Late night thought on LDS dogma

[NorthwestUteFan]

Philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.

[Paperback Writer]

The contemporary Church feels like a corporate exercise in psychological behaviorism.

correlation:
cor·re·la·tion
[kawr-uh-ley-shuhn, kor-]
–noun
1. mutual relation of two or more things, parts, etc.
2. the act of correlating or state of being correlated.
3. Statistics . the degree to which two or more attributes or measurements on the same group of elements show a tendency to vary together.
4. Physiology . the interdependence or reciprocal relations of organs or functions.
5. Geology . the demonstrable equivalence, in age or lithology, of two or more stratigraphic units, as formations or members of such.
6. Mormon . a corporate exercise in psychological behaviorism.

[Tone Loc]

What additional revelation are you looking for? Or better yet, what additional revelation do you need in order to be exalted?

As far as the church is concerned all saving principles and ordinances have been given already. If that isnt enough what is?

[DapperDan]

I fear the church is following the Jeff Lebowski trajectory. It started out as a brash young radical, a founding member of the Seattle Seven (plus six other guys). Nowadays, however, it is more worried about finding the rug that tied the whole room together and just takin' it easy for the rest of us out here. Speaking in terms of revelation, anyway.

Our entire church is fundamentally based upon modern-day revelation, yet there is a relative paucity of said revelation of late. The most groundshaking revelation in my recent memory was Pres. Hinckley's decision to build smaller temples.

I don't know how much longer we can be satisfied by the Jr High Seminary admonition that "WE COULD get more revelation, but we are nnot yet ready for it... "

It seems we are following the basic trajectory of the early Christian church.

[Sleeping in EQ]

There's the old saying:

"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."

I wouldn't go so far as to call the church a racket, but the trajectory you describe is fairly typical of any large movement, religious or otherwise. Charismatic visionaries and iconoclasts are great for starting a revolution, but that environment is not conducive to long-term growth and stability.

Yep. This is Max Weber 101.

[DapperDan]

What additional revelation are you looking for? Or better yet, what additional revelation do you need in order to be exalted?

As far as the church is concerned all saving principles and ordinances have been given already. If that isnt enough what is?

That sounds an awful lot like the basic Christian argument against ongoing revelation.

Another evidence for the completion of God’s revelation is that the Bible is totally sufficient for all man’s needs today. There is no need of any further revelation from God. There is not one situation where man needs direction from God that cannot be found in the revealed principles of the Bible.

[Sullyute]

I think it is sad that the Church has become less flexible and more dogmatic with each and every year. Not only is their a paucity of interesting new revelation, but somehow we've become saddled with a bunch of practices that aren't grounded in anything more than some dead prophet's personal preferences.

I agree that the Church of the 19th century is nothing like the Church of the 20th or 21st century. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young may have been flexible with the doctrine but it was still their way or the highway when it came to the administration of the Church. If you disagreed with Joseph he would excommunicate you and say you were going to hell (albeit he was quick to forgive if you came to his way of thinking), if you disagreed with Brigham he would just send you straight to hell (i.e southern Utah).

On that same note I think the Church in general is becoming less and less charismatic. People used to share visions and powerful personal spiritual experiences, but after several Gen Conf. talks that say that these are too personal you rarely hear from the GA's something like, "I had a vision where I talked to JS or the other day Moses showed up." It seems like if that stuff happened to JS or BY it should still happen, and I don't know why suddenly no one wants to talk about, except that they are afraid it isn't PC.

I do think that Church leadership walks on egg shells when it comes to calling something a new revelation. However, I also think our definition of a revelation has changed. How much of the D&C is calling people on missions, or patriarchal blessings, or rules on Church adminstration? If we consider these things as revelations today, then every mission call is a revelation, the church handbooks are revelation, every patriarchal blessing is a revelation. Just because it is not cannonized does not mean that it isn't a revelation and that church leaders don't received relevation.

I think the Perpetual Education fund is one of the greatest revelations that we have had in the last 100 years. North Americans members have drastically outbenefitted from all of tithing money that is dumped allocated into BYU. The Perpetual Education fund allows for those members outside of the US (especially Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia members) to benefit from Church funds. This is the best way to grow the Church, future foreign Church leaders, and hopefully a future minority apostle.

In regards to sharing spiritual experiences at the pulpit, I understand that we as members want to hear that Pres. Monson was telling jokes to God, that Moroni came and told Holand to get a new tie, or Brigham Young came and told Bednar to part his hair on the left instead of the right. But I don't blame them for not sharing intimate details. People on here rarely tell such personal spiritual experiences and we are all anonomous for the most part. There may be some PC to it but I think that they are simply not throwing their pearls before swine (I am not calling the members swine, but you know what I mean.) I realize that it can be argued that it is their calling to share their spritiual experinces, I am just saying that I can understand why they may not want to.

