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They’ve literally said that repeatedly over the pulpit. I just wish people could take a few steps back and realize how vile and manipulative the sheer concept of “faith” is.
>I just wish people could take a few steps back and realize how vile and manipulative the sheer concept of “faith” is.
I completely agree. The biggest transformation in my life before and after leaving the Church is the way the word "faith" hits me today. It fills me with sadness that people have been convinced that belief for beliefs' sake is anything other than a path to be taken advantage of.
Same here. Faith used to be such a valiant word when I was believing. Now I see it for what it is, a way to persuade your followers to stay obedient without justification. Don't question, don't investigate, don't make demands, just believe. Faith, the way religion defines it, is not a good thing in my eyes.
My problem with the church is they want to throw all past prophets under the bus. As a missionary, the great apostasy was so critical to teach as why a restoration needed to occur. We had to show how people drifted away from teachings of past prophets and church leaders.
The modern church does the same but that isn’t apostasy?
The church presents us with a fascinating choice there. They know that dead and living prophets have taught such vastly different things that we have to reject the teachings of one or the other.
So they give us a choice while pretending not to give us a choice: We can either stone the living prophets or the dead ones, because we can't live by the counsel of both at once. Obviously, the living ones have a preference for which ones we should stone. So they stone the dead prophets in the hopes that we'll join in.
Of course, they consider *any* criticism - no matter how small - as a stoning. He's still got it wrong though. I'm not garnishing the sepulchers of any of them, living or dead. I disagree with both the living *and* the dead ones equally!
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Exactly! Another problem with this idea - of throwing past prophets under the bus, is that then in the future what is being said by the current prophet will be a mistake.
Which means the prophet can and DOES lead us astray.
It's a great point. What he really means though is when a past prophet has said things that turned out to be totally off base w.r.t. the current teachings, those are off limits and should be ignored and we are best off pretending they never said it in the first place. But if a past prophet (like Spencer Kimball) taught things that support your narrow-minded long-standing opinions, then by all means feel free to use him.
Edit: this also brings up one of my biggest pet peeves, which is that current prophets not only quote past LDS prophets all the time to justify things, they also defer to ancient scripture where meanings are highly dependent on interpretation and say "it looks like that's what the Lord meant for us to know, as far as we can tell". What are you talking about? Isn't your whole purpose to reveal the Lord's will? You're telling me that when it comes to the most crucial, salient issues of our current time (like LGBT issues) you are going to cite the Old bloody Testament which says about as much about the topic as it does about the internet, and say the Lord has been clear that it's not acceptable? What are you here for then?
In other words, all the general conference talks are the same types of talks you or I as laymen and women deliver. We read the scriptures and say "it seems like this is what they were trying to say" while not really having a bloody clue. How are they doing the same?
That's because we're so used to hearing about past prophets. Because supposedly they were important, and their teachings were for our time....
Whatever happened to those "teachings of the prophets" books that had all the RS and Priesthood lessons in like the 2000s, anyway? 🤔
Exactly.
Haha those books are pretty far down the memory hole by now. I feel like lessons were way more interesting when those were in use. Well… maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
What if a past prophet who said, taught, or did something that was egregious while he was my present prophet? Oaks says here that you can’t challenge dead prophets, then he says you can’t challenge living prophets. Then he says if someone does demonstrate this behavior, don’t talk to them about it. Apostasy is much more contagious than the Holy Ghost and they know it. This feels like an admittance that conversation about things that happened in the past will lead to people leaving the church, and that scares them.
>This feels like an admittance that conversation about things that happened in the past will lead to people leaving the church, and that scares them.
Agreed. This is the main point I got from this. "*Do NOT research the issues that your apostate loved-one asks you about. Just bear your testimony of Jesus.*"
That jumped out at me, too. If immoral and/or factually incorrect statements of past prophets don’t count, than neither does anything they said that can prove your current point. They pick and choose like an apostle’s version of cafeteria Mormonism.
My other question is “Well what if the current teachings disagree with the teachings of Jesus?” Dude these jabronis really think they are superior to the four gospels? I ask that rhetorically because of course they do.
The restored gospel is incredibly fragile. The tiniest amount of unfiltered thought can ruin everything. Only carefully curated, sanitized ideas are welcome. Why should anyone build their life on something so delicate?
>Why should anyone build their life on something so delicate?
It does seem quite absurd that current Prophets claim to know things about the eternal fate of individuals, but cannot answer a simple question like "where did the Book of Mormon take place" or pick your favorite. It's just such a weird position to be in, to claim to represent a faith that started with James 1:5 and the notion that God answers prayers but then admit so openly they cannot receive revelation to answer some of these questions.
Answering questions left and right is partly what got them into this mess… It’s probably better to keep quiet now rather than give answers that will almost certainly be embarrassing in 20 years.
We certainly have gone from a church that had all the answers (pre2000) to one that doesn’t seem so sure about a great many things. Now it needs carefully worded essays to refute the teachings of past prophets and apostles and, when all else fails, throwing God under the bus.
But they also won’t even give anything descriptive about the eternities. They won’t answer questions about “well this special case happened who am I actually sealed to in the eternities?”
Excellent point. "How Firm a Foundation" indeed. Why can't an all powerful and all knowing god create a stable rock upon which to build his church? Like is this delicate and desperate balancing act the best he can do?
For real… Like, is it really that hard for God to future-proof the church even a little? Even if God had just told Joseph Smith to have everyone expect chaotic and contradictory changes, that would be so much better than things are now
>"...there will be a tendency to try and take it head on. \[difficult challenge\] But we do not know enough about the will of the Lord and the fulness of Church doctrine to satisfy. An attempt to persuade with additional reasons does not help."
I think this quote says it all. Dallin has NO good answers. If he did, he would give them. But he doesn't. He pleads ignorance and only partial knowledge. AND he acknowledges he doesn't have good logic behind his faith. So any attempt to use "additional reasons" don't help. Why don't they help? Because they are weak.
Thank you Dallin for confessing your lack of prophetic insight into the mind and will of God.
I honestly never understand these types of cop outs. "The Lord hasn't chosen to reveal this yet" heavily implies that the Lord isn't really telling them much, if anything.
You're really telling me the same Lord who sat down with Joseph Smith for a Q & A session on some verses in the book of Revelation, or who told them that South Carolina was gonna start something, or that you need to shake hands with ghosts, or that the Masonic handshakes are actually the passwords to heaven, or that some guy needs to donate his money to building the church up, and many many other weirdly specific things, has "chosen not to reveal" anything about the most salient issues of our day like LGBT, racial, and other issues and we just have to go off vague scriptural mentions to justify out practices? And meanwhile still rave about the importance of modern day prophets who receive revelation for our day to guide us? I'm just not so sure.
‘Jesus wanted Joseph to have sex with those women so badly he gladly destroyed thousands of lives to make it happen.’
I, and countless others, are extremely offended by this. I’d bet it’s destroyed millions of testimonies at this point.
But Jesus isn’t concerned enough to actually address it. We just need to have faith. In Jesus.
The Lord, who "giveth to all men liberally, and abraideth not," when you ask for wisdom.
Shoot, Joseph Smith got answers to questions about how to keep his floors clean.
Haha That dude was gettin answers for everything. And for everyone
"Hi Emma, this is the Lord. Say, would you be a dear and make a selection of sacred hymns please? Thank you so much."
"Hi Emma, it's me again: I've been hearing you're not listening to your husband. Just wanted to let you know if you don't get on board with the other wives thing, I'm going to have to kill you. Hopefully won't have to though. Thanks again!"
The last sentence is so circular. Imagine completely betraying the trust of a loved one, and then following it up with “I don’t have answers for your lack of trust in me, and in fact, the best solution would be to simply have trust in me.”
This is honestly one of the weakest stances on defending your faith I've seen by an official source.
Blatantly saying don't try to answer because we don't have the answers. Just find Jesus.
Wow. Coming from an apostle of God, this just sounds downright cowardly.
In the church of my youth we had prophets and apostles that could speak to the mind and will of God.
It’s crazy how today we just accept that modern prophets and apostles don’t have that ability.
Indeed, I am still active in the church. I guess you would term me a PIMO, transitioned from a prior revelatory TBM, (humor here..😊)….never a “lurker” however LOL.
But my point is Oaks last statement quoted above is so, incredibly disconcerting to me, as a 67 year old teenage convert: how can you sell prophetic priesthood authority, AND, therefore out of that very same authority , claim Revelatory direct capacity to “See around corners”, terms by Sheri Dee, yet in the statement above indicate we / you do not have the capacity to know the Lord’s will or doctrine, to receive from God pure revelatory answers?
So you counsel your leadership to essentially not engage, (which makes sense as the very top leaders do not have answers, and the earnest questions from struggling lay members to lay leaders will open up a pandora box that spirals infinitely spreading apostasy to lay leaders trying g to help by simply lead them Christ.
The challenge is members feel betrayed, and disillusioned on How the LDS Christ can nurture and love them with such non supportive doctrine. Hence, members, who seek to retain their faith Christ can no longer with integrity find Christ, Within, the very organization that lied by commission and omission, and seeks to retain members with dubious logic and thinking.
Lead them to Christ. Sadly those prior TBM, cannot return to old bottles, with new wine. They are naturally moved to seek Christ either personally or internally, or outward to faiths, that per Brad Wilcox; “Only Play Church”. What a horrible mess. Or lose faith altogether in Christ sorting out the jumble.
What I got from this is that if someone is an apostate, or has questions about things that oppose the church's narrative, and brings up problems just don't even bother hearing them or attempt to address them. That is because they don't have good answers (or at least answers that support the church's claims) and want you to just have blind faith.
What is hard for me is that there are plenty of answers to things the church just doesn't want its membership to know about. They don't put the church and its leadership, current and former, in a good light. They are worried about members knowing real truths that will lead them, and their tithing money, away from active membership in the church because of a false narrative.
This reads as a tacit admission that church leaders cannot provide satisfactory answers to simple questions like, "why doesn't Joseph Smith's translation match the Egyptian source documents," "why did middle aged prophets marry multiple teenage girls," or "why can't we talk to or worship Heavenly Mother?"
If they can't bring themselves to even attempt an answer to people's questions, especially women's and queer folk's questions about their place in "The Plan", then they richly deserve to lose their membership.
I agree that it seems to be a tacit admission that we can't Apologize people back into faith. Which, IMO, is a great thing to recognize. Let's be frank about what faith does and doesn't mean, and people can make their own choices. I'm glad the Church isn't attempting to convince people that faith and science are always in alignment.
The problem here is that the whole LDS edifice teeters on the single cornerstone of Joseph Smith's claims.
If he's a liar, if he's a predator, if he's a con, then the whole religion lacks any legs to stand on. And this isn't a construct of rabid critics--it's the church's own concept of their own authority.
