John Dehlin on the Immorality of Mormonism!

[_fetchface]

As executives, though, they should have made it their business to know that there was something wrong.

That's the part that disappoints me the most about the LDS GAs. They don't seem particularly interested in really being proactive in figuring out where they are causing harm and doing better. Do they really not know how badly a lot of parents are behaving toward their children who wish to distance themselves from the church? My God, the temper tantrums that parents throw when their children stray from their foreordained life! Never once have I heard it addressed and condemned in GC. That's just one example of low-hanging fruit they could grab.

[_kairos]

As executives, though, they should have made it their business to know that there was something wrong.

That's the part that disappoints me the most about the LDS GAs. They don't seem particularly interested in really being proactive in figuring out where they are causing harm and doing better. Do they really not know how badly a lot of parents are behaving toward their children who wish to distance themselves from the church? My God, the temper tantrums that parents throw when their children stray from their foreordained life! Never once have I heard it addressed and condemned in General Conference. That's just one example of low-hanging fruit they could grab.

You make an excellent point! And add to this the personal lives of these GA's and mopologists whose family members have abandoned ship Zion. For example Terryl Givens has at least one child out, but he and his wife keep cranking out nuanced apologetic material. Wonder if Givens has talked with GA's or BYU scholars about the dropout of family? if so, this ignore the problem mindset cannot possibly last can it? Remember SWK had a son drop Mormonism and spencer would write long screeds to convince him to come home- later spencer would say he was way to harsh on his son who never came back-so much for SWK family is not forever situation.
i actually am waiting for apostles, GAs and Mormon scholars in a chorus will get to the point
where they "are mad as hell and will not take it anymore" regardless of the bribes or threats they receive.
k

[_kairos]

Does the quote below ring true to you?

"Mormon leaders know that maternal and familial influences are their most potent weapons in keeping their abusive corporate control of their members. " Elderberry on RFM

If true how do the non-local, local leaders use these weapons of familial relationships to keep Mormons in the fold? My thought is that Russell M. Nelson used his GC talk on celestial family relationships to guilt Mormons into keeping families in the Zion boat and called those out of the boat to repent and get back on the family forever track. Was he being shrewd or just weaponizing those deep family held feelings? Was his approach honest/"moral" and/or effective?

k

[_fetchface]

That's the thing. I don't think they purposely weaponize families. I think that they think that pressuring family members to get with the church program is a good thing, but I don't think they advocate for the types of hell that some parents create for their "wayward" children.

I just think that it is the GAs business to find these things out and think about them and consider ways to create better relationships in families in these situations. The fact that they don't seek great awareness and publicly express great concern for these problems is negligence on their part. The LDS religion is supposed to be expert at creating strong families. This is the business they are in. LDS children who are so miserable that they kill themselves should be much more rare than they are.

A doctrinal shift with regard to homosexuality could help a lot in this regard, since I think that is the source of a lot of the worst parent/child friction in LDS culture. But really the doctrine of eternal families creates very high stakes for parents to indoctrinate all children, and there is no real push from the leadership to teach parents that they need to respect the life decisions of children. The message is that you need to get your children on the covenant path. The stakes are high. Methods aren't really discussed but the natural inclination of too many parents is to go with extreme control measures when faced with a child who just honestly disagrees with the parent's religious vision.

[_kairos]

That's the thing. I don't think they purposely weaponize families. I think that they think that pressuring family members to get with the church program is a good thing, but I don't think they advocate for the types of hell that some parents create for their "wayward" children.

I just think that it is the GAs business to find these things out and think about them and consider ways to create better relationships in families in these situations. The fact that they don't seek great awareness and publicly express great concern for these problems is negligence on their part. The LDS religion is supposed to be expert at creating strong families. This is the business they are in. LDS children who are so miserable that they kill themselves should be much more rare than they are.

A doctrinal shift with regard to homosexuality could help a lot in this regard, since I think that is the source of a lot of the worst parent/child friction in LDS culture. But really the doctrine of eternal families creates very high stakes for parents to indoctrinate all children, and there is no real push from the leadership to teach parents that they need to respect the life decisions of children. The message is that you need to get your children on the covenant path. The stakes are high. Methods aren't really discussed but the natural inclination of too many parents is to go with extreme control measures when faced with a child who just honestly disagrees with the parent's religious vision.

You nailed the essence of this issue!
thanx

[_cinepro]

The problem with Dehlin's claim (and the conversation that follows) is that the key point is whether or not the Church is "true."

Pretend the Church is "true" and re-read Dehlin's claim. If it's "true", then is it really a bad thing for Church leaders to do everything they can to present a narrative that will get people to the Celestial Kingdom? People should build their lives on it. There would be nothing more important. If you bought in to that narrative and it got you to the Celestial Kingdom, would you complain?

