Thorny Issues handled by Church PR Department

[Anonymous]

Thanks for copying a few highlights. I was thinking, “I am not going to dig into this as it is bound to get me ticked off.” I was right.

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Some critics accuse Church leaders of deliberately painting a false picture of Church history and doctrine, all the time knowing that they were deceiving Church members. The imposed boundary, they say, was complete orthodoxy with no exploration allowed. Every historical story was painted with faith-promoting care regardless of any nuances or contradictory facts. It was as if the writers of Church curriculum were the literary equivalent of Arnold Friberg’s paintings—just a little too perfect, with a dash of exaggeration. And it was all done deliberately to deceive.

Very well articulated and basically how I see it. Leaders scared that anything negative would make people leave, so don’t talk about it.

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You would expect me as a Church spokesman to reject those claims, and I do. But I want to go further and reject it wholly, utterly, and irrevocably because I simply do not believe it and it does not square with my personal experience about how Church leaders think and act and what motivates them.

I am a convert to the Church. Before becoming a member, I read extensively—everything I could find, including books from highly biased authors like Dr. Walter Martin’s absurdly named Kingdom of the Cults to much more even-handed treatments that raised questions worthy of study.

Perhaps because of that period of careful evaluation before joining the Church, such topics as the multiple accounts of the First Vision were not new to me. They were certainly not new to Church scholars, either, and such publications as BYU Studies and even the Improvement Era, later renamed the Ensign, and the Ensign itself in January 1985 addressed these and many other topics in some frank detail over many years.

I admit to being initially somewhat dismissive of criticisms that such issues were not the common fare of standard Sunday School curriculum. After all, Church leaders have long emphasized personal study—Harold B. Lee is reported to have said to Church members:

“We would remind you that the acquiring of knowledge by faith is no easy road to learning. It demands strenuous effort and a continual striving by faith. … In short, learning by faith is no task for a lazy man [or woman]. … Such a process requires the bending of the whole soul, the calling up of the depths of the human mind and linking it with God.”

I later repented of my dismissive attitude, however. In reality the vast majority of members learn gospel doctrine at home when they are growing up, or in seminary and in the three-hour block. While many also read beyond curriculum-based lessons, most are more likely to seek inspirational or motivational works by favored writers than delve into the complexities of Church history and doctrine. Church leaders, and those charged with developing and writing curriculum for lessons in church, were writing in order to motivate and inspire. Teachers wanted their youth and adult classes to leave at the end of the lesson fortified and motivated to tackle another week outside of church. The three-hour block was never intended to be a course deep in Church history and doctrine. Students interested in those subjects could always find scholarly works if they wanted.

This is all well and good and actually would hold water to me IF it were not for one item that for me just invalidates this almost completely. That is that I was taught consistently for decades that we should not not look at any of that “anti” stuff (and anti = not from Deseret Book or the church). I don’t mean casually. I mean that I came away with the feeling that the devil had power in these books and if you even casually looked at them that you would be helpless to fall into the devils grip. This was pounded in. I was literally scared of such books because of the super-powerful effect that they had on people. A gospel equivalent of the Song of the Siren. I know of a few folks that left and every one said, “I innocently looked at some books” (sometimes “to prove them wrong”) and then they left the church. It always was described as how powerfully evil anti-mormon stuff was.

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With the advent of the Internet and the arrival of a generation that is wired 24/7, that no longer suffices and even seems superficial. Members now Google terms and topics on their smartphones while they are sitting in class. I do that myself. But the realization by Church leaders that they needed to substantially strengthen and deepen Church curriculum and introduce better resource materials was a natural evolution as audience needs, interests, and study habits changed.

If Otterson does this, then why to the top leaders keep telling everyone not to do this? (rhetorical question – not expecting anybody to answer).

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Responding gradually to these changing needs is a very long way from betrayal.