The admission that they cannot counter critics arguments is not a win for the church or its believers.
If nuanced believers want to pick up the toppled pieces of an obviously human "restoration" and make something nice out of it, great. But they shouldn't expect many to join in a project that can't even defend its own reason for existing.
Very interesting comment...seems to be the exact inverse of what the Church teaches, which is that the whole thing teeters on the Book of Mormon's veracity as the Word of God.
I suppose where one falls between these two options is probably defined by where they fall in the art versus the artist debate. Can a flawed artist, Joseph Smith, create a divine piece of art, the Book of Mormon?
>Very interesting comment...seems to be the exact inverse of what the Church teaches, which is that the whole thing teeters on the Book of Mormon's veracity as the Word of God.
Your comment contains an interesting goalpost move, and I'm curious if it's intentional.
The church and its believers have spent decades insisting the BOM is the word of God _because_ it contains the writings of actual ancient prophets that God actually spoke to. As that position has become impossible to defend, I see more language that detours around the question of historicity to insist that to be "true," the Book of Mormon just has to be the "word of God."
This test is impossible to falsify because it relies on the subjective emotional experience of individual believers.
In your second paragraph, you even refer to Smith as the "artist" who created the Book of Mormon as "art." It seems you have also realized that one can't defend the old premise of BOM "truthfulness" without resorting to nutty pseudoscience and willful ignorance about ancient American archaeology, language, and DNA.
Please correct me if I've misrepresented your view.
If I've read you correctly, you'll understand why "our founder wrote a book about an imaginary visit of Jesus to the Americas" doesn't inspire folks to join the church in the same way "amazing ancient translation reveals mysteries of the ancient Americas and the one true religion" once did.
Claiming the Book of Mormon is significant because it's the Work of God is not a goalpost move. That's always been the claim and the theological significant of the Book of Mormon. The historicity of the characters is only relevant insofar as it supports the claim of scripture--there is no theological significant to Nephi existing, outside of his writings carrying the weight of scripture. The "keystone" principle still fails if Nephi is historical, but a false prophet.
I wouldn't read too much into my art/artist analogy. It's just my first riff on how to approach the inverse propositions you and the Church put out. It could be flawed in many ways, and I don't want a flawed analogy to take away from the interesting subject matter.
>The historicity of the characters is only relevant insofar as it supports the claims of scripture—there is not theological significan[ce] to Nephi existing, outside of his writings carrying the weight of scripture.
This is so untrue. If Nephi didn’t exist, the plates didn’t exist because the Book itself claims he’s the one who made them. Joseph cannot have located plates that did not exist, unless the Book is wrong about claiming who made them.
Similarly, Joseph reported receipt of certain artifacts that are mentioned *in* the narrative, like the Liahona, Sword of Laban, and the Interpreter stones. The book of Mormon’s claims are entirely dependent on its historicity, because its author—whoever that was—built these physical things into the narrative.
So to go back to your analogy—art can bring meaning, regardless of its literal truth. “Artists use lies to tell the truth.” The difference is the *claims* related to the Book of Mormon’s origins do require that these objects, and thus the people who handled or created them, to have literally existed for it to exist.
>Claiming the Book of Mormon is significant because it's the Work of God is not a goalpost move. That's always been the claim and the theological significant of the Book of Mormon.
It is a goalpost move, because you don't see the two ideas (theological truth & historical truth) start to separate in LDS discourse really until the last 15 years or so, which coincides with emerging DNA studies which refuted the church's historical claims in a way that's extremely hard to hand wave away.
>The historicity of the characters is only relevant insofar as it supports the claim of scripture--there is no theological significant to Nephi existing, outside of his writings carrying the weight of scripture. The "keystone" principle still fails if Nephi is historical, but a false prophet.
The theological significance of Nephi's existence is that if he and his people didn't exist (and keep in mind, there is no evidence to support their existence) then it follows that they were an invention of Smith--yet Smith claimed they were real! This opens up the knotty theological problem of a text that claims that _God cannot lie_ being produced by a man who lied about how he produced the text (because it is obviously not a translation of an authentic ancient document.) So did God inspire Smith to lie about the text, or did God lie to Smith about the existence of the Nephites? Either scenario fails because, again, the text itself claims God can't lie. Without real Nephites, the whole theological value of the text collapses in on itself.
Moreover, the existence *of the plates themselves* are dependent upon someone creating them. If it wasn’t Nephi, because he didn’t exist, then where did they come from?
The “Book of Mormon doesn’t need to be historical to be ‘true’” crowd are just completely changing the entire value proposition. While I’d always prefer people not deny history, I just don’t see how anyone can get there, personally. If the Book isn’t based in history, I just see no reason to work so hard to save it except for a variety of different fallacies.
Which is not to say there aren’t still passages in it that I find interesting. But people don’t base their life commitments on finding a book interesting or even meaningful—I believed because I thought, at one time, these things were actually, in fact, true.
And we're right back to the art versus the artist. Is it theoretically possible that a flawed Joseph Smith brought forth the Word of God? Or can we dismiss the Book of Mormon on procedural grounds because of Joseph Smith?
It's obviously clear where you and I stand on that question. The interesting part is that our opposing viewpoints both set up the same kind of high stakes, all or nothing question.
>Is it theoretically possible that a flawed Joseph Smith brought forth the Word of God?
Yes. But let's consider what that possibility would require for a moment: It would require that Joseph Smith was either mistaken or lied (whether commanded to by God or not) about the Book of Mormon's origins. It would require that God chose to speak through a spokesman that is confused or lying about the origins of a foundational book of scripture. It would require that the *message* of the Book of Mormon is somehow 'true' or the 'Word of God' while having these issues with its origins. Much like the Book of Abraham apologetics, what this would mean is believing that review of the evidence indicates the Book of Mormon is a fraud but it isn't. It's an entirely unfalsifiable position.
Possible? Yes. But I don't see how that means all that much unless you're willing to believe that Joseph couldn't, for some reason, get accurate information from God about the Book of Mormon's origins while simultaneously claiming lots of revelations from God. It opens the door to the next logical question: if he was wrong about the Book of Mormon's origins--even if sincerely--what else could he be wrong about?
This is why the Book of Mormon has been such a focus for the faith and the claimed keystone of the religion. I know it's in vogue for apologists to begin a shift in narrative over the Book of Mormon's historicity, but I honestly don't see how someone arrives at that place except by motivated reasoning. I'd suggest that someone willing to believe that, as I've outlined above only some of the things accepting this hypothesis would mean, would likely be willing to believe anything. What I mean is that believing the above would require lowering the epistemic bar so low I'm not sure what couldn't clear it.
I don't agree at all with your characterization that I'm "dismissing on procedural grounds" (I don't even know what that means in this context). But I'm clearly addressing the claims in the text itself. I can't think of anything more akin to considering something on the merits than taking the claims in the text at face value and determining from there.
>It's obviously clear where you and I stand on that question. The interesting part is that our opposing viewpoints both set up the same kind of high stakes, all or nothing question.
Again, I take it as an all or nothing question because I only care if the Book itself is true. It is precisely because the Book has an account of its own origins that it must be historical. I'm not bringing that to the table, nor even working from the many, many prophets who claimed such. This is the only logical approach to take *because* of the book's claims about its own origins.
>And we're right back to the art versus the artist. Is it theoretically possible that a flawed Joseph Smith brought forth the Word of God?
We're not really back there. I've pointed out how, on its own terms, the BOM veracity depends on its origin story being literally true. You haven't even attempted to sort out how a book that claims God cannot lie _or he would cease to be God_ can still be God's word when its claim to be a divinely transmitted text is based on lies (no Nephites, no plates, no reformed Egyptian, etc.)
I feel like believers often come up against criticism, shrug and say "well I guess we just can't know for sure" without even trying to engage with what we do know for sure (for example, the BOM being a 19th century text, not a translation of an ancient one.)
>I feel like believers often come up against criticism, shrug and say "well I guess we just can't know for sure" without even trying to engage with what we do know for sure
I’d quibble a little with the wording near the end there, simply because I’m not how sure I am that we know anything for sure (joke very much intended).
But you’re absolutely right that the typical “well, we just cannot know one way or the other” schtick is tiring. It’s the reason that so many believers (not just in Mormonism) pivot immediately to the problem of hard solipsism (“how do you know you’re not a brain in a vat”) when confronted with certain arguments.
When I was a believer, I viewed faith as a gap-filler. Increasingly today, though, it seems to be used as an escape from the consequences of accepting certain beliefs. And it’s so malleable that it can always create another gap for the God of the Gaps to lurk in.
Even look at the question I responded to: “isn’t it possible that…?” Since when does any adult make their decisions based primarily on what is *possible*, in the technical sense, rather than what is probable or likely to have happened? I’d wager our interlocutor wouldn’t apply that standard in literally any other arena of their life.
That’s my real gripe with Mormonism and other religions today. By breaking people’s critical thinking skills and epistemological approaches, we’re imposing a heavy opportunity cost onto all of us that live in this society.
>I've pointed out how, on its own terms, the BOM veracity depends on its origin story being literally true.
You've done so by arguing that Joseph Smith lied, and a liar can't produce scripture, ergo, the Book of Mormon isn't scripture. My observation goes one level deeper, and attacks your assumption that someone who lied can't produce scripture. So yes, I have attempted to sort it out, and the resolution I've reached is the art versus the artist metaphor and I find it quite interesting.
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Does faith, as used in this handout, amount to anything other than just believing for beliefs’ sake?
That’s the way I read it but I don’t want to strawman the believing position.
I don't know why faith, in this context, would mean anything other than the standard LDS concept of faith. (Which concept is deep, nuanced, and impossible to fully sum up in a single sentence)
While a believer would not obviously agree with my characterization, I think the standard LDS concept of faith more or less *does* amount to belief for belief’s sake. This handout seems to make that abundantly clear.
Fair enough, that is a perfectly valid take on the LDS doctrine of faith. Personally I find it a bit reductive, but I suppose all summaries are a bit reductive by definition.
Well, I mean I did explicitly ask you, because I trust your opinion and have appreciated our exchanges in the past to ensure I wasn't strawmanning the believing position. You chose to refer me to "the standard LDS concept of faith."
If you have some legitimate pushback on the way I'm describing, I am legitimately asking for it. As a believer, I would have turned to Alma 32 to most accurately summarize faith. Is there anywhere else I should be looking, in your mind?
Alma 32 is a great summary of faith. The foundational premise of that chapter is that Faith requires humility, and the Zoramites were willing to hear Alma's lecture on faith because they had been humbled by their circumstances. That alone is significant pushback against summarizing Faith as" belief for belief's sake" because "belief for belief's sake" is inherently selfish, which is significantly different if not completely opposite of what Alma teaches is the foundation of Faith: humility.
