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Heber13 wrote:
Of course, we do talk a lot about Word of Wisdom and chastity ad nauseum.🙄 So True.
GBSmith wrote:… There are doctrines that we take for granted as conventional wisdom but that aren’t part of curriculum and are never mentioned in conference addresses. Is it just me or do others think this is the case? Just wondering
Yes, definitely! Selective awareness, selective doctrine… and I wonder why.Why pick the parts that contribute to maintaining communal institutions, while neglecting the individual personal exploration for truth?
Where do we start?
Too many cases to name!
A few…
In many scriptures, it is written, that we should not have any other God before God, and Jesus when referred to as “good Master” objected by saying, “none is Good, except God.”
It’s written to not have engraven images for worship… yet what covers most of the walls in churches and homes? Pictures of a white Jesus, furthering more racial prejudice.
It’s written that God is “I AM that I AM”… PRESENT tense. It’s also written that the “kingdom of God cometh not with observation… the kingdom of God is within you” (luke 17:21) and yet much of the church’s focus is on the “latter days.”
I can remember in the 50s there was still discussion and references about returning to Jackson County and talk of the church buying up property in Adam Ondi Ahman. We don’t hear much about Kolob anymore and about the millenium, the second coming, and the last judgement. We had a young men’s president who used to hold forth regularly on the number of judgements there would be leading up to the last and final one. In the 60’s when I was at BYU there was a popular book about the last days that eventually was squelched when there got to be too much discussion about it. Another interesting but short lived teaching by one of the early apostles was that we didn’t really need a Savior as it was possible to live a sinless life. I don’t think that one went very far. mom3 wrote:Another thing I like to look at is things we now talk about that we didn’t so much before. Emma Smith comes to mind. For a long time she was verbally exiled from church discussions. Now not only is she in the lessons but she is the one and only. What ever change of heart happened there the church did a 180.
It makes me wonder if 30 years from now other “forgotten” topics will return or be resurrected.
My Danish friend who I helped bring to the church 7 years ago (but has now left) had young sister missionaries drop by his house recently. They were discussing why he had left the church. The subject of polgamy came up and all the wives JS had. The one sister missionary who was a fairly new convert had no idea JS ever had other wives and was shocked. The first time my Danish friend met me in Salt Lake City and we walked around Temple square, he noticed the statues of JS and Emma facing each other. He suddenly said, “Where are statues of all his other wives? Aren’t they important too after all the sacrifices they made.
The church may try to emphasize and portray the church differently today, but it can become very confusing for us older members and scary for new members who find out stuff later.
GBSmith wrote:I can remember in the 50s there was still discussion and references about returning to Jackson County and talk of the church buying up property in Adam Ondi Ahman. We don’t hear much about Kolob anymore and about the millenium, the second coming, and the last judgement. We had a young men’s president who used to hold forth regularly on the number of judgements there would be leading up to the last and final one. In the 60’s when I was at BYU there was a popular book about the last days that eventually was squelched when there got to be too much discussion about it. Another interesting but short lived teaching by one of the early apostles was that we didn’t really need a Savior as it was possible to live a sinless life. I don’t think that one went very far.
I remember some of this stuff too. In seminary it was often talked about how we will be the generation that will go back to Missouri and witness the 2nd coming. My oldest son who is 38 said his seminary teacher told them that they better do everything they can to get to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom because that is the only place there will be sex. She knew how to keep teenagers in line I guess.
Wait wait wait wait wait…I don’t get to become a Goddess..oh wait. 😥 nevermind I’m a single girl… off to the slave quarters for me.Seriously though, I have noticed a good deal of the stuff we used to teach is no longer taught…some of it I am thankful for not being taught. I have to wonder how much of it was just cultural legends and not really doctrine to begin with.
Arwen wrote:. I have to wonder how much of it was just cultural legends and not really doctrine to begin with.
in my opinion, a lot more than most people think!
Yeah, it was interesting how a high councilman was talking about blatantly how we have shifted our focus to Christ to appear more mainstream. But, when you read the Bible Jesus is always talking about Heavenly Father, and that no man can come to the Father, but by him (Jesus). John 14:6. Yeah cwald I agree with you, I think that is why we don’t have the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church for Lorenzo Snow yet, because I know he focused on what you just mentioned about God being as man once was. Another point: I remember a good friend of mine who got baptized even though he had some doubts about some minor points of the Book of Mormon. He loved his wife who converted in her twenties and he was in his 30s at this point. He got along very well in the ward. We had a great inner city ward that every one was friendly and socialized, and they had good socials. So, I think his conversion was mainly on a social level, but he said something to me I will never forget: Wow, there’s a lot of stuff that is in common with my protestant beliefs I was raised with, but it’s odd how we are taught that the Garden of Eden is/was in America, when I always thought it was somewhere near Mesopotamia “the cradle of civilization.”
We don’t mention that factoid much either.
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