I am back to my earlier quote of “they are only doing the minimum (with a few exceptions like the JS papers) they are being forced to do.”

[Anonymous]

I think a good example of deliberate whitewashing is the way we downplay the idea we can become gods through eternal progression during missionary lessons. The idea we can become gods is very off-putting to people, even when explained the way it is understood in our church.

Our deception is in telling them without telling them. We say ” we will ‘become like Him [God]’. That is really ambiguous. It can mean we emulate him, without actually being able to create worlds, populate them, etcetera — the generally accepted meaning by non-members when no further qualification of the meaning is given. It can also mean that we can literally become like Him, and be God of a different planet or set of planets. Rather than be explicit about the literal meaning of becoming a God, we say we can “become like Him” and let people assume it means we emulate his character, without being like him at all.

This is deliberate. It is deceptive as well, especially considering we eventually ask non-members to give away 10% of their gross income and a lot of their disposable time for the rest of their lives, sacrificing retirement, and other things. Now, they do learn what we mean eventually as they get socialized within the church, but normally, only after they have been baptized/socialized into the church and are committed. At the early point — shortly after baptism when people learn about it, I wouldn’t necessarily call it betrayal unless they have made huge sacrifices (such as repudiating family, a real possibility for children of gay parents).

And then, there are the the things you learn after years in the church. These things, I definitely think can evoke feelings of betrayal in the full sense of the word.

I learned about Mountain Meadows Massacre on the doorstep of a non-member 3 months into my mission. He concluded I was brain washed because I didn’t even know my own history. And you know what, I tend to agree with him. You can’t find MMM in Truth Restored. Same with Fanny Alger and all the other stuff — not a word anywhere. Conventiently left out, with our history splattered with faith promoting miracles and other inspiring anecdotes.

That is very deceptive. When I asked a mission leader about MMM, I got a really watered down answer, that was for sure. It was only 30 years later that I learned what it really was after I had easy Internet sources to teach me. At that point, I really did feel betrayed.

So, I think Otterson is really downplaying the effect the church has on people who make big sacrifices based on trusting what the church tells them. You can’t argue with perceptions, and if people consider the hiding, or de-emphasizing of certain facets of our history betrayal, that;s what it is — and the betrayed have the charitable donation slips to prove it.

[Anonymous]

I won’t be going back and listening to the whole thing now, this presses my Hulk smash button. Thanks for the excerpts Ann, you saved me 50 minutes.

I’ve got a parable for Mr. Otterson:

Michael started eating lutefisk as a little boy. At first he didn’t really enjoy it but soon it became his favorite dish. He would ask his mother to make it for him every Christmas at the family get-together. One day Michael’s younger brother Jim got married to a lovely girl named Pam. Jim and Pam lived far away from Jim’s parents but after several years they were finally able to attended their first Christmas family get-together at Jim’s boyhood home. It was a family reunion with everyone present. Jim and Michael’s mother made lutefisk like she always did, the boys loved it. At first Pam was leery of the smell but she took a tentative bite to be polite. She immediately spit the lutefisk out, it was disgusting. Michael was beside himself. How could Pam hate lutefisk? After all, it was the best dish in the world! Michael concluded that there must be something wrong with Jim’s new bride Pam.

End parable.

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They conclude they and earlier generations have been lied to, and we start to hear the word “betrayal,” because those same websites are going to tell them that Church leaders deliberately kept these facts from them. Shaken, Brother and Sister Brown leave the Church. In the wake of that decision, family members still faithful to the Church may have their own sense of betrayal—that a family member has rejected part of their core identity as a family.

This quote is what absolutely blows my mind. Betrayal is an extreme word used among the disaffected, going there is one step too far. P.S. family members that are faithful to the church were betrayed by the disaffected that left. I’m really at a loss here. This feels like the height of blaming the victim. I can empathize with the faithful person that feels like they’ve lost a family member but this is a little too one sided for me. It’s heaping all the blame on the member that left. They’re wrong and were manipulated in their decision to leave, forget being betrayed, they are the betrayers. Our PR department can and should be better than this.