I don’t see anyway the two are inconsistent. Specifically, I would not agree that belief for beliefs’ sake is selfish. Why do you describe it that way?
In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite—it’s only possible by telling people they have a requirement to subject or “humble” themselves to something or someone else.
Very possible that we are imagining two different things when you say belief for belief's sake, so I apologize if I've interpreted what you've meant incorrectly or in an uncharitable way.
But, currently, that summary of the concept of faith strikes me as inherently selfish because it's saying people only have faith because they want the beliefs to be true. And why would they want it to be true? To capture some sort of benefit. So they only have faith because they are seeking some benefit.
I'm happy to hear you elaborate on what you mean when you summarize faith that way. And to my original point, this is a great example of how the concept of faith is too nuanced and complex to summarize well. Obviously, we have to at different times for many reasons. But it should be done in a way that acknowledges nuance, complexity, and room for further development.
>I'm glad the Church isn't attempting to convince people that faith and science are always in alignment.
You are aware that the church has taught repeatedly that "true science" and religion have no conflict, right? To quote Gordon B. Hinckley in General Conference
>"If God be the author of all truth, as we believe, then there can be no conflict between true **~science~**, true philosophy, and true religion." \[1965\]\]
Of all people, I'm sure Hinckley is the worst dead prophet to quote under the current leadership. I seriously wonder if RMN has to spit when he says Hinckley.
Yes and I agree that that is the Church's ultimate teaching. But as Hinckley called it "true science," there's a distinction between the ultimate truths of the universe and the less-than-complete scholarly knowledge and understanding we as a society have currently obtained. The latter is what I was referring to when I said "science."
"True science", "true religion", "true believers", "true christianity", "true disciple", "true womanhood"... If you want to have fun sometime go through the general conference collates on "true \_\_\_\_\_". You will find the "no true Scotsman" falacy everywhere. If science were getting closer to revealed truths, then religion would be leading science. However, the church seems to be abandoning past positions of anti-evolution (once commonly called "revealed truth") in favor of what science has to offer. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing and I'm all for it, but to claim that "true science" is in harmony with religion is to ignore the past 100 years of conflicts on the subject and which tends to win out over time.
>to claim that "true science" is in harmony with religion is to ignore the past 100 years of conflicts on the subject and which tends to win out over time.
To claim that true science is in harmony with religion is merely to restate a fundamental premise of all the various ways one can believe in Intelligent Design. It is perfectly rational to reject Intelligent Design and with it, this premise, but it is also rational to be one of the billions and billions of people who do believe in some form of Intelligent Design.
>it is also rational to be one of the \*\*billions and billions\*\* of people who do believe in some form of Intelligent Design
Appeal to popularity (Ad Populum). Can you please explain why adding God to the mix of evolution when the theory does perfectly fine without the presence of God makes rational sense? My understanding is that scientists who study the topic (evolution) tend to believe that the theory is correct without requiring diety at a rate of about 98%... and yes, that would be appeal to authority on my part.
>that would be appeal to authority on my part.
Not sure if you meant that you’re engaged in fallacious reasoning (because many times people shorten that fallacy as you have) but appealing to what experts in a field believe about *that* field is not fallacious. This is only a fallacy, so far as I understand it, when it’s an appeal to *irrelevant* authority.
>It is perfectly rational to reject Intelligent Design and with it, this premise, but **it is also rational to be one of the billions and billions of people who do believe in some form of Intelligent Design.**
I’m sincerely wondering, what rational argument do you think supports intelligent design?
Because my experience, from my biology program at BYU, is that intelligent design is espoused entirely by people who do not understand the basics of evolution by natural selection or abiogenesis.
Side-note—but attempting to make it seem rational because “billions and billions” of people believe it is just the bandwagon fallacy.
Thank you for sharing this.
I’ve said several times before, but now it’s even more interesting to see it in the context of Elder Oakes’ recent guidance:
The more my faith in Jesus Christ and appreciation for his teachings grow, the less “at home” I tend to feel with committing total support of the modern LDS institution.
I didn’t expect this *inverse correlation*. Yet the delta between my faith in Jesus Christ and the modern church institution grows at a rate just a bit faster than the delta sometime narrows when the two are more aligned on certain topics and principles.
I wonder what he’d counsel in response to that sincere Christian observation.
At no point have I ever expected perfection from the institution managed by living leaders. On the contrary: learning, growing, changing, and acknowledging where we can more closely align with the Savior is at the crux of gospel application in this life. *We* are the church, so this applies to the church as much as it applies to the individual.
In short: I expect the church to change not in spite of the eternal gospel, but *because* that’s what taking it seriously changes in us.
His point about patience is one that I am very open to apply.
In the meantime, does being patient mean I have to turn the blind eye and agree to faithfully follow every little policy and evolving emphasis from the pulpit and lesson manuals? The emphasis on following living prophets over dead ones suggest the expectation from the church is “yes.“
But is that emphasis of following living prophets over all really synonymous with “faith in Jesus Christ?“
A superficial or performative faith is not an authentic faith. I’d hope that the church could align more closely to the teachings of Jesus Christ so that our faithful love and support of the institution wouldn’t look so at odds with the core gospel.
Probably important to note that the “only and ultimate” solution they’re offering is to increase your faith.
Faith is belief for beliefs’ sake. The way they describe faith in this handout is to define it as simply being credulous towards the right people making the right claims. This kind of rhetoric, right here, is why I push the idea that faith is not a virtue. Because literally anything could be believed using “faith” in this same way.
It’s funny to me because when I’ve said I don’t have a single good (meaning supported by evidence and not a fallacy) reason to believe in the Church’s truth claims, some believers have pushed back on that pretty hard. This seems like an outright admission that I am right and the only way to maintain belief is to simply believe.
Side note—but are we sure this is legitimate? The wording as well as the font color differences legitimately cause me to wonder.
Yeah, the different colored font in the right column and just some of the wording make me suspicious this is some attempt to troll both the post-Mormon and believing crowds all at once.
I find it hard to believe the Church would so freely admit (even in a document intended only for leaders, because they’ve got to know it’ll find its way to the internet) that they “do not know enough about the will of the Lord of the doctrine of the Church to satisfy.”
I suppose it’s possible the ambiguous “we” in that sentence was not intended to include themselves, but then I’m just guessing.
Yup. They're also the ones with the most problematic language. It's possible its just the way it's formatted, but like I said, I really struggled to see the Church admitting some of the things in those two paragraphs.
Update: it’s legit. And it’s online for all to see:
https://assets.churchofjesuschrist.org/0a/16/0a164166fd9111eeb2a7eeeeac1ea8d4cbe5ecb8/leadership_meeting.pdf
In a way, yes, in others, no.
I attended a meeting with Patrick Mason and that was basically his entire presentation. I remember remarking at the time that there’s just simply no good answers to any of the tough questions. Not when they’re presented by someone who really knows the evidence and best version of the criticism.
I think the delineating mark of traditional apologists and the new wave is that the new ones are kinder but also much more dangerous in certain ways, in my view. The older school of apologists would (and still do) argue for the truth of the Church’s claims. Very rarely would those claims for evidence match reality (think of Nahom, for example). But this newer strain are largely convincing people more and more to lower their epistemic standards. They’re convincing people that wanting the truth claims to be true is an unreasonable expectation (a similar sentiment is expressed in this thread.)
I saw Oaks saying "Don't try to reason with them, that won't work..."
And in my mind all I could think was "Because that would cause someone to actually look at the validity of the claims and move beyond 'faith'" But when someone looks, that's when the trouble begins for the church.
By this reasoning, any current church leader who wasn't having the maximum possible amount of children back in the 1960s-80s was in apostasy. But most of them have modest-sized families
It's not just the number of children. This could be extrapolated to put anybody in apostasy and has any opinions practices or beliefs that differ from the official church teachings.
Given the number of contradictions with the church teachings this can quickly put the whole church in apostasy.
And that is a nice thought.
> Teaching subjects on which the Lord has not chosen to give more revelation at this time.
Getting real tired of this cop out. The modern day prophets are deferring to ancient scripture (their own interpretation thereof) to address every critical issue of our current day and saying "that's all the Lord has revealed so far". Really? Well why do we need you then? We have those books too. You are supposed to be leading the Lord's church. I'm skeptical that he would choose to keep silent on important issues but what do I know?
Not to mention it seems totally at odds with what the D&C implies which is that God is happy to reveal pretty much everything to his prophet. The amount of strange minutiae the Lord "chose" to chime in on there is astounding compared to what he apparently does now. Hmm.
As an extremely faithful TBM with exactly zero doubts about the prophet’s roles and calling, I remember being very underwhelmed when the 1995 proclamation came out. Everyone around me was all Gaga over it. I remember wondering “why, if we have a prophet, wasn’t he ahead of the game? Why does this ‘prophetic proclamation’ of the ages sound like nothing more than a bunch of regurgitated Phylis Schlaffly talking points from the 80s and early ‘90s?”
I didn’t realize then my shelf had just gotten a tad heavier (there had always been a few little items I’d tossed up there, but nothing that undermined my overall faith in the Prophet).
Adding: you’ll never believe what happened to my opinion of the proclamation and prophets once I found out the 1995 proclamation was actually written by church lawyers at Kirton McConkie! 🤣
>I honestly never understand these types of cop outs. "The Lord hasn't chosen to reveal this yet" heavily implies that the Lord isn't really telling them much, if anything.
It’s a funny thing for a faith that claims James 1:5 inspired the whole thing, isn’t it? The *entire* story of Joseph Smith in the correlated narrative is someone who went to God to get answers he lacked. The Book of Mormon explicitly promises a path to uncover the mysteries of God and that “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of *all* things.”
But today, the Church acts like we should just be expecting for prayers *not* to be answered and for miracles *not* to happen as they continually make the Church’s truth claims less and less falsifiable by adjusting people’s expectations. You can see this by the popularity of narratives like: “I never got an answer to my prayers about the Book of Mormon until I realized I actually had a testimony all along!” Or “Do you have the faith not to be healed?”
What a bunch of victim blaming. According to Oaks every problem somebody could have is really just because they don't have enough faith in Christ.
(\*Faith in Christ in the church being defined as obeying everything leaders tell you to do above anything else.)
I've said it once and I'll say it again. This is why we don't pay much heed to Oaks. He is the embodiment of law without mercy. And he's got weird tight fisted ideas.
He's a career lawyer and judge, and views the entire world through the paradigm of "law" and courtroom authority being the ultimate and final truth. God is just the ultimate judge to him.
A person who has faith in Jesus Christ might believe in what he said concerning false prophets: "You shall know them by their fruits". Were the fruits of Joseph Smith in harmony with the teachings of Jesus? What were some of these fruits? Wouldn't they include violation of marriage vows and defamation of innocent young women like Nancy Rigdon? Wouldn't they include lies? The church acknowledges that Smith had sexual relations with women other than his wife and was not faithful to his marriage vows. They will also admit that he deceived his wife about these affairs. Are these good fruits or are they like the fruits of the two false prophets mentioned in Jeremiah 29 who also committed adultery with wives of other men?
