The importance of correlation

[Solon]

Manure.

I know I'm cynical, but my interpretation of this thrust is that the church leadership is nervous about members getting access to information it doesn't control, especially in a church-lesson setting.

There's a real hunger among (American) LDS for factual material (the Papers of Joseph Smith, vol. 1 has already been reprinted at least once). The internet gives ordinary people unprecedented opportunities to consult primary sources, as well as opens them up to partisan and anti-LDS opinions and bias. In response, the church adopts a "Gospel Essentials" lesson plan for RS & EQ that seems to consciously avoid engaging with hot-button topics.

[Sleeping in EQ]

I know I'm cynical, but my interpretation of this thrust is that the church leadership is nervous about members getting access to information it doesn't control, especially in a church-lesson setting.

There's a real hunger among (American) LDS for factual material (the Papers of Joseph Smith, vol. 1 has already been reprinted at least once). The internet gives ordinary people unprecedented opportunities to consult primary sources, as well as opens them up to partisan and anti-LDS opinions and bias. In response, the church adopts a "Gospel Essentials" lesson plan for RS & EQ that seems to consciously avoid engaging with hot-button topics.

I agree 100%. But there's such a thing as going too far in an effort to control information, even information used by teachers in a Church setting.

Anyone who tells you that the thinking has been done is shoveling manure at you. If leadership really wants us tow the line on this, it should have the correlation committee pre-record the lessons so we can just push play. It would put an end to the Saturday scramble for a lesson, and could free everyone up for those all-day Saturday meetings that my stake insists on twice a month.

[Solon]

I agree 100%. But there's such a thing as going too far in an effort to control information, even information used by teachers in a Church setting.

Anyone who tells you that the thinking has been done is shoveling manure at you. If leadership really wants us tow the line on this, it should have the correlation committee pre-record the lessons so we can just push play. It would put an end to the Saturday scramble for a lesson, and could free everyone up for those all-day Saturday meetings that my stake insists on twice a month.

Exactly. Why not just hire vetted CES instructors to teach on Sundays? Then everyone could rest easier.

I have a sociologist friend who tells me that correlation is typical of big businesses or corporations, as they grow and expand and need to standardize for efficiency. I imagine we'll start getting memos about the coversheets for our TPS reports soon.

[I.J. Reilly]

I know I'm cynical, but my interpretation of this thrust is that the church leadership is nervous about members getting access to information it doesn't control, especially in a church-lesson setting.

There's a real hunger among (American) LDS for factual material (the Papers of Joseph Smith, vol. 1 has already been reprinted at least once). The internet gives ordinary people unprecedented opportunities to consult primary sources, as well as opens them up to partisan and anti-LDS opinions and bias. In response, the church adopts a "Gospel Essentials" lesson plan for RS & EQ that seems to consciously avoid engaging with hot-button topics.

I think the divergence of thought among the leadership is exposed when you juxtapose things like the Joseph Smith Papers project with the press release at the beginning of this thread.

I appreciate the challenge of maintaining doctrinal purity (although, imo, the idea of doctrinal purity pushes against some of the very basic aspects of Mormonism) and I know the reasons for it, I just really wish that the correlation stuff wasn't pushed so hard upon us.

[tooblue]

I know I'm cynical, but my interpretation of this thrust is that the church leadership is nervous about members getting access to information it doesn't control, especially in a church-lesson setting.

There's a real hunger among (American) LDS for factual material (the Papers of Joseph Smith, vol. 1 has already been reprinted at least once). The internet gives ordinary people unprecedented opportunities to consult primary sources, as well as opens them up to partisan and anti-LDS opinions and bias. In response, the church adopts a "Gospel Essentials" lesson plan for RS & EQ that seems to consciously avoid engaging with hot-button topics.

Is this thread an overreaction to an innocuous press release? On the one hand the release is cited and derided because it appears to imply Herculean efforts at control of curriculum. Yet SIEQ wittingly or unwittingly has pointed out an inherent contradiction. That lessons aren't simply recorded and broadcast but rather rely on individual members to prepare and teach the lessons using the 'approved' curriculum as the base text for discussion. Ergo, the human element is still the most important factor in the effort to uplift and edify.

