Growing Up LDS--Things We *Didn't* Care About Then

[Anonymous]

Its a good question Wade. To address it seriously, I would have to write a longer post than I have time to now, but I will try to remember to come back and see if I can answer some of your queries. I'll give your comments some thought...

[_Gazelam]

Gone are the days when a Latter-day Saint could respond to criticism with the confidence that how Christian a church was should be measured by the LDSstandard, rather than the Protestant standard; when a Latter-day Saint would match prooftexts for salvation by grace with prooftexts for salvation by works; and when a Latter-day Saint could be counted on to defend the beliefs handed down from Joseph Smith to the end of the 20th Century.

I think your alone on this one.

The first discussion presents the Mormon Doctrine of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and finishs with a discussion on The First Vision and the Book of Mormon.

Joseph Smith used to have to urge the early missionaries to not teach the deep doctrines, but to keep it simple. It is the teaching style of Christ to teach from the point that is already understood. If that means teaching Christ to the EV's as they understand it, and then building upon that point then so-be-it. But the First Vision will always be taught, and that in itself declares the Fatehr to be a literal Father and the Son to be the literal Son, how is that in any way bowing to false beliefs?

Gaz

[_DonBradley]

Having, myself, come of age during the 70's and 80"s, and having participated in apologetics during and since that time, I haven't noticed a "protestantizing" of my own beliefs, or the Church's for that matter. Granted, I have noticed some shifts in the my own apologetics over time, but that was more a function of the change I encountered in kinds of criticism directed towards the Church. Using a fencing metaphor, different argumentational thrusts necessitate different argumentational parries.

It is possible, though, that I may be the exception rather than the rule, but from what I have observed, I am not.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

That something has occurred does not mean it has been widely noticed. In the past twenty years, Latter-day Saints have pulled back from their emphasis on salvation by works, equivocated at both the highest ecclesiastical level and through their academic theologians on God having once been a man, re-emphasized the doctrinal role of the Book of Mormon, de-emphasized chosen lineage, and made particular effort to be recognized by Evangelicals as "Christian." What all these shifts have in common is that they move the Saints closer to Protestant religious norms and tend to make Protestant Christianity the measure of Mormon Christianity.

Don

[_Runtu]

I think your alone on this one.

The first discussion presents the Mormon Doctrine of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and finishs with a discussion on The First Vision and the Book of Mormon.

Joseph Smith used to have to urge the early missionaries to not teach the deep doctrines, but to keep it simple. It is the teaching style of Christ to teach from the point that is already understood. If that means teaching Christ to the EV's as they understand it, and then building upon that point then so-be-it. But the First Vision will always be taught, and that in itself declares the Fatehr to be a literal Father and the Son to be the literal Son, how is that in any way bowing to false beliefs?

Gaz

When I was a missionary, the First Vision and the restoration didn't come in until the third discussion. I'd say Don has a point.

[_msnobody]

It seems to me that there are two faces of Mormonism. One the average investigator sees which is much like the changes of which Don has spoken and the other, the face of Mormonism one sees attending stake conferences and such and dialoging with devout LDS who don't realize you're a non-member. It seems to me as well, that members can be equally comfortable with both although there are often conflicting facts.

[_msnobody]

The one thing that sticks out to me in reading the entire missionary manual is where it speaks of teaching about The Fall. the text states, "When first teaching this doctrine, do not teach everything you know about it. Explain very simply that God chose two of His children, Adam and Eve, to become the first parents on earth. . After their transgression they were subject to both sin and death. by themselves they could not return to live with Heavenly Father. The Lord spoke to Adam and taught him theplan of salvation and redemption throught the Lord Jesus Christ. By following that plan, Adam and his faily could have joy in this life and return to live with God." p.50 Preach My Gospel

[_DonBradley]

Gone are the days when a Latter-day Saint could respond to criticism with the confidence that how Christian a church was should be measured by the LDSstandard, rather than the Protestant standard; when a Latter-day Saint would match prooftexts for salvation by grace with prooftexts for salvation by works; and when a Latter-day Saint could be counted on to defend the beliefs handed down from Joseph Smith to the end of the 20th Century.

I think your alone on this one.

The first discussion presents the Mormon Doctrine of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and finishs with a discussion on The First Vision and the Book of Mormon.

Joseph Smith used to have to urge the early missionaries to not teach the deep doctrines, but to keep it simple. It is the teaching style of Christ to teach from the point that is already understood. If that means teaching Christ to the EV's as they understand it, and then building upon that point then so-be-it. But the First Vision will always be taught, and that in itself declares the Fatehr to be a literal Father and the Son to be the literal Son, how is that in any way bowing to false beliefs?