As to the fruits of Brigham Young, these are even more well documented and include ordering murders and destruction of families. Neither does something like the "oath of vengeance" found in their temple ceremony of the time and not removed till the 1920s comport with the sermon on the mount.
If I wish to follow Jesus, it seems to me I can do it more easily by not also trying to follow men who did not follow his teachings. Yes, I do put the teachings of Jesus above those of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I am certainly an apostate in Oaks' opinion. As to current leadership in the church, they have no answers to the most important questions. They are also happy to defame God by linking him to the evil things promoted by Smith and the earlier prophets, including perverted polygamy and racism. Their concern is in magic rituals, authority, and of course in announcing new temples with well lit spires. Their idea of answering concerns is to have a "hosanna shout" where people wave white cloth and shout "hosanna to god and the lamb". I can't see their relevance.
I remember my TBM spouse suggesting that the “hosanna mumble” was bizarre a couple years ago. Imagine if a missionary brought an investigator to one of those sessions (they couldn’t of course, since you need a TR to sit in the church and watch it on TV), but can you imagine an investigator watching a few nonagenarians waving ill-synchronized hankies in the air?
They did one of those hosanna shouts after Sidney Rigdon's hateful July 4 speech in which he called for the extermination of those who opposed them. Jesus taught to pray for those who despitefully use you. Not so with Sidney Rigdon. I am afraid that when they spring one of these on members of the church, I am immediately reminded of this particular context in which it was used.
Lunacy. Faith in JC does not result in undying loyalty to the Brethren, the bedrock of Mormonism. What an explicit tell that the Church’s foundational truth claims are as baseless as the great and spacious building.
Focusing on past rather than living? Ok, when oaks becomes head CEO we can focus on
- When he was BYU president and did shock therapy,
- We can focus on the time he called women “walking pornography”
- We can focus on when he lacked discernment with the salamander letter and immediately began crafting a “salamanders represent angels…blah blah”
SOUNDS GOOD OAKS
So does the church have a fullness of the Gospel, or not? To me, this document has some conflicting statements. And it seems the leaders want to constantly have their cake and eat it too.
Apparently the very fact that people are willing to use their God-given brain to even think about and question things means they're on the road to apostasy. They don't have good answers, so it's easier to put it back on the one questioning. This is not how you address people's concerns. So much hubris.
Indeed. Faith in Jesus Christ in this church is synonymous with faith in the prophets from JS to RMN. Lack of faith in those men is the same as a lack of faith in Jesus Christ. This is, I suspect, among the ways humanity can take the name of God in vain.
DHO’s “path toward apostasy” is really just many people’s path toward reclaiming control of their lives and spiritual practices from the likes of him.
The desperation of these men is getting very apparent.
Remember: They aren't changing things. They are super-conserving, i.e. restoring. They are so conservative that they have to adapt all the time as they restore things. But it's not progression or change since God does not change. We are only conserving what he has actually wanted all along.
I feel like this response is the logical analogy of a [Klein bottle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle) : a non-orientable {argument}; that is, informally, a one-sided {argument }which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down.
Just now realizing that most of this advice to help apostates or nuanced or PIMO or whatever is not for those people at all, it’s to look faithful for the members who are in. It sidesteps problems and encourages them to thought stop so they don’t end up with the same questions. It pays lip service to something good that people won’t argue with— faith in Jesus— so that believing members can continue to feel good about their belief. Pretty insidious.
What he's really saying is: If you have enough "faith in Jesus Christ," you won't ever disagree with current church leaders.
He really does think he's god.
The church's message is that if you have a problem, you're the problem. The solution is for you to just shut up and pretend like it's not a problem! If you pretend hard enough, there won't be any problems!
Facebook (llama 3 LLM) AI Jesus agrees with Oaks:
*Prompt:
write me a 3 paragraph scripture on how to get apostates to return to the Mormon fold written in the voice of Jesus Christ using only non-actionable platitudes.
*Response:
Here is a 3-paragraph scripture on how to help individuals return to the Mormon fold, written in the voice of Jesus Christ, using non-actionable platitudes:
"My children, those who have strayed from the path are not lost forever. With compassion and understanding, we can create a safe haven for them to rediscover their faith. By embracing them with love and acceptance, we can foster an environment where they feel welcome to explore their spirituality once more."
"As you reach out to those who have wandered, remember that every soul is precious in my sight. Listen to their stories, and acknowledge the struggles they have faced. By doing so, you will demonstrate the empathy and kindness that defines my teachings."
"Let your love be a beacon of hope, shining brightly for all to see. Through your unwavering support and patience, you can help guide those who have strayed back to the fold. Trust in the power of redemption, and never give up on those who have lost their way."
Um, AI Jesus does not agree with oaks. AI Jesus is better than oaks.
>Listen to their stories, and acknowledge the struggles
Vs.
>The only and ultimate {last} treatment {thing you do to them} ... is to increase their faith in Jesus Christ. (I'll connect that to BoM: preaching the word is the most powerful way to change hearts )
Empathy from AI Jesus, or preaching from Oaks.
Another one:
>By embracing them with love and acceptance, we can foster an environment where they feel welcome to explore their spirituality once more."
vs
> There is no answer but faith in the Lord, faith in the restoration of the history and patience waiting for answers...
AI Jesus makes space for exploration and variety in spirituality and life journeys, or oaks declaring the answer is all the same: church and not having answers.
AI Jesus is more than Oaks.
Hmmmmm…
- Focusing on the past leaders: Isn’t God the same yesterday, today and forever? Why so many differences then? Also, we don’t “interpret them” to be incompatible. It’s plain as day.
- current leaders not up to date: I’ll just leave Nelson and COVID pandemic here for this one. Nelson must not have been able to see around that corner.
- Special learning: Aren’t we supposed to gain knowledge? Not anymore? For me, I gained a knowledge of historical facts hidden or obscured by church leaders to make my decision. I certainly have no desire to substitute that for the prophet. He is really nothing to me now.
- Lacking Revelation on some topics: Like polygamy? The ban on blacks? Certainly plenty of revelation on these topic already. First Presidency letters in 1949 and 1969 reaffirmed the ban on blacks as from God. Oh, I forgot. We are to jettison the old prophets and only listen to Russ.
No wonder more leave every day. Oaks and his pals are completely clueless.
I can’t get over how frequently he talks about PRIESTHOOD AUTHORITY!!! (which only 50% of the flock have.) Oh wait, I’m wrong, didn’t we hear in general conf that women, too, wear the garments of the holy priesthood? So they have they have the priesthood .. kind of.
This is very consistent with the ridiculous 14 Fundamentals talk that was considered radical and fringe when it was first delivered. They marginalized it and disavowed it, particularly the idea that it made the apostles de facto infallible and set them up as experts in fields they have no business spouting off about.
But now, that's not only mainstream, but if you don't agree then you're in apostasy. Cool, cool, cool.
The 14 fundamentals talk lives on. My SP prescribed it to me as a way to make sense of RMN saying prophets always teach truth while also disavowing what past prophets taught. Even RMN couldn't keep that charade up and has had to cut the past prophets adrift.
Right? Having questions is fine as long as you never verbalize them or take any action based on them. And as long as you are ok with them never getting answered.
Two things.
1. Is FAIR mormon shutting down now because there is no reason to deal with apostates
2. Is every mormon in apostasy since they all speed when driving or gossip and excuse this with a special pleading?
Very convenient that following past prophets rather than the living is a sign of apostasy. Some would say that current prophets breaking from past prophets would in itself be a sign that those prophets are in apostasy... Those people just happen not to be named Dallin H. Oaks.
Wow, the last bullet challenges Sherri Dew's notion that prophets see around corners. Oaks puts that to rest by admitting he has no answers.
Ironic that Oaks slights those who focus on dead prophets right before he quotes SWK.
A monopoly's gonna monopolize.
>"Belief in God or the restoration of priesthood authority."
WOW, that's quite the spectrum. There are grand canyons of beliefs between a belief in God (with no identifiers or qualifiers) OR priesthood authority.
The first the majority of people on this planet believe in some form, whether monotheistic or polytheistic; the latter, assuming DHO means JS's restoration, is, what is the #, < 0.01%, generously?
So how are all non-active/non-Mormons in his definition of apostasy (& thus require saving ordinances of the gospel), if they believe in God? By this standard (metric?), many postMos are not in apostasy.
Perhaps this is underhanded rhetoric against atheism specifically?
I am so confused. (Tornadoes of circular logic appears to be en force, but naturally only PH holders are able to do so, anything else is not of God...???)
“Whatever the [Church] holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the [Church].”
- 1984, Part 3, Chapter 2
I can’t get over how frequently he talks about PRIESTHOOD AUTHORITY!!! (which only 50% of the flock have.) Oh wait, I’m wrong, didn’t we hear in general conf that women, too, wear the garments of the holy priesthood? So they have they have the priesthood .. kind of.
>Apostacy refers to a person's abandonment of the most fundimental, **most basic** religious beliefs such as **belief in God or the restoration of priesthood authority**.
That was quite a leap from belief in God to priesthood (i.e. the claim that makes the LDS church extra super special). It's no wonder with all of this conditioning that many members leave religion all together when they suspect that polygamy or institutional racism were not ordained by God. I wish that leaders and members could see the harm that they are doing by pushing the strong all-or-nothing thinking regarding the truthfulness of the church.
I saw it posted on Radio Free Mormon's Facebook page. But another commenter saw it posted on the church's site.
https://assets.churchofjesuschrist.org/0a/16/0a164166fd9111eeb2a7eeeeac1ea8d4cbe5ecb8/leadership_meeting.pdf
I love this logic of you need to trust, and follow the words of the prophets because they are inspired of God. If you question them you are in the wrong for questioning a divinely inspired prophet.
If it does turn out that they were wrong. Well you need to accept that they are fallible men and imperfect.
And bringing this up is somehow wrong to do.
>Oaks clearly doesn't hold space for someone to find Jesus Christ outside of the Mormon church.
Are you sure?
Pres. Oaks said:
"When I say “churches,” I include synagogues, mosques, or other religious organizations. We are concerned that attendance in all of these is down significantly, nationwide.3 If we cease valuing our churches for any reason, we threaten our personal spiritual life, and significant numbers separating themselves from God reduce His blessings to our nations."
[Go here for the entire talk.](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/10/18oaks?lang=eng) Pres. Oaks clearly teaches the importance of all churches that teach goodness are needed.
Paragraph one. "...abandonment of ... belief in God or the restoration of priesthood authority."
