the mormon reformation

[Moliere]

I think the logic would be that the changing of ordinance (even baptism) is not wrong, as long as its done by a valid prophet with valid priesthood receiving revelation.

We probably have used the wrong logic in the past, ie pointing to what the Catholic church did as being evidence that it had strayed. When the Mormon church has done very similar types of things.

I can't reconcile this with the insistence that a person be fully immersed in water or else the ordinance has to be reperformed or the insistence that the exact wording be used for certain ordinances (sacrament). In the end, the ordinances are not eternal which makes me wonder if they are even necessary

[jay santos]

I can't reconcile this with the insistence that a person be fully immersed in water or else the ordinance has to be reperformed or the insistence that the exact wording be used for certain ordinances (sacrament). In the end, the ordinances are not eternal which makes me wonder if they are even necessary

I don't get why you have trouble reconciling that. It seems pretty easy to explain and to accept that the principles behind ordinances (including the part about doing them with exactness) are eternal but the actual ordinances and how we do them are subject to change. How else could you possibly accept the changes to the temple ceremony and the Masonry corollaries unless you can take them that way?

[Mrs. Funk]

While I agree, that approach appears to conflict with the LDS narrative of the "Great Apostasy". The one were "some weird shit happened" in Catholicism because they changed doctrine and ordinances because the priesthood was taken away and "the church" had no one to receive revelation. That's leaves Mormonism with the narrative that they had the priesthood and a prophet to receive revelation and still "some weird shit happened." The only place to go from there is to question the infallibility of at least early Mormon leaders and perhaps later ones. If JS was wrong about polygamy, what else could he have gotten wrong. If the COB is wrong about prop 8 and a narrow interpretation of the WofW what else are they getting wrong? IMO, neither the COB nor the majority of LDS are ready for that.

I understand. The church is not doing a great job giving answers to people with internet access, though. Opening the closet and acknowledging some of the skeletons seems to be at least a step in the right direction. People are leaving the church in droves (Elder Cook's phrase).

Perhaps I need to stop using analogies. As Indy points out, yes, there's a lot more than "some weird shit" in Catholicism. For our many faults, Mormon history doesn't include the Crusades, the Inquisition, the treasury of merits, &c. &c. But I've been good friends with a number of Catholics and they sort of shrug off their collective history, the attitude something like, "Yep, you caught us! The Church screwed up in the past. But the Church doesn't do that anymore and my parents are Catholic and my grandparents and great-great-great-great grandparents . . . ."

[jay santos]

This guy wants to kill the church. I suspect a lot of the Prog-Mo's who have ideas for the church really want to just kill it. Turn it into the Community of Christ or even Unitarian.

Let's assume you actually want to reform the church, not kill it. Here's my list.

1. Open up the books. Stop putting any extra in the rainy day fund. They have enough there already. Allow more spending on youth and ward activities. Consider spinning off large, indirect expenses like BYU. Reduce tithing.

2. Make an announcement like: "Many LDS interpret scripture and restoration events as literal. Some view them as figurative and treat them as parables, powerful teachings but not meant to be treated as precise and accurate portrayal of historical events. Both views of the scriptures and restoration events will be accepted within the church, and there shouldn't be any fighting within church membership between the two views."

3. Even more focus on Christ in church and church meetings. No more list of twelve topics, one for each month that go something like this. Jan: tithing. Feb: obedience March: missionary work April: Word of Wisdom, etc.

4. Ease up on the correlation efforts. Give teachers more freedom to prepare lessons with material they deem to be inspiring or necessary to teach the material.

5. Drop the focus on works. Stop pestering youth about masturbation and pornography. Ease up on W of W focus. Focus teaching on matters of the heart. Uplift the saints into a desire to do good, don't scare them from doing anything wrong and guilt them when they do. Eliminate church courts. No more excommunication, no more discipline. Temple recommends don't change, and we don't change any of the commandments, we just alter the focus of the message.

6. Drop the focus on name extraction and temple work and find something else for old people to do. Temple work should go on, but names should only be submitted from people's own family tree. Explain to the membership that those waiting in the Spirit World for their temple work have just been let off the hook, and they have figured out a way for them to perform the ordinance with their spiritual body if necessary. Stop building so many temples and divert the funds elsewhere.

7. Make an announcement on doctrine. Many past prophets taught doctrine speculatively. We should focus on only doctrine taught by current prophets and apostles and appearing in current church manuals.

