Mormon Infobia...

[_Fence Sitter]

Ben,

There is a world of difference between "sending your members to sources of information that they believe are in error" and actively discouraging members from investigating anything that is not faith promoting. I am not categorizing all members as such but there are many members for whom the first question out of their mouths, regarding unknown material, is "is that Anti?"

Case in point. I have referred many people to the Joseph Smith Papers site, perhaps a dozen or more. At least three of those people have asked me if it was an anti site, even after I described what was on the site and who was backing it. When I have suggested to members that they might find the original versions of the Book of Commandments interesting I have seen the same reaction.

I agree that the members are a diverse group, but the Church actively tries to discourage people from investigating non faith promoting material and the result is that some members are even afraid to read material published by the Church itself. When we have apostles giving talks like BKP's infamous "The Mantle is Greater Than The Intellect" and Dallin Oaks telling us to follow our leaders even when we think they are wrong, there are clear examples that the leadership is trying to keep members away from any non approved material.

[_subgenius]

The Church is permeated with a seemingly irrational fear of its members finding stuff out.

yet somehow you have breached this stronghold and escaped with all this "stuff", all this clouded and hidden information, a veritable treasure of "insider" information.
Yep, funny how the facts, once again, make your proposition absurd.

The amount of information that a member can have about the Church and its restoration has a cap.

a "cap"....you mean like a hat?
or is this a more philosophical point about how none of us can ever really know everything"?
or do you actually have evidence that supports yet another assertion? any proof that the church "restricts" information?

You are allowed a certain amount of fitered information from a single controlled source but anything else not only is frowned upon, but is actually feared.

actually, i am allowed anything..my choices determine my consequences, and nowhere does the church "disallow" non-single source information. They may encourage and/or discourage certain sources but your assertion that we are only "allowed" a certain amount is, once again, disingenuous.

You are discouraged from searching to deeply into historical or doctrinal matters and you are likewise discouraged from having too many or too searching questions. You are to believe what the Church tells you about itself and its doctrines and only what the Church tells you about itself and its doctrines.

the first part of this statement seems to be contradicted, again, by facts...unless the subject of the word "you" does not include a host of university professors (ie at BYU) and every church member and non-member living today.
Provide evidence of discouragement for "deeper" searching...specifically.

Is this a phobia or is this just a sensible way of treating this type of information?

you mistake a contrary opinion for "information"...to that end, it is very sensible. The church, and most people, consider it sensible to steer clear of those who blather on.

In terms of German history and in particular the Nazi party - would you consider it reasonable for questioning Nazi party members, or people contemplating joing the Nazi party to be restricted in their searching of Nazi history, to just the materials sanctioned and produced by the Nazi party themselves?

wow! The LDS church is tantamount to the Nazi party (another group you obviously have a cursory knowledge of).
Your assumption that "investigators" are not encouraged to find out things for themselves is disproved by countless people and reality.

Is this a phobia or is this just a sensible way of treating this type of information?

you mistake a contrary opinion for "information"...to that end, it is very sensible. The church, and most people, consider it sensible to steer clear of those who blather on.

What has God's true Church on earth got to fear from the documented history of its divine restoration and the open and frank discussion of its doctrines past and present? If it's the truth and God's word then it should not be hiding from discussion, witholding information that members seek about it. It should have nothing to fear and everything to gain from people investigating properly and thoroughly the claims of the Church.

they have nothing to fear, and that is obvious. Your assumption that any "fear" exists is simply that...your assumption.

Is this a phobia or is this just a sensible way of treating this type of information?

you mistake a contrary opinion for "information"...to that end, it is very sensible. The church, and most people, consider it sensible to steer clear of those who blather on.

When a jury is faced with making a difficult decision about the future of the person placed before them. Would it be fair and reasonable for them to consider only the evidence placed before them by one of the parties involved?

horrible analogy (again).
jury members are "selected" via rigorous discrimination in hopes that a bias may be created - besides have we not seen countless jurors make seemingly arbitrary decisions in spite of any evidence put before them?
Yous should stick with the topic at hand.

Mormon Infobia - the irrational fear of truthful discussion of all the salient facts pertaining to the truth claims of the Church.

