- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Great stuff John… I would add:
blood atonement
1844 Succession Crisis (for Jordan of course)
Kinderhook plates
treasure hunting
false prophesies
defections from prominent leaders
Mark Hoffman affair
You could have a whole section dedicated to the BOM with anachronisms, DNA, plagiarism, population issues, etc. (this months Sunstone is awesome BTW).
How to raise your children in the Church so they don’t end up in a crisis like you. Good comments guys. I agree with all these topics. Another one for me is: Melchizedek Priesthood restoration
There are a couple other smaller but to me related issues involving the stated place of organization (Manchester not Harmony) and whitewashing in general (as in the way Joseph relates his treasure digging in JSH).
These are interesting topics, but as I see them multiply, I wonder, what is the point of listing all of these details? For us to put our heads together and come up with a feel good answer about the Kinderhook plates, another for the Greek Psalter incident, another for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, another for the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, ad nauseam? We could literally walk through the Documentary History of the Church day by day and get lost in minutia. I think it’s better to have one section of the site devoted to a thoughtful consideration ways to deal with LDS or Restoration history in general, one section devoted to larger Christian themes, one devoted to belief in God in general, and one devoted to matters of contemporary Church culture. There are distinct approaches which we could more easily formulate for each one of these four sections which would not force us into the scattershot FAIR approach and which would preserve each of our ability to individually communicate with troubled newcomers without having to agree with the “correct OpenMormon” approach to whatever troubles the individual we are talking with.
Keeping it general keeps it accessible and free.
I agree now that you mention it. Don’t give a man a fish but teach him to fish. I also think this is where an online community becomes valuable – a place where people can hash out specifics and get other perspectives as they work out their issues.
I wasn’t thinking that we would have a monolithic and unified answer for each of these topics. I don’t want to provide the single new, correct answer. Instead, I was hoping that different people that had gone through problems with these topics write their own story of how they were able to personally reconcile it and stay in the Church. I would think there are many answers.
Another approach, as you seem to suggest, is the concept of coming up with a general, personal approach to Mormonism that handles all problems. There would be different ways of doing that too.
At some level, similar techniques are used to reconcile topics. A “unified theory” would have to address all these common crisis topics.
I think we’re all getting at essentially the same thing. Language often breaks down. I do think it is a personal process, to find personal answers. There is no comprehensive “unified theory” to answer every individual’s range of questions. There can probably be a common outline, or general approach, and that is probably what we are looking for. I was also thinking about the sharing of stories. Maybe for one section a series of personal stories could be available. Obviously how these would differ from the disaffected stories that we’ve all heard so many of — is they would point out the personal process of resolution (at least to some degree) and the ability to find (a level of) harmony again with the church. I would love to read such stories.
Bryan, I was thinking that the essays John D. had in mind would be personal stories,personal narratives of how we came to be where we are now faith-wise.
I even thought John could interview some of us with a common outline of questions with the flexibility to diverge from the outline if the interview went in a fun direction.
Jim Ure’s book Leaving the Fold uses this model to interview prominent jack-Mormons and makes for a great read:
http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Fold-Conversations-Inactive-Mormons/dp/1560851341/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224794382&sr=1-3 We could call ours Staying in the Fold?
I like the idea of a personal statement by each of us about issues in general and how we deal(t) with them. For example, Andrew Ainsworth wrote a wonderful post on Mormon Matters called “Dark Night of the Soul” about his experience of waking up one morning and finding his surety gone. I wrote something in response to that post entitled “The Bright Night of My Soul” ( http://mormonmatters.org/2008/06/22/the-bright-night-of-my-soul/ I think a library of such accounts (able to be read prior to active participation for those who need it) would be wonderful – and would provide a really good look at how different approaches worked for different people. It would highlight that not everybody has to experience or view things the exact same way to remain faithful and active. That foundation would be a good grounding for topic-by-topic discussions of the type of issues listed here. New members could read the archived discussions of those topics about which they personally feel heartburn and ask questions there.
John, yes – cool! Staying in the fold, I like it.
Ray, I like your idea a lot. There is no solution to the issues strugglers are having, just different ways to BE after struggling.
Bryan,
I suppose it would be unnecessarily snotty to subtitle
Staying in the Fold“living in the church, but not of it”? After thinking it over, I like the personal accounts idea better. If we built up a library of these, people could go through them. They will naturally connect with people that have similar personalities, family situations, life stories, etc. If this is the approach, it would be great to search out people with different age, culture, nationality, and even socio-economic backgrounds. Richard Bushman probably reconciles things differently than a farmer, or a homemaker, or a teenager (just some broad examples).
It will end up covering some of these specific issues in the process.
I think it’s still helpful to have a list of crisis topics for our own development purposes (whatever we do with it).
jrnilsson wrote:Bryan,
I suppose it would be unnecessarily snotty to subtitle
Staying in the Fold“living in the church, but not of it”? Ha ha, yes – maybe a little over the line. I feel more like a ball of peanut butter crunch in a box of crunch berries, not like a rabbit dropping – but not quite what the crunch berries are expecting either.
I always preferred Peanut Butter Crunch to Crunch Berries. More substantial somehow, and more thoughtful too. 
Not too much to add, but I like the personal stories idea, perhaps with standard set of questions. Another possibility is some dialog style essays with a panel about a few of the topics or history in general.
Sorry I’ve been so inactive here so far. Will step up next week. We’re heading off to Disneyland.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.