I know many people use terms like the church, the gospel, Christ, etc. interchangeably so it’s hard to tell when someone has made a substitution and when they have been deliberate in their choice of words but I want to say that I wonder whether our faithfulness should be directed at the church, so much so that it becomes a part of the core identity of our families. Maybe I’d be inclined to make Jesus the focus of my faithfulness and a core part of my identity. Even then I’m not going to inflict judgment on a family member for choosing a different path.

Re: church leaders deliberately kept facts from them. What if it’s not a website that tells them this, what if it’s an apostle?

Boyd K. Packer wrote:

There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.

He’s practically spelling it out for people. And now you’ve been shielded from the rest of the story. -Haul Parvey

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Some critics accuse Church leaders of deliberately painting a false picture of Church history and doctrine, all the time knowing that they were deceiving Church members. The imposed boundary, they say, was complete orthodoxy with no exploration allowed. Every historical story was painted with faith-promoting care regardless of any nuances or contradictory facts. It was as if the writers of Church curriculum were the literary equivalent of Arnold Friberg’s paintings—just a little too perfect, with a dash of exaggeration. And it was all done deliberately to deceive.

First and foremost I don’t believe it was done deliberately to deceive but on some levels I do believe it was done. What do I mean by that? I think the narrative was carefully crafted but with noble intentions to promote faith. There were good intentions but the experiment bore bad fruit. It’s like someone accidentally dropped a bowling ball on my foot. They didn’t mean to drop it on my foot and I know it was an accident but when I begin to cry the person that dropped the bowling ball says “your foot shouldn’t have been there” instead of saying “I’m sorry.” The bowling ball dropper is more focused on absolving themselves of responsibility than they are with helping the person with the hurting foot.

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Perhaps because of that period of careful evaluation before joining the Church, such topics as the multiple accounts of the First Vision were not new to me. They were certainly not new to Church scholars, either, and such publications as BYU Studies and even the Improvement Era, later renamed the Ensign, and the Ensign itself in January 1985 addressed these and many other topics in some frank detail over many years.

Does he realize what he’s doing with this statement? Church scholars knew about the multiple first vision accounts, that’s so old. It even appears in the Ensign in 1985. (What, you people that are younger than 30 never read that?) Oh yeah, the correlated material really doesn’t get into there being multiple first vision accounts because… we didn’t really know it at the time. Are you accusing us of withholding information?

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I admit to being initially somewhat dismissive of criticisms that such issues were not the common fare of standard Sunday School curriculum. After all, Church leaders have long emphasized personal study—Harold B. Lee is reported to have said to Church members:

“We would remind you that the acquiring of knowledge by faith is no easy road to learning. It demands strenuous effort and a continual striving by faith. … In short, learning by faith is no task for a lazy man [or woman]. … Such a process requires the bending of the whole soul, the calling up of the depths of the human mind and linking it with God.”

It’s not in the curriculum because you are expected to do your personal study. Just avoid any information sources where you could actually find an answer to your questions.

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The three-hour block was never intended to be a course deep in Church history and doctrine. Students interested in those subjects could always find scholarly works if they wanted.

But very often the subject is church history during the three hour block. With as much as we reiterate the importance of church history during the three hour block you’d think we’d do a better job of it. The three hour block taught me that church history was important because it was so often the subject of study. If you want to minimize the importance of church history the best way to do it is to remove much of it from the correlated curriculum.

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But the realization by Church leaders that they needed to substantially strengthen and deepen Church curriculum and introduce better resource materials was a natural evolution as audience needs, interests, and study habits changed.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/LlbpGHq.jpg[/img]

So there’s my Hulk smash. I think I’ve said this in several recent posts but here I am saying it again, sorry for the rant.

