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Old-Timer wrote:
Frankly, and although this might apologetic at first (but isn’t), I think there are lots of things that could be called “secrets of the ages” that aren’t “secret” as in “unknown to anyone or never revealed”.
I think there are things that could be called “secrets of the ages” that are nothing more than core, fundamental things that are disappearing from much of public discussion or consciousness.I have almost no time right now, so I can’t go into detail, but I think it’s worth considering “secrets” a bit differently.
I can’t think of any? I mean, society is evolving, but what is disappearing from the consciousness of society that shouldn’t be disappearing – that is not making us a better people? When you get time, maybe give some examples. I hope we are not talking about things like the Family Proclamation or the Law of Chasity etc?
Quote:what is disappearing from the consciousness of society that shouldn’t be disappearing – that is not making us a better people?
1) a belief in the need for and power of prophecy and revelation – even with the inherent tension between the communal and the individual manifestations of them
2) a belief in the universal connectedness of humanity throughout time – and a symbolic way to represent that connectedness in a tangible, physical way
3) a balance between grace and personal accountability – even with the swaying of that balance with different leaders (and, perhaps, that swaying actually reinforces the need for a balance)
4) a belief in an intimate connection between God and humanity and the potential of real, meaningful, expansive, internal divinity
There are others, but these four alone, imo, are enough to justify the need for prophets to keep some of the “secrets of the ages” from disappearing. I don’t see “facts” or “factual claims” as “secrets” or “mysteries”. I see secrets and mysteries MUCH more as principles and perspectives and orientations.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:what is disappearing from the consciousness of society that shouldn’t be disappearing – that is not making us a better people?
1) a belief in the need for and power of prophecy and revelation – even with the inherent tension between the communal and the individual manifestations of them
2) a belief in the universal connectedness of humanity throughout time – and a symbolic way to represent that connectedness in a tangible, physical way
3) a balance between grace and personal accountability – even with the swaying of that balance with different leaders (and, perhaps, that swaying actually reinforces the need for a balance)
4) a belief in an intimate connection between God and humanity and the potential of real, meaningful, expansive, internal divinity
There are others, but these four alone, imo, are enough to justify the need for prophets to keep some of the “secrets of the ages” from disappearing. I don’t see “facts” or “factual claims” as “secrets” or “mysteries”. I see secrets and mysteries MUCH more as principles and perspectives and orientations.
Okay — and which one of these four do the average orthodox mormon church member actually believe in and preach today from the pulpit?
Quote:which one of these four do the average orthodox mormon church member actually believe in and preach today from the pulpit?
To some degree, to some level, pretty much every active member believes all of them, regardless of a general categorization, especially if I have a chance to explain them in a little more detail than what I wrote in summary – but that’s not really even the point. The point is that all of them exist within our theology, and it took “prophetic” vision to put them there – and that prophetic vision allows US (you and me and heterodox and orthodox and heteroprax and orthoprax and long-time and convert members) to be taught them and accept them to whatever extent we can. We can have this conversation and recognize these “secrets” almost entirely because we understand Mormon theology – which is something that’s easy to forget in the middle of a crisis of some kind.
The very fact that we can have a crisis in which we flesh out these sorts of things and hold onto them is possible largely ONLY because we were taught them in the first place – because they were “revealed” through prophecy to a group and confirmed through prophecy to us individually. We take so much of this for granted, even many who are in the middle of a crisis, that it’s hard to remember their prophetic origins.
If you want a really good lesson on what I mean, try explaining any of these to Mormons and to other Christians and see what percent of each even can understand really what you’re trying to say, much less how many can accept it.
