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Oh Oh, this looks like a PR mess for the church.But same thing happened to me. I was the go to sub for HPG lessons. I taught about once a month. One lesson I brought up the Race essay. We talked about it for about 10 min, and it ended when a brother asked what would happen to these leaders that were wrong. A faithful TBM on the back row said “I hope they all rot in Hell!”
I was never asked to teach again.
People don’t know about the essays, and I think the church deserves the blame for that. We ALL KNOW what the church does when it really wants its people to know something, and it’s not doing it. This is ridiculous. It also is not the norm. It happens too much. It needs to stop. We don’t need to pretend it is the norm.
Things like this are important to discuss here. There are many positive things that also are important to discuss here.
Moderation is harder than extremism, but it’s much more rewarding. “They” need to understand this; so do “we”.
My daughter heard the “old” explanations in seminary this year from her youngish (early 40’s), college-educated, intelligent, kind, super-conscientious teacher. If the church can’t get its message through to a guy like that, it has bigger problems than I thought. Sorry for my delayed rant. My daughter raised her hand and talked about the essay. Not much response.
As much as the PR department says they’re trying to get the word out about the essays, they’re simply not. There’s no incentive to bring this knowledge to the faithful TBM’s. It’s not faith-promoting and could hurt the testimonies of devout members. The essays are there to cover the bases of the few struggling Mormons on the fringe and to finally have an answer—be it minimal—to the critics so that the Church can act like it has nothing to hide. Also, if more members become conscious of these issues in the future, the Church can act like they always were open about it and didn’t sweep things under the rug. I suspect in 30 years they’ll be saying they always talked about these things openly. But I don’t believe the church intends to pull these essays into the consciousness of members until it feels forced to. The essays are meant to appease and will stay marginalized until there is enough push for the Church to have to rely on them. Right now, there isn’t enough push. That might change in the next 25 years. I’ve noticed YA wards are more curious about these things, as they are more internet savvy and don’t have as many years investing their lives into the Church, but even then, I don’t want to overestimate that tendency amongst Mormons. Even if YA wards are more open, there still is a line which people won’t cross. However, I’m not too dismayed at this news. It’s the sign of growing pains. If there’s going to be any progress on these issues, they’re going to happen. It’s just going to be a very, very slow process.
There is much that the article does not say about the specific SS teacher. I am only speculating but what if news of the essay caused one or more of his students to doubt? What if concerned parents went to the bishop? The teacher did deviate from the lesson plan after all… might it smooth over some ruffled feathers just to release the teacher with a vote of thanks? What!?!?!
😮 Newspapers!?!?!😯 Oh Crap!😳 No Comment!
IMO – the church is doing this about as well as they can. If the essay was read over the pulpit in GC might it cause even 5% of those listening to enter a faith crisis? In 1 in 20 faithfull, hardworking, pillar of the ward Mormons too high a price to pay for moving too fast? Perhaps it is better to put the information out there for those that are looking for it but not to introduce it to old schoolers that might prefer not to know.
Quote:It’s the sign of growing pains. If there’s going to be any progress on these issues, they’re going to happen. It’s just going to be a very, very slow process.
I agree that the church could do better to promote the essays, but also I observe that they have done some (which is better than burying them on the website). I would really like to see them referenced in GC, but perhaps for the reasons Roy mentions that is not the point we’re at yet. They have promised to make them part of the new adult curriculum, however, and I believe they are already referenced in the online materials for youth SS and seminary (which makes the original story even a bit more distressing). If indeed the essays are referenced in lesson materials they will see more light. The dinosaur in the garden is the old guard who a) don’t use online/digital materials (about half my HPG uses paper manuals) and b) even though the material is available choose not to use it perhaps because they don’t agree with it. Like Vader said: “You cannot hide forever Luke.”
Roy wrote:IMO – the church is doing this about as well as they can. If the essay was read over the pulpit in GC might it cause even 5% of those listening to enter a faith crisis? In 1 in 20 faithfull, hardworking, pillar of the ward Mormons too high a price to pay for moving too fast? Perhaps it is better to put the information out there for those that are looking for it but not to introduce it to old schoolers that might prefer not to know.
I do agree that pushing them more will cause more faith crises. My SP told the bishops to only acknowledge the essays, but not give any other comment on it. I get that, but also scratch my head a bit also.The one concern that I have is that some people leave the church due to the “shock” from going from black and white to the 50 shades of gray (just couldn’t let the pun go by unused
I am glad to hear that my son who is on a mission was told to read them (not sure if all of them though).
LookingHard wrote:Roy wrote:IMO – the church is doing this about as well as they can. If the essay was read over the pulpit in GC might it cause even 5% of those listening to enter a faith crisis? In 1 in 20 faithfull, hardworking, pillar of the ward Mormons too high a price to pay for moving too fast? Perhaps it is better to put the information out there for those that are looking for it but not to introduce it to old schoolers that might prefer not to know.