8. Stay out of politics

9. Embrace the rites of passage ceremonies. Let the members celebrate baptisms, mission farewell and homecomings, temple marriages, baby blessings. Let them choose speakers for meetings and accommodate special requests as much as possible. Don't try to control or suppress or make them cookie cutter. Allow non-member attendance of temple marriages. Allow any father to baptize and bless his children, as long as he holds the priesthood regardless of temple recommend status.

[Pheidippides]

the mormon reformation

This guy wants to kill the church. I suspect a lot of the Prog-Mo's who have ideas for the church really want to just kill it. Turn it into the Community of Christ or even Unitarian.

Let's assume you actually want to reform the church, not kill it. Here's my list.

1. Open up the books. Stop putting any extra in the rainy day fund. They have enough there already. Allow more spending on youth and ward activities. Consider spinning off large, indirect expenses like BYU. Reduce tithing.

2. Make an announcement like: "Many LDS interpret scripture and restoration events as literal. Some view them as figurative and treat them as parables, powerful teachings but not meant to be treated as precise and accurate portrayal of historical events. Both views of the scriptures and restoration events will be accepted within the church, and there shouldn't be any fighting within church membership between the two views."

3. Even more focus on Christ in church and church meetings. No more list of twelve topics, one for each month that go something like this. Jan: tithing. Feb: obedience March: missionary work April: Word of Wisdom, etc.

4. Ease up on the correlation efforts. Give teachers more freedom to prepare lessons with material they deem to be inspiring or necessary to teach the material.

5. Drop the focus on works. Stop pestering youth about masturbation and pornography. Ease up on W of W focus. Focus teaching on matters of the heart. Uplift the saints into a desire to do good, don't scare them from doing anything wrong and guilt them when they do. Eliminate church courts. No more excommunication, no more discipline. Temple recommends don't change, and we don't change any of the commandments, we just alter the focus of the message.

6. Drop the focus on name extraction and temple work and find something else for old people to do. Temple work should go on, but names should only be submitted from people's own family tree. Explain to the membership that those waiting in the Spirit World for their temple work have just been let off the hook, and they have figured out a way for them to perform the ordinance with their spiritual body if necessary. Stop building so many temples and divert the funds elsewhere.

7. Make an announcement on doctrine. Many past prophets taught doctrine speculatively. We should focus on only doctrine taught by current prophets and apostles and appearing in current church manuals.

8. Stay out of politics

9. Embrace the rites of passage ceremonies. Let the members celebrate baptisms, mission farewell and homecomings, temple marriages, baby blessings. Let them choose speakers for meetings and accommodate special requests as much as possible. Don't try to control or suppress or make them cookie cutter. Allow non-member attendance of temple marriages. Allow any father to baptize and bless his children, as long as he holds the priesthood regardless of temple recommend status.

I would love to see most of those things happen. Start off with opening the books, which is something I think every tax-exempt organization should do.

[Pelado]

This guy wants to kill the church. I suspect a lot of the Prog-Mo's who have ideas for the church really want to just kill it. Turn it into the Community of Christ or even Unitarian.

Let's assume you actually want to reform the church, not kill it. Here's my list.

1. Open up the books. Stop putting any extra in the rainy day fund. They have enough there already. Allow more spending on youth and ward activities. Consider spinning off large, indirect expenses like BYU. Reduce tithing.

2. Make an announcement like: "Many LDS interpret scripture and restoration events as literal. Some view them as figurative and treat them as parables, powerful teachings but not meant to be treated as precise and accurate portrayal of historical events. Both views of the scriptures and restoration events will be accepted within the church, and there shouldn't be any fighting within church membership between the two views."

3. Even more focus on Christ in church and church meetings. No more list of twelve topics, one for each month that go something like this. Jan: tithing. Feb: obedience March: missionary work April: Word of Wisdom, etc.

4. Ease up on the correlation efforts. Give teachers more freedom to prepare lessons with material they deem to be inspiring or necessary to teach the material.

5. Drop the focus on works. Stop pestering youth about masturbation and pornography. Ease up on W of W focus. Focus teaching on matters of the heart. Uplift the saints into a desire to do good, don't scare them from doing anything wrong and guilt them when they do. Eliminate church courts. No more excommunication, no more discipline. Temple recommends don't change, and we don't change any of the commandments, we just alter the focus of the message.