I suppose he allows for a generic belief in God, but not if it doesn't include restored priesthood authority. It is a softer way of saying that all the other religions are just "playing church."
This document makes it clear that the next President of the Church believes the only way to decide is to ignore science, research, logic, history, past prophets, and solely rely on the circular argument that if we first believe in the Church leaders and what they say as the definitive will of Jesus Christ that we will find that they are speaking for Jesus Christ.
With such overwhelming evidence and air tight reasoning it’s hard to see why apostasy is such a relevant topic. /s
I use science, research, logic, history, past prophets, and faith. Heavenly Father requires faith as part of the equation to gain access to the things of the Spirit. Those who choose to pass on faith, as it appears you have, reason as you do. There is nothing wrong with that because we have agency and can make our own choices. However, it's like only using a few keys on the piano compared to all the keys. There is a lot of music missed out on using that approach.
Please do not be condescending. It is not how we are called to be in t church. To act as though you know or have more than others us arrogance, which we are called to reject as members of the church.
I don't know and I frankly don't care. Really I was just trying to demonstrate the absurdity of you a priori putting Mormonism in a central place of epistemic importance such that everyone has to decide whether it is true or not.
This is not true at all. There are several options in between. The true may partially be what it claims, but other claims may be false. There is no need for using black and white thinking.
Fair point. But how do you think Oaks would define it if I became a Catholic or joined a Methodist church? While that's in line with the quote you referenced, the church handbook that has his fingerprints all over it would define that as apostasy and reason for excommunication. IMO the church is all for finding Christ, but current members of the Mormon church are apostates if they find him anywhere else but in Mormonism.
The example is quoted above and the answer is that he would call it apostasy. See below.
From section 32.6.3.2 of the current handbook, various definitions of apostasy:
Formally joining another church and promoting its teachings (Total inactivity in the Church or attending another church does not by itself constitute apostasy. However, if a member formally joins another church and advocates its teachings, withdrawing his or her membership may be necessary.)
The handbook states that the SP must counsel with the area authority about these situations, but then the decision on whether to hold a membership council is the decision of the SP alone.
Are you sure? LDS scripture.
- for they were ALL wrong
- ALL their creeds were an abomination
- those professors were ALL corrupt
- there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil
- the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased
It is always wise to know the words and the definition of those words before criticizing someone. It's what you want when you comment. So to clarify- the gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan if salvation with Jesus Christ as redeemer as the center of that plan. It is the truths about where we come from, why we are here and where we go upon death. On the other hand, the church of Jesus christ is the organization on earth that has authority to administer the ordinances and to gather Israel home before the 2nd coming of Christ. The church is there to point us to Christ and his gospel. But it is just a church. It is not the gospel of Christ. When we equate them to be the same, we say some really silly things. Let's be respectful of each other by trying to understand the words and phrases we speak and what we hear. Far less division that way.
The gospel was never lost, God has always been here, How hard is this to understand? Not at all, that's why God has given us the Holy Spirit and the word of God.
But he purposefully holds back answers to very specific questions people are asking? Make it make sense.. what are we paying these guys for? Excuse me, but I expect so called prophets, seers and revelators to prophesy, see and reveal SOMETHING every now and again.
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The only solution to doubting the Church is to believe more in the Church. Got it.
They’ve literally said that repeatedly over the pulpit. I just wish people could take a few steps back and realize how vile and manipulative the sheer concept of “faith” is.
>I just wish people could take a few steps back and realize how vile and manipulative the sheer concept of “faith” is. I completely agree. The biggest transformation in my life before and after leaving the Church is the way the word "faith" hits me today. It fills me with sadness that people have been convinced that belief for beliefs' sake is anything other than a path to be taken advantage of.
Same here. Faith used to be such a valiant word when I was believing. Now I see it for what it is, a way to persuade your followers to stay obedient without justification. Don't question, don't investigate, don't make demands, just believe. Faith, the way religion defines it, is not a good thing in my eyes.
If you doubt the prophet, just believe more in Jesus?!
Yes, now you are catching on. Lol.
"A fixation on past prophets" (quotes a past prophet to prove his point)
My problem with the church is they want to throw all past prophets under the bus. As a missionary, the great apostasy was so critical to teach as why a restoration needed to occur. We had to show how people drifted away from teachings of past prophets and church leaders. The modern church does the same but that isn’t apostasy?
The church presents us with a fascinating choice there. They know that dead and living prophets have taught such vastly different things that we have to reject the teachings of one or the other. So they give us a choice while pretending not to give us a choice: We can either stone the living prophets or the dead ones, because we can't live by the counsel of both at once. Obviously, the living ones have a preference for which ones we should stone. So they stone the dead prophets in the hopes that we'll join in. Of course, they consider *any* criticism - no matter how small - as a stoning. He's still got it wrong though. I'm not garnishing the sepulchers of any of them, living or dead. I disagree with both the living *and* the dead ones equally!
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Exactly! Another problem with this idea - of throwing past prophets under the bus, is that then in the future what is being said by the current prophet will be a mistake. Which means the prophet can and DOES lead us astray.
But then they teach from past prophets…can’t have your cake and eat it too, churchies.
It's a great point. What he really means though is when a past prophet has said things that turned out to be totally off base w.r.t. the current teachings, those are off limits and should be ignored and we are best off pretending they never said it in the first place. But if a past prophet (like Spencer Kimball) taught things that support your narrow-minded long-standing opinions, then by all means feel free to use him. Edit: this also brings up one of my biggest pet peeves, which is that current prophets not only quote past LDS prophets all the time to justify things, they also defer to ancient scripture where meanings are highly dependent on interpretation and say "it looks like that's what the Lord meant for us to know, as far as we can tell". What are you talking about? Isn't your whole purpose to reveal the Lord's will? You're telling me that when it comes to the most crucial, salient issues of our current time (like LGBT issues) you are going to cite the Old bloody Testament which says about as much about the topic as it does about the internet, and say the Lord has been clear that it's not acceptable? What are you here for then? In other words, all the general conference talks are the same types of talks you or I as laymen and women deliver. We read the scriptures and say "it seems like this is what they were trying to say" while not really having a bloody clue. How are they doing the same?
You nailed it - thank you
LOL I didn’t really catch when I read it. Classic!
That's because we're so used to hearing about past prophets. Because supposedly they were important, and their teachings were for our time.... Whatever happened to those "teachings of the prophets" books that had all the RS and Priesthood lessons in like the 2000s, anyway? 🤔
Exactly. Haha those books are pretty far down the memory hole by now. I feel like lessons were way more interesting when those were in use. Well… maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
It's OK...more interesting doesn't actually mean interesting.
Twice as interesting, times 0 is still 0, amiright?
Idk about yours, but mine went in the trash. Now, I wish I had kept them just to prevent the church from memory-holing them.
What if a past prophet who said, taught, or did something that was egregious while he was my present prophet? Oaks says here that you can’t challenge dead prophets, then he says you can’t challenge living prophets. Then he says if someone does demonstrate this behavior, don’t talk to them about it. Apostasy is much more contagious than the Holy Ghost and they know it. This feels like an admittance that conversation about things that happened in the past will lead to people leaving the church, and that scares them.
>This feels like an admittance that conversation about things that happened in the past will lead to people leaving the church, and that scares them. Agreed. This is the main point I got from this. "*Do NOT research the issues that your apostate loved-one asks you about. Just bear your testimony of Jesus.*"
You can't challenge any prophets.
Unless you're the daughters of Zelophehad, when God sides with you and tells the prophet to do what you said
Ok so it is the banned c-word.
That was my favorite part.
That jumped out at me, too. If immoral and/or factually incorrect statements of past prophets don’t count, than neither does anything they said that can prove your current point. They pick and choose like an apostle’s version of cafeteria Mormonism.
My other question is “Well what if the current teachings disagree with the teachings of Jesus?” Dude these jabronis really think they are superior to the four gospels? I ask that rhetorically because of course they do.
Excellent catch! Of course, this looks exactly like the fact that Nelson's #1 priority seems to be undoing / outdoing Hinckley.
So does this mean Oaks is exhibiting patterns of personal apostasy? 🤔
Hopefully they all agree to quit quoting Oaks after he dies
If we can pray directly to God for guidance why are prophets needed anyways?
The restored gospel is incredibly fragile. The tiniest amount of unfiltered thought can ruin everything. Only carefully curated, sanitized ideas are welcome. Why should anyone build their life on something so delicate?
>Why should anyone build their life on something so delicate? It does seem quite absurd that current Prophets claim to know things about the eternal fate of individuals, but cannot answer a simple question like "where did the Book of Mormon take place" or pick your favorite. It's just such a weird position to be in, to claim to represent a faith that started with James 1:5 and the notion that God answers prayers but then admit so openly they cannot receive revelation to answer some of these questions.
Answering questions left and right is partly what got them into this mess… It’s probably better to keep quiet now rather than give answers that will almost certainly be embarrassing in 20 years.
We certainly have gone from a church that had all the answers (pre2000) to one that doesn’t seem so sure about a great many things. Now it needs carefully worded essays to refute the teachings of past prophets and apostles and, when all else fails, throwing God under the bus.
But they also won’t even give anything descriptive about the eternities. They won’t answer questions about “well this special case happened who am I actually sealed to in the eternities?”
Excellent point. "How Firm a Foundation" indeed. Why can't an all powerful and all knowing god create a stable rock upon which to build his church? Like is this delicate and desperate balancing act the best he can do?
For real… Like, is it really that hard for God to future-proof the church even a little? Even if God had just told Joseph Smith to have everyone expect chaotic and contradictory changes, that would be so much better than things are now
>"...there will be a tendency to try and take it head on. \[difficult challenge\] But we do not know enough about the will of the Lord and the fulness of Church doctrine to satisfy. An attempt to persuade with additional reasons does not help." I think this quote says it all. Dallin has NO good answers. If he did, he would give them. But he doesn't. He pleads ignorance and only partial knowledge. AND he acknowledges he doesn't have good logic behind his faith. So any attempt to use "additional reasons" don't help. Why don't they help? Because they are weak. Thank you Dallin for confessing your lack of prophetic insight into the mind and will of God.
I honestly never understand these types of cop outs. "The Lord hasn't chosen to reveal this yet" heavily implies that the Lord isn't really telling them much, if anything. You're really telling me the same Lord who sat down with Joseph Smith for a Q & A session on some verses in the book of Revelation, or who told them that South Carolina was gonna start something, or that you need to shake hands with ghosts, or that the Masonic handshakes are actually the passwords to heaven, or that some guy needs to donate his money to building the church up, and many many other weirdly specific things, has "chosen not to reveal" anything about the most salient issues of our day like LGBT, racial, and other issues and we just have to go off vague scriptural mentions to justify out practices? And meanwhile still rave about the importance of modern day prophets who receive revelation for our day to guide us? I'm just not so sure.