"truthful discussion" being the operative word here.
There seems to be a notion that one should entertain all opinion and data, regardless, in order to make an informed decision. First, the premise that membership in the church is within the same paradigm as a jury decision is a fallacy. Second, successful decisions can easily be made with what another may consider to be "cursory" knowledge - just as bad decisions are still made with "all" the facts known.

So, it would seem that your post simply poses the notion that:
"if one finds themselves in a position of being insulted by another, do they use that person as a reference?"

Intelli-phobia - this thread
salient - one of the most overused words in posts, often used to enhance one's posture.

[_bcspace]

The Church is permeated with a seemingly irrational fear of its members finding stuff out.

I don't sense it. Either fear or irrationality.

Mormon Infobia - the irrational fear of truthful discussion of all the salient facts pertaining to the truth claims of the Church.

I think the phobia is on the part of the critics whose fear is others not accepting as salient what they wish to be seen as salient.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Just Me writes:

So, why does the church strive to keep members from looking at certain information? They actively discourage the use of any and all "outside" material. This often includes even study Bibles!

It doesn't. Now, you might point out that the church discourages its teachers from using outside sources to teach, but this isn't anywhere near what you seem to be suggesting here.

Drifting writes:

I ventured a question about how it was translated. It was shut down as not vital to know exactly and the teacher scurried on and never mentioned it again. When challenged after the lesson he maintained that he was instructed to keep the lesson in the mainstream and not allow it to drift into some of the 'flecks of history'.

And I suspect it probably had more to do with the fact that the teacher had absolutely no idea, and no way to deal with the question.

Fence Sitter writes:

There is a world of difference between "sending your members to sources of information that they believe are in error" and actively discouraging members from investigating anything that is not faith promoting. I am not categorizing all members as such but there are many members for whom the first question out of their mouths, regarding unknown material, is "is that Anti?"

But where does the church actually do this? Did you read the statement I prefaced my first set of comments with from a General Authority of the Church - it was anything but discouraging members to investigate material. So, I don't agree with your characterization of the church as a whole discouraging people from investigating non-faith promoting stuff. I simply don't have a common experience with you on this subject.

When we have apostles giving talks like BKP's infamous "The Mantle is Greater Than The Intellect" and Dallin Oaks telling us to follow our leaders even when we think they are wrong, there are clear examples that the leadership is trying to keep members away from any non approved material.

And here is where I get to claim that this is nonsense. After all, BKP's "infamous" talk was given at a religious educator's symposium. I suppose it received it widest distribution when it was published (along with the other presentations) in BYU Studies. I suspect that is largely only "infamous" in certain circles (this kind of environment being one of them). Most members have no idea what it is, have never heard it, have never read it. Making it out to be the epitome of LDS teachings is simply inaccurate in the very best light I could consider it.

You build on innuendo. You stress anecdotal evidence instead of policy. What you produce looks absolutely nothing like the church that I participate in. The quote from Elder Hafen that used earlier, on the other hand, I once used as the basis for a talk in Sacrament Meeting. Did anyone complain? Nope.

Ben M.

[_Drifting]

Drifting writes:

I ventured a question about how it was translated. It was shut down as not vital to know exactly and the teacher scurried on and never mentioned it again. When challenged after the lesson he maintained that he was instructed to keep the lesson in the mainstream and not allow it to drift into some of the 'flecks of history'.

And I suspect it probably had more to do with the fact that the teacher had absolutely no idea, and no way to deal with the question.

You make my point.

You have to ask, why would the teacher assigned to teach members about the Book of Mormon have absolutely no idea about how the Book of Mormon was actually translated?

Surely it would be in the support material for the teacher because it's a fairly predictable question.

Why wasn't the teacher referred to a location where he might have found the information? Because there is no official source (excluding one paragraph in one talk from 1993) available and the Church doesn't want him looking for it elsewhere.

Jensen recognises the fear and the cost of that fear and he is trying to do something about it.

[_Drifting]

The Church is permeated with a seemingly irrational fear of its members finding stuff out.

Oh no it isn't, so there...

I was thinking of responding to the points you raised, but I couldn't find any that we're....well.....salient...

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Drifting writes:

You have to ask, why would the teacher assigned to teach members about the Book of Mormon have absolutely no idea about how the Book of Mormon was actually translated?

