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wayfarer wrote:
Yes, the idea that god hardens hearts and predisposes people to condemnation is replete throughout scripture. Calvin was only consistent with his reading of scripture.That said, the Calvinist definition of God is a heinous monster unworthy of worship. For a God to create people whose only purpose is to be condemned to endless suffering is beyond belief and the most vile of doctrines. With calvinism, the saved have no reason to think of the majority of humanity as totally depraved and worthless. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.
I’m by no means a Calvinist but I understand where they’re coming from. It’s really less about the idea that God has condemned some from the beginning than that he has chosen some and not others. I won’t bore anybody with proof texting, but there’s a consistent theme even from Jesus about God preserving those who have been chosen. It’s clear just from life experience that some are wired for faith and others are just spiritual rocks who don’t see it. I see this as a form of election. People are just wired to be faithful, wired to be pedophiles, wired to be straight, wired to be gay, wired to be addicts, wired to be materialists, wired to be ascetics. There are some people who have just been dealt a crappy hand biologically from the beginning with no obvious explanation other than God is either not in control or has this figured out somehow.
Calvinists rest at the extreme endpoint of the sovereignty of God. He controls every blade of grass, so the idea that some might be saved and others not must be God’s choice, because the idea of Arminianism is an insult to the idea of an all-powerful God.
To address your other point, the idea that election is somehow vile and beyond belief would reflect the hidden assumption that you are more capable of defining what is good than God is. Whatever God does is good by definition, whether it’s allowing the sex slave industry, killing thousands with natural disasters, allowing the Holocaust, etc.. The idea that a good God wouldn’t allow these things is fundamentally second-guessing God, which would be considered wrong.
Let me repeat the disclaimer that I don’t necessarily agree with anything I’ve articulated here. I just understand the viewpoint regardless of whether I actually agree with it or not. In general I think truth is rarely found at the endpoints, but in the middle. It’s just hard for groups to recruit people to a life of moderation (“join my group, which is no better than any other” just doesn’t go over) so groups by their very nature focus on the distinctives rather than shared values.
BobDixon wrote:It’s clear just from life experience that some are wired for faith and others are just spiritual rocks who don’t see it. I see this as a form of election. People are just wired to be faithful, wired to be pedophiles, wired to be straight, wired to be gay, wired to be addicts, wired to be materialists, wired to be ascetics. There are some people who have just been dealt a crappy hand biologically from the beginning with no obvious explanation other than God is either not in control or has this figured out somehow.
I think this is a great point but I don’t think it’s election in the sense that only those who are in one group will be saved. I think Joseph Smith hit the nail on the head when he emphasized the communal aspects of salvation (things like we can’t be saved without our dead or children can be saved based on their parents covenant keeping). If we are involved in a group effort, then our individual strengths and weaknesses all play a role in the refining of us all.
If I wanted to get a temple recommend again this would be one of the most difficult questions for me to feel alright about answering “yes” to. Basically I think exaggerating the importance of the Church organization so much encourages intolerant and overzealous attitudes about it that make it harder for active members to get along with less faithful members and non-Mormons as well as possible. I understand if they want to continue to preach this restoration story to explain the Church’s claimed origins based on tradition but what I don’t think is such a great idea is setting the expectation that all active members should agree with this official account or else they are “unworthy.” Look at the most committed “anti-Mormons”; it seems like they are typically ex-Mormons that had negative experiences overall with the Church and other members or else they are other Christians that are understandably offended by the aggressive efforts to convert people that are already satisfied with their current religious beliefs. In my opinion, some of the negative impressions many people have about the Church could easily be eliminated simply by toning it down with some of the one true church hype (testimonies), overzealous missionary work, and heavy demands the Church asks for and expects out of members because then there wouldn’t be nearly as much for outsiders and disaffected members to seriously complain about anymore.