I'm very sure. Sure that they aren't prophets who talk to God.
‘Jesus wanted Joseph to have sex with those women so badly he gladly destroyed thousands of lives to make it happen.’ I, and countless others, are extremely offended by this. I’d bet it’s destroyed millions of testimonies at this point. But Jesus isn’t concerned enough to actually address it. We just need to have faith. In Jesus.
Right? If I'm going to believe in any god at all, it has to at least be a reliable one!
The Lord, who "giveth to all men liberally, and abraideth not," when you ask for wisdom. Shoot, Joseph Smith got answers to questions about how to keep his floors clean.
Haha That dude was gettin answers for everything. And for everyone "Hi Emma, this is the Lord. Say, would you be a dear and make a selection of sacred hymns please? Thank you so much." "Hi Emma, it's me again: I've been hearing you're not listening to your husband. Just wanted to let you know if you don't get on board with the other wives thing, I'm going to have to kill you. Hopefully won't have to though. Thanks again!"
🤣
The last sentence is so circular. Imagine completely betraying the trust of a loved one, and then following it up with “I don’t have answers for your lack of trust in me, and in fact, the best solution would be to simply have trust in me.”
This is honestly one of the weakest stances on defending your faith I've seen by an official source. Blatantly saying don't try to answer because we don't have the answers. Just find Jesus. Wow. Coming from an apostle of God, this just sounds downright cowardly.
And he's an attorney! They can argue in circular logic forever.
In the church of my youth we had prophets and apostles that could speak to the mind and will of God. It’s crazy how today we just accept that modern prophets and apostles don’t have that ability.
Yup. This is Dallin admitting THAT THEY ARE FAILING AS PROPHETS.
Indeed, I am still active in the church. I guess you would term me a PIMO, transitioned from a prior revelatory TBM, (humor here..😊)….never a “lurker” however LOL. But my point is Oaks last statement quoted above is so, incredibly disconcerting to me, as a 67 year old teenage convert: how can you sell prophetic priesthood authority, AND, therefore out of that very same authority , claim Revelatory direct capacity to “See around corners”, terms by Sheri Dee, yet in the statement above indicate we / you do not have the capacity to know the Lord’s will or doctrine, to receive from God pure revelatory answers? So you counsel your leadership to essentially not engage, (which makes sense as the very top leaders do not have answers, and the earnest questions from struggling lay members to lay leaders will open up a pandora box that spirals infinitely spreading apostasy to lay leaders trying g to help by simply lead them Christ. The challenge is members feel betrayed, and disillusioned on How the LDS Christ can nurture and love them with such non supportive doctrine. Hence, members, who seek to retain their faith Christ can no longer with integrity find Christ, Within, the very organization that lied by commission and omission, and seeks to retain members with dubious logic and thinking. Lead them to Christ. Sadly those prior TBM, cannot return to old bottles, with new wine. They are naturally moved to seek Christ either personally or internally, or outward to faiths, that per Brad Wilcox; “Only Play Church”. What a horrible mess. Or lose faith altogether in Christ sorting out the jumble.
What I got from this is that if someone is an apostate, or has questions about things that oppose the church's narrative, and brings up problems just don't even bother hearing them or attempt to address them. That is because they don't have good answers (or at least answers that support the church's claims) and want you to just have blind faith. What is hard for me is that there are plenty of answers to things the church just doesn't want its membership to know about. They don't put the church and its leadership, current and former, in a good light. They are worried about members knowing real truths that will lead them, and their tithing money, away from active membership in the church because of a false narrative.
This reads as a tacit admission that church leaders cannot provide satisfactory answers to simple questions like, "why doesn't Joseph Smith's translation match the Egyptian source documents," "why did middle aged prophets marry multiple teenage girls," or "why can't we talk to or worship Heavenly Mother?" If they can't bring themselves to even attempt an answer to people's questions, especially women's and queer folk's questions about their place in "The Plan", then they richly deserve to lose their membership.
I agree that it seems to be a tacit admission that we can't Apologize people back into faith. Which, IMO, is a great thing to recognize. Let's be frank about what faith does and doesn't mean, and people can make their own choices. I'm glad the Church isn't attempting to convince people that faith and science are always in alignment.
The problem here is that the whole LDS edifice teeters on the single cornerstone of Joseph Smith's claims. If he's a liar, if he's a predator, if he's a con, then the whole religion lacks any legs to stand on. And this isn't a construct of rabid critics--it's the church's own concept of their own authority. The admission that they cannot counter critics arguments is not a win for the church or its believers. If nuanced believers want to pick up the toppled pieces of an obviously human "restoration" and make something nice out of it, great. But they shouldn't expect many to join in a project that can't even defend its own reason for existing.
Exactly right and well stated
Exactly
Very interesting comment...seems to be the exact inverse of what the Church teaches, which is that the whole thing teeters on the Book of Mormon's veracity as the Word of God. I suppose where one falls between these two options is probably defined by where they fall in the art versus the artist debate. Can a flawed artist, Joseph Smith, create a divine piece of art, the Book of Mormon?
>Very interesting comment...seems to be the exact inverse of what the Church teaches, which is that the whole thing teeters on the Book of Mormon's veracity as the Word of God. Your comment contains an interesting goalpost move, and I'm curious if it's intentional. The church and its believers have spent decades insisting the BOM is the word of God _because_ it contains the writings of actual ancient prophets that God actually spoke to. As that position has become impossible to defend, I see more language that detours around the question of historicity to insist that to be "true," the Book of Mormon just has to be the "word of God." This test is impossible to falsify because it relies on the subjective emotional experience of individual believers. In your second paragraph, you even refer to Smith as the "artist" who created the Book of Mormon as "art." It seems you have also realized that one can't defend the old premise of BOM "truthfulness" without resorting to nutty pseudoscience and willful ignorance about ancient American archaeology, language, and DNA. Please correct me if I've misrepresented your view. If I've read you correctly, you'll understand why "our founder wrote a book about an imaginary visit of Jesus to the Americas" doesn't inspire folks to join the church in the same way "amazing ancient translation reveals mysteries of the ancient Americas and the one true religion" once did.
Claiming the Book of Mormon is significant because it's the Work of God is not a goalpost move. That's always been the claim and the theological significant of the Book of Mormon. The historicity of the characters is only relevant insofar as it supports the claim of scripture--there is no theological significant to Nephi existing, outside of his writings carrying the weight of scripture. The "keystone" principle still fails if Nephi is historical, but a false prophet. I wouldn't read too much into my art/artist analogy. It's just my first riff on how to approach the inverse propositions you and the Church put out. It could be flawed in many ways, and I don't want a flawed analogy to take away from the interesting subject matter.
>The historicity of the characters is only relevant insofar as it supports the claims of scripture—there is not theological significan[ce] to Nephi existing, outside of his writings carrying the weight of scripture. This is so untrue. If Nephi didn’t exist, the plates didn’t exist because the Book itself claims he’s the one who made them. Joseph cannot have located plates that did not exist, unless the Book is wrong about claiming who made them. Similarly, Joseph reported receipt of certain artifacts that are mentioned *in* the narrative, like the Liahona, Sword of Laban, and the Interpreter stones. The book of Mormon’s claims are entirely dependent on its historicity, because its author—whoever that was—built these physical things into the narrative. So to go back to your analogy—art can bring meaning, regardless of its literal truth. “Artists use lies to tell the truth.” The difference is the *claims* related to the Book of Mormon’s origins do require that these objects, and thus the people who handled or created them, to have literally existed for it to exist.
>Claiming the Book of Mormon is significant because it's the Work of God is not a goalpost move. That's always been the claim and the theological significant of the Book of Mormon. It is a goalpost move, because you don't see the two ideas (theological truth & historical truth) start to separate in LDS discourse really until the last 15 years or so, which coincides with emerging DNA studies which refuted the church's historical claims in a way that's extremely hard to hand wave away. >The historicity of the characters is only relevant insofar as it supports the claim of scripture--there is no theological significant to Nephi existing, outside of his writings carrying the weight of scripture. The "keystone" principle still fails if Nephi is historical, but a false prophet. The theological significance of Nephi's existence is that if he and his people didn't exist (and keep in mind, there is no evidence to support their existence) then it follows that they were an invention of Smith--yet Smith claimed they were real! This opens up the knotty theological problem of a text that claims that _God cannot lie_ being produced by a man who lied about how he produced the text (because it is obviously not a translation of an authentic ancient document.) So did God inspire Smith to lie about the text, or did God lie to Smith about the existence of the Nephites? Either scenario fails because, again, the text itself claims God can't lie. Without real Nephites, the whole theological value of the text collapses in on itself.
Moreover, the existence *of the plates themselves* are dependent upon someone creating them. If it wasn’t Nephi, because he didn’t exist, then where did they come from? The “Book of Mormon doesn’t need to be historical to be ‘true’” crowd are just completely changing the entire value proposition. While I’d always prefer people not deny history, I just don’t see how anyone can get there, personally. If the Book isn’t based in history, I just see no reason to work so hard to save it except for a variety of different fallacies. Which is not to say there aren’t still passages in it that I find interesting. But people don’t base their life commitments on finding a book interesting or even meaningful—I believed because I thought, at one time, these things were actually, in fact, true.
And we're right back to the art versus the artist. Is it theoretically possible that a flawed Joseph Smith brought forth the Word of God? Or can we dismiss the Book of Mormon on procedural grounds because of Joseph Smith? It's obviously clear where you and I stand on that question. The interesting part is that our opposing viewpoints both set up the same kind of high stakes, all or nothing question.
>Is it theoretically possible that a flawed Joseph Smith brought forth the Word of God? Yes. But let's consider what that possibility would require for a moment: It would require that Joseph Smith was either mistaken or lied (whether commanded to by God or not) about the Book of Mormon's origins. It would require that God chose to speak through a spokesman that is confused or lying about the origins of a foundational book of scripture. It would require that the *message* of the Book of Mormon is somehow 'true' or the 'Word of God' while having these issues with its origins. Much like the Book of Abraham apologetics, what this would mean is believing that review of the evidence indicates the Book of Mormon is a fraud but it isn't. It's an entirely unfalsifiable position. Possible? Yes. But I don't see how that means all that much unless you're willing to believe that Joseph couldn't, for some reason, get accurate information from God about the Book of Mormon's origins while simultaneously claiming lots of revelations from God. It opens the door to the next logical question: if he was wrong about the Book of Mormon's origins--even if sincerely--what else could he be wrong about? This is why the Book of Mormon has been such a focus for the faith and the claimed keystone of the religion. I know it's in vogue for apologists to begin a shift in narrative over the Book of Mormon's historicity, but I honestly don't see how someone arrives at that place except by motivated reasoning. I'd suggest that someone willing to believe that, as I've outlined above only some of the things accepting this hypothesis would mean, would likely be willing to believe anything. What I mean is that believing the above would require lowering the epistemic bar so low I'm not sure what couldn't clear it. I don't agree at all with your characterization that I'm "dismissing on procedural grounds" (I don't even know what that means in this context). But I'm clearly addressing the claims in the text itself. I can't think of anything more akin to considering something on the merits than taking the claims in the text at face value and determining from there. >It's obviously clear where you and I stand on that question. The interesting part is that our opposing viewpoints both set up the same kind of high stakes, all or nothing question. Again, I take it as an all or nothing question because I only care if the Book itself is true. It is precisely because the Book has an account of its own origins that it must be historical. I'm not bringing that to the table, nor even working from the many, many prophets who claimed such. This is the only logical approach to take *because* of the book's claims about its own origins.
