April 2021 conference

[BigPiney]

Which talks from Saturday (all sessions) and Sunday morning are most worth watching/reading?

Both talks by the members of the primary presidency were really good.

[All-American]

Which talks from Saturday (all sessions) and Sunday morning are most worth watching/reading?

President Oaks's Sunday Afternoon will get the most mileage.

[smokymountainrain]

stevenson and gong from saturday morning.

[Pelado]

President Oaks's Sunday Afternoon will get the most mileage.

What part of "Saturday (all sessions) and Sunday morning" did you not understand?

[Pelado]

Both talks by the members of the primary presidency were really good.

stevenson and gong from saturday morning.

Gracias.

[BigPiney]

stevenson and gong from saturday morning.

agreed

[The_Tick]

That Elder Stevenson talk was fantastic. "Quit excluding your neighbors that aren't LDS" and "Not allowing your children to play with kids that aren't LDS is wrong"....paraphrasing there. Shouldn't have needed to be said, but I see those complaints all the time, still today.

[Copelius]

That Elder Stevenson talk was fantastic. "Quit excluding your neighbors that aren't LDS" and "Not allowing your children to play with kids that aren't LDS is wrong"....paraphrasing there. Shouldn't have needed to be said, but I see those complaints all the time, still today.

If I recall, it is not the first time it has been said in conference either. I thought it had mostly gone away, but my wife's good friend who happens to be Catholic has had it happen to her daughter at Albion Middle School in Sandy. Blows me away.

[All-American]

What part of "Saturday (all sessions) and Sunday morning" did you not understand?

Look, if you get offended every time somebody only pays passing attention to your posts you are going to spend a lot of time being offended.

[Pelado]

Look, if you get offended every time somebody only pays passing attention to your posts you are going to spend a lot of time being offended.

Where's the emoji for uncontrollable sobbing?

[BlueK]

Here we go, President Oaks' talk on the Constitution is on the Church's website.

Let's look at a few quotes. Does he actually put forth the opinion on the side of the "Constitution is a living document" idea? Wowzers.

"The Constitution was not “a fully grown document,” said President J. Reuben Clark. “On the contrary,” he explained, “we believe it must grow and develop to meet the changing needs of an advancing world.”³ For example, inspired amendments abolished slavery and gave women the right to vote. However, we do not see inspiration in every Supreme Court decision interpreting the Constitution."

-- Ok, this is hardly radical to anyone who resides on the normal side of the political spectrum.

"The source of government power is the people. In a time when sovereign power was universally assumed to come from the divine right of kings or from military power, attributing sovereign power to the people was revolutionary. Philosophers had advocated this, but the United States Constitution was the first to apply it. Sovereign power in the people does not mean that mobs or other groups of people can intervene to intimidate or force government action."

--- seriously, if you don't think this is a reference to the mob on January 6th you are nuts. A mob seeking to intimidate or force government action (ie, illegally overturn the election to keep a losing President in power) cannot fit the definition of this statement any better.

Next:
"What else are faithful Latter-day Saints to do? We must pray for the Lord to guide and bless all nations and their leaders. This is part of our article of faith. Being subject to presidents or rulers⁷ of course poses no obstacle to our opposing individual laws or policies. It does require that we exercise our influence civilly and peacefully within the framework of our constitutions and applicable laws. On contested issues, we should seek to moderate and unify." - I don't think he's a fan of political parties or political discourse moving more and more to the extremes.

Finally:

"In the United States and in other democracies, political influence is exercised by running for office (which we encourage), by voting, by financial support, by membership and service in political parties, and by ongoing communications to officials, parties, and candidates. To function well, a democracy needs all of these, but a conscientious citizen does not need to provide all of them.

There are many political issues, and no party, platform, or individual candidate can satisfy all personal preferences. Each citizen must therefore decide which issues are most important to him or her at any particular time. Then members should seek inspiration on how to exercise their influence according to their individual priorities. This process will not be easy. It may require changing party support or candidate choices, even from election to election.

Such independent actions will sometimes require voters to support candidates or political parties or platforms whose other positions they cannot approve.⁹ That is one reason we encourage our members to refrain from judging one another in political matters. We should never assert that a faithful Latter-day Saint cannot belong to a particular party or vote for a particular candidate. We teach correct principles and leave our members to choose how to prioritize and apply those principles on the issues presented from time to time."

Amen and amen.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/...1oaks?lang=eng

[Bo Diddley]

--- seriously, if you don't think this is a reference to the mob on January 6th you are nuts. A mob seeking to intimidate or force government action (ie, illegally overturn the election to keep a losing President in power) cannot fit the definition of this statement any better.

No doubt it's also a reference to the riots associated with the BLM movement before that as well.

[Jeff Lebowski]

That was an interesting experience. When Oaks started listing his legal bonafides at the beginning of his talk, I was bracing myself to be disappointed. By the end of the talk everyone in our house was shouting "Amen!" and high-fiving.

[BlueK]

No doubt it's also a reference to the riots associated with the BLM movement before that as well.

Is it possible most of that was from anarchists hijacking what started as a legitimate protest movement? All of it was terrible. I just don't think those anarchists were trying to do the same thing the Capitol attackers were. I tend to see trying to overthrow a presidential election as more dangerous to our freedoms. It doesn't take that much thought to realize how close it could have come to dozens of dead members of Congress.

[BlueK]

That was an interesting experience. When Oaks started listing his legal bonafides at the beginning of his talk, I was bracing myself to be disappointed. By the end of the talk everyone in our house was shouting "Amen!" and high-fiving.

I had the same initial reaction. I have no problem with him, but stating all the credentials at the beginning was unusual for that setting and felt a little weird. But when he got into the message it was great.