If anything this address teaches me that the church is very aware that all is not well in Zion. They just do not know how to empathize with people that have become disaffected. They don’t know how to minister to them. I wish they’d give the people that are in a better position to minister some official space to help people transition instead of leaving them to find websites in the nethermost parts of the vineyard. It may be time to graft some of those wild branches back in to preserve the trees.

[Anonymous]

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I wish they’d give the people that are in a better position to minister some official space to help people transition…

Me, too.

[Anonymous]

I’ve had some time to cool off. I reread my comments and found that I didn’t get it all off my chest.

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The three-hour block was never intended to be a course deep in Church history and doctrine. Students interested in those subjects could always find scholarly works if they wanted.

The students that are interested in those subjects are now studying the issues and some of them don’t like what they are finding. I don’t understand how castigating people for not studying the issues is a reasonable reaction to the decisions that people are arriving at after they have studied the issues. You should have studied, you should have known. Well I did study and I do know. Let’s move on from the timing of when the studying and the knowing occurred.

I also don’t get how in one breath we can say that people didn’t withhold information, it’s been there the whole time, but in another breath say that the reason the information isn’t more visible is because the curriculum writers are just now coming to terms with it. I’m beating a dead horse.

My head is spinning like Regan MacNeil.

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I admit to being initially somewhat dismissive of criticisms that such issues were not the common fare of standard Sunday School curriculum. After all, Church leaders have long emphasized personal study

Emphasis added. It sounds like he’s still being dismissive. I was being dismissive earlier with people that didn’t know the issues, but who can blame me, they should have done their personal study.

I do admit that I’m not being entirely fair to the statements, this is an emotional reaction and I’m human. I do wonder if the truly disaffected can be ministered to by a PR department. The statements probably aren’t intended to do that. We’re all in a phase of discovery, the disaffected, the faithful member of the church, the PR department, the leaders, everyone. There are growing pains in store for every “side.” As with anything there are elements to what he said that I agree with and there are elements that I disagree with but I don’t think the PR department’s goal should be to try to please just me. There are a lot more people out there to consider.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing those outtakes, Ann. I’m trying to control my blood pressure so I’m not going to read the whole transcript or watch the video.

But, By Otterson’s own admission, he initially found this information via anti-Mormon literature. If the idea that this information was widely available is because it could be had by reading anti- stuff while at the same time leadership warned us about reading anti-stuff, it just doesn’t all look nice and tidy. Post internet, the info became more easily available – mostly still from anti- sites. Only with the publication of the essays and Joseph Smith papers did this stuff become widely available from nonanti- sources, and it is still arguably not necessarily all that easy to find, especially if you don’t know where to look.

My issues aren’t and never were historical. I did know JS was a polygamist, I don’t remember how I learned it many years ago (but it was not from anti- stuff). I did not know he married women already married to other men or that he married teen girls. Likewise, I was aware there were other accounts of the First Vision, but had only read one because that’s all I could find – and it was from an anti- source, so I didn’t completely trust it. I did feel betrayed by things I had been taught about my issues, however, but I didn’t refer to it as being betrayed – I referred to it as being lied to. To me, it makes no difference if it was done purposely or not and I wholeheartedly disagree with Otterson that it was not done purposely. I think he “lying for the Lord” – more correctly the church – in this case. What matters to me is that I felt lied to or betrayed or whatever semantics you choose – that what I was taught was not the whole truth. THAT’s why people leave.

While I’m on the soapbox, here’s something else the church leadership fails to see: they give missionaries 2-3 hours of study time each day, even though they limit the material to scriptures and a few very orthodox books. But they don’t need anything more than the scriptures and their intellect – the cognitive dissonance is all right there in the scriptures. Yet they wonder why so many young returned missionaries leave the church (or at least go inactive). The seeds of my faith crisis were planted on my mission. I’m not saying missionaries should have less study time, I am saying that perhaps part of the MTC and mission experience ought to be some teaching of the full truths, including very open and frank discussions of the essays (but it needs to go beyond that). Of course I recognize that in doing so they will likely lose some missionaries – my son knows a few who had to have multiple meetings with his MP after learning some of the stuff in the essays, and his MP (who is probably an exception) held zone conferences about the essays after that. I bet most MPs would have used the “don’t worry about it” line, and some probably don’t know some of the stuff themselves.