Conversely, pretend the Church isn't true and think about it. If it isn't true, then who cares about the "narrative"? If it isn't "true", then the stuff about Moroni, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and all the rest is more than enough to show you it isn't true (as any missionary can tell you, most people think that stuff isn't true when they hear it.)

Yes, if the Church isn't true, then what the leaders did with the narrative was a bad thing.

But if the Church isn't true, I'm not sure it would even make the Top 100 list of "bad" things that logically follow.

Dehlin's post is nothing more than a long way of saying "Hey, I really don't think Mormonism is true." The logical response would be "No kidding...?"

And anyone who gets surprised whenever LDS leaders act as if they really believe the Church is true is stupid.

[_Fence Sitter]

The problem with Dehlin's claim (and the conversation that follows) is that the key point is whether or not the Church is "true."

Pretend the Church is "true" and re-read Dehlin's claim. If it's "true", then is it really a bad thing for Church leaders to do everything they can to present a narrative that will get people to the Celestial Kingdom? People should build their lives on it. There would be nothing more important. If you bought in to that narrative and it got you to the Celestial Kingdom, would you complain?

Conversely, pretend the Church isn't true and think about it. If it isn't true, then who cares about the "narrative"? If it isn't "true", then the stuff about Moroni, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and all the rest is more than enough to show you it isn't true (as any missionary can tell you, most people think that stuff isn't true when they hear it.)

Yes, if the Church isn't true, then what the leaders did with the narrative was a bad thing.

But if the Church isn't true, I'm not sure it would even make the Top 100 list of "bad" things that logically follow.

Dehlin's post is nothing more than a long way of saying "Hey, I really don't think Mormonism is true." The logical response would be "No kidding...?"

And anyone who gets surprised whenever LDS leaders act as if they really believe the Church is true is stupid.

It's not that simple Cinepro.

The leaders can be judged by their own standards of morality.
We can ask if whether or not the Church leaders doing everything they can to present a narrative that will get people to the Celestial Kingdom is consistent within their own beliefs? I would argue that it is not. By purposely withholding critical information from members regarding the truth claims of the church, they are, by their own standards, limiting the free agency of that member to make a decision. In other words the leaders are following the plan they believed Satan proposed. So by their own standards they are acting immorally.

[_fetchface]

The leaders can be judged by their own standards of morality.
We can ask if whether or not the Church leaders doing everything they can to present a narrative that will get people to the Celestial Kingdom is consistent within their own beliefs? I would argue that it is not. By purposely withholding critical information from members regarding the truth claims of the church, they are, by their own standards, limiting the free agency of that member to make a decision. In other words the leaders are following the plan they believed Satan proposed. So by their own standards they are acting immorally.

But it depends on where you are getting your "standards of morality" within Mormonism. I already pointed out D&C 19 where there is a clear example of God using deceptive language to motivate people to obey. Where in Mormon theology is it definitively settled that lying is always bad? I'm not making an argument that they should deceive, but I don't think that one can say that their own standards unambiguously settle this for them. An LDS leader who wants to justify dishonesty in their own mind, unfortunately, has material to work with (not to mention a 2nd anointing get out of jail free card).

[_cinepro]

The leaders can be judged by their own standards of morality.
We can ask if whether or not the Church leaders doing everything they can to present a narrative that will get people to the Celestial Kingdom is consistent within their own beliefs? I would argue that it is not. By purposely withholding critical information from members regarding the truth claims of the church, they are, by their own standards, limiting the free agency of that member to make a decision. In other words the leaders are following the plan they believed Satan proposed. So by their own standards they are acting immorally.

fetchface already made my point for me, so I'll just ask what you read in the scriptures that makes you think the Mormon God has any problem with using a "crafted narrative" to get people to do what He wants?

Mormonism (and the Mormon ideal as presented by God and the Prophets in the scriptures) is that you believe and do what you are told based on faith. Faith means believing something without having all the information (or in spite of contradicting information).

You can certainly argue that Church leaders are violating "their own beliefs", but you haven't really presented much evidence for your argument. Heck, Elder Packer even spelled it out explicitly in his infamous talk, which is still on the Church website to this day:

Someone told of the man who entitled his book "An Unbiased History of the Civil War from the Southern Point of View". While we chuckle at that, there is something to be said about presenting Church history from the viewpoint of those who have righteously lived it. The idea that we must be neutral and argue quite as much in favor of the adversary as we do in favor of righteousness is neither reasonable nor safe.

In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it. It is the war between good and evil, and we are belligerents defending the good. We are therefore obliged to give preference to and protect all that is represented in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have made covenants to do it.

[_fetchface]

Now, the church leaders are certainly out of step with the Gospel Principles manual definition of honesty, but as we can now see, that also was just a God-approved lie to get us to do what they want!