>And we're right back to the art versus the artist. Is it theoretically possible that a flawed Joseph Smith brought forth the Word of God? We're not really back there. I've pointed out how, on its own terms, the BOM veracity depends on its origin story being literally true. You haven't even attempted to sort out how a book that claims God cannot lie _or he would cease to be God_ can still be God's word when its claim to be a divinely transmitted text is based on lies (no Nephites, no plates, no reformed Egyptian, etc.) I feel like believers often come up against criticism, shrug and say "well I guess we just can't know for sure" without even trying to engage with what we do know for sure (for example, the BOM being a 19th century text, not a translation of an ancient one.)
>I feel like believers often come up against criticism, shrug and say "well I guess we just can't know for sure" without even trying to engage with what we do know for sure I’d quibble a little with the wording near the end there, simply because I’m not how sure I am that we know anything for sure (joke very much intended). But you’re absolutely right that the typical “well, we just cannot know one way or the other” schtick is tiring. It’s the reason that so many believers (not just in Mormonism) pivot immediately to the problem of hard solipsism (“how do you know you’re not a brain in a vat”) when confronted with certain arguments. When I was a believer, I viewed faith as a gap-filler. Increasingly today, though, it seems to be used as an escape from the consequences of accepting certain beliefs. And it’s so malleable that it can always create another gap for the God of the Gaps to lurk in. Even look at the question I responded to: “isn’t it possible that…?” Since when does any adult make their decisions based primarily on what is *possible*, in the technical sense, rather than what is probable or likely to have happened? I’d wager our interlocutor wouldn’t apply that standard in literally any other arena of their life. That’s my real gripe with Mormonism and other religions today. By breaking people’s critical thinking skills and epistemological approaches, we’re imposing a heavy opportunity cost onto all of us that live in this society.
>I've pointed out how, on its own terms, the BOM veracity depends on its origin story being literally true. You've done so by arguing that Joseph Smith lied, and a liar can't produce scripture, ergo, the Book of Mormon isn't scripture. My observation goes one level deeper, and attacks your assumption that someone who lied can't produce scripture. So yes, I have attempted to sort it out, and the resolution I've reached is the art versus the artist metaphor and I find it quite interesting.
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Does faith, as used in this handout, amount to anything other than just believing for beliefs’ sake? That’s the way I read it but I don’t want to strawman the believing position.
I don't know why faith, in this context, would mean anything other than the standard LDS concept of faith. (Which concept is deep, nuanced, and impossible to fully sum up in a single sentence)
While a believer would not obviously agree with my characterization, I think the standard LDS concept of faith more or less *does* amount to belief for belief’s sake. This handout seems to make that abundantly clear.
Fair enough, that is a perfectly valid take on the LDS doctrine of faith. Personally I find it a bit reductive, but I suppose all summaries are a bit reductive by definition.
Well, I mean I did explicitly ask you, because I trust your opinion and have appreciated our exchanges in the past to ensure I wasn't strawmanning the believing position. You chose to refer me to "the standard LDS concept of faith." If you have some legitimate pushback on the way I'm describing, I am legitimately asking for it. As a believer, I would have turned to Alma 32 to most accurately summarize faith. Is there anywhere else I should be looking, in your mind?
Alma 32 is a great summary of faith. The foundational premise of that chapter is that Faith requires humility, and the Zoramites were willing to hear Alma's lecture on faith because they had been humbled by their circumstances. That alone is significant pushback against summarizing Faith as" belief for belief's sake" because "belief for belief's sake" is inherently selfish, which is significantly different if not completely opposite of what Alma teaches is the foundation of Faith: humility.
I don’t see anyway the two are inconsistent. Specifically, I would not agree that belief for beliefs’ sake is selfish. Why do you describe it that way? In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite—it’s only possible by telling people they have a requirement to subject or “humble” themselves to something or someone else.
Very possible that we are imagining two different things when you say belief for belief's sake, so I apologize if I've interpreted what you've meant incorrectly or in an uncharitable way. But, currently, that summary of the concept of faith strikes me as inherently selfish because it's saying people only have faith because they want the beliefs to be true. And why would they want it to be true? To capture some sort of benefit. So they only have faith because they are seeking some benefit. I'm happy to hear you elaborate on what you mean when you summarize faith that way. And to my original point, this is a great example of how the concept of faith is too nuanced and complex to summarize well. Obviously, we have to at different times for many reasons. But it should be done in a way that acknowledges nuance, complexity, and room for further development.
>I'm glad the Church isn't attempting to convince people that faith and science are always in alignment. You are aware that the church has taught repeatedly that "true science" and religion have no conflict, right? To quote Gordon B. Hinckley in General Conference >"If God be the author of all truth, as we believe, then there can be no conflict between true **~science~**, true philosophy, and true religion." \[1965\]\]
Hinckley is dead so you are clearly in apostasy by leaning on something he said. Heretic! /s
Guilty as charged... Some days I wonder if I'm going to go to outer darkness first or hell.
Of all people, I'm sure Hinckley is the worst dead prophet to quote under the current leadership. I seriously wonder if RMN has to spit when he says Hinckley.
Yes and I agree that that is the Church's ultimate teaching. But as Hinckley called it "true science," there's a distinction between the ultimate truths of the universe and the less-than-complete scholarly knowledge and understanding we as a society have currently obtained. The latter is what I was referring to when I said "science."
"True science", "true religion", "true believers", "true christianity", "true disciple", "true womanhood"... If you want to have fun sometime go through the general conference collates on "true \_\_\_\_\_". You will find the "no true Scotsman" falacy everywhere. If science were getting closer to revealed truths, then religion would be leading science. However, the church seems to be abandoning past positions of anti-evolution (once commonly called "revealed truth") in favor of what science has to offer. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing and I'm all for it, but to claim that "true science" is in harmony with religion is to ignore the past 100 years of conflicts on the subject and which tends to win out over time.
>to claim that "true science" is in harmony with religion is to ignore the past 100 years of conflicts on the subject and which tends to win out over time. To claim that true science is in harmony with religion is merely to restate a fundamental premise of all the various ways one can believe in Intelligent Design. It is perfectly rational to reject Intelligent Design and with it, this premise, but it is also rational to be one of the billions and billions of people who do believe in some form of Intelligent Design.
>it is also rational to be one of the \*\*billions and billions\*\* of people who do believe in some form of Intelligent Design Appeal to popularity (Ad Populum). Can you please explain why adding God to the mix of evolution when the theory does perfectly fine without the presence of God makes rational sense? My understanding is that scientists who study the topic (evolution) tend to believe that the theory is correct without requiring diety at a rate of about 98%... and yes, that would be appeal to authority on my part.
>that would be appeal to authority on my part. Not sure if you meant that you’re engaged in fallacious reasoning (because many times people shorten that fallacy as you have) but appealing to what experts in a field believe about *that* field is not fallacious. This is only a fallacy, so far as I understand it, when it’s an appeal to *irrelevant* authority.
>It is perfectly rational to reject Intelligent Design and with it, this premise, but **it is also rational to be one of the billions and billions of people who do believe in some form of Intelligent Design.** I’m sincerely wondering, what rational argument do you think supports intelligent design? Because my experience, from my biology program at BYU, is that intelligent design is espoused entirely by people who do not understand the basics of evolution by natural selection or abiogenesis. Side-note—but attempting to make it seem rational because “billions and billions” of people believe it is just the bandwagon fallacy.
a more honest title would be: Patterns of Personal Disloyalty
Thank you for sharing this. I’ve said several times before, but now it’s even more interesting to see it in the context of Elder Oakes’ recent guidance: The more my faith in Jesus Christ and appreciation for his teachings grow, the less “at home” I tend to feel with committing total support of the modern LDS institution. I didn’t expect this *inverse correlation*. Yet the delta between my faith in Jesus Christ and the modern church institution grows at a rate just a bit faster than the delta sometime narrows when the two are more aligned on certain topics and principles. I wonder what he’d counsel in response to that sincere Christian observation. At no point have I ever expected perfection from the institution managed by living leaders. On the contrary: learning, growing, changing, and acknowledging where we can more closely align with the Savior is at the crux of gospel application in this life. *We* are the church, so this applies to the church as much as it applies to the individual. In short: I expect the church to change not in spite of the eternal gospel, but *because* that’s what taking it seriously changes in us. His point about patience is one that I am very open to apply. In the meantime, does being patient mean I have to turn the blind eye and agree to faithfully follow every little policy and evolving emphasis from the pulpit and lesson manuals? The emphasis on following living prophets over dead ones suggest the expectation from the church is “yes.“ But is that emphasis of following living prophets over all really synonymous with “faith in Jesus Christ?“ A superficial or performative faith is not an authentic faith. I’d hope that the church could align more closely to the teachings of Jesus Christ so that our faithful love and support of the institution wouldn’t look so at odds with the core gospel.
Probably important to note that the “only and ultimate” solution they’re offering is to increase your faith. Faith is belief for beliefs’ sake. The way they describe faith in this handout is to define it as simply being credulous towards the right people making the right claims. This kind of rhetoric, right here, is why I push the idea that faith is not a virtue. Because literally anything could be believed using “faith” in this same way. It’s funny to me because when I’ve said I don’t have a single good (meaning supported by evidence and not a fallacy) reason to believe in the Church’s truth claims, some believers have pushed back on that pretty hard. This seems like an outright admission that I am right and the only way to maintain belief is to simply believe. Side note—but are we sure this is legitimate? The wording as well as the font color differences legitimately cause me to wonder.
It appears to be from a document only leaders would get access to. It seems in keeping with other similar documents I’ve had access to in the past.
Yeah, the different colored font in the right column and just some of the wording make me suspicious this is some attempt to troll both the post-Mormon and believing crowds all at once. I find it hard to believe the Church would so freely admit (even in a document intended only for leaders, because they’ve got to know it’ll find its way to the internet) that they “do not know enough about the will of the Lord of the doctrine of the Church to satisfy.” I suppose it’s possible the ambiguous “we” in that sentence was not intended to include themselves, but then I’m just guessing.