I agree with the over-exaggeration of our importance as a religion — and what a turn off that can be. The thing that baffles me is that the churches that demand a lot from its members tend to be the ones that survive the longest, says some of the research I’ve seen quoted here and in other places. So, I think lessening the demands would tend to send the people who are die-hard committed people (like I used to be) into a tailspin, and would attract more people who are just along for a social experience and want nothing to do. Organizations staffed with people in the latter category would tend not to survive due to lack of execution.
I’m beginning to believe the best way to mediate between the commitment/balance conundrum is to let the church be itself — let it preach and sometimes even demand high levels of commitment. Let your personal governor be your guide, and get at peace with the dichotomy.
The other thing to remember is that the TR questions ask for black and white answers — binary yes or no. Few things fall into a binary yes or no. Particularly matters of religion that are unverifiable. So, in forcing a continuum of answers into two, black and white buckets puts me in a position where I have to decide — where on the continuum am I closer? To the Yes side, or the No side? And then answer accordingly.
As soon as I move off neutral toward the Yes end of the spectrum, even if it’s only slightly past neutral, I can say “yes” since there isn’t a maybe answer option given.
Nicely said DevilsAdvocate DevilsAdvocate wrote:I understand if they want to continue to preach this restoration story to explain the Church’s claimed origins based on tradition but what I don’t think is such a great idea is setting the expectation that all active members should agree with this official account or else they are “unworthy.”
Look at the most committed “anti-Mormons”; it seems like they are typically ex-Mormons that had negative experiences overall with the Church and other members or else they are other Christians that are understandably offended by the aggressive efforts to convert people that are already satisfied with their current religious beliefs.
When I was looking onto FARMS and FAIR for articles on the Restoration, what I got were the majority of articles on the general nature of the apostacy. Stated as it is in the 1838 version of the first vision:Joseph Smith wrote:I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. He again forbade me to join with any of them
This is polemic language: “they were all wrong”, “creeds were an abomination”, “professors were all corrupt”. It’s insulting to any religion to hear this language. To place these words in the Lords mouth is especially polemic. I don’t know of anyone would treat kindly a religion that starts from such a point of view.There are many camps of critics of mormonism. Only one of those camps is from the evangelical/Christian community that creates outreach ministries toward LDS. To them, the First Vision words are fighting language.
I don’t think the majority of critics of mormonism are in this camp however. I would think the vast majority of critics are those who are leaving because the truth claims are problematic, and being disaffected, find no way to rationalize these claims. As well, the apologists don’t worry about the evangelical critics, their hatred is focused on those who are in the middle, who are wolves in sheeps clothing disagreeing with the mainstream of the church. the DCP vs JD effort is characteristic of this.
So where is the “restoration” in all this? The churches of 1830 were completely different than the churches of AD 33-324. This is true. Some things in the original church were lost — for example, the role of personal revelation, the openness of canon, the centrality of the Temple and law to the original Christians. There were a lot of things different: but there were good reasons to set aside some of these things. For example:
Revelation and Prophecy were common in the early church. Yet many of these “revelations” and “prophecies” take much the same apocalyptic form as the current book of Revelation: in other words, a mass of confusing, scary language that nobody could make heads or tales of. Sort of like “talking in tongues”. personal revelation became too chaotic for the church, so as the church grew up, it institutionalized revelation to pronouncements ex cathedra from the presiding bishop: the pope.
Guess what? The LDS church has done the same.
The original church was for all intent and purposes a sect of Judaism. The presiding bishop of the church was James the Just, Bishop of the Jerusalem center, and literal brother of Jesus Christ. They believed Jesus’ words when he said “except your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees, ye shall in no-wise enter the Kingdom of God”, so they were zealous for the law. When converts came into the church, they first had to go through conversion to Judaism, which involved, for men, a little operation that most converts wouldn’t let ANYONE do to them. As well, the greeks living in greek cities did not have a habit of kashrut — eating exclusively kosher foods. It was a problem, so the brethren came together, argued the point, and James proposed that for Gentiles, and ONLY for Gentiles coming into the church, they would be allowed to be in the church in exactly the same way that a Gentile living in the camp of israel would live: some simple rules not involving kashrut or circumcision.