Gaz

What you fail to note, Gaz, is the direction of change--the trend. Mormons are not becoming over time more traditionally Mormon--they are not returning to their Nauvoo roots. They are gradually distancing themselves from what is least acceptable to Protestants. The road they're on has been traveled before--most notably by the Reorganize Church, which now fails to teach Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to prospective converts at all.

Don

[_Gazelam]

What you fail to note, Gaz, is the direction of change--the trend. Mormons are not becoming over time more traditionally Mormon--they are not returning to their Nauvoo roots. They are gradually distancing themselves from what is least acceptable to Protestants. The road they're on has been traveled before--most notably by the Reorganize Church, which now fails to teach Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to prospective converts at all.

Don

What a load of crap.

After the first discussion they are invited to read the Book of Mormon and pray and ask if it is true or not. How do you think the Book of Mormon is introduced? What does the First Vision mean to someone who has only been taught the trinity all their lives?

Whether or not Joseph Smiths story of declareing that he met the Father and the son is true or not is the foundation of the Church. If Joseph did not speak with Christ, and if the Book of Mormon is not exactly what it claims to be, then there is no reason to be a member of it. This will not, and can not, change.

[_Blixa]

This phrase of Don's is especially pertinent, I think:

"The "official doctrine" distinction is a defense used by Latter-day Saints against their own beliefs."

That's what makes it such a strange and disturbing element of apologetics..

Agreed. It allows them to jettison any teachings they find uncomfortable or embarrassing.

That is certainly one way of looking at it.

Others, however, may view it as a way of avoiding debilitating rigidity and pigeon-holing, and allowing for epistemic progress, healthy change and flexibility, and encouraging a maturing shift from authoritative dependance to personal inter-dependance, which some of us deem far from stange and disturbing.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

My response was about apologetics as well (broadly construed). What I find disturbing is the rejection of LDS beliefs in the cause of defending them. When the "official doctrine" card is played, the result is a denial of large sections of historical LDS experience---and I find that an ultimately limiting and impoverishing move. There is much in the history of Mormonism, especially in terms of the early years in Utah up through my grandparents generation, that is denigrated by such rhetoric. I think its their loss, frankly.

Is it possible that your perception here is simply a function of what you once viewed as "official doctrine" not being the same as what apologist have long viewed as the same, and what you view as a change in them is actual just your eventual realization of your different perception from other members of the Church? Could you have had a more inclusive, and yet rigid, understanding of "official doctrine" than apologist? I ask, because during the several decades of apologetics, I don't believe I change much if at all in my view of what is "official doctrine" and what is not, and I was often suprised when former members and even members would tell me that certain things were "official doctrine" that I didn't consider as such. I also don't think I have attatched the level of importance to "official doctrine" as perhaps others, such as yourself, might have. In fact, I am more than a bit puzzled how supposedly large sections of Mormonism are somehow denied by me taking a less inclusive and less rigid view of "official doctrine", let alone how it may be limiting and impoverishing or denigrating. While I may not classify certain things as "official doctrine" that you might have, that does not mean I don't acknowledge those things at all, nor am I limiting or impoverishing the Church history in doing so. It is just that I am viewing those things in different ways than you--perhaps as Church teachings or policy rather than "official doctrine".

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

As I said before, I think your questions were interesting, wade, because they speak to the issue of why people have different perceptions of the same thing (or, if in fact “the same thing,” is “the same thing"). I’ll answer as best I can and also try to explain why I have the perspective I do:

You asked, "Is it possible that your perception here is simply a function of what you once viewed as "official doctrine" not being the same as what apologist have long viewed as the same, and what you view as a change in them is actual just your eventual realization of your different perception from other members of the Church?"

I think this doesn’t adequately describe my perception for several reasons. One is that I’m talking about perceptions and realizations I’ve come to recently, not things that I “once viewed.” During the time I attended church I had no notion of “official doctrine,” I only knew the things that were conveyed to me as LDS beliefs in Sunday School, Primary, Mutual, General Conference and two years of Seminary along with my reading in the Book of Mormon, the D&C, the Bible, the PoGP, the Children’s Friend, the Improvement Era, various handouts and readings given at church and Seminary and assorted history books.

These general ideas and beliefs were never varying, nor did my understanding of them seem any different from anyone else in my ward, or anyone I knew from any ward in the greater Salt Lake valley. There was never any distinction given to anything being “official” or “not official,” no explanations of anything said by a former Church president as being “spoken as a man, not a prophet,” nor any guidelines about a living prophet’s words taking precedence over a dead ones. Believe me that latter one would have really shocked me given how seriously the words of Joseph Smith were presented!

