silentkid wrote:My father went to a meeting headed by one of the then-Regional Representatives of the area and told us that the guy had with a straight face and utter seriousness asked the people in the meeting to pray for BYU to win their next football game (it was key for some reason, I don't watch football so I had no idea how). I remember as a little kid thinking it over and deciding that God probably wouldn't cheat for me to win at soccer so why would he cheat for BYU. I went to bed that night and prayed for him not to intervene in the game at all. An example of bad, personalized counsel.
I'm not really sure which is nuttier, praying for BYU to win or praying for God not to intervene. An example of bad, personalized God.
I may have been nutty but I was 6 at the time.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:You know, I totally expect that you use good judgment in your picking and choosing, but still it is judgment ... rationalization ... you could do just as well making your way in the world without the so-called prophetic guidance of the Mormon church, and with a whole lot less baggage and necessity to apologize for all these prophetic mis-steps along the way.
That would be the point of contention between us. I don't believe it's my judgment that I'm using. I don't feel I need to apologize for their mistakes either though I do comment occasionally if I think they're being misrepresented. In general, they are dead and buried. Let them deal with their own mistakes. I have enough of my own to mess with.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:Why would you expect them to be correct on one issue when they go crazy when they veer off it? Stapley may have overly venerated Joseph's words, but he's also got biblical support, you know, the same verses that were used to justify slavery in southern churches. I hate to tell you this, but Stapley wasn't the onion in the petunia patch. It was just all one big onion patch.
Furthermore, just because it had nothing to do with your salvation, white and delightsome as you are, it had everything to do with other people's salvation.
They don't usually go crazy when they veer off. It happens but it's comparatively rare.
The 'white and delightsome' people were the ones wiped out in the Book of Mormon due to their sins and being worse than anyone else. If the book is for our day I think there's a message in there somewhere. In regards to other's salvation, God seems to have his own timetable on when and where and whom to share the Gospel with at different times. There are people in the field I was told not to teach and I hope one day that will change.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
silentkid wrote:My father went to a meeting headed by one of the then-Regional Representatives of the area and told us that the guy had with a straight face and utter seriousness asked the people in the meeting to pray for BYU to win their next football game (it was key for some reason, I don't watch football so I had no idea how). I remember as a little kid thinking it over and deciding that God probably wouldn't cheat for me to win at soccer so why would he cheat for BYU. I went to bed that night and prayed for him not to intervene in the game at all. An example of bad, personalized counsel.
I'm not really sure which is nuttier, praying for BYU to win or praying for God not to intervene. An example of bad, personalized God.
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:You know, I totally expect that you use good judgment in your picking and choosing, but still it is judgment ... rationalization ... you could do just as well making your way in the world without the so-called prophetic guidance of the Mormon church, and with a whole lot less baggage and necessity to apologize for all these prophetic mis-steps along the way.
That would be the point of contention between us. I don't believe it's my judgment that I'm using. I don't feel I need to apologize for their mistakes either though I do comment occasionally if I think they're being misrepresented. In general, they are dead and buried. Let them deal with their own mistakes. I have enough of my own to mess with.
I know, God talks to you. In my day, though, personal revelation was never meant to override the authorities.
Stapley may be dead and buried, but the GAs of today are themselves quite objectionable and someday another young fellow will be rationalizing them away the same as you are now.
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:I know, God talks to you. In my day, though, personal revelation was never meant to override the authorities.
Stapley may be dead and buried, but the GAs of today are themselves quite objectionable and someday another young fellow will be rationalizing them away the same as you are now.
I don't think I'm rationalizing them away. They said what they said and they're saying what they're saying. I just accept that a higher authority can confirm or deny them.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
The Nehor wrote:The 'white and delightsome' people were the ones wiped out in the Book of Mormon due to their sins and being worse than anyone else. If the book is for our day I think there's a message in there somewhere. In regards to other's salvation, God seems to have his own timetable on when and where and whom to share the Gospel with at different times. There are people in the field I was told not to teach and I hope one day that will change.
Who were you told not to teach?
As long as you believe in a god who participates in the world, he will reflect the prejudices of your leaders.