I think what I am saying is that the Church is becoming increasingly vanilla in order to be more palatable to the World at large, when the real roots of the LDS Church is a guy who saw God and Jesus and a whole multitude of dead prophets, while marrying lots of women and who liked a good wrestling match and now we have a bunch a repetitive messages, no visions, boring music, and if you don't buy the company line you are a heretic.

I have to admit that I absolutely hate organ music, but I love our hymns when they are played on the piano, violin, or even guitar. I wish that they would put Come Thous Font back into the hymn book.

I really think that the church has come a long way from the September Six debacle in excommunicating people who opening express their personal views (I realized that some did more than just that). There is plenty of room to improve, but I think the church is definitely getting more tolerant. I know that many people had bad experiences with the Prop 8 issue, but that sounds like it was on a regional or local level and not broad based. IMO, there are just too many voices now asking for change from the inside to be put down or ostracised as heretical.

I will say, that I honestly believe that this is the Lord's Church, I just think there is a serious lack of dynamic leadership and an ever growing burden of dogma created by old grouchy men.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and testimony. How do you feel about the dynamic of up and coming leaders in your ward, stake, etc? I think this is probably a greater measuring stick of what is to come and has more impact on us as individuals members than what those leaders at the top of which many may be gone in the next ten years or less.

[RC Vikings]

http://www.believeallthings.com/4229/apostolic-witness/

Holland

Then he paused and said, “I love Jesus Christ and have a relationship I cannot really share. He is the most compelling theme in my life – a very rewarding obsession. I have often borne witness: Now I AM a witness. I am a witness of the Resurrection in the same sense as Peter, James, John, Brigham, and Wilford.” His witness is the fruit of unconditional commitment.2

Why can't they or won't they share? When Bednar calls himself a Apostolic Witness for Christ I want to hear what his relationship is with Christ.

[Tokolosh]

It seems like if that stuff happened to JS or BY it should still happen, and I don't know why suddenly no one wants to talk about, except that they are afraid it isn't PC.

I agree that it isn't shared enough now, the pendulum has swung to far the other way. Quips and phrases from talks tell us that visions and visitations continue today but you are always left with hints and snippets of what the individual learned.

I have been fortunate to be in more private settings where more clear descriptions of the "witnessing" have been shared. Perhaps the amount that can and ought to be shared will not return to JS and BY levels but some more info would be nice to hear.

[thesaint258]

IIRC, didn't President Hinckley say that the idea for the smaller temples came to him in a dream or vision while he was traveling, which he then drew on a napkin? It's been a long time, so I could be remembering things wrong. I was trying to think of some modern-day examples.

[Jim Swarthout]

The church is a paradox in this sense -- it purportedly believes in ongoing revelation but is so focused on conformity and is suspicious of change.

[Uncle Ted]

I agree that the Church of the 19th century is nothing like the Church of the 20th or 21st century. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young may have been flexible with the doctrine but it was still their way or the highway when it came to the administration of the Church. If you disagreed with Joseph he would excommunicate you and say you were going to hell (albeit he was quick to forgive if you came to his way of thinking), if you disagreed with Brigham he would just send you straight to hell (i.e southern Utah).

"There are three places, all on a par, one is as good as the other. They are Provo, hell, or Texas. You can take your choice." -Brigham Young to Abraham Smoot.

I am thinking hell can't be that bad of a place.

[TexTechCoug]

How do you feel about the dynamic of up and coming leaders in your ward, stake, etc? I think this is probably a greater measuring stick of what is to come and has more impact on us as individuals members than what those leaders at the top of which many may be gone in the next ten years or less.

As I mentioned at the end of an earlier post, I was in a stake with a very interesting new SP. He had been in the prior stake presidency, but as soon as he became SP he started relating visions he had regarding how to reorganize ward boundaries, name wards, change how work was being performed. He had a much more evangelical approach to preaching from the pulpit and was certainly not to worried about casting his spiritual pearls before swine.

We moved about a year ago, but I know they have had to add sessions at the small temple there to make room for the all the members who are now much more fired up about temple work.

It was very interesting to see a leader who took a much more spiritually open and less business like approach to inspiring the members.

[Viking]

I'd be lying if I said that I've never watched the temple movie and, when the planets orbit past in the opening scene, imagined (wished?) that it was going to turn into a Star Tours type ride. In fact, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't imagined that on multiple occasions.

Ditto. Or at least some form of explanation about the origin of the universe.

Instead, we would get Michael Ballam sing-speaking.

[Viking]

"There are three places, all on a par, one is as good as the other. They are Provo, hell, or Texas. You can take your choice." -Brigham Young to Abraham Smoot.

I am thinking hell can't be that bad of a place.

I have a feeling that if there is a hell, Brigham Young is a resident.