Mormon WikiLeaks (MormonLeaks)

[old_gregg]

I’m trying to figure out the reason for having a prophet, seer and revelator. My best answer is that they testify of Christ. But that’s pretty much it and I’m fine with that. But IMO, outside of testifying of Christ they don’t really prophesy, see, or reveal anything of substance. Again, I’m fine with that since the core of the doctrine is Christ.

I guess this is why I’ve carved out a space for me in an area I call Mormon Deism. God set up the framework through JS and men now run it with God only intervening if necessary, but much less often than we think.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

i think this is a fair and tenable take. but, the cost-benefit analysis (previous discussions about value of that framework hereby acknowledged) may not make sense if that’s your starting point.

[Jeff Lebowski]

i do not think this squares with at least the ethos (and maybe more than that) of the modern church.

Disagree. Either way, the point is still true because the alternative is infallibility. The only people that truly believe in infallibility are fundamentalists and prog-mo's/ex-mo's.

[Pelado]

Somewhat along the infallibility lines is the following passage from the Gospel Principles lesson this past week:

“The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place”

I intended to skip over it, but the ward mission leader, an older, orthodox type, highlighted it as what he considers the most important passage in the whole lesson.

[MartyFunkhouser]

Disagree. Either way, the point is still true because the alternative is infallibility. The only people that truly believe in infallibility are fundamentalists and prog-mo's/ex-mo's.

Not everything that's true is useful - DHO

Its wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true - DHO

What Brigham Young said doesn't fit into the context of the modern church at all. It is an antiquated and no longer accepted approach to being a member of the church. Church members are repeatedly told to just trust leaders in the fact of concerns and doubts.

You are right, the alternative is infallibility. The church encourages members to act like leaders are infallible.

I think a lot more people believe leaders are infallible than just the fundamentalists, unless you are defining a very large percentage of the church as fundamentalists.

[Topper]

What Brigham Young said doesn't fit into the context of the modern church at all. It is an antiquated and no longer accepted approach to being a member of the church. Church members are repeatedly told to just trust leaders in the fact of concerns and doubts.

You are right, the alternative is infallibility. The church encourages members to act like leaders are infallible.

I think a lot more people believe leaders are infallible than just the fundamentalists, unless you are defining a very large percentage of the church as fundamentalists.

I believe you're oversimplifying it.

Most LDS don't believe their leaders are infallible, but they do believe they are right most of the time on issues important to them. Believing they are inspired on issues such as gay rights or other matters, doesn't mean they believe in infallibility just not that they are in error on those issues. You seem to be perceiving that a disagreement on a certain issue or issues means the members believe in infallibility, whereas they see them as fallible just not on the issues in dispute.

[DrumNFeather]

Somewhat along the infallibility lines is the following passage from the Gospel Principles lesson this past week:



I intended to skip over it, but the ward mission leader, an older, orthodox type, highlighted it as what he considers the most important passage in the whole lesson.

It would be interesting to dovetail that into a discussion on what that looks like and have him (or others) give examples on what he thinks an example of leading the church astray is.

[old_gregg]

the issue isn’t fallibility, it’s obedience. these seem to directly contradict that young quote:

Our Heavenly Father communicates His will through His prophet, and God will not permit His prophet to lead His people astray.

The Lord has so organized His Church that there is accessible to every member—man, woman, and child—a spiritual advisor, and a temporal counselor as well, who knows them intimately and who knows the circumstances and conditions out of which their problems come, and who, by reason of his ordination, is entitled to an endowment from our Heavenly Father of the necessary discernment and inspiration of the Lord to enable him to give the advice which the one in trouble so much needs. We refer to the Bishop or Branch President. If the Bishop or Branch President needs assistance, he may go to the Stake or Mission President. These brethren may in turn seek counsel from one of the General Authorities, should such be necessary.

If a matter cannot be satisfactorily resolved by the first steps of this process, we should be obedient and supportive of those who preside over us until further counsel is received.

Do I follow the counsel of God’s living prophet, or do I merely select those things with which I agree, disregarding the others?

It is, therefore, no idle gesture by which we sustain the First Presidency and the Twelve as prophets, seers, and revelators, for so they are, divinely chosen, duly ordained and set apart by the laying on of hands by those authorized to do so. . . . They were appointed by revelation, ordained by other living prophets, and fully commissioned to act in the name of the Lord. God speaks through our great leaders and guides his people by their words.

The President of the Church, who indeed is the living mouthpiece of God and the presiding high priest on earth, is given sacred endowments even as was the Prophet Joseph Smith, whom he succeeds in this high office.

The people anciently were willing to accept the divine callings of their leaders, not regarding them any longer as mere fishermen or tentmakers, for those brethren were placed by the Lord into a new category as his divinely chosen servants. So we of today must look beyond the former occupations and personal activities of our modern leaders and see them as the servants of God that they are now.

I testify to you that our great leader, President Spencer W. Kimball personally is a seer and a revelator, a prophet in the same sense as was Moses or Isaiah or Joseph Smith, and that he holds divine powers even as they did.

I know these brethren are divinely appointed servants of the Lord. I know that they speak for God.

