Polygamy justification?

[CardiacCoug]

Thanks Cardiac. You are an obvious omission from my short list of 'smart' CUF Mormons. I sincerely hope you find yourself in a position to really influence church policy.

I feel the same way Barack Obama felt after receiving an endorsement from Osama Bin Laden.

[RobinFinderson]

But isn't 'talking' all that rank and file members can do when it comes to church policy?

Anyhow, I personally believe in the power of 'talking.' Talking spreads ideas, and ideas have a way of catching things on fire. The Mormon revolution is going to be a 'talking revolution.' Look to Iran. There is great power in simply showing up in the streets to express an idea.

I'm bumping my own thoughts here on a Mormon 'talking revolution.'

I don't know what SU's hopes are for the future of Mormonism, but mine are simply this -- I think the LDS church has the potential of being a powerful agent for good in the world, but its current power structure all but guarantees that it will continue to be morally anachronistic for the foreseeable future. Still, the LDS church appears to have changed its policy to bring it into line with outside moral opinion. Polygamy and Blacks and the priesthood are just a couple of the more obvious examples of this. In this respect the church appears to have been more willing to adapt its policy to the chattering of outsiders more than it has been willing to listen to and reflect the views of its own members. My hope for the future of Mormonism is for the church to thrive, as an agent for good, and that it hitches its policy to the free will and moral thinking of its members (all of them, and not just the ones with a Y chromosome between their legs).

The church can be so much better than it is today! I hope that the church reaches its potential.

[UtahDan]

We have heard these, including the apocalyptic banalities in the second paragraph, on the Sunday morning Evangelical shows, in the political conventions, even to some extent in the news magazins and other commentary in the media. You can find them uttered all over the Internet including from some right wing crazies. The importance of the family unit to society and the challenges it edxperience is also common semse. Why do you think this is an example of prophesy or modern revelation? This is just an example of Mormonism's socially conservative outlook, for better or worse, which is what the movement is all about, at bottom.

You asked for an example, I'm just giving you the best one I know. Also, it may not be a unique thing to say, but it is also not what everyone is saying or what popular opinion says. It is prophecy because it makes a prediction. Of course, you and I don't have the ability to test it at this point.

I would also like to see something from them even approacing the eloquence and artistry of Moses, Isiiah, Jeremiah, and Jesus Christ.

What, you don't appreciate the books the prophets write as literature? I know you are just expressing a subjective preference with this. Obviously this isn't a test for whether a person is a prophet or not.

Any other examples of modern revelation or prophesy from LDS leaders after Joseph Smith?

You know Joseph was much more prolific early on that he was toward the end of his life. Part of this, from a faithful perspective, is that there was a big chunk to be revealed and once you have it you don't expect to receive it over and over. Or expect to keep getting more and more and more. There is no question that these things have slowed down to a trickle, but at the same time Moses only got the ten commandments once. What Moses, nothing new today? I agree with your premise that you do expect a prophet to prophesy, at least some times, but I don't think that precludes the traditional LDS idea that perhaps the role of the last many prophets is to reiterate what previous ones have said. It is plausible that God has no new message that this time. Nor do I know where the expectation would arise from that God would comment on every issue through a prophet. Jesus made very little comment on the poltics in Rome or even in Jerusalem that we know about.

Again, I have concrete examples where they blew it in resisting a societal trend, took positions positively immoral and backward on issues affecting the welfare of tens of millions of people. They seem to have totally missed the major developments of the twentieth centurty good or evel, and only resisted the good.

You are a student of the Bible. God works through flawed people, sometimes seriously flawed people. I'm not going to try to defend the church's record on race to you any more than I can other churches and organizations that were institutionally racist and eventually changed; admittedly we were late to the party. But your caricature of the church as some sort of evil institution is not fair either, and I know you know this, and are trolling with this. Let the tolerance you have discovered post-Mormonity extend to your former brethren.

[wuapinmon]

It is plausible that God has no new message that this time. Nor do I know where the expectation would arise from that God would comment on every issue through a prophet. Jesus made very little comment on the poltics in Rome or even in Jerusalem that we know about.

See that's the problem for me as a convert and RM. We go around citing Amos 3:7; we make our youth memorize it to be masters of Scripture, and yet, we make suppositions like this one.

[UtahDan]

See that's the problem for me as a convert and RM. We go around citing Amos 3:7; we make our youth memorize it to be masters of Scripture, and yet, we make suppositions like this one.