Perhaps the new curriculum represents the fact that brethren have a greater trust in the general membership than is commonly anticipated here in this forum?

At the very least lets be honest about pervious manuals. They were/are bloated. I have enough material each week from the manual alone to fill three hours of Gospel Doctrine let alone the scant 30 - 40 minutes available to me. I think it's refreshing that manuals have been paired down. It only confirms for me that the 'thinking' is my responsibility and that the brethren or the Lord have no interest or desire to do the thinking for me. After all that's truly what this past week's lesson was all about: agency, choice and consequences.

[tooblue]

Exactly. Why not just hire vetted CES instructors to teach on Sundays? Then everyone could rest easier.

I have a sociologist friend who tells me that correlation is typical of big businesses or corporations, as they grow and expand and need to standardize for efficiency. I imagine we'll start getting memos about the coversheets for our TPS reports soon.

The fact that someone isn't hired undermines the arguments offered here doesn't it?

[pellegrino]

Is this thread an overreaction to an innocuous press release?

I don't think there is anything innocuous about that press release.

Perhaps the new curriculum represents the fact that brethren have a greater trust in the general membership than is commonly anticipated here in this forum?

I'm biased, but I don't think that's the case here.

[tooblue]

I don't think there is anything innocuous about that press release.

Would you have known it existed if Solon hadn't posted it? I wouldn't have.

I'm biased, but I don't think that's the case here.

The trust I speak of is evident by the fact that average members are called to teach said curriculum. Do you really believe the church has the time and energy to focus on what you or I are teaching in order to validate the paranoia represented in this thread? More than my heart tells me there are other things occupying their minds right now.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americ...ake/index.html

[UtahDan]

I know I'm cynical, but my interpretation of this thrust is that the church leadership is nervous about members getting access to information it doesn't control, especially in a church-lesson setting.

There's a real hunger among (American) LDS for factual material (the Papers of Joseph Smith, vol. 1 has already been reprinted at least once). The internet gives ordinary people unprecedented opportunities to consult primary sources, as well as opens them up to partisan and anti-LDS opinions and bias. In response, the church adopts a "Gospel Essentials" lesson plan for RS & EQ that seems to consciously avoid engaging with hot-button topics.

I think that is a good point. There is a flood of information and opinion out there that the church can't get begin to get its arms around. Rather than try to sort through it all, it is saying "here are sources that we know are good and reliable." From an institutional standpoint, it is hard to know what else can be done. I suppose you could develop better manuals that contain more "meat" and interesting and/or controversial facts and ideas, but what about the unsophisticated saints?

I was having this same discussion with the current Gospel Doctrine teacher on Sunday, the idea that there is so much in the material that is interesting for members who have more depth and you have to give them enough to keep them interested but, just as with a general conference talk, you have to have a message in your lesson that one doesn't need much depth of understanding to grasp and apply. That is a hard balance to reach. Clearly they seem to have decided to err on the side of simplicity. It frustrates me but I am very much at a loss to say what I would do differently.

[Jacob]

At the very least lets be honest about pervious manuals. They were/are bloated. I have enough material each week from the manual alone to fill three hours of Gospel Doctrine let alone the scant 30 - 40 minutes available to me. I think it's refreshing that manuals have been paired down. It only confirms for me that the 'thinking' is my responsibility and that the brethren or the Lord have no interest or desire to do the thinking for me. After all that's truly what this past week's lesson was all about: agency, choice and consequences.

I thought last week's lesson was on 3 verses in Abraham that proved our pre-existence and foreordination. Complete with suggested questions to ask a class that would no more enlighten them than using the entire hour for a bathroom break. I can't think of anything more dull or unenlightening that presenting a lesson as is proposed in the current Sunday school manuals.

1. Read this scripture
2. Ask this completely uninteresting question.
3. Bear testimony that everything you just said is true.

As for the "purity of doctrine" comment, well, I don't even know what to say, but it almost makes me sick.

[jay santos]

It's been a few years since I've attended an adult class (GD or elder's) on a consistent basis and church has been much better.

I see both sides of this issue.

1. The biggest sin a teacher can make is to make a class boring. I'd rather be offended than bored. I'd rather hear false doctrine than be bored. So if a teacher needs extra material to avoid being boring, I say go for it.