Okay. cwald wrote:Okay.
a very deep post.Ray’s words about taking prophets for granted make me think of Israelites being led out of captivity, and then don’t like the desert. I wonder if I do that? :problem: perhaps I should think back on what I have because of prophets. Growing up Mormon, I’ve never not had prophets to look towards.Are we talking about the president of the church here, or something else entirely? If the former, well, then we need prophets because someone’s got to be in charge of the church. If the latter, what do we mean by “prophets”. Was Thomas Jefferson a prophet? Was Mohandas Gandhi a prophet? J.R.R. Tolkien? Are we not all prophets, more or less? I think so, and so I think we need prophets because being a prophet or learning from one makes life meaningful. Good question, Doug. As you know, early church members like Lyman Wight had many prophecies and revelations and JS seemed at first to be very open that all are prophets if given that gift of prophecy, by more of a charismatic calling, not authority or priesthood. But it seemed it had to change to keep order in the church. So if we consider that in our day, can we all be prophets, or do we need the Pres of the church and Q12 (or Q15) to be prophets? If we can all be prophets, why do we need to designate priesthood positions as prophets, seers, and revelators?
Heber13 wrote:Ray’s words about taking prophets for granted make me think of Israelites being led out of captivity, and then don’t like the desert. I wonder if I do that?
:problem: perhaps I should think back on what I have because of prophets. Growing up Mormon, I’ve never not had prophets to look towards.Okay Wayfarer —- you want a little more profound response?
🙂 Well, I’m fond of comparing Mormons to the ancient Isrealitites. Oh yeah, the parallels are so obvious to me. Let me just agree with and give Ray a nod on his earlier post…That is all fine and dandy —- and those four examples are wonderful concepts we have learned from the prophets.
Well guess what —- that is NOT what you find at church today on a regular basis. Sure, “to some extent” it is there, but, like I have said many times, and like Heber just said,
I think the LDS people have forgotten the prophets and the “grand keys” of the universe, and replaced it with minutia and crap and a thousand stupid commandments.And, yeah, it is the memberships fault – because they ask for it and they need it. But it is also the leaders fault too – because they refuse to admit EVER doing wrong or that there is ANY problem with prophets teachings or the church structure itself. It’s all about loyalty to the CHURCH. They could fix some of these problems, but, in order to fix them, they have to admit they have a problem — and that is not happening. Instead, they ho hum around the issues, throw out some nuanced language and tidbits at conference occasional — but they will not face the problem of the church’s own apostasy head on and do something about it. Instead we focus on meetings and loyalty to the corporate church and WoW and white shirts and correlated history and watered down dogma etc etc. The Mormon people REFUSE to listen to their own prophets — and they have the gall to call me an apostate.
Quote:I think the LDS people have forgotten the prophets and the “grand keys” of the universe, and replaced it with minutia and crap and a thousand stupid commandments.
I don’t disagree at all that many members are like that – but I still assert that MANY more don’t than most people who are struggling or don’t fit in realize. Most of them just don’t speak up as much as I do – and that also is the fault of themselves and their leaders (at all levels).
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:I think the LDS people have forgotten the prophets and the “grand keys” of the universe, and replaced it with minutia and crap and a thousand stupid commandments.
I don’t disagree at all that many members are like that – but
I still assert that MANY more don’t than most people who are struggling or don’t fit in realize. Most of them just don’t speak up as much as I do – and that also is the fault of themselves and their leaders (at all levels). I can live with that.
So, why don’t they speak up? What are the leaders afraid of?
Is this an issue where folks (leaders) believe that loyalty to the church is just more important to the survival of the “kingdom of god” on earth, and perhaps they believe that if they speak “the truth” about what we are talking about here – the real purpose of prophets – the real purpose of the restoration, in plain and upfront words in general conference — that the “church,” the corporation aspect of the church, could be in jeapody?
I think that is a fair question.
I think Urchdorf has tried to tell the people, when he makes comments like “sometimes we get so concerned about all the should’s and should nots, that we are no longer able to enjoy the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ….ect ect.”
But who is listening? Has anything really changed in the church the last two years since he gave that talk?
Maybe the prophets need to quit using code, and just come out and say something like the LDS people are becoming the ancient Isrealites, and we are no longer going to focus on white shirts, tea, earrings, temple recommends, calling our leaders by their proper title ect ect —- and we are going to really start to focus on the pure gospel of Jesus Christ?