I don't know. If you think about what Amos 3:7 says it can't possibly be literally true. I don't think any man can understand what God is up to all the time everywhere. So it must mean something other than prophet as personal secretary. I would say it means that God doesn't have a message to deliver or an action to take on earth that he doesn't tell his prophets about first. This doesn't preclude the idea I am referring to that there was a lot new to say at the beginning of this dispensation and not as much new to say now.

If we teach people that new and exciting things are being revealed daily, then that is wrong. But if what we are saying is that God restored the truth through Joseph and that we have modern oracles to guide us and who stand ready to receive any big news God has for us, then that is about right, I think.

[wuapinmon]

If we teach people that new and exciting things are being revealed daily, then that is wrong. But if what we are saying is that God restored the truth through Joseph and that we have modern oracles to guide us and who stand ready to receive any big news God has for us, then that is about right, I think.

My experience was that the Amos 3:7 scripture was supposed to tie in directly with ETB/HWH being the Lord's prophet on the Earth. We taught it, and were trained to teach it, like it was literally true. We'd get Mormon folklore tales about the Guatemalan Temple President waking up in the middle of the night and seeing lights on in the temple, and getting ready to go over and see who was there, and getting a phone call from the prophet (who was bedridden at the time) to stay away because "The Lord was working in the Temple tonight."

Stuff like this, whether true or not, just goes towards my notion that Mormon converts, and our youth in seminary, are taught to believe that the prophet walks with God, guides us in these latter days, and is ready to lead us to salvation. Seriously, that's the impression I had when I joined the Church. Until ETB croaked, I never head the prophet 'speak.' Certainly, there are many things that they have done to guide the Church, and certainly, they're not going to get new stuff all the time.....but in the case of certain things, if you're a prophet, how hard would it be to say, "Heavenly Father, I've studied it out in my mind, and I feel that X thing should be clarified." If Joseph Smith could ask the meanings of scriptures in Revelations, why couldn't we get some clarification about other stuff?

I'm not saying they haven't done it, but letting us know they tried would make me happy.

[SeattleUte]

You asked for an example, I'm just giving you the best one I know. Also, it may not be a unique thing to say, but it is also not what everyone is saying or what popular opinion says. It is prophecy because it makes a prediction. Of course, you and I don't have the ability to test it at this point.



What, you don't appreciate the books the prophets write as literature? I know you are just expressing a subjective preference with this. Obviously this isn't a test for whether a person is a prophet or not.



You know Joseph was much more prolific early on that he was toward the end of his life. Part of this, from a faithful perspective, is that there was a big chunk to be revealed and once you have it you don't expect to receive it over and over. Or expect to keep getting more and more and more. There is no question that these things have slowed down to a trickle, but at the same time Moses only got the ten commandments once. What Moses, nothing new today? I agree with your premise that you do expect a prophet to prophesy, at least some times, but I don't think that precludes the traditional LDS idea that perhaps the role of the last many prophets is to reiterate what previous ones have said. It is plausible that God has no new message that this time. Nor do I know where the expectation would arise from that God would comment on every issue through a prophet. Jesus made very little comment on the poltics in Rome or even in Jerusalem that we know about.



You are a student of the Bible. God works through flawed people, sometimes seriously flawed people. I'm not going to try to defend the church's record on race to you any more than I can other churches and organizations that were institutionally racist and eventually changed; admittedly we were late to the party. But your caricature of the church as some sort of evil institution is not fair either, and I know you know this, and are trolling with this. Let the tolerance you have discovered post-Mormonity exestend to your former brethren.

I don't believe God was "working through" any character in the Bible. In fact, I think most of them are essentially of not purely literary characters. The Bible is in many ways unmatched as a work of literature, however. Mormonism is totally derivative of the Bible's norms, but that does not support its claims.

[LA Ute]

What I would really like to see, and I think we have been walking around the periphery of this for ages on sites like CUF and CG, is for the 'smart' Mormons to take back their church.

In my college and law school days I was on the Sunstone board. (This is a verifiable fact. You can see me on the masthead as "Special Projects," or something like that.) I was a terrible board member and did little, I'm afriad. I did get the U. of U. bookstore to take the magazine on consignment and put it on the store's shelves.

What finally caused me to quit altogether were repeated statements exactly like yours. So many people on that board were so convinced that because they were smart, they were special, and thus had more worthy ideas about what the Church should to than the leaders did. It just got to be too much for me. It still is.

[il Padrino Ute]

In my college and law school days I was on the Sunstone board. (This is a verifiable fact. You can see me on the masthead as "Special Projects," or something like that.) I was a terrible board member and did little, I'm afriad. I did get the U. of U. bookstore to take the magazine on consignment and put it on the store's shelves.