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:I know, God talks to you. In my day, though, personal revelation was never meant to override the authorities.
Stapley may be dead and buried, but the GAs of today are themselves quite objectionable and someday another young fellow will be rationalizing them away the same as you are now.
I don't think I'm rationalizing them away. They said what they said and they're saying what they're saying. I just accept that a higher authority can confirm or deny them.
The Nehor wrote:The 'white and delightsome' people were the ones wiped out in the Book of Mormon due to their sins and being worse than anyone else. If the book is for our day I think there's a message in there somewhere. In regards to other's salvation, God seems to have his own timetable on when and where and whom to share the Gospel with at different times. There are people in the field I was told not to teach and I hope one day that will change.
Who were you told not to teach?
As long as you believe in a god who participates in the world, he will reflect the prejudices of your leaders.
Muslims. Too much danger to them if they convert.
He's more likely to reflect my prejudices though he is hard at work knocking those down one by one. He probably won't finish till long after I'm dead. My view of God is almost entirely NOT shaped by my leaders. They can teach theology, they can't convey God to me. Only he can do that. God's understanding of what he is and what he is doing is not shaped by either me or my leaders.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Jason Bourne wrote:I am not sure I have ever seen such a defense. It seems pretty certian that the leaders in the 50s and 60s were not, maybe other then Hugh B Brown and a few others, pro civil rights.
It was probably on FAIR/MAD, but it may have been on this bb. Here is how Hugh Brown was able to read a statement in support of civil rights, as recounted in Prince's David O. McKay bio (on pp. 69-70):
[In September 1963], the civil rights issue in Utah came to a head. Concerned that Utah was the only western state that had not passed laws guaranteeing basic civil rights for minority groups, local NAACP officers tried without success to meet with the First Presidency and enlist their support of such legislation. As a result of the rebuff, they decided to picket Temple Square during the church's upcoming October general conference. Alerted to their plans, Sterling M. McMurrin, who had served as Kennedy's U.S. Commissioner of Education until autumn of 1962, attempted to mediate a settlement. He met with Hugh B. Brown and suggested a face-to-face meeting with the NAACP officers. The night prior to the first session of the general conference, Brown met with the officers and worked out a deal: He would read a statement of the church's support of civil rights during one of the conference sessions, in return for which the planned demonstrations would be cancelled.
Unbeknownst to McKay, Brown asked McMurrin to draft the statement. Working on a tight deadline, McMurrin wrote a document that McKay approved with only one minor change. Brown was pleased with McKay's approval but disappointed when he told Brown merely to include it in his prepared address, rather than presenting it as an official First Presidency statement. Brown read the statement on Sunday morning -- the session with the widest television and radio coverage:
"During recent months both in Salt Lake City and across the nation considerable interest has been expressed in the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the matter of civil rights. We would like it to be known that there in in this Church no doctrine, belief, or practice that is intended to deny the enjoyment of full civil rights by any person regardless of race, color, or creed.
"We again say, as we have said many times before, that we believe that all men are the children of the same God and that it is a moral evil for any person or group of persons to deny to any human being the right to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship, just as it is a moral evi to deny him the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience.
"We have consistently and persistently upheld the Constitution of the United States, and as far as we are concerned that means upholding the constitutional rights of every citizen of the United States.
"We call upon all men everywhere, both within and outside the Church, to commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of God's children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the brotherhood of man."
McMurrin paid close attention and thought it was successful. Wishing to maximize the impact of the statement while complying with McKay's request, Brown "read it at the beginning of his sermon very much as if he were reading a separate official statement from the First Presidency. Then he set it aside and proceeded with his own address. It was most effective" -- so effective, in fact, that two years later the Deseret News reprinted it as a "statement given officially" at the 1963 conference. Albert B. Fritz, president of the Salt Lake City NAACP chapter, praised the statement, adding, "Through this statement we are asking all NAACP branches throughout the nation not to demonstrate or picket any LDS missions or churches."
Thanks for giving us that. It sounds like McMurrin had his heart in the right place but he didn't realize that he should go a little further and add that all men should be granted the privilege of riding in the front of the bus.