Guess what? The LDS church is following the pattern of the original, law-bound Jewish community. As it tries to teach the gospel to non-christians around the world, it doesn’t yet know how to adapt its style to the needs of each community. To require abstinence from tea in Asia is absolutely crazy — tea is the national drink, and viewed as having tremendous health value. The LDS message doesn’t work, because it doesn’t adapt.
I believe, firmly, that the restoration was pretty accurate. But because the earliest church was profoundly flawed, the restoration created another flawed institution. As it has grown older, it has adopted the pattern of doing things that the first vision condemned: teaching for doctrine the commandments of men, mandatory non-scriptural creeds, corrupt professors, etc., while not learning the adaptive approach of Paul that required flexibility on what was required of the members.
SilentDawning wrote:I agree with the over-exaggeration of our importance as a religion — and what a turn off that can be.
The thing that baffles me is that the churches that demand a lot from its members tend to be the ones that survive the longest, says some of the research I’ve seen quoted here and in other places…So, I think lessening the demands would tend to send the people who are die-hard committed people (like I used to be) into a tailspin, and would attract more people who are just along for a social experience and want nothing to do. Organizations staffed with people in the latter category would tend not to survive due to lack of execution.
I guess I was thinking more in terms of the goal of treating people in an ethical way and trying to promote goodwill so more people will be left with a positive impression of the Church over trying to maximize the Church’s growth and influence using high pressure sales tactics and motivational techniques that may work alright in terms of getting numeric results but aren’t necessarily as effective for long-term satisfaction. However, I still believe the Church’s heavy demands have also limited its overall growth and influence so far because there are still more Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians (that self identify as such) in the US than Mormons and I don’t believe any of these churches typically get nearly the same level of commitment out of the average follower that the LDS Church does and I’ve never had them knock on my door trying to convert me. Sure if they have full-time ministers to keep them running then maybe they don’t need as much commitment on average as the LDS Church does but the Church definitely asks for much more sacrifice out of members than it really needs to operate at a minimal level.
What successful religious groups does the LDS Church compare to most closely in terms of the level of commitment of the average follower? I would say the Muslims, JWs, and some of the most extreme evangelical sects but personally I don’t believe any of these examples are really an ideal model of success for the LDS Church to emulate because the JWs numbers are not that impressive compared to other churches to begin with, the Muslims had already established a strong foothold in certain countries before religious freedom became more widespread, and it seems like some popular evangelical churches can attract more individual followers without depending as much on entire families supporting the same church from one generation to the next the way we see with the LDS Church. I’m not saying the Church should morph into something like UU or even the Community of Christ (RLDS) Church but I wouldn’t mind seeing something more like the Catholic Church where individual members don’t necessarily feel like they need to believe everything the Church teaches or else they might as well not even be Mormon anymore.
Interesting point DA — particularly our reliance on tradition and family heritage to keep the church vibrant, as well as the emphasis on large family sizes (not as much anymore, although culturally, it is still there). I have long said that the theology/CHI may have partly been developed to ensure the perpetuation of the church. The emphasis on husband’s needing their wives, the cultural belief that large families are the hallmark of a good Mormon providing bodies for spirit children, and the forced pressure to marry in the temple at the risk of alienating non-member family all point to this. I believe plural marriage was also a neat packaging of theology with policies that increase church membership. The fact that only the righteous were allowed to practice it was a kind of spiritual natural selection to ensure continuance of the church as an organization. And in certain areas of the world (like Utah) your upstandingness in the church, I’ve heard, is important to maintaining employment and other community/social/interpersonal benefits.
I don’t see other mainstream church’s relying on such things to perpetuate themselves.