One thing that brought Mormonism back into my ken, after many years of not thinking about it or having any contact with it at all, was hearing Gordon Hinkley’s remarks to Larry King about the notion of eternal progression. When I read that he said “I don’t know that we teach that,” I was completely and utterly shocked. I’m not kidding. It was a visceral, physical shock. I could not believe that every Mormon in every ward wouldn’t be up in arms about that kind of denial of what had been taught to me hundreds and thousands of times as one of the defining and beautifully astounding features of Mormonism; something foundational to every other belief of significance like the eternal family created in temple sealings and the necessity for baptism of the dead.

In my reading and research since then, I’ve come across many things about the contemporary church that are quite different on many levels from the one I attended. So different in fact, that I questioned my own perceptions. Many time on various bulletin boards and blogs I asked if my sense that things had “changed” was accurate and if so what this change could be traced to. The responses I got (in the affirmative from people of my age group) and the reading I've since done, make me think that a lot of what I saw, from trivial to important, was likely the result of “correlation.” “Correlation” was just being introduced around the time I stopped attending, and looking back I remember noticing things which I know now were examples of correlation-spurred changes.

When I was attending there were no “apologetics.” Oh yes, there were Mormon theologians who had written extensively on various topics, but these were not broadly described as apologetics and as apologetics generated to answer specific criticisms and anti-mormon writing. Pre-internet, I doubt there was much need for such a thing. I only ever heard of one anti-mormon book, the dreaded No Man Knows My History. I might have heard something about the Tanners, but I think their name popped up on my radar much later.

Also, I should add that I wasn’t passive pew-sitter. I asked questions from Day One. I marched into the Bishop’s office when I was 7 and asked why there was no mention of dinosaurs in the Bible. I caused the same poor guy to sit in his office for well over what he had alloted for my routine baptism interview because of my endless questions over the status of Christ’s physical human form and perfectibility. I asked many questions about the “black priesthood issue,” the single path of destiny for women, the Celestial Kingdom, the Hebrew lineage of the Indians, Polygamy and Pioneer/Indian relations. I did “extra” reading of Utah history, church history and any other books relevant to subjects in LDS teaching/history that bothered/interested me. I feel safe asserting that I knew more than the average member of my ward---but of course there was plenty I didn’t know, or didn’t read, mostly because I was unaware of it. I was limited to my local library and my school library and the knowledge of the Mormon authorities I came into personal contact with at church and seminary.

Back to your questions, I confess I am confused by how something can be “inclusive and rigid” versus “less inclusive and less rigid.” My inclusion of a variety of Mormon beliefs as the foundation of my perceptions versus a narrower definition of “official doctrine” (a category I was never, and am still not concerned with one whit) as the foundation of an apologist’s arguments seems to be the same thing as less rigid versus rigid to me: its “they” who are insisting upon the “rigidly” narrow and pedantic definitions and categories, not me.

As to how current apologetic prevaricating over what’s “official” and what’s not “denies large sections of historical Mormon experience” it does so by downgrading the convictions of someone like Juanita Brooks, say, to “folk culture” and not an authentic representation of Mormon belief. The wide, various, contradictory, wonderful, eccentric, and moving beliefs and convictions that have historically comprised Mormonism are sorted into rigid and I would argue even historically false categories of “doctrine” and “non-doctrine.” The result is, to me, an impoverished Mormonism, one that is as Don argued, becoming less and less “traditionally Mormon.”

[_rcrocket]

But the reality of Christianity is that doctrine does not persist "per se." The essential message of Jesus Christ is that one's relationship with the Spirit yields doctrine. Without the Spirit, there is no "doctrine."

John 7:17 (King James Version)
"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

The problem, of course, is that the word "doctrine" is thrown around in a venacular sense (much like the word "salvation") which does not bear upon an understanding of true doctrine.

The canon, statements by dead and living prophets, and good secular books all contribute to an understanding of the "doctrine," but the only "doctrine" that counts is written upon our hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:3: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."

Paul was real clear that doctrine is not found in written things, but in the "fleshy tables of the heart."

McConkie (oh, how can I quote from him) in "Mormon Doctrine," after explaining for a page the sources of doctrine, finally concedes: "In the final analysis the truth of doctrine can only be known by revelation gained as as result of obedience." Mormon Doctrine, p. 205.

So, all the offense you take to what was told to you in the Salt Lake valley; the things withheld from you; the bufoons who served you as Bishop and the rings you ran around your bishop while yet a youngster; the claimed dissembling by Pres. Hinckley on national television; all is meaningless hot air and the musings of a superior one. What is meaningful is what the Spirit whispers to you is doctrine.

rcrocket