Heber13 wrote:…I wish it was so simple. The problem comes to me when I see in the past they have been wrong, in my opinion with 2020 hindsight, or when it is hard to know if they are speaking as a man or a prophet, or when there are changes that I think
God would have told the prophet to get it right the first time.But I’m not sure that makes prophets worthless for their time, just fallible…We don’t need to debate the 14 fundamentals again, or about obedience or challenging authority, but I am more interested in discussing how the group feels about the Daily Gem I received… WHY DO WENEEDPROPHETS? …Or are they just nice to have?…Thoughts? Personally I don’t believe that we really need prophets at all anymore and even if we would like to have prophets that doesn’t mean the LDS Church can actually deliver on all the promises and claims they have made up to this point. I guess the general idea behind prophets/revelation is that if God often seems far away, unknown, or even non-existent to the average person then sometimes it makes people feel better to believe that there are/were others who know or have known (Moses, Paul, etc.) more about God than they do to help increase their confidence in the idea that God is really there and that they can have a good idea what exactly God thinks, wants, expects, etc. simply by taking these prophets word for it.
The problem is that it doesn’t look like everything really works exactly the way the Church claims it should if you pay close attention to the general history of the world and the LDS Church in particular. Whatever revelations and inspiration there may be are clearly not the most reliable and consistent sources of knowledge we have available to depend on. That’s why I think putting so much emphasis on the idea of a continual succession of nearly infallible modern-day prophets has ended up being a critical mistake because it has really opened up the LDS Church’s entire history to increased scrutiny and criticism which is especially problematic when the Church has already had such controversial doctrines about things like race and polygamy. If they were just mere mortals making mistakes like everyone else then the Church history wouldn’t have been as hard for me to deal with but when they are supposed to be prophets, seers, and revelators then it makes it harder to stomach some of the contradictions and problems with the Church’s story and things Church leaders have said so far.
So, DA, could you define a prophet for you that still works, despite how others in church place emphasis on prophets? On Own Now wrote Quote:I think, as a general rule, that it’s OK for the church to have a sort of authoritarian form of government. I mean, everyone here is a pretty independent thinker, but I believe the church would collapse if each ward voted for their bishop or on matters of policy, to be implemented locally.
What I don’t like is when bishops themselves exercise authoritarian control on the local level without any vote by the congregation. For example simple logistical things such as what meeting time do we meet at? I had an experience where two Bishops were brothers-in-law in one meeting house. These bishops decided to keep the time schedule as it was already at the beginning of the new year, after the old year elapsed. What I’m saying is we had 9am church two years straight, while the other ward was at 11am two years straight. No one in the “congregation” got to have input and many people were upset that what they thought was gonna happen (swapping times), did not happen to the “congregation’s” chagrin.
Another issue: Easter Sunday, and Christmas. Do we have a single hour when Christmas falls on Sunday? (Easter always falls on Sunday), what kind of sacrament meeting do we have? I went to the Sunday before Christmas expecting a nice Christmas program, and was disappointed as my ward had a missionary home coming talk (I don’t even think the songs were Christmas songs, but instead the ward sang songs like “Called to Serve.” Boy was I disappointed, if I was a nonmember I would have thought that Mormons for sure aren’t Christian. That year I would have been better off going to Christmas Eve midnight mass. I heard from members of the congregation that they were disappointed that the ward choir didn’t sing, or had been disbanded months prior. Culturally these are downsides to the authoritarian control of the Bishops at the local level. Note:“Congregation” in the Mormon sense just means people in the ward, not the ability to vote for things, or choices in the ward. Congregationalism in the protestant sense means that people can vote in their church like a democracy and even vote out/in their clergy leaders. We have sustaining votes that means something entirely different. Perhaps this is another issue while protestants don’t think we are Christian since we are counter-American in how our churches are governed. Protestantism is truly governed by the people much like our US government is.
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