6. Drop the focus on name extraction and temple work and find something else for old people to do. Temple work should go on, but names should only be submitted from people's own family tree. Explain to the membership that those waiting in the Spirit World for their temple work have just been let off the hook, and they have figured out a way for them to perform the ordinance with their spiritual body if necessary. Stop building so many temples and divert the funds elsewhere.

7. Make an announcement on doctrine. Many past prophets taught doctrine speculatively. We should focus on only doctrine taught by current prophets and apostles and appearing in current church manuals.

8. Stay out of politics

9. Embrace the rites of passage ceremonies. Let the members celebrate baptisms, mission farewell and homecomings, temple marriages, baby blessings. Let them choose speakers for meetings and accommodate special requests as much as possible. Don't try to control or suppress or make them cookie cutter. Allow non-member attendance of temple marriages. Allow any father to baptize and bless his children, as long as he holds the priesthood regardless of temple recommend status.

Some great suggestions in there.

[Paperback Writer]

A good start... included a few ideas of mine in bold...

This guy wants to kill the church. I suspect a lot of the Prog-Mo's who have ideas for the church really want to just kill it. Turn it into the Community of Christ or even Unitarian.

Let's assume you actually want to reform the church, not kill it. Here's my list.

1. Open up the books. Stop putting any extra in the rainy day fund. They have enough there already. Allow more spending on youth and ward activities. Consider spinning off large, indirect expenses like BYU. Reduce tithing.Emphasize tithing on one's increase. Keep donated funds local and send a % to SLC. That should solve the lack of funds for youth and ward activities. Allow BYU to be more independent from the church

2. Make an announcement like: "Many LDS interpret scripture and restoration events as literal. Some view them as figurative and treat them as parables, powerful teachings but not meant to be treated as precise and accurate portrayal of historical events. Both views of the scriptures and restoration events will be accepted within the church, and there shouldn't be any fighting within church membership between the two views."

3. Even more focus on Christ in church and church meetings. No more list of twelve topics, one for each month that go something like this. Jan: tithing. Feb: obedience March: missionary work April: Word of Wisdom, etc.

4. Ease up on the correlation efforts. Give teachers more freedom to prepare lessons with material they deem to be inspiring or necessary to teach the material.

5. Drop the focus on works. Stop pestering youth about masturbation and pornography. Ease up on W of W focus. Focus teaching on matters of the heart. Uplift the saints into a desire to do good, don't scare them from doing anything wrong and guilt them when they do. Eliminate church courts. No more excommunication, no more discipline. Temple recommends don't change, and we don't change any of the commandments, we just alter the focus of the message.Re-emphasize the "not by commandment" part of the WofW revelation in section 89 and change the TR question to "do you strive to live the WofW..."

6. Drop the focus on name extraction and temple work and find something else for old people to do. Temple work should go on, but names should only be submitted from people's own family tree. Explain to the membership that those waiting in the Spirit World for their temple work have just been let off the hook, and they have figured out a way for them to perform the ordinance with their spiritual body if necessary. Stop building so many temples and divert the funds elsewhere.

7. Make an announcement on doctrine. Many past prophets taught doctrine speculatively. We should focus on only doctrine taught by current prophets and apostles and appearing in current church manuals.

8. Stay out of politics

9. Embrace the rites of passage ceremonies. Let the members celebrate baptisms, mission farewell and homecomings, temple marriages, baby blessings. Let them choose speakers for meetings and accommodate special requests as much as possible. Don't try to control or suppress or make them cookie cutter. Allow non-member attendance of temple marriages. Allow any father to baptize and bless his children, as long as he holds the priesthood regardless of temple recommend status. Rather than allowing non-LDS or non-TR holders into a temple, get rid of the 1-year wait to be sealed after a non-temple wedding. Encourage weddings in a stake center where non-members and the entire community can take part. Then the couple can be sealed a short-time later in a temple..

[Joe Public]

2. Make an announcement like: "Many LDS interpret scripture and restoration events as literal. Some view them as figurative and treat them as parables, powerful teachings but not meant to be treated as precise and accurate portrayal of historical events. Both views of the scriptures and restoration events will be accepted within the church, and there shouldn't be any fighting within church membership between the two views."

The closest I've seen to that is here, regarding the Bible.

There is a broad range of approaches within the vast mosaic of biblical interpretation. For example, biblical inerrancy maintains that the Bible is without error and contradiction; biblical infallibility holds that the Bible is free from errors regarding faith and practice but not necessarily science or history; biblical literalism requires a literal interpretation of events and teachings in the Bible and generally discounts allegory and metaphor; and the “Bible as literature” educational approach extols the literary qualities of the Bible but disregards its miraculous elements.

