Jason Bourne wrote:Hi Inconceivable
Why don't you read some of the letters John linked to? For me the Church will never be the same. I do not think there is on true Church. But I like religion and I think the LDS Church is a pretty good religion even with its warts. For me Smith is an enigma. I think he was a man that started out with good intent but lost some of his way. I do not excuse the bad things he did. I still think that the Mormonism he taught has some grand ideas worthy of emulating and pursuing. John has inspired me not to chuck it all. I am happy people like him have made the church work for them and I can as well. You do not want to and that is ok.
I think John is also trying in a way to see that the issues that shocked you and others are taught more openly in perhaps a healthy and innoculating sort of way. He wants a more open history as do many like us. And sure, some may run into his stuff and still leave. Other may be finding a community of like minded LDSers that are disillusioned but want to remain LDS and participating for lots of various reasons.
Jason,
I understand. So long as John plays the protestant card (a break from the current Mormon leadership), he is simply rebellious, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a fly in the ointment to the powers that be. I think the only reason they have not asked him to back down (if that is the truth) is because they haven't decided how to go about it.
The primary reason so many of these histories are shocking is that the whoredoms were intentionally hidden just as a man and woman would fain wair a fig leaf to cover their nakedness (and remember who it was to first suggest such rediculousness).
27 And wo unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord! And their works are in the dark; and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? And they also say: Surely, your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay. But behold, I will show unto them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that I know all their works. For shall the work say of him that made it, he made me not? Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, he had no understanding?
(Book of Mormon | 2 Nephi 27:27)
I would add, we are who we are, when no one else is around.
If the leadership (Smith et al.) were not so inebriated with pride and even power, they would have humbled themselves and made a public confession and become the men God intended all of us to be. They never held themselves to the standard you and I (and perhaps even John) hold ourselves to. We even hold the current leadership to a higher standard - and today's leadership, although they will never in a thousand years say "thus saith the Lord.." have come up with inspirations like the "Proclamation of the Family" (180 degrees from the doctrine preached in the 1800's), or even the church's welfare system.
I am physically ill that all that is GOOD about the church is attributed to a handful of deified dirtbags that practiced a "religeon" that does not represent the fidelity of Mormonism as it is taught today. Joseph Smith could not even qualify for baptism, let alone a temple recommend to enter the building he's attributed to writing the standards for.
Jason, your personal morality is black and white. Smith's and the others only practiced the morality we were taught when the light was on. I honestly believe in my heart that I should expect a mentor/spiritual leader to live up to the same standards they have taught me - otherwise, they are little more than a sounding brass.
The church has always taught black and white, shall we judge them by anything but their own standard?
No?
rant off.