I have no idea. Perhaps because he didn't bother looking in to it - trying to fulfill his calling by putting in the least amount of effort necessary? I think that in general, many of the issues which affect people here on the fringe, or even that drive faithful members to dig around simply don't motivate other members of the church. They aren't worried about it, they don't really care. I mean, consider this - how many of the members in your sunday school class actually took the time to read the material being covered before going to class? This is less about a conspiracy theory and more about human nature.

Edit to add: I think that if you created lessons that required a lot of studying and preparation, people would stop being teachers. It has little to do with the content, and everything to do with being comfortable standing up in front of a class and talking. How many would be willing to put up with many hours of preparation each week?

Ben M.

[_Drifting]

Drifting writes:

You have to ask, why would the teacher assigned to teach members about the Book of Mormon have absolutely no idea about how the Book of Mormon was actually translated?

I have no idea. Perhaps because he didn't bother looking in to it - trying to fulfill his calling by putting in the least amount of effort necessary? I think that in general, many of the issues which affect people here on the fringe, or even that drive faithful members to dig around simply don't motivate other members of the church. They aren't worried about it, they don't really care. I mean, consider this - how many of the members in your sunday school class actually took the time to read the material being covered before going to class? This is less about a conspiracy theory and more about human nature.

Ben M.

Thanks Ben.
I think the class may prepare more than the teacher but that's a different discussion. Jensen is concerned that the Church is currently experiencing a great apostasy, because they want information and cannot get it from Church sources. Thus they go elsewhere for answers and find that things aren't what they have been told - causing them to exit or not attend.
It's an undeniable fact that this is a problem for the Church, as confirmed by Jensen.

[_mms]

Dallin Oaks admitted that one reason information is not provided to members is that there was fear that it would "creat[e] doubts that didn't exist in the first place." (See below.) Just as there was a fear of providing information and creating doubts, there was a fear of members seeking information that would create doubts. An apostle admitted it. Apologists still will not.

Helen Whitney: Just one more question on that. In every church, in every person, there’s a shallow territory usually explained away through context. Many find information through the Internet — some would rather find things out about the Church history, doctrine through teachings, rather than the Internet, or other resources.

Dallin H. Oaks: It’s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That’s an old problem in Mormonism — a feeling of members that they shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should’ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.

There are several different elements of that. One element is that we’re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn’t deal with anything that’s unfavorable, and we’re coming into a period of “warts and all” kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things — there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.

On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You don’t want to be getting into and creating doubts that didn’t exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and that’s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven’t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives “Brother Jones” his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It’s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, we’re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t.

Emphasis supplied.

[_Fence Sitter]

Ben,

Perspective is everything. Critics and faithful alike swing from one side to the other on what members know and don't know. In one minute members are well informed and aware of issues and the next they are completely ignorant of famous talks. It works both ways and I acknowledge the lens through which I look. Having encountered BKP on my mission I know from personal experience that he has consistently through out his life as an apostle tried to steer members, rather forcibly, away from areas he felt they don't need to study. His view of historians is well known. I asked him a question on my mission in a zone conference regarding Masonry and was told "I didn't need to know that".

I would say they are several areas where the Church as a whole actively discourages members from outside study.

First and foremost would be correlation. As Drifting pointed out and has often been repeated on this and other boards any attempt to vary from the lesson manual is frowned upon.

The Church itself has a long hagiographical history and continues to produce material that misrepresents actual history, such as the recent Ensign picture of Joseph Smith translating without a hat or the U&T, while at the same time limiting or prohibiting access to the vast historical achieves that it has. The fact that we no longer have trained historians as Church Historians speaks volumes as does the fact that they have lawyers in that position instead. The Church learned quickly that allowing people like Arrington and Brodie access to archival material did not result in the pretty historical picture it wanted to paint.

Lastly is membership itself. You say I build on innuendo and anecdotal evidence, that the Church I portray looks nothing like the one you participate in, and then proceed to provide you own anecdotal evidence . I do not doubt that you could present a talk as you say. Much of how people react to speakers and teachers in Church is based on the perception the audience has of the whomever is at the pulpit or lectern. Like any closed society, we tend to protect our own, and any threat, real or perceived is dealt with. I go back to my No Man Knows My History example, just seeing that book brings reactions from people, most of whom have never read it.

Maybe the question to ask is "Are members and the Church justified in such behavior?" There you and I are probably closer to agreement.