Request for Help in Finding GA Quotes

[consiglieri]

I will be doing a podcast Wednesday with Bill Reel on a recent church video featuring Elder Oaks admonishing Mormons to be cautious in their search for truth.

This reminds me of when Elder Oaks spoke to a Chicago stake a couple of years back advising research was not the answer when confronted with a doubting spouse.

And of course who can ever forget Elder Oaks from 1985(?) addressing the CES folks that the church has no responsibility to tell both sides of the story? (I have no audio for this though.)

My question is if you have any other favorite quotes along these lines from Oaks or others I could add to the list?

All the Best!

—RFM

[Everybody Wang Chung]

-- My duty as a member of the Council of the Twelve is to protect what is most unique about the LDS church, namely the authority of priesthood, testimony regarding the restoration of the gospel, and the divine mission of the Savior. Everything may be sacrificed in order to maintain the integrity of those essential facts. Thus, if Mormon Enigma reveals information that is detrimental to the reputation of Joseph Smith, then it is necessary to try to limit its influence and that of its authors.
Dallin H. Oaks, Apostle Dallin Oaks, footnote 28, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon

-- Apostle Russell M. Nelson, “Truth—and More,” Ensign, Jan. 1986, pg. 69; “To anyone who, because of truth, may be tempted to become a dissenter against the Lord and his anointed, weigh carefully your action in light of this sacred scripture, “These dissenters, having the same instruction and the same information…not long after their dissensions they became more hardened and impenitent…wicked…entirely forgetting the Lord their God.” (Alma 47:36.)

-- Apostle Boyd K. Packer, “Pillars of My Faith,” talk delivered at Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, August 19, 1994; “I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys. Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting.”

-- Some seek answers to questions God has not chosen to answer. Others receive answers—or think they receive answers—in ways that are contrary to the order of the Church. For such searchers, Satan stands ready to mislead through sophistry or spurious revelation. Persons who hunger after a full understanding of all things must discipline their questions and their methods or they can get close to apostasy without even knowing it. It may be just as dangerous to exceed orthodoxy as it is to fall short of it. The safety and happiness we are promised lies in keeping the commandments, not in discounting them or multiplying them.
Dallin H. Oaks, BYU Fireside, "Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall", June 07, 1992

-- A desire to know is surely a great strength. A hunger to learn is laudable, but the fruits of learning make a person particularly susceptible to the sin of pride. So do the fruits of other talents and accomplishments, such as the athletic or the artistic. It is easy for the learned and the accomplished to forget their own limitations and their total dependence upon God. Accomplishments in higher education bring persons much recognition and real feelings of self‑sufficiency. But we should remember the Book of Mormon's frequent cautions not to boast in our own strength or wisdom lest we be left to our own strength or wisdom (e.g., Alma 38:11, 39:2; Helaman 4:13, 16:15). Similarly, the prophet Jacob referred to "that cunning plan of the evil one," remarking that when persons are "learned," which means that they have knowledge, "they think they are wise" (2 Nephi 9:28), which means that they think they have the capacity for the wise application of knowledge. Persons who think they are wise in this way "hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves." In that circumstance, the prophet said, "their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish" (2 Nephi 9:28). "But to be learned is good," the word of the Lord concludes, "if they hearken unto the counsels of God" (2 Nephi 9:29).
Dallin H. Oaks, BYU Fireside, "Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall", June 07, 1992


--"Indeed, in some instances, the merciful companion to truth is silence. Some truths are best left unsaid." Russell M. Nelson, Truth and More, Ensign, Jan. 1986, page 69

-- It's wrong to criticize leaders of the church, even if the criticism is true.
Dallin H. Oaks, 'Criticism,' Latter‑day Saint Student Association fireside in the Salt Lake Tabernacle

[Gabriel]

I will be doing a podcast Wednesday with Bill Reel on a recent church video featuring Elder Oaks admonishing Mormons to be cautious in their search for truth.

My question is if you have any other favorite quotes along these lines from Oaks or others I could add to the list?

All the Best!

—RFM

Hey there, RFM,

Here is a link to a section full of quotes (with sources) on this very subject at the Mormon think website.

http://www.mormonthink.com/QUOTES/intellectualism.htm

There is a good hundred quotes in total divided in two sections. The first is filled with what I would call the cocky, early Conner McGregor/Rhonda Rousey quotes, which roughly can be equated to: Truth? Truth? We got the truth! Examine us this way and that! Walk the ends of the earth! Turn over every stone and you'll find us waiting for you! Bitches!

The second series of quotes is more circumspect as regards the proper venue to safely engage bald letter writers or piano players without risk of injury.

[consiglieri]

Thanks so much, gentlemen!

