by Bro. joseph occured, Jesus likely wasn’t born on april 6th, Black people were not cursed, We don’t know why coffee and tea are banned other then God said so, polygamy is certainly not required for exhaltation, perfect obedience is impossible (though required becasue it pushes us) and it is on God’s Grace and merits we are savedect… yet we have very little outlet to correct these things unless the you’s and me’s speak up and many of us are already looked at as troublesome and unfundamental in our beliefs… I want that fixed. Once it is, then I can move on my merry way and shut my participation in discussion boards and podcasts down. ……. should I look for another hobby?

I will take exception with this. I hear and read how the leaders are really in tune with what is going on and it is just the dumb members who perpetuate all this nonsense. I reject this on two fronts. First of all if they really know and say nothing dramatic to correct it, then they are inferior leaders. Second if they actually believe all the nonsense, they are not very informed and are not good leaders. Either way they fail. I think what they really are good at is keeping the church afloat and picking and choosing what to say which generally is in the church’s best interest. So they are good leaders but not in the sense that members want to attribute to them.

[Anonymous]

mackay11 wrote:

johnh wrote:

SamBee wrote:

Stop the “mainstreaming”, and say “Yes, we’re kinda weird, but guess what, some of these are cool doctrines.” All the talk about divine potential is actually incredibly tame compared to what New Agers teach, let alone Scientology!!! We’re different, we should be proud to be different, and what’s more, any of the bad crap in the past has been dropped or should be dropped…

Wow….you sound like the end lecture from the Mormon kid in south park “about the mormons” episdoe (i don’t normally watch it but was referred to this episode). Well…then you have to say “Suck my b*lls dude”

Not knocking it…i actually thought it was a fairly profound episode that sort of supported mormonism as a good thing….in fact i the a lot of leaders should watch it and listen close to the last 2 minutes…..and then lighten up.

Can u PM me a link? I’ve been looking for that episode on YouTube for ages.

here is the link..posting here as all legal. it is at the studios website: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s07e12-all-about-mormons

[Anonymous]

Kumahito wrote:

SamBee wrote:

Stop the “mainstreaming”, and say “Yes, we’re kinda weird, but guess what, some of these are cool doctrines.” All the talk about divine potential is actually incredibly tame compared to what New Agers teach, let alone Scientology!!! We’re different, we should be proud to be different, and what’s more, any of the bad crap in the past has been dropped or should be dropped…

Double yes!

Personally I think one of the Church’s top priorities should be to try to become more appealing to a wider range of people and as far as I’m concerned focusing heavily on how important it supposedly is to be so different from “the world” is cultish and leads to unnecessary conflict and intolerance that gives the Church a bad name. You could argue that discontinuing polygamy and the racial priesthood ban was “mainstreaming” because the Church was basically out of sync with the mainstream culture before and eventually took obvious steps to become more like everyone else.

Actually, I don’t believe the Church has really done much to become more mainstream since 1978 other than a few PR moves to try to improve their image and gain increased acceptance without significantly changing the underlying doctrines and policies. Was the Prop. 8 debacle an example of mainstreaming or resistance to changing popular opinions? It looks like they mostly ended up getting negative publicity and widespread disapproval out of this and most of the people that supported their involvement in it probably would have already continued to support them anyway if they had simply stayed out of it.

I realize that the Church is probably not going to abandon a few core ideas like temple marriage, priesthood (exclusive authority), and a continuous succession of living prophets any time soon because these are some of their favorite selling points to try to explain what the LDS Church has to offer that other alternatives supposedly can’t compete with. However, even if they keep the same basic doctrines I think they could still make major improvements simply by what they choose to focus on the most and by trying to change the culture (baby steps) to allow a little more flexibility for personal interpretation of doctrines and differences of opinion so there aren’t quite so many members left feeling like they don’t fit in or there is no reason why they should even want to stick around.

[Anonymous]

I’m with DA. More ‘mainstreaming’ in the sense that they just park the out-there stuff and focus on a being good and proactive group of christians. We don’t have to abandon anything. But we can focus on the things that make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Trouble is that mainstreaming leads to blandness.

Would be glad to see the end of institutionalized prejudice, but why do we have to ditch unique teachings like exaltation, work for the dead, the BoM etc? We don’t! They make us different in a good way, sexism/racism makes us different in a bad way.

