Quasimodo wrote:Ah shucks! We were all waiting for you to come here and straighten it out, MS, but you didn't show. I would have ignored bc, but it's too much fun to shoot him down. Ducks in a barrel.
I've actually had an idea rolling around in my big, empty head for a long time now that touches down on this subject. Like most of my better ideas, I wrote the title before I actually wrote the post, and it's called "Can Grace Save Mormonism?" The essence is, I'm wondering if a theological narrative centered on election and grace in the face of being just as wrong as anyone else would not be a better narrative for accommodating Mormonism's historical foibles than the current attempts at treating the church and its leaders as effectively infallible, which necessitates sweeping said foibles under the rug. Contra my good friend Aristotle Smith, I'm wondering if such a theological shift wouldn't be able to tourniquet the hemorrhaging of members due to historical problems whilst allowing the church to retain its "only true church" claims and most of its theological distinctives.
Not that anyone at church HQ is listening to me (lulz), but it's fun to think about.
Perhaps it's time for me to finally try to write it all out.
I'm going to have to agree with AS on this one. LDS culture and beliefs are very much dependent on ideas that it is God's ONE TRUE CHURCH. Moving away from that would make things worse in the short run. Possibly after that fall out things could be stabilized. Problem then is why should someone like me go on a mission, or why should members pay over 10% of the earnings to the church. It's a lot of money and the church should have realized this a long time ago.
The leaders themselves are very much still into the church being true, that Joseph saw God and brought forth a real story of a real group of Israeli's in the Americas thousands of years ago. If we take the OP as basically accurate, then Jensen really does not understand the problems, and is blaming the wrong things. You can't fix anything if you don't understand the problem, which really is that Joseph didn't see God, and basically made it up(not suggesting he didn't believe some things). Until they get this they will continue to blame other things and the problem will not go away. Although if they did they would then become part of the problem. It really is a no win situation they are in. :)
Themis wrote:I'm going to have to agree with AS on this one. LDS culture and beliefs are very much dependent on ideas that it is God's ONE TRUE CHURCH. Moving away from that would make things worse in the short run.
It doesn't sound like you understand what I wrote, Themis---which is fine, because it's a complicated idea and I've barely fleshed it out in writing yet. But I specifically said:
MsJack wrote:I'm wondering if such a theological shift wouldn't be able to tourniquet the hemorrhaging of members due to historical problems whilst allowing the church to retain its "only true church" claims and most of its theological distinctives.
"It seems to me that these women were the head (κεφάλαιον) of the church which was at Philippi." ~ John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians 13
MsJack wrote:I'm wondering if a theological narrative centered on election and grace in the face of being just as wrong as anyone else would not be a better narrative for accommodating Mormonism's historical foibles than the current attempts at treating the church and its leaders as effectively infallible, which necessitates sweeping said foibles under the rug.
The problem is, Mormonism isn't "just as wrong as anyone else" in terms of e.g. the historicity of the Book of Mormon or the provenance of the Book of Abraham. It is easy to point fingers at the Inquisition, or the Salem Witch Trials, and in truth everyone does make mistakes and no organization is perfect. But there is no way around the fact that, for all the mistakes made by the hierarchies of other religions, it is not possible to disprove the foundations of those religions in the way that it is possible (trivial) to disprove the foundations of Mormonism. In other words, the problem is not "historical foibles," which are present in every religious tradition. The problem is that Joseph Smith was a fraud.
Themis wrote:I'm going to have to agree with AS on this one. LDS culture and beliefs are very much dependent on ideas that it is God's ONE TRUE CHURCH. Moving away from that would make things worse in the short run.
It doesn't sound like you understand what I wrote, Themis---which is fine, because it's a complicated idea and I've barely fleshed it out in writing yet. But I specifically said:
MsJack wrote:I'm wondering if such a theological shift wouldn't be able to tourniquet the hemorrhaging of members due to historical problems whilst allowing the church to retain its "only true church" claims and most of its theological distinctives.
I realize you have not written out specifically what you think on the matter, so I would need more to go on, like what kind of theological shift we are talking about. This is why I said I agree with AS and never said specifically that I disagreed with you. :)
Runtu wrote:It's interesting how things have changed in my lifetime. The church used to talk about its growth rate as validating its mission. Talks were given about how the church was "coming out of obscurity" to fill the world. Now, we're told that the church never was supposed to be anything but a small presence, obscure and largely unnoticed, at least until the Second Coming of Jesus.
The vision of our scope is following the same path as Lehi's and the Lamanite's. I predict we will intermingle with other churches and become indistinguishable from them.
Zing!
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.
Samantabhadra wrote:The problem is, Mormonism isn't "just as wrong as anyone else" in terms of e.g. the historicity of the Book of Mormon or the provenance of the Book of Abraham.
I would agree with this, and what I have to propose would not be much help to issues with the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham.
Nevertheless, historical difficulties unrelated to the religion's alleged ancient scriptural texts are a testimony-shattering problem. I cannot discuss the fact that Joseph Smith hid some of his polygamous marriages from Emma with my LDS in-laws the same way I can discuss Aimee Semple McPherson's likely affairs with my evangelical cousins. Misbehavior on the part of LDS leaders is viewed as threatening information and treated with extreme hostility and suspicion by believing members who don't want their testimonies imperiled. The same is not true for a lot of other Christian traditions. I think the LDS church could change this if it wanted to.
The question directed at Elder Jensen and his response seemed to pertain to the church's historical issues. That's why I brought up my theory here in terms of what the church could do if it wanted to address this problem.
"It seems to me that these women were the head (κεφάλαιον) of the church which was at Philippi." ~ John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians 13
Analytics wrote:The part that interests me the most is this:
So, we are trying to create an offering that will address these issues and be available for the public at large and to the church leaders, because many of them don’t have answers either. It can be very disappointing to church members.
It depends upon the specific issue of course, but their attempt to create offerings that address the big issues will fail because satisfactory answers don't exist.
Your statement is simply false..... As someone who's both a convert to the Church and who has left it being anti-mormon and anti-religion, your statement is simply a big lie and the fantasy of your current mindset and viewpoints, not the actual truth.
As someone who's been there, satisfactory answers and the actual truth DO in fact exist for every issue. Anti-mormon "truths" are not the actual truth at all, I should know, because I've been there.
For the sake of argument, why do you think the church hasn’t expressed the actual truth for every issue on its website yet? They’ve been working on it for some 15 years now, right? How much longer do you think it will take before they “create an offering that will address these issues”?
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but it’s my impression that most (if not all) of the mainstream churches in the US are experiencing a similar decline in activity.