2. The manuals are vanilla and plain and basic. But guess why? LDS/Christian doctrine is vanilla, plan, and basic. Anytime you stray (doctrinally) from the manual there's a very high chance you're teaching unofficial and probably incorrect doctrine. If the lesson says we can become like God and nothing more, how are you going to go one step past that without teaching something unofficial and probably false? You can't. Because no one on this earth understands what that means one step beyond the simple statement "man can become like God". I like the gospel simple and plain and get perturbed when people take it in directions which are unofficial, even though they may be generally accepted, because I usually think they are false and don't agree with my view of the gospel. There's a reason the church is getting less and less detailed on many of these doctrines and GC talks and manuals are getting more and more vanilla.

[Solon]

It's been a few years since I've attended an adult class (GD or elder's) on a consistent basis and church has been much better.

I see both sides of this issue.

1. The biggest sin a teacher can make is to make a class boring. I'd rather be offended than bored. I'd rather hear false doctrine than be bored. So if a teacher needs extra material to avoid being boring, I say go for it.

2. The manuals are vanilla and plain and basic. But guess why? LDS/Christian doctrine is vanilla, plan, and basic. Anytime you stray (doctrinally) from the manual there's a very high chance you're teaching unofficial and probably incorrect doctrine. If the lesson says we can become like God and nothing more, how are you going to go one step past that without teaching something unofficial and probably false? You can't. Because no one on this earth understands what that means one step beyond the simple statement "man can become like God". I like the gospel simple and plain and get perturbed when people take it in directions which are unofficial, even though they may be generally accepted, because I usually think they are false and don't agree with my view of the gospel. There's a reason the church is getting less and less detailed on many of these doctrines and GC talks and manuals are getting more and more vanilla.

Fair enough, and I think you make some good points about need and overall goals.

But I think the "historically" driven Sunday School lessons, like the OT or the D&C-based courses leave a lot out. Esp. the OT.

[Moliere]

But I think the "historically" driven Sunday School lessons, like the OT or the D&C-based courses leave a lot out. Esp. the OT.

This has been a very enlightening thread so thanks for posting it and for your comments.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all people attending GD have grown up in the church and heard these things a million times. It is a very difficult thing for a teacher to keep the interest of "life-long" members that have heard the same lesson every four years since age 12 and a member who was baptized two years ago and has never been through the Old Testatment, let alone been through it with Mormon eyes.

[Jacob]

Anytime you stray (doctrinally) from the manual there's a very high chance you're teaching unofficial and probably incorrect doctrine. If the lesson says we can become like God and nothing more, how are you going to go one step past that without teaching something unofficial and probably false? You can't. Because no one on this earth understands what that means one step beyond the simple statement "man can become like God".

If all the manual can state is that "we can become like God and nothing more" then I'd say that's pretty good evidence that that is not a doctrine of the church. What sort of doctrine could be so poorly established that it is made in a one-sentence statement without any supporting scripture and statements by authoritative statements regarding such scripture.

Surely, that is not really the case and you were being overly simplistic. Yet, in last week's lesson I came across such a simple and wholly unsupported statement in the lesson manual:

"(Note that latter-day prophets have indicated that the Council in Heaven was a series of meetings rather than a single meeting.)"

No quote to support it, no scriptural reference...nothing. So I had 3 options:

1. Go ahead and say it even though I had no idea how accurate the statement was.
2. Research it and find the sources myself.
3. Ignore it an focus on supportable statements.

I went with option 3. So when this article is titled "Use Proper Sources" I wish the Committee for the Inculcation of only the Most Pure Doctrine from the Proper Sources would take their own advice.

[jay santos]

Fair enough, and I think you make some good points about need and overall goals.

But I think the "historically" driven Sunday School lessons, like the OT or the D&C-based courses leave a lot out. Esp. the OT.

Adding historical context and textual analysis to the scriptural accounts is great and I personally would love SS to be more like that, ala the Pelagius lesson. The problem is it's hard to find someone qualified to do that. Also I think the church views that as not the goal of Sunday School and also that it would bring up too many faith-questioning issues.