What finally caused me to quit altogether were repeated statements exactly like yours. So many people on that board were so convinced that because they were smart, they were special, and thus had more worthy ideas about what the Church should to than the leaders did. It just got to be too much for me. It still is.

A religious Animal Farm of some sort, eh?

[RobinFinderson]

In my college and law school days I was on the Sunstone board. (This is a verifiable fact. You can see me on the masthead as "Special Projects," or something like that.) I was a terrible board member and did little, I'm afriad. I did get the U. of U. bookstore to take the magazine on consignment and put it on the store's shelves.

What finally caused me to quit altogether were repeated statements exactly like yours. So many people on that board were so convinced that because they were smart, they were special, and thus had more worthy ideas about what the Church should to than the leaders did. It just got to be too much for me. It still is.

I regret using the term 'smart mormons' to refer to the kind of people whose voices I would like hear a bit louder from the rest of the Mormon world. It was a bit trollish to refer to them as 'smart mormons,' since there are plenty of smart mormons who don't really think much about the implications of church policy, because they don't really care that much about it, and are mostly mormon out of force of habit. As I've said already in this thread, I am open to suggestions for a different term for those people who acknowledge the disconnect between what prophets are in reality vs. the mythological prophets of scripture and popular culture.

The problem is that these prophets with serious failings are running the church, and the church would be much better served if it could draw upon the talent and wisdom of a bigger group of people. The church leadership is NOT a meritocracy. It is a self-propagating feedback loop that seems less interesting and more banal by the year; it seems less capable of moral thought and more prone to knee-jerk responses to issues like gay marriage; it seems less capable of systemic change and more inclined to raise up the same kinds of people with the same world views.

I'm not suggesting that people quit the church, or rise up in open rebellion. There needs to be a 'talking revolution,' where the 'smart mormons' or whatever you want to call them, simply start speaking up with their ideas, sharing them more broadly, dreaming publicly of how they wish the church could be different, etc. Just start talking. The church could be WAY BETTER. We all know that. Why don't we start talking about it?

[UtahDan]

I regret using the term 'smart mormons' to refer to the kind of people whose voices I would like hear a bit louder from the rest of the Mormon world. It was a bit trollish to refer to them as 'smart mormons,' since there are plenty of smart mormons who don't really think much about the implications of church policy, because they don't really care that much about it, and are mostly mormon out of force of habit. As I've said already in this thread, I am open to suggestions for a different term for those people who acknowledge the disconnect between what prophets are in reality vs. the mythological prophets of scripture and popular culture.

The problem is that these prophets with serious failings are running the church, and the church would be much better served if it could draw upon the talent and wisdom of a bigger group of people. The church leadership is NOT a meritocracy. It is a self-propagating feedback loop that seems less interesting and more banal by the year; it seems less capable of moral thought and more prone to knee-jerk responses to issues like gay marriage; it seems less capable of systemic change and more inclined to raise up the same kinds of people with the same world views.

I'm not suggesting that people quit the church, or rise up in open rebellion. There needs to be a 'talking revolution,' where the 'smart mormons' or whatever you want to call them, simply start speaking up with their ideas, sharing them more broadly, dreaming publicly of how they wish the church could be different, etc. Just start talking. The church could be WAY BETTER. We all know that. Why don't we start talking about it?

So when this goes down, we can expect to see you in the front row the following Sunday?

[TripletDaddy]

I regret using the term 'smart mormons' to refer to the kind of people whose voices I would like hear a bit louder from the rest of the Mormon world. It was a bit trollish to refer to them as 'smart mormons,' since there are plenty of smart mormons who don't really think much about the implications of church policy, because they don't really care that much about it, and are mostly mormon out of force of habit. As I've said already in this thread, I am open to suggestions for a different term for those people who acknowledge the disconnect between what prophets are in reality vs. the mythological prophets of scripture and popular culture.

The problem is that these prophets with serious failings are running the church, and the church would be much better served if it could draw upon the talent and wisdom of a bigger group of people. The church leadership is NOT a meritocracy. It is a self-propagating feedback loop that seems less interesting and more banal by the year; it seems less capable of moral thought and more prone to knee-jerk responses to issues like gay marriage; it seems less capable of systemic change and more inclined to raise up the same kinds of people with the same world views.