The Church does not strictly subscribe to any of these interpretive approaches.

The quote is out of context, though; the article as a whole doesn't go nearly as far as jay santos suggests.

[Indy Coug]

This guy wants to kill the church. I suspect a lot of the Prog-Mo's who have ideas for the church really want to just kill it. Turn it into the Community of Christ or even Unitarian.

Let's assume you actually want to reform the church, not kill it. Here's my list.

1. Open up the books. Stop putting any extra in the rainy day fund. They have enough there already. Allow more spending on youth and ward activities. Consider spinning off large, indirect expenses like BYU. Reduce tithing.

2. Make an announcement like: "Many LDS interpret scripture and restoration events as literal. Some view them as figurative and treat them as parables, powerful teachings but not meant to be treated as precise and accurate portrayal of historical events. Both views of the scriptures and restoration events will be accepted within the church, and there shouldn't be any fighting within church membership between the two views."

3. Even more focus on Christ in church and church meetings. No more list of twelve topics, one for each month that go something like this. Jan: tithing. Feb: obedience March: missionary work April: Word of Wisdom, etc.

4. Ease up on the correlation efforts. Give teachers more freedom to prepare lessons with material they deem to be inspiring or necessary to teach the material.

5. Drop the focus on works. Stop pestering youth about masturbation and pornography. Ease up on W of W focus. Focus teaching on matters of the heart. Uplift the saints into a desire to do good, don't scare them from doing anything wrong and guilt them when they do. Eliminate church courts. No more excommunication, no more discipline. Temple recommends don't change, and we don't change any of the commandments, we just alter the focus of the message.

6. Drop the focus on name extraction and temple work and find something else for old people to do. Temple work should go on, but names should only be submitted from people's own family tree. Explain to the membership that those waiting in the Spirit World for their temple work have just been let off the hook, and they have figured out a way for them to perform the ordinance with their spiritual body if necessary. Stop building so many temples and divert the funds elsewhere.

7. Make an announcement on doctrine. Many past prophets taught doctrine speculatively. We should focus on only doctrine taught by current prophets and apostles and appearing in current church manuals.

8. Stay out of politics

9. Embrace the rites of passage ceremonies. Let the members celebrate baptisms, mission farewell and homecomings, temple marriages, baby blessings. Let them choose speakers for meetings and accommodate special requests as much as possible. Don't try to control or suppress or make them cookie cutter. Allow non-member attendance of temple marriages. Allow any father to baptize and bless his children, as long as he holds the priesthood regardless of temple recommend status.

While several of these are good suggestions, I'm not sure how much "reformation" that really amounts to.

[Katy Lied]

The only place to go from there is to question the infallibility of at least early Mormon leaders and perhaps later ones.

I hate to keep on banging the Charles Harrell drum (This is My Doctrine), but he notes that throughout the years the Mormon church has distinctly repudiated the infallibility claim over and over, but the membership doesn't like those uncertainties. He makes the ironic claim that the Catholic Church insists that the Pope is infallible, but catholics don't really believe it, while the Mormon church denies the claim of infallibility of its leaders, but its membership refuses to believe it.

You have to admit, indulgences would be quite handy in a lot of circumstances.

I would have been first in line to contribute to the Brandon Davies indulgence.

[Paperback Writer]

I hate to keep on banging the Charles Harrell drum (This is My Doctrine), but he notes that throughout the years the Mormon church has distinctly repudiated the infallibility claim over and over, but the membership doesn't like those uncertainties. He makes the ironic claim that the Catholic Church insists that the Pope is infallible, but catholics don't really believe it, while the Mormon church denies the claim of infallibility of its leaders, but its membership refuses to believe it.

You raise a good point. But I also think there is a lot of tip-toeing around the infallibility claims. It's one thing to say LDS leaders are human and not infallibile and another to say that "denying black men the priesthood for about 120 years was human error". Instead, the Mormon church's offical response is "we just don't know why it happened" with the implication that it was God's will to keep the priesthood ban in place. If BY and others were really not infallible, why doesn't the Mormon church just go out and state that "BY was a man of his times and initiated a priesthood ban that would later be seen as racist. Because BY's successors were also not infallible, they didn't change it until 1978".