I do agree that pushing them more will cause more faith crises. My SP told the bishops to only acknowledge the essays, but not give any other comment on it. I get that, but also scratch my head a bit also.The one concern that I have is that some people leave the church due to the “shock” from going from black and white to the 50 shades of gray (just couldn’t let the pun go by unused
I am glad to hear that my son who is on a mission was told to read them (not sure if all of them though).
Interesting about your SP. Mine has taken a more proactive approach, and has advocated more than acknowledging them. He has, in fact, encouraged us to use them, where appropriate, in talks or lessons and has specifically told us to use them with those who have questions and doubts. He at least implied that these instructions came from his coordinating council meetings.
I believe Peggy is working to spread the word – that’s why she chose to write this. Recently she has put out a couple more pieces pointing out this problem. Hopefully it will help. Sept. 2014
http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/faithblog/1606088-155/church-essays-faith-tribune-history-lake ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/faithblog/1606088-155/church-essays-faith-tribune-history-lake April 2015
http://www.sltrib.com/home/2229999-155/new-mormon-mission-how-to-teach ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.sltrib.com/home/2229999-155/new-mormon-mission-how-to-teach April 2015
http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/faithblog/2434251-155/want-to-get-a-read-on ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/faithblog/2434251-155/want-to-get-a-read-on It also is important to recognize and acknowledge what a MONUMENTALLY massive project it is that has produced the essays – and the real step forward that it was to have that project authorized. The Joseph Smith Papers project is a significant thing – and the historians who have been hired to do the research and writing are not traditional apologists. (I know some of them fairly well, and they tend to me much more moderate and progressive than most people would assume.) They have sorted through, researched, correlated and published many thousands of pages of primary documents; those documents have been published in an accessible format; the essays have been written explicitly in an attempt to be “faithful” but as objective as possible – recognizing when differing views exist even among historians who are doing the research; the essays have been published online on the Church’s main website – and links have been provided on more accessible pages; once they were compiled and published, they were recently translated into multiple languages; they are being linked to the online curricular materials; etc.
Abso-freaking-lutely, stories like this one drive me nuts as much as anything else does,but the Church itself can’t move much faster than it already is when dealing with such a major effort. We want it all to happen immediately, but nothing of this size and scope can happen immediately without major complications occurring. Striking a reasonable balance is difficult – and, frankly, overall, I think a reasonable balance has been struck so far. If nothing much happens moving forward, I will start to see it differently, but, as a historian and educator by nature and training, I actually have been impressed, overall, by the pace of the project itself. The real issue is that many local leaders (and even more, tattle-tales in local congregations) don’t want to know anything that isn’t a cut & dried pat answer. They don’t want to do any of the heavy lifting that it takes to understand these issues. It’s so much easier to plug their ears and say “la-la-la-la I can’t hear you.” I’m not going to say it’s not the norm as Ray is stating. Our lesson manuals contain many errors and misleading information. CES is not only often wrong, but they are downright anti-scholarly in many cases. It’s tough as a teacher when you know the scriptures really don’t say what the manual says they say or when you know the version of events isn’t really as black & white as the manuals imply. I mean, it’s easy if you don’t know that. It’s tough if you do. I was thinking about this when I wrote this blog post:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/17260/proudly-stupid/ Rip the band-aid off slowly or real quick? I’d agree with Ray in saying that this outcome probably isn’t the norm (leaders were supposed to get some sort of communication about the essays, right?) but I can easily see this happening. Within the last year I’ve sat in on a lesson where the discussion centered around teaching the common justifications behind the priesthood ban. The old justifications are still very alive and well. I would have raised my hand and mentioned the essay but this was the group that already shouted me down in the past when I tried to make comments. The old guard ruled that roost, even my most well intended comment would be seen as making waves.
The problem is that many members don’t know about the essays. The local leader that’s never heard of the essay gets a complaint from a parent that’s never heard of the essay and *boom* the emotion of the moment overpowers our decision making abilities, especially when exposure to the new information can take time to process for ourselves. I think most people’s immediate reaction is (and this is for DJ) “No! That’s not true! That’s impossible!!!” so we react without taking the time to adequately process things.
What you see here is probably more the result of a parent and a local leader reacting to the essay.
I’d rather see a more concerted effort to disseminate the essays within the established, safe context that members have grown to trust… especially if the alternative is people learning about the essays via stories like this.
The problem I see with this is it feels like we are all to often willing to justify actions of the church leadership, and to sacrifice individuals to protect the corporation and the masses… the 99. Is the church changing and evolving? Yes. Are they evolving fast enough to save the “one?” I don’t think so.
Perhaps this is a perfect example of the concept where the church needs to leave the 99 and go after the 1?
I understand there is going to be some pain, but why not just do the right thing and let the consequences follow?
A bishop and a high councilor both told me – separately – that they choose not to read thr essays because they think it will hurt their testimonies. Ironic since its the church itself that published them. Some people dont want to know the truth.
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