Enough ranting. I have the day off, I’m going to sit on my couch, perhaps write a letter to my missionary, and try to find nice calm blood pressure lowering activities.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

While I’m on the soapbox, here’s something else the church leadership fails to see: they give missionaries 2-3 hours of study time each day, even though they limit the material to scriptures and a few very orthodox books.

What this amounts to is missionary success occurring when naive missionaries find and teach naive non-members. This is because, in my experience, non-naive, non-members who are well versed in the true parts of our objectionable history tend to reject the missionaries unless there is a strong social reason for joining (in my North American mission experience).

So, the missionaries end up baptizing people who have no knowledge of the objectionable parts of our history. So, missionary success happens when the naive missionaries meet naive non-members.

This provides new meaning to the term “elect”. Perhaps the elect simply have weak knowledge rather rather than a state of righteousness or readiness alone….

DJ also said that you might end up losing a few missionaries in the process of opening up the truth to them about our history. I know the GA’s would be very opposed to this as they protect the membership from the church as much as they can.

But for me, it’s the way of God. First, you have to embrace the truth to get long-term commitment. Otherwise, commitment is short-lived. Kind of like when you sell a car to someone that you know has a defect. If there is a warranty or return period, they are back again trying to return the car. You get the initial sale, but lose on the return. Or if they do keep the car, they never buy again and tell everyone to avoid your dealership.

In my non-profit, I really weed out people who aren’t committed up front by being nakedly honest about the unpleasant (to some), high expectations we have for them — akin to telling non-members the objectionable parts of our history. I make them crawl over broken glass just to be considered for the position. I KNOW people will decide not to commit, but that is fine with me. The ones who do commit are fine with the high expectations. They actually WANT them.

Being up front about the unpleasant stuff REALLY limits the number of participants in the projects I do, but the people who commit REALLY commit. Right now, I get a really high show rate at our meetings, and they follow through on all commitments — I am not exaggerating. However, we suffer from small numbers on one big project I will use as an example (4 people). Sure, I could color the water and let them know there is no real commitment needed to volunteer so they will agree to be part of the project — but what happens if I do that?

There is a flash in the pan of commitment — they attend a few meetings and give opinions, but do very little. They stop coming to meetings, don’t follow through on commitments, cancel from commitments at the last minute, etcetera. And in the end, you are left with the few who were committed from the very beginning anyway, and not the weak committers.

Meanwhile, effort is wasted getting the uncommitted people resources they need, contacting them for meetings, following up with them on assignments that never happen, and assuming work they leave undone. There is a ton of waste unless you recruit on the basis of truth.

I see our whitewashing ways as similar, except it’s the members that bear the cost of the waste. They pay 10 years of tithing, setting up chairs, and long commutes to Stake Centers, church, etcetera, investment in church materials, and 3 hour blocks, only to realize that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall when they learn the truth. No wonder people feel betrayed after the investment they have made.

The low-info method the church uses does gather commitment in the short term with some people, but on false pretenses. Naturally, there are some who will be committed on the strength of spiritual feelings alone, and no amount of objectionable information will sway them (particularly after they have invested their lives in the church). But there are a lot of people, as we see, that leave after learning the truth.

I think the honorable, eternal, sustainable method is to let people know up front the objectionable parts of our history and be thankful for the ones who get through the lessons and receive baptism.

I will say this — Mauss appears to have been brilliant in recognizing that Mormonism is a choice, not a commitment based on fact or truth. And so, if, as an organization, the LDS church wants to act in a truly divine manner, I think they should allow people to know the truth so they can make that choice, helped by any spiritual impressions that come their way.