However, I don’t want to turn this into a plural marriage expose, and stick with my original answer to the question (“yes”) due to the logical connections to my testimony, which is the root cause of my affirmative answer.
wayfarer wrote:…This is polemic language: “they were all wrong”, “creeds were an abomination”, “professors were all corrupt”. It’s insulting to any religion to hear this language. To place these words in the Lords mouth is especially polemic. I don’t know of anyone would treat kindly a religion that starts from such a point of view…I don’t think the majority of critics of mormonism are in this camp however. I would think
the vast majority of critics are those who are leaving because the truth claims are problematic, and being disaffected, find no way to rationalize these claims…So where is the “restoration” in all this? The churches of 1830 were completely different than the churches of AD 33-324. This is true. Some things in the original church were lost — for example, the role of personal revelation, the openness of canon, the centrality of the Temple and law to the original Christians…I believe, firmly, that the restoration was pretty accurate. But because
the earliest church was profoundly flawed, the restoration created another flawed institution.As it has grown older, it has adopted the pattern of doing things that the first vision condemned: teaching for doctrine the commandments of men, mandatory non-scriptural creeds, corrupt professors, etc., while not learning the adaptive approach of Paul that required flexibility on what was required of the members. SilentDawning wrote:Interesting point DA — particularly our reliance on tradition and family heritage to keep the church vibrant, as well as the emphasis on large family sizes (not as much anymore, although culturally, it is still there).
I have long said that the theology/CHI may have partly been developed to ensure the perpetuation of the church…And in certain areas of the world (like Utah) your upstandingness in the church, I’ve heard, is important to maintaining employment and other community/social/interpersonal benefits…I don’t see other mainstream church’s relying on such things to perpetuate themselves…However, I don’t want to turn this into a plural marriage expose, and stick with my original answer to the question (“yes”) due to the logical connections to my testimony, which is the root cause of my affirmative answer. I’m not saying anyone should feel compelled to answer no to this question for the sake of truth, personal integrity, or some other impractical ideal. Actually I wouldn’t blame anyone for just telling them what they want to hear for every single one of these questions no matter how much of a stretch it is simply because sometimes it is much easier and more convenient than having to explain exactly why you are “unworthy” (according to the Church) to your bishop, spouse, and others. To be honest I could come up with perfectly legitimate reasons to answer no to all of these questions and resent the fact that they are asking about them in such an intrusive way to begin with but this one really stands out to me because for most of the other questions including chastity, the WoW, and tithing that basically kept me from getting married in the temple I can at least appreciate the spirit of the law even if I don’t agree with the specific details of what most TBMs think these strict standards should include.
For example, with tithing I don’t have a problem with the idea of being unselfish, generous, grateful, etc. and contributing something to the Church; it is the specific amount they are asking for that generally seemed so costly that I always thought maybe I will go back to the temple next year but right now I don’t really feel like it. However, with the expectation that all active members should have a testimony of the restoration I see what they are aiming for and I don’t really appreciate it much at all no matter how I try to spin it. I don’t even like the word “testimony” because I mostly associate it with a false level of certainty that I think is cult-like because it creates a divisive and intolerant environment where many members that don’t believe the same thing will feel uncomfortable or unwelcome and if they stick around long enough to listen to this repeatedly then they are basically being treated like second-class citizens. That’s why I think expecting every active member to have a testimony about God and Jesus is already bad enough but at least I see these beliefs as a legitimate matter of faith and somewhere around 90% of Americans believe in God and over 70% profess to be Christian but how many members/investigators are realistically going to believe this restoration story for the rest of their lives?
The problem is that the restoration story involves history that is so recent and claims that are so fantastic (e.g. the Book of Mormon) that there is a significant amount of contradictory evidence available for everyone to see. This means that most members/investigators will typically need to be completely unaware of the contradictions or not pay too much attention to them in order to maintain their “testimony.” Sure there are apologists that are not phased that much by the apparent contradictions and I understand wayfarer’s point that Joseph Smith restored some powerful ideas that had been lost and that some pious fraud and imperfection was probably part of Christianity from the beginning as well. However, I worry that most active members that start to see some of the same contradictions will have a much harder time dealing with a church that has always put so much emphasis on the idea that it is super special and worth investing so much devotion and sacrifice for mostly because of all the claimed divine intervention involved in establishing and maintaining it.
Just to beat my already dead horse, the question is NOT: Quote:Do you have a testimony of the restoration in these the latter days?
It is NOT:
Quote:Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in these the latter days?
It is:
Quote:Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?
Those are three different questions.
That’s all.
Oh, and if I was getting technical, the only reason I would answer “No” if I was being really picky about wording is that I don’t believe in the accuracy of “these latter days”. However, I don’t believe that is the focus of the question, and I answer what I believe to be the focus of the question. Ray, you can parse the question any way you like, and since you’re the moderator, you can lock the thread and make sure you have the last word! We love you man (but don’t always agree)
I did a post on this at By Common Consent a few months ago that surprised me. I talked about restoration hving different meanings: rebooting, retconning or renewing. When we say restoration, I believe we usually imagine the plain and precious things that were lost being restored, but as I pointed out in the post, we were a bit arbitrary in what we restored and didn’t. For example, polygamy (which predates the NT) is in, but female prophets are out. Many books of the apocrypha are out, but Song of Solomon made the cut. Some of the restoration seems like a retcon, a reimagined storyline: Jews in the BOM have synagogues and worship Christ, Adam was a prophet, and the Garden of Eden was in the midwest. These claims are pretty far out there compared to evidence outside of revelation. But when considered as renewing Christianity with vigor, health and life, I think it’s a definite yes. We aren’t stuck in the past 2000 years. We can change fairly easily.
Here’s the link. Sci fi fans may enjoy.
http://bycommonconsent.com/2011/12/10/restoration/ Quote:you can lock the thread and make sure you have the last word!
:shh: I thought nobody realized that was my motivation.
🙄 😆 Old-Timer wrote:Just to beat my already dead horse, the question is NOT: “Do you have a testimony of the restoration in these the latter days?”…It is NOT: “Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in these the latter days?”…It is: “
Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospelin these the latter days?”…Those are three different questions…That’s all. I agree that the gospel and the Church should ideally be two separate things but I don’t believe most members including top Church leaders typically make this distinction. When I hear “gospel” from the Church and Church members I read it as meaning all the main points the Church teaches including tithing, the WoW, temple ordinances, priesthood, and obedience to prophets. I understand that it is not really necessary to try to read other people’s minds and try to answer what we think they mean by these questions if we already understand them differently and feel comfortable with the way we want to answer them. However, to me “restoration of the gospel” and “restoration” don’t sound that different because the way the Church claims the gospel was restored still implies that the Church is special in an exclusive way because it supposedly has God-given doctrines and divine approval that others don’t which I don’t believe is true or even a very positive idea overall to focus on nearly as much as the Church currently does.
One reason I wouldn’t feel too bad about interpreting these questions differently than most active members do is because I think the real purpose behind all these questions as far as what the Church really wants out of us and why is basically to feel like Church members are alright and are willing to support the Church and show some token level of loyalty to it. So the answer they really want to get out of all of these questions is essentially, “I’m alright; you don’t need to worry about me.” In this case, I think they see lack of testimony as a problem that supposedly needs to be fixed mostly because they associate it with lack of commitment and members falling away from the Church permanently which is understandably very serious in their minds if they equate Church activity with potential salvation and blessings. So that’s probably the main reason why they want members with weak or non-existent testimonies to try to develop this exaggerated conviction about how important the Church supposedly is. It reminds me of an overprotective mother nagging her children to brush their teeth, eat their vegetables, clean their room, etc. So that’s how I would look at it; basically they mean well but I already know more than enough to make my own decisions without needing to involve them in it that much.
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