You are a treasure!!!

[thechair]

Hey, RFM,

Can’t wait for Wednesday. Not that you need any musical suggestions—selection of ironic and comical outro music is one of your greatest superpowers—but maybe Oh Say What Is Truth should be on your short list?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/mu ... h?lang=eng

the chair

[kamenraider]

"As we begin to consider some of your questions, it is important to remember that I am a General Authority, but that does not make me an authority in general! My calling and life experiences allow me to respond to certain types of questions. There are other types of questions that require an expert in a specific subject matter. This is exactly what I do when I need an answer to such questions: I seek help from others, including those with degrees and expertise in such fields. I worry sometimes that members expect too much from Church leaders and teachers—­expecting them to be experts in subjects well beyond their duties and responsibilities. The Lord called the apostles and prophets to invite ­others to come unto Christ—not to obtain advanced degrees in ancient history, biblical studies, and other fields that may be useful in answering all the questions we may have about scriptures, history, and the Church. Our primary duty is to build up the Church, teach the doctrine of Christ, and help those in need of help. Fortunately the Lord provided this counsel for those asking questions: Seek ye diligently and teach one another words of ­wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith. If you have a question that requires an expert, please take the time to find a thoughtful and qualified expert to help you. There are many on this campus and elsewhere who have the degrees and expertise to respond and give some insight to most of these types of questions."
--M. Russell Ballard, BYU Devotional address, November 14, 2017.
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/m-russel ... d-answers/

They'll take all the authority we're willing to give them, but want none of the responsibility when it comes to answers to contradictions and absurdities.

edit: Didn't Keith Erekson say they use the research services of Church History employees like 50-60 times a month? I don't get paid six figures to do my calling, I have a separate job to earn a living, and yet can still manage to do my own historical research.

[Moksha]

"Ye are a wicked and snoutful generation." Wait, he probably didn't say that. Nevermind. Too much Anubis research.

[Shulem]

-- Apostle Russell M. Nelson, “Truth—and More,” Ensign, Jan. 1986, pg. 69; “To anyone who, because of truth, may be tempted to become a dissenter against the Lord and his anointed, weigh carefully your action in light of this sacred scripture, “These dissenters, having the same instruction and the same information…not long after their dissensions they became more hardened and impenitent…wicked…entirely forgetting the Lord their God.” (Alma 47:36.)

Or,

To CONSIGLIERI who, because of truth, may be tempted to become a dissenter against the Lord and his anointed, weigh carefully your action in light of this sacred scripture, These dissenters, having the same instruction and the same information…not long after their dissensions they became more hardened and impenitent…wicked…entirely forgetting the Lord their God.

In other words, you are "WICKED", full of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. You're going to hell, RFM.

Stuff You Missed in Sunday School

[Gabriel]

"As we begin to consider some of your questions, it is important to remember that I am a General Authority, but that does not make me an authority in general!....
.... If you have a question that requires an expert, please take the time to find a thoughtful and qualified expert to help you. There are many on this campus and elsewhere who have the degrees and expertise to respond and give some insight to most of these types of questions."
--M. Russell Ballard, BYU Devotional address, November 14, 2017.
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/m-russel ... d-answers/

They'll take all the authority we're willing to give them, but want none of the responsibility when it comes to answers to contradictions and absurdities

Yes. It seems that Brother Ballard missed a golden opportunity to share his *own* area of expertise: He is, after all, widely regarded within his own faith community as a "Special Witness". The Q15 are, no doubt, aware that most members of the church have taken their words in good faith on the assumption that they (the Q15) have all had some extraordinary supernatural experience which sets them apart from the rest of humanity. I can't see that they've gone to any great lengths to discourage that assumption; and I doubt it that it speaks well of their characters that they allow it to persist. Rusty, in particular, seems to be in no special hurry to tell people to sit down when he walks in the room.

When Neal Maxwell admonished the Mopologists to permit "no uncontested slam dunks", I think that what he was really saying is that he needed them as fig leaves to cover his own nakedness.

Alas, poor Neal! What does it avail you now that you will be remembered as a muddled middle-manager of a multi-billion dollar corporation, a pretentious apostle who sputtered potboiler pablum from a pulpit and liberally peppered his speech with silly alliterations in iambic pentameter in a pathetic attempt to replicate the profundity of a Shakespeare? Would you not rather have been remembered as an honest man?

Thus, we see Father Time unveiling Truth as She removes the mask from a pretender.

The Allegory of Time Unveiling Truth.

b402222.jpeg (174.11 KiB) Viewed 1905 times

[consiglieri]

I was trying to remember the talk from President Nelson but it was slipping my mind.

Truth—And More!

What a strange title.

As if one could have something more than truth.