[Note, I want to add, that before the internet, even the anti-Mormon literature appeared limited — much to the advantage of the church. Even though I served my mission in anti-Mormonville, I never once heard about Fannie Alger, polyandry, the fact JS was arrested for destroying the printing press by the Expositor — or any of those details. I heard JS was a “philanderer” but it seems that the truth was certainly not available to everyone. Thank goodness for the Internet. Interesting, the Internet seems to bring to life the scripture that says that in the last days, the sins of people will be shouted from every mountain and rooftop. Well, that’s what the internet has done].

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

It’s not in the curriculum because you are expected to do your personal study. Just avoid any information sources where you could actually find an answer to your questions.

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The three-hour block was never intended to be a course deep in Church history and doctrine. Students interested in those subjects could always find scholarly works if they wanted.

But very often the subject is church history during the three hour block. With as much as we reiterate the importance of church history during the three hour block you’d think we’d do a better job of it. The three hour block taught me that church history was important because it was so often the subject of study. If you want to minimize the importance of church history the best way to do it is to remove much of it from the correlated curriculum.

I get that SS is not a good place to learn about things that are not faith promoting. But where is that place? Seminary? Institute? I was so interested in church history that I did my own personal study with the institute manual “Church History in the Fullness of Times” as my guide. I did the same with the institute manuals for the BoM, D&C, and PofGP. I did not learn anything troubling from these sources. Is there a new PofGP institute manual that discusses the theories for the papyri being a catalyst for revelation as is put forward in the essay?

In addition, some of those scholars that were writing these scholarly works were being disciplined or censured. Juanita Brooks for MMM and Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery for Mormon Enigma. Remind me again what was it that the September Six were excommunicated for?

I do not believe that the church provided any forum for learning these details – not even through the institute program or at its line of private universities. I believe that the church actively discouraged LDS scholars from writing about these topics. It seems disingenuous to say that the church encouraged me to study these things out on my own but that I was just complacent.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Michael concluded that there must be something wrong with Jim’s new bride Pam.

End parable.

Don’t end the parable yet….

Pam decides Jim’s family are all liars. Despite being happily married before…now there are lots of fights and therapy sessions about how to convince someone to like (…what is this thing called??? Lutefish??? Lukefisk??? …I know nothing about such a thing…it must be a cult food :think: ). Jim chooses a Lutefisk expert as the therapist to try to help Pam get indoctrinated with it, and LOVE_LUTEFISK.com websites that support the eating of this traditional food. Pam keeps talking to her parents who are royally ticked off and afraid of their daughter being brainwashed and start to tell her to leave her husband and come back home with them, they smelled something fishy when they were dating and tried to warn her. Jim’s brother dismisses Pam’s opinions and blames it on her looking at anti-lutefisk websites, and the weakness of Pam’s taste buds and nostrils that are not fully trained to appreciate lutefisk and all its glory. Jim just stops talking to Pam about it and begins to learn how to cook it for him and his kids, and tries to love his wife enough to accept she won’t come to the table and eat with the rest of them, but they will not stop eating it. Pam feels excluded from dinner on those nights and resentment starts.

…it seems the issue of lutefisk becomes the scapegoat and focus of things projected on to it and has now overshadowed the personalities and love the couple had. Lutefisk just doesn’t work for some people.

They problem they have is not being able to resolve differences…regardless of whether that is about religion or nordic dinners.

…ok, sorry…I should have left the parable ended where you ended it, nibbler.

[Anonymous]

Family. Isn’t it about… time.?

Heber13 wrote:

…ok, sorry…I should have left the parable ended where you ended it, nibbler.

I liked it but had I continued the parable myself I would have worked Dwight in somewhere. I was also a little disappointed by the ending, no nuclear explosions?