I'm not suggesting that people quit the church, or rise up in open rebellion. There needs to be a 'talking revolution,' where the 'smart mormons' or whatever you want to call them, simply start speaking up with their ideas, sharing them more broadly, dreaming publicly of how they wish the church could be different, etc. Just start talking. The church could be WAY BETTER. We all know that. Why don't we start talking about it?

Why don't you come back and start the revolution?

Meanwhile, I will keep quiet on Sundays and not be branded a troublemaker.

[LA Ute]

It was a bit trollish to refer to them as 'smart mormons,' since there are plenty of smart mormons who don't really think much about the implications of church policy, because they don't really care that much about it, and are mostly mormon out of force of habit.

I hate to pick at your posts, but please think about the statement above. Come on, man!

Nit-picking aside, I'd love to engage you on this subject, but am in pre-vacation hell today and tomorrow. I'll try to chime in with ideas when I get a moment here and there.

[The Wankster]

I regret using the term 'smart mormons' to refer to the kind of people whose voices I would like hear a bit louder from the rest of the Mormon world. It was a bit trollish to refer to them as 'smart mormons,' since there are plenty of smart mormons who don't really think much about the implications of church policy, because they don't really care that much about it, and are mostly mormon out of force of habit. As I've said already in this thread, I am open to suggestions for a different term for those people who acknowledge the disconnect between what prophets are in reality vs. the mythological prophets of scripture and popular culture.

The problem is that these prophets with serious failings are running the church, and the church would be much better served if it could draw upon the talent and wisdom of a bigger group of people. The church leadership is NOT a meritocracy. It is a self-propagating feedback loop that seems less interesting and more banal by the year; it seems less capable of moral thought and more prone to knee-jerk responses to issues like gay marriage; it seems less capable of systemic change and more inclined to raise up the same kinds of people with the same world views.

I'm not suggesting that people quit the church, or rise up in open rebellion. There needs to be a 'talking revolution,' where the 'smart mormons' or whatever you want to call them, simply start speaking up with their ideas, sharing them more broadly, dreaming publicly of how they wish the church could be different, etc. Just start talking. The church could be WAY BETTER. We all know that. Why don't we start talking about it?

I am sure if you asked the kids in school who they feel would better *run* the school they could find a million things they would, or could do better than those rotten adults who are currently in charge?

I for one kind of like the fact the LDS religion doesn't bend to every idea that mankind could present to them to make it *better*

I feel pretty safe in saying the LDS church is going to be led by *prophets* who are approaching their later years in life, for the foreseeable future. Not very hip I know, but pretty safe way to ensure that you have leadership that will not get to crazy in leading the church.

If only those *smart* leaders would just get rid of the WOW, allow Women to hold the priesthood, marry gays in the temple, then the church would surely be seen as hip and cool by the rest of the world, and SU and Robin could once again become members with the rest of the unenlightened who are currently members.

[SeattleUte]

I regret using the term 'smart mormons' to refer to the kind of people whose voices I would like hear a bit louder from the rest of the Mormon world. It was a bit trollish to refer to them as 'smart mormons,' since there are plenty of smart mormons who don't really think much about the implications of church policy, because they don't really care that much about it, and are mostly mormon out of force of habit. As I've said already in this thread, I am open to suggestions for a different term for those people who acknowledge the disconnect between what prophets are in reality vs. the mythological prophets of scripture and popular culture.

The problem is that these prophets with serious failings are running the church, and the church would be much better served if it could draw upon the talent and wisdom of a bigger group of people. The church leadership is NOT a meritocracy. It is a self-propagating feedback loop that seems less interesting and more banal by the year; it seems less capable of moral thought and more prone to knee-jerk responses to issues like gay marriage; it seems less capable of systemic change and more inclined to raise up the same kinds of people with the same world views.

I'm not suggesting that people quit the church, or rise up in open rebellion. There needs to be a 'talking revolution,' where the 'smart mormons' or whatever you want to call them, simply start speaking up with their ideas, sharing them more broadly, dreaming publicly of how they wish the church could be different, etc. Just start talking. The church could be WAY BETTER. We all know that. Why don't we start talking about it?

This is a good post. They are not only ideologically incestuous and self-propagating--meticulously vetted and culled out of a pool of certifiedly ideologically pure prospects--but also extremely old. Remember how the PRC and the USSR were run by gerontocracies? I remember when Gorbachev was at age 51 promoted to General Secretary, the world marveled at such a young man at the head of the USSR. Then came glosnost, and the rest is history... I imagine that if the "prophet" were ever a man as young as 51 the LDS Church would take on a different character. Glasnost? But then again, maybe this would cause the whole house of cards to fall.