Church leaders admitting mistakes

[SoonerCoug]

I think the single greatest flaw in Mormonism is the fact that Church leaders are taught not to admit mistakes. This is a longstanding tradition that was originally established by Joseph Smith and Brother Brigham.

Whether it's polygamy or blacks and the priesthood or anything else, LDS Church leaders refuse to acknowledge that they were wrong, and this behavior trickles down to the local level.

Sometimes I wonder if the apostles have private discussions or meetings where they question whether the Church has done something it shouldn't have. For example, I wonder if any apostles were opposed to the Church's involvement in the prop 8 campaign. And I wonder if any of the apostles who were originally for the campaign might now wonder if the Church has made a gigantic mistake.

[wuapinmon]

This is about as close as it gets:

Some have asked, how was Mark Hofmann able to deceive Church leaders?

As everyone now knows, Hofmann succeeded in deceiving many: experienced Church historians, sophisticated collectors, businessmen-investors, national experts who administered a lie detector test to Hofmann, and professional document examiners, including the expert credited with breaking the Hitler diary forgery. But why, some still ask, were his deceits not detected by the several Church leaders with whom he met?

In order to perform their personal ministries, Church leaders cannot be suspicious and questioning of each of the hundreds of people they meet each year. Ministers of the gospel function best in an atmosphere of trust and love. In that kind of atmosphere, they fail to detect a few deceivers, but that is the price they pay to increase their effectiveness in counseling, comforting, and blessing the hundreds of honest and sincere people they see. It is better for a Church leader to be occasionally disappointed than to be constantly suspicious.

The Church is not unique in preferring to deal with people on the basis of trust. This principle of trust rather than suspicion even applies to professional archives. During my recent visit to the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, I was interested to learn that they have no formal procedures to authenticate the many documents they acquire each year. They say they consider it best to function in an atmosphere of trust and to assume the risk of the loss that may be imposed by the occasional deceiver.

Dallin H. Oaks, “Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents,” Ensign, Oct 1987, 63

From a talk given at Brigham Young University, 6 August 1987.

[SoonerCoug]

This is about as close as it gets:



Dallin H. Oaks, “Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents,” Ensign, Oct 1987, 63

From a talk given at Brigham Young University, 6 August 1987.

That sounded like one big excuse to me.

[Jeff Lebowski]

This is about as close as it gets:



Dallin H. Oaks, “Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents,” Ensign, Oct 1987, 63

From a talk given at Brigham Young University, 6 August 1987.

He's got your there, Sooner. They will admit to being deceived by forgers as a result of showing too much trust and goodwill.

[Jeff Lebowski]

For the record, I don't recall any significant instance where I had a local leader that refused to admit an error.

[wuapinmon]

For the record, I don't recall any significant instance where I had a local leader that refused to admit an error.

I can tell you from experience that there were times in my branch presidency meetings in NOLA that we looked at each other and all said, "Wow, we made a big mistake in giving X that calling."

I thought we should call one guy to the WML calling. Three weeks later he attacked his wife with a clawhammer in front of his kids. He thought he'd killed her and fled to his mom's house where he tried to drink bleach and kill himself.

She lived. He lived. The kids were traumatized.

Divorced. He's exed and in prison.

She got pregnant and didn't lose the baby because they had had sex right before the attack. To her credit, she kept the baby.

Leaders make mistakes. The Church with a capital "C" rarely admits them publicly.

[pelagius]

He's got your there, Sooner. They will admit to being deceived by forgers as a result of showing too much trust and goodwill.

Didn't Joseph Smith admit giving Martin Harris the 116 pages was a mistake?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Didn't Joseph Smith admit giving Martin Harris the 116 pages was a mistake?

There you go. Too much trust again.

[RC Vikings]

The problem as I see it is that by admitting a mistake you are saying that the Lord made a mistake and that can't happen. Would members have a hard time knowing that their isn't a direct line from SLC to heaven and that inspiration is a process.

[pelagius]

There you go. Too much trust again.

I thought he "feared man more than God." I thought that was the problem?

[SoonerCoug]

The problem as I see it is that by admitting a mistake you are saying that the Lord made a mistake and that can't happen. Would members have a hard time knowing that their isn't a direct line from SLC to heaven and that inspiration is a process.

Yeah, if they were to admit mistakes, it would revolutionize the general membership's perception of God and how he inspires leaders. But I don't think people would leave the Church over it or anything. I just think people would have to come to terms with reality.

[SeattleUte]

He's got your there, Sooner. They will admit to being deceived by forgers as a result of showing too much trust and goodwill.

Oh bullshit. You have become such an apologist. They were buying stuff from him that turned out to be laughably amateurish because they wanted to hide what they were convinced by Hoffman were documents that cast the LDS Church in a bad light. They were covering up.

Sooner is right. That statement is just one big long winded excuse. By the way, why can't these people write succinctly? One big tip-off as to how circumspect they always are at best is that write about 5x as many words as needed to get the point across and then never really do. And Oakes was a brilliant lawyer in his day!

[SteelBlue]

In that kind of atmosphere, they fail to detect a few deceivers

This has little to do with the topic at hand but this line was humorous. I wonder where he comes up with "a few"? Joseph Smith alone missed on many. Is deceiver detection something we are supposed to expect from these men?

[SteelBlue]

Oh bullshit. You have become such an apologist. They were buying stuff from him that turned out to be laughably amateurish because they wanted to hide what they were convinced by Hoffman were documents that cast the LDS Church in a bad light. They were covering up.

Sooner is right. That statement is just one big long winded excuse. By the way, why can't these people write succinctly? One big tip-off as to how circumspect they always are at best is that write about 5x as many words as needed to get the point across and then never really do. And Oakes was a brilliant lawyer in his day!

I think you need to change the batteries in your sarcasm detector.

[SeattleUte]

I think you need to change the batteries in your sarcasm detector.

Apologies to Lebowski if that's so. He's been leading me to think he believes that LDS leaders are incapable of guile.