[Anonymous]

I’ve been writing some thoughts on this for the last week and finally got it out. http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/michael-otterson-lds-spokesman-on-boundaries/

Good discussion here in this thread. I went back and forth between feeling Otterson’s comments were a little dismissive to feeling they were honest, conciliatory and productive.

First, on the fact a PR guy is giving this not an apostle:

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First, let’s address the question of whether it’s appropriate for the LDS Church to have a professional public relations manager speak for the church in these situations. Many critics of the church like to make fun of the church, using terms like “President Newsroom”, suggesting that a church shouldn’t operate this way. The claim that since the church has a prophet and apostles, they should speak for the church always. The church is an organization with 15M+ members, with $50B+ in real estate and other assets, with 30,000 branches/wards, operating in 160 countries in 180 different languages. Some criticize that, but I think that kind of organizational strength is a huge asset in enabling the church and its members to get involved in critical issues in the world (like the new initiative with refugees) and be a force for good in the world. To criticize the church for communicating in the way it does now, utilizing a professional PR Spokesman, is either coming from a petty, unfair perspective or a perspective that is naive about how large organizations work.

Here’s my favorite quote from Otterson in the presentation, and my reaction.

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Like many institutions, from business to government to religion to law enforcement to media and a host of other areas, the Church has not found the transition to greater transparency a particularly easy one.

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I hear humility. I hear an apology. I honestly was moved to being a little emotional over this the first time I read this. My faith crisis/journey has been very difficult and painful. I do blame the church for a lot of it. I hear this as an “I’m sorry, we’re trying to do better”. I’ll take it. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Good quotes from your blog, CIT.

It feels faithful and hopeful, to hear you process it like you do.

Of course, I think there is legitimate other responses because it doesn’t feel to some like they went far enough to really make it an apology, or to fess up to some things, but they stepped in that direction to acknowledge problems. Perhaps baby steps.

I also think it is OK to criticize them, even if trying to stay faithful and hopeful. That is my middle ground approach.

If people were not critical and open about the problems, the PR department wouldn’t be talking about “thorny issues”. They can’t deny them any longer or just tell people they are no big deal.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Is Otterson a GA?

“Whether by my mouthpiece or my mouthpiece’s mouthpiece, it is the same.” – Otterson

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Good quotes from your blog, CIT.

It feels faithful and hopeful, to hear you process it like you do.

Of course, I think there is legitimate other responses because it doesn’t feel to some like they went far enough to really make it an apology, or to fess up to some things, but they stepped in that direction to acknowledge problems. Perhaps baby steps.

I also think it is OK to criticize them, even if trying to stay faithful and hopeful. That is my middle ground approach.

If people were not critical and open about the problems, the PR department wouldn’t be talking about “thorny issues”. They can’t deny them any longer or just tell people they are no big deal.

I agree it’s possible to be critical in a way that doesn’t cross the line. But that line where someone crosses that ground from OK to not OK is pretty blurry. And unfortunately, probably most varies according to how one’s local leadership sees it. I know I push the line with my views on scripture historicity and authority, so for myself I choose to be very conservative with how I express disagreement on political type issues.

[Anonymous]

churchistrue wrote:

To criticize the church for communicating in the way it does now, utilizing a professional PR Spokesman, is either coming from a petty, unfair perspective or a perspective that is naive about how large organizations work.

Thanks for the input CIT. To be fair, the church is a large organization. I am glad that they have a PR department. I believe that Bro. Otterson does a pretty good job balancing the need to address these issues in some form with the need to not challenge the faith of the unaware.

I even hope that the PR guys can have a seat and influence at the decision making table (much as I suspect that the legal team has a “seat” or influence). As much as that might seem counterintuitive to a TBM, I want my church to consider how the general public will respond to policy decisions BEFORE those decisions are made. If the PR department is only there to provide spin once the policies have been set, then they become much less useful to me.

[Author]

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