But conversely if we raise our hands or our voices against them, or if we ignore them, do we not in that manner resist the divine being who commissioned them as his servants? Can anyone afford to do that? Is not our attitude toward these prophets an unerring reflection of our innermost feeling toward God? I mean our real, basic allegiance when it is divested of all outward show and stripped of all pretensions. Can we truly love the Lord and at the same time reject his servants? If we really do love God, then indeed we must and we will love and revere his anointed ones. What if we did know them as boys in the neighborhood and saw no halos about them? What if we did mingle with them as they lived routine and ordinary lives in the past, meeting the world as it came, day by day? We must realize that conditions have changed! God has now lifted them out of those familiar patterns and has given them a new status in life. He has summoned them to high callings in his ministry. A sacred mantle has descended upon them, the mantle of their divine commission, the mantle of prophecy! They speak with new voices; they are guided by a heavenly light. They are ordinary no longer! They are the anointed ones—the chosen ones—chosen by Almighty God!

At times members may participate in “selective obedience,” claiming to love God and honor God while picking and choosing which of His commandments and teachings—and the teachings and counsel of His prophets—they will fully follow. Some obey selectively because they cannot perceive all the reasons for a commandment, just as children do not always understand the reasons for their parents’ counsel and rules. But we always know the reason we follow the prophets, for this is the Church of Jesus Christ, and it is the Savior who directs His prophets in all dispensations.

[wuapinmon]

Oh sorry. My bad.

Come on, wuap. Uncoolest character is Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar is a Sith.

You shut your whore mouth.

I am a cunning linguist.

I guess this is why I’ve carved out a space for me in an area I call Mormon Deism. God set up the framework through JS and men now run it with God only intervening if necessary, but much less often than we think.

Which is to say, never, or in every.single.thing. I like to think that he created the world, realized how screwed up it was, made himself flesh, betrayed his only Begotten unto death, and then, feeling extreme guilt over having made us all, hanged himself in an eternal sacrifice, for one afternoon's suffering on the cross cannot be sufficient expiation for all the sins of mankind. Eternal infamy is the only way to atone for having created us and all the misery, anger, and violence we wreak in his name. While his name remains; he no longer exists. The water in the woods is still and at peace. We remain vicious and full of pain, yet atoned for, eternally.

[MartyFunkhouser]

Mark E. Petersen has been mentioned. SeattleUte will be showing up soon.

[Jeff Lebowski]

What Brigham Young said doesn't fit into the context of the modern church at all. It is an antiquated and no longer accepted approach to being a member of the church. Church members are repeatedly told to just trust leaders in the fact of concerns and doubts.

You are right, the alternative is infallibility. The church encourages members to act like leaders are infallible.

I think a lot more people believe leaders are infallible than just the fundamentalists, unless you are defining a very large percentage of the church as fundamentalists.

Folks, Marty here is modeling the prog-mo/ex-mo argument I mentioned above. Swish.

[Pelado]

It would be interesting to dovetail that into a discussion on what that looks like and have him (or others) give examples on what he thinks an example of leading the church astray is.

After he shared the passage that he deemed most important, I in-artfully wondered aloud which and how many had been removed because of their potential for leading astray. No names were brought up in class. The only name that I had in my mind came from a conversation I had with my mother a couple of years ago.

We were discussing the Nauvoo period of polygamy and polyandry. My mother posited a potential explanation for all the goings-on there - that Joseph had overstepped his bounds and the Carthage mob were doing the will of the Lord in reigning him in.

[Jeff Lebowski]

the issue isn’t fallibility, it’s obedience. these seem to directly contradict that young quote:

Do you not see any irony in using contradictory GA quotes on someone who is arguing that leaders are fallible?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Somewhat along the infallibility lines is the following passage from the Gospel Principles lesson this past week:



I intended to skip over it, but the ward mission leader, an older, orthodox type, highlighted it as what he considers the most important passage in the whole lesson.

That's funny.

I could be wrong, but I that quote was given by Wilford Woodruff who was issuing manifesto #1, which he secretly drafted because many (most?) of the Q12 were adamantly against it and learned about the manifesto by reading it in the Salt Lake Tribune. The same Woodruff who married another woman after the manifesto was issued.

I'll just go ahead and say it: Any church leader who claims infallibility is exhibiting fallibility.

[wuapinmon]

Folks, Marty here is modeling the prog-mo/ex-mo argument I mentioned above. Swish.

"God let's shit happen to people, and we just have to accept it as the cost of free will, even though we're asked to sustain the Church's leaders as prophets, seers, and revelators inspired by God, but we can't expect them to ever see anything bad coming, writ large or small, because they are human, unless God wants them to, but I can't give you an instance in recent memory of when He has wanted them to, so the entire system that I am defending is really just one of people having to study things out in their minds and then praying about things, which is just another system of people being left to their own devices, hunches, intuitions, and gut instincts, only this time we're leaving the administration of a multi-billion-dollar corporation to which we give 10% of our income to 15 senior citizens with some really savvy handlers. So, you should really be mad at Joseph Bishop."

Did I get that right?

[Jeff Lebowski]

"God let's shit happen to people, and we just have to accept it as the cost of free will, even though we're asked to sustain the Church's leaders as prophets, seers, and revelators inspired by God, but we can't expect them to ever see anything bad coming, writ large or small, because they are human, unless God wants them to, but I can't give you an instance in recent memory of when He has wanted them to, so the entire system that I am defending is really just one of people having to study things out in their minds and then praying about things, which is just another system of people being left to their own devices, hunches, intuitions, and gut instincts, only this time we're leaving the administration of a multi-billion-dollar corporation to which we give 10% of our income to 15 senior citizens with some really savvy handlers. So, you should really be mad at Joseph Bishop."

Did I get that right?

Nailed it!

I didn't read what Wuap said but assume there was a lot of hysterics, hyperbole, and self-aggrandizement.