I see the temple ceremonies have been filmed and put online. Should we be embarrassed about them?

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I see the temple ceremonies have been filmed and put online. Should we be embarrassed about them?

Nope – but it’s our own fault, in a way, for treating them as secret, especially in light of what little that occurs is forbidden to be discussed.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Nope – but it’s our own fault, in a way, for treating them as secret, especially in light of what little that occurs is forbidden to be discussed.

Agreed, I think there was a fear in the past that if they were more open people wouldn’t go.

Now that the videos are online, any prospective missionary or investigator can watch the whole thing, so they need to be more open about discussing it.

[Anonymous]

mackay11 wrote:

Old-Timer wrote:

Nope – but it’s our own fault, in a way, for treating them as secret, especially in light of what little that occurs is forbidden to be discussed.

Agreed, I think there was a fear in the past that if they were more open people wouldn’t go.

Now that the videos are online, any prospective missionary or investigator can watch the whole thing, so they need to be more open about discussing it.

And will it mean changes, I wonder?

[Anonymous]

Honestly, Ann, I doubt it – at least no differently than the manner in which it has been changed already.

Fwiw, I’m fine with the changes that have been made. When symbols lose their relevance in a society (like parables or any kind of allegory), they also lose their power. We aren’t in the same society that existed when the original endowment was created, or even that existed 50 years ago, so I am glad the endowment has evolved over time to stay relevant to the times.

I’m also glad it’s no longer an all day affair like originally. I like my own less than two hour version, thank you very much. :clap:

[Anonymous]

Ann wrote:

mackay11 wrote:

Old-Timer wrote:

Nope – but it’s our own fault, in a way, for treating them as secret, especially in light of what little that occurs is forbidden to be discussed.

Agreed, I think there was a fear in the past that if they were more open people wouldn’t go.

Now that the videos are online, any prospective missionary or investigator can watch the whole thing, so they need to be more open about discussing it.

And will it mean changes, I wonder?

I don’t think changes to the ceremony. But I think it could lead to the church discussing the meaning of it more openly.

They may also start emphasising more clearly that it’s a symbolic ceremony and a metaphor for life. That’s one way to make it less ‘odd.’

[Anonymous]

To be clearer, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see more changes. I can think of a few things that I see as completely cultural and that I believe have lost significance since the time when the endowment was created. If those changed or were eliminated, I would see it as a positive move.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

To be clearer, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see more changes. I can think of a few things that I see as completely cultural and that I believe have lost significance since the time when the endowment was created. If those changed or were eliminated, I would see it as a positive move.

Unless it’s in the parts you’ve promised to not mention… Which do you see as more relevant to a 19th C culture?

[Anonymous]

mackay11 wrote:

Old-Timer wrote:

To be clearer, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see more changes. I can think of a few things that I see as completely cultural and that I believe have lost significance since the time when the endowment was created. If those changed or were eliminated, I would see it as a positive move.

Unless it’s in the parts you’ve promised to not mention… Which do you see as more relevant to a 19th C culture?

The masonic parts. Signs, tokens, etc..

[Anonymous]

GBSmith wrote:

mackay11 wrote:

Old-Timer wrote:

To be clearer, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see more changes. I can think of a few things that I see as completely cultural and that I believe have lost significance since the time when the endowment was created. If those changed or were eliminated, I would see it as a positive move.

Unless it’s in the parts you’ve promised to not mention… Which do you see as more relevant to a 19th C culture?

The masonic parts. Signs, tokens, etc..

I find these to be relevant to me today. In the context of each relevant covenant they’re made near to, they carry meaning to me. I hope they don’t remove those. Sorry if I sound ‘superior’ that’s not the intention. Given those are the parts that are specifically prohibited from discussing I won’t.

I also think that the fact that there are symbolic tokens that symbolically give us the opportunity to pass by the angels into heaven that are secret is meaningful. In the end we can’t ‘get into heaven’ on someone else’s ticket. If we are going to be accountable to God for our own life and no-one else then having ‘secret tokens that get us into heaven’ is another way of saying this. (I don’t think for a minute that at the pearly gates there will be a literal check on who knows the tokens. I take almost nothing literally in the endowment).

Having said that… if the objective is for us to have a symbol for ‘only you can account for your own decisions and choices in life’ then they could change to other symbols for this. But, for me, the signs and tokens are symbolic of more than just that.

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