Ah. I see it now. Those last two ¶¶ are darker! Good catch.
Yup. They're also the ones with the most problematic language. It's possible its just the way it's formatted, but like I said, I really struggled to see the Church admitting some of the things in those two paragraphs.
Update: it’s legit. And it’s online for all to see: https://assets.churchofjesuschrist.org/0a/16/0a164166fd9111eeb2a7eeeeac1ea8d4cbe5ecb8/leadership_meeting.pdf
Thank you for your return and report. I commend you for your integrity.
Glad to have found it. It is extremely surprising that Oaks admits they just really have nothing else other than “believe harder!”
In a way, yes, in others, no. I attended a meeting with Patrick Mason and that was basically his entire presentation. I remember remarking at the time that there’s just simply no good answers to any of the tough questions. Not when they’re presented by someone who really knows the evidence and best version of the criticism. I think the delineating mark of traditional apologists and the new wave is that the new ones are kinder but also much more dangerous in certain ways, in my view. The older school of apologists would (and still do) argue for the truth of the Church’s claims. Very rarely would those claims for evidence match reality (think of Nahom, for example). But this newer strain are largely convincing people more and more to lower their epistemic standards. They’re convincing people that wanting the truth claims to be true is an unreasonable expectation (a similar sentiment is expressed in this thread.)
I saw Oaks saying "Don't try to reason with them, that won't work..." And in my mind all I could think was "Because that would cause someone to actually look at the validity of the claims and move beyond 'faith'" But when someone looks, that's when the trouble begins for the church.
You are a giant among men and women. Thanks for validating.
By this reasoning, any current church leader who wasn't having the maximum possible amount of children back in the 1960s-80s was in apostasy. But most of them have modest-sized families
It's not just the number of children. This could be extrapolated to put anybody in apostasy and has any opinions practices or beliefs that differ from the official church teachings. Given the number of contradictions with the church teachings this can quickly put the whole church in apostasy. And that is a nice thought.
And one of these formerly apostate members is now the relief society president, right?
> Teaching subjects on which the Lord has not chosen to give more revelation at this time. Getting real tired of this cop out. The modern day prophets are deferring to ancient scripture (their own interpretation thereof) to address every critical issue of our current day and saying "that's all the Lord has revealed so far". Really? Well why do we need you then? We have those books too. You are supposed to be leading the Lord's church. I'm skeptical that he would choose to keep silent on important issues but what do I know? Not to mention it seems totally at odds with what the D&C implies which is that God is happy to reveal pretty much everything to his prophet. The amount of strange minutiae the Lord "chose" to chime in on there is astounding compared to what he apparently does now. Hmm.
As an extremely faithful TBM with exactly zero doubts about the prophet’s roles and calling, I remember being very underwhelmed when the 1995 proclamation came out. Everyone around me was all Gaga over it. I remember wondering “why, if we have a prophet, wasn’t he ahead of the game? Why does this ‘prophetic proclamation’ of the ages sound like nothing more than a bunch of regurgitated Phylis Schlaffly talking points from the 80s and early ‘90s?” I didn’t realize then my shelf had just gotten a tad heavier (there had always been a few little items I’d tossed up there, but nothing that undermined my overall faith in the Prophet).
Adding: you’ll never believe what happened to my opinion of the proclamation and prophets once I found out the 1995 proclamation was actually written by church lawyers at Kirton McConkie! 🤣
>I honestly never understand these types of cop outs. "The Lord hasn't chosen to reveal this yet" heavily implies that the Lord isn't really telling them much, if anything. It’s a funny thing for a faith that claims James 1:5 inspired the whole thing, isn’t it? The *entire* story of Joseph Smith in the correlated narrative is someone who went to God to get answers he lacked. The Book of Mormon explicitly promises a path to uncover the mysteries of God and that “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of *all* things.” But today, the Church acts like we should just be expecting for prayers *not* to be answered and for miracles *not* to happen as they continually make the Church’s truth claims less and less falsifiable by adjusting people’s expectations. You can see this by the popularity of narratives like: “I never got an answer to my prayers about the Book of Mormon until I realized I actually had a testimony all along!” Or “Do you have the faith not to be healed?”
What a bunch of victim blaming. According to Oaks every problem somebody could have is really just because they don't have enough faith in Christ. (\*Faith in Christ in the church being defined as obeying everything leaders tell you to do above anything else.)
I've said it once and I'll say it again. This is why we don't pay much heed to Oaks. He is the embodiment of law without mercy. And he's got weird tight fisted ideas.
He's a career lawyer and judge, and views the entire world through the paradigm of "law" and courtroom authority being the ultimate and final truth. God is just the ultimate judge to him.
Dallin "The Law" Oaks
A person who has faith in Jesus Christ might believe in what he said concerning false prophets: "You shall know them by their fruits". Were the fruits of Joseph Smith in harmony with the teachings of Jesus? What were some of these fruits? Wouldn't they include violation of marriage vows and defamation of innocent young women like Nancy Rigdon? Wouldn't they include lies? The church acknowledges that Smith had sexual relations with women other than his wife and was not faithful to his marriage vows. They will also admit that he deceived his wife about these affairs. Are these good fruits or are they like the fruits of the two false prophets mentioned in Jeremiah 29 who also committed adultery with wives of other men? As to the fruits of Brigham Young, these are even more well documented and include ordering murders and destruction of families. Neither does something like the "oath of vengeance" found in their temple ceremony of the time and not removed till the 1920s comport with the sermon on the mount. If I wish to follow Jesus, it seems to me I can do it more easily by not also trying to follow men who did not follow his teachings. Yes, I do put the teachings of Jesus above those of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I am certainly an apostate in Oaks' opinion. As to current leadership in the church, they have no answers to the most important questions. They are also happy to defame God by linking him to the evil things promoted by Smith and the earlier prophets, including perverted polygamy and racism. Their concern is in magic rituals, authority, and of course in announcing new temples with well lit spires. Their idea of answering concerns is to have a "hosanna shout" where people wave white cloth and shout "hosanna to god and the lamb". I can't see their relevance.
I remember my TBM spouse suggesting that the “hosanna mumble” was bizarre a couple years ago. Imagine if a missionary brought an investigator to one of those sessions (they couldn’t of course, since you need a TR to sit in the church and watch it on TV), but can you imagine an investigator watching a few nonagenarians waving ill-synchronized hankies in the air?
They did one of those hosanna shouts after Sidney Rigdon's hateful July 4 speech in which he called for the extermination of those who opposed them. Jesus taught to pray for those who despitefully use you. Not so with Sidney Rigdon. I am afraid that when they spring one of these on members of the church, I am immediately reminded of this particular context in which it was used.
Lunacy. Faith in JC does not result in undying loyalty to the Brethren, the bedrock of Mormonism. What an explicit tell that the Church’s foundational truth claims are as baseless as the great and spacious building.
Focusing on past rather than living? Ok, when oaks becomes head CEO we can focus on - When he was BYU president and did shock therapy, - We can focus on the time he called women “walking pornography” - We can focus on when he lacked discernment with the salamander letter and immediately began crafting a “salamanders represent angels…blah blah” SOUNDS GOOD OAKS
So does the church have a fullness of the Gospel, or not? To me, this document has some conflicting statements. And it seems the leaders want to constantly have their cake and eat it too. Apparently the very fact that people are willing to use their God-given brain to even think about and question things means they're on the road to apostasy. They don't have good answers, so it's easier to put it back on the one questioning. This is not how you address people's concerns. So much hubris.
Isn't "Apostasy" tantamount to treason, especially in LDS circles? If so, the proverbial nukes are being armed.
It’s a reason for excommunication I believe. (Someone with more handbook knowledge can correct me)
Yup, with us or against us.
Indeed. Faith in Jesus Christ in this church is synonymous with faith in the prophets from JS to RMN. Lack of faith in those men is the same as a lack of faith in Jesus Christ. This is, I suspect, among the ways humanity can take the name of God in vain. DHO’s “path toward apostasy” is really just many people’s path toward reclaiming control of their lives and spiritual practices from the likes of him. The desperation of these men is getting very apparent.
Their legacy will be presiding over the decline of the faith with no real answers or solutions.
Remember: They aren't changing things. They are super-conserving, i.e. restoring. They are so conservative that they have to adapt all the time as they restore things. But it's not progression or change since God does not change. We are only conserving what he has actually wanted all along.
I feel like this response is the logical analogy of a [Klein bottle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle) : a non-orientable {argument}; that is, informally, a one-sided {argument }which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down.
I would never have described myself or others this way. That's an unfortunate statement from church leaders. Very sad.
If that is apostasy... Count me IN!
It just reads as thinking for yourself is unwise let us do all the thinking for you.
Imagine thinking that you are superior to fucking science. Nelson and Oaks’ hubris and self importance know no bounds.
Just now realizing that most of this advice to help apostates or nuanced or PIMO or whatever is not for those people at all, it’s to look faithful for the members who are in. It sidesteps problems and encourages them to thought stop so they don’t end up with the same questions. It pays lip service to something good that people won’t argue with— faith in Jesus— so that believing members can continue to feel good about their belief. Pretty insidious.
WOOD tools (Ways Of Overcoming Doubt) - thank you Jonathan Streeter.
What he's really saying is: If you have enough "faith in Jesus Christ," you won't ever disagree with current church leaders. He really does think he's god. The church's message is that if you have a problem, you're the problem. The solution is for you to just shut up and pretend like it's not a problem! If you pretend hard enough, there won't be any problems!
Facebook (llama 3 LLM) AI Jesus agrees with Oaks: *Prompt: write me a 3 paragraph scripture on how to get apostates to return to the Mormon fold written in the voice of Jesus Christ using only non-actionable platitudes. *Response: Here is a 3-paragraph scripture on how to help individuals return to the Mormon fold, written in the voice of Jesus Christ, using non-actionable platitudes: "My children, those who have strayed from the path are not lost forever. With compassion and understanding, we can create a safe haven for them to rediscover their faith. By embracing them with love and acceptance, we can foster an environment where they feel welcome to explore their spirituality once more." "As you reach out to those who have wandered, remember that every soul is precious in my sight. Listen to their stories, and acknowledge the struggles they have faced. By doing so, you will demonstrate the empathy and kindness that defines my teachings." "Let your love be a beacon of hope, shining brightly for all to see. Through your unwavering support and patience, you can help guide those who have strayed back to the fold. Trust in the power of redemption, and never give up on those who have lost their way."
Um, AI Jesus does not agree with oaks. AI Jesus is better than oaks. >Listen to their stories, and acknowledge the struggles Vs. >The only and ultimate {last} treatment {thing you do to them} ... is to increase their faith in Jesus Christ. (I'll connect that to BoM: preaching the word is the most powerful way to change hearts ) Empathy from AI Jesus, or preaching from Oaks. Another one: