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Ann wrote:
I don’t know if this fits the category, and it might be a simplification, but I liked it. From “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism,” by Greg Prince, p. 404
Quote:Perhaps most importantly, he (David O. McKay) adjusted the relationship between church and member. For a full century, since Brigham Young announced to the world that the rumored practice of plural marriage was more than rumor, church members had been asked to sacrifice themselves for the good of the institution. McKay reversed that, asserting that the church was made for the members, not the members for the church. He emphasized the paramount importance of free agency and individual expression, for he understood that improvement of the parts would inevitably improve the whole. “Let them conform” was replaced by “Let them grow.” He willingly discarded institutional uniformity for the higher goal of individual excellence. He pitched a wide tent and then told members of all stripes that he welcomed them to join him and build the church within it.
Thank you Ann. I’ve got tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. That is so much what I needed to hear. Today was not a good day at church, but I loved the sentiment of progressing from conform to grow in your quote. Please feel free to add any other bits from the book that would be useful.
From Brigham Young: Quote:
There is one principle I wish to urge upon the Saints in a way that it may remain with them—that is, to understand men and women as they are, and not understand them as you are.
From Journal of Discourse.
http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/8/8 Remarks by President BRIGHAM YOUNG, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1860. REPORTED BY G. D. WATT
mackay11 wrote:From Brigham Young:
Quote:
There is one principle I wish to urge upon the Saints in a way that it may remain with them—that is, to understand men and women as they are, and not understand them as you are.
From Journal of Discourse.
http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/8/8 Remarks by President BRIGHAM YOUNG, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1860. REPORTED BY G. D. WATT
that’s the brilliance of the church…every once in a while, a really golden nugget comes out of the prophet, proving to me how god works through flawed humans to help other humans…Another from Brigham Young: Quote:The being that has comparatively no strong passion to overcome ought constantly to walk in the vale of humility, rather than boast of his righteousness over his brother… Those who have not strong passions to contend with, day by day, and year by year, should walk in the vale of humiliation*; and if brethren and sisters are overtaken in fault, your hearts should be filled with kindness—with brotherly, angelic feeling—to overlook their faults as far as possible.
Used in Teachings of the Presidents:
https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-brigham-young/chapter-25?lang=eng Full context in JOD:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/8/31 *These days we’d say ‘vale of humility’ as he did on the first mention of it – it means the same thing.
BRIGHAM YOUNG, made in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, July 22, 1860. REPORTED BY G. D. WATT.
Pres. Uchtdorf said the following in a talk at a CES fireside in January that included the story of The Blind Men and the Elephant – one of the best talks I have ever heard for everyone here. Quote:We look at this story from a distance and smile. After all, we know what an elephant looks like. We have read about them and watched them on film, and many of us have even seen one with our own eyes. We believe we know the truth of what an elephant is. That someone could make a judgment based on one aspect of truth and apply it to the whole seems absurd or even unbelievable. On the other hand, can’t we recognize ourselves in these six blind men? Have we ever been guilty of the same pattern of thought?
I suppose the reason this story has remained so popular in so many cultures and over so many years is because of its universal application. The Apostle Paul said that in this world the light is dim and we see only part of the truth as though we are looking “through a glass, darkly.” And yet it seems to be part of our nature as human beings to make assumptions about people, politics, and piety based on our incomplete and often misleading experience. . . . .
The “truths” we cling to shape the quality of our societies as well as our individual characters. All too often these “truths” are based on incomplete and inaccurate evidence, and at times they serve very selfish motives.
Part of the reason for poor judgment comes from the tendency of mankind to blur the line between belief and truth. We too often confuse belief with truth, thinking that because something makes sense or is convenient, it must be true. Conversely, we sometimes don’t believe truth or reject it — because it would require us to change or admit that we were wrong. Often, truth is rejected because it doesn’t appear to be consistent with previous experiences.
When the opinions or “truths” of others contradict our own, instead of considering the possibility that there could be information that might be helpful and augment or complement what we know, we often jump to conclusions or make assumptions that the other person is misinformed, mentally challenged, or even intentionally trying to deceive.”
I really, really love that man.
Me too 
The following was used in a talk today in sacrament that made me want to stand up and cheer: Quote:
Do you think that we are always going to remain the same size? I am not a stereotyped Latter-day Saint, and do not believe in the doctrine… Away with stereo-typed “Mormons.”
http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/8/47 Remarks by President BRIGHAM YOUNG, made in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, September 23, 1860. REPORTED BY G. D. WATT.
Old-Timer wrote:Pres. Uchtdorf said the following in a talk at a CES fireside in January that included the story of The Blind Men and the Elephant – one of the best talks I have ever heard for everyone here.
Quote:We look at this story from a distance and smile. After all, we know what an elephant looks like. We have read about them and watched them on film, and many of us have even seen one with our own eyes. We believe we know the truth of what an elephant is. That someone could make a judgment based on one aspect of truth and apply it to the whole seems absurd or even unbelievable. On the other hand, can’t we recognize ourselves in these six blind men? Have we ever been guilty of the same pattern of thought?
I suppose the reason this story has remained so popular in so many cultures and over so many years is because of its universal application. The Apostle Paul said that in this world the light is dim and we see only part of the truth as though we are looking “through a glass, darkly.” And yet it seems to be part of our nature as human beings to make assumptions about people, politics, and piety based on our incomplete and often misleading experience. . . . .
The “truths” we cling to shape the quality of our societies as well as our individual characters. All too often these “truths” are based on incomplete and inaccurate evidence, and at times they serve very selfish motives.
Part of the reason for poor judgment comes from the tendency of mankind to blur the line between belief and truth. We too often confuse belief with truth, thinking that because something makes sense or is convenient, it must be true. Conversely, we sometimes don’t believe truth or reject it — because it would require us to change or admit that we were wrong. Often, truth is rejected because it doesn’t appear to be consistent with previous experiences.
When the opinions or “truths” of others contradict our own, instead of considering the possibility that there could be information that might be helpful and augment or complement what we know, we often jump to conclusions or make assumptions that the other person is misinformed, mentally challenged, or even intentionally trying to deceive.”
I really, really love that man.
+1/0From Joseph Smith: Quote:
“A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge.”…
George A. Smith, while serving in the First Presidency, reported: “Joseph Smith taught that every man and woman should seek the Lord for wisdom, that they might get knowledge from Him who is the fountain of knowledge; and the promises of the gospel, as revealed, were such as to authorize us to believe, that by taking this course we should gain the object of our pursuit.”
Quote:“I was not born a slave! I cannot, will not be a slave. I would not be a slave to God! I’d be His servant, friend, His son. I’d go at His behest; but I would not be his slave. His friend I feel I am, and He is mine. . . . I’m God’s free man.”
– John Taylor (B.H. Roberts, The Life of John Taylor, 1963, p. 424)
I heard this first in a recording of a J. Bonner Ritchie talk on Mormonstories.org – #52 – “On Organizations, Individuals and Pillars of Faith.” Then read the full quote in a 1983 BYU speech, “Personal Accountability,” by Dean L. Larsen.
CS Lewis, the GAs’ favorite on teetotalism: Quote:I do however strongly object to the tyrannical and unscriptural insolence of anything that calls itself a Church and makes teetotalism a condition of membership.
Apart from the more serious objection (that Our Lord Himself turned water into wine and made wine the medium of the only rite He imposed on all His followers), it is so provincial (what I believe you people call ‘small town’). Don’t they realize that Christianity arose in the Mediterranean world where, then as now, wine was as much a part of the normal diet as bread? from CS Lewis’ letters
And
Quote:Temperance is, unfortunately, one of those words that has changed its meaning. It now usually means teetotalism. But in the days when the second Cardinal virtue was christened ‘Temperance’, it meant nothing of the sort. Temperance referred not specially to drink, but to all pleasures; and it meant not abstaining, but going the right length and no further. It is a mistake to think that Christians ought all to be teetotallers; Mohammedanism, not Christianity, is the teetotal religion. Of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or of any Christian, at a particular time, to abstain from strong drink, either because he is the sort of man who cannot drink at all without drinking too much, or because he wants to give the money to the poor, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness and must not encourage them by drinking himself. But the whole point is that he is abstaining, for a good reason, from something which he does not condemn and which he likes to see other people enjoying. One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons — marriage or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.
One great piece of mischief has been done by the modem restriction of the word Temperance to the question of drink. It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things. A man who makes his golf or his motor bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as ‘intemperate’ as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals.
C. S. Lewis
Mere Christianity, Bk. III, ch. 2 Thanks Ann and SamBee – both great additions. Here’s a little gem from Joseph Smith. It’s a journal entry where Orson Hyde is complaining about black people’s aspirations. Joseph replies:
Quote:
If I raised you to be my equal & then attempt to oppress you, would you not be indignant?
Nice one brother Joseph.
The History of the Church, written in the first person in “Joseph’s voice” says: Thursday, 6.—I had previously preached in Washington, and one of my sermons I find reported in synopsis, by a member of Congress; which I will insert entire.(I’ve read elsewhere that he was actually a news reporter, but congressmen were present).
Quote:
He said very little of rewards and punishments; but one conclusion, from what he did say, was irresistible—he contended throughout, that everything which had a beginning must have an ending; and consequently if the punishment of man commenced in the next world, it must, according to his logic and belief have an end… and he again repeated that all who would follow the precepts of the Bible, whether Mormon or not, would assuredly be saved.There was much in his precepts, if they were followed, that would soften the asperities of man towards man, and that would tend to make him a more rational being than he is generally found to be. There was no violence, no fury, no denunciation. His religion appears to be the religion of meekness, lowliness, and mild persuasion.
The Mormon Bible, he said, was communicated to him, direct from heaven. If there was such a thing on earth, as the author of it, then he (Smith) was the author; but the idea that he wished to impress was, that he had penned it as dictated by God.
You can read the original History of the Church entry in the
BYU online versiononline at BYU.eduA part of the letter was quoted in the
June 1994 EnsignOn that basis my next talk might very well include the following phrase:
The June 1994 Ensign quoted an account of a public sermon given by Joseph Smith in Washington D.C. in 1840. The account, which was also used in History of the Church, volume 4 says: (and then quote my favourite bits).
Lots to discuss in this one, feel free to do so here:
Saw this on another forum. For any who are reprimanded by leaders for studying church history. This one might be useful. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/detailed-research-key-church-historic-sites Quote:
For members of the Church, the connection between history and religion is essential. From the earliest moments of the Church’s founding, Latter-day Saints have kept a record of their history. The principle behind this practice stems from a scriptural mandate: “There shall be a record kept among you” (D&C 21:1), intended for the “good of the church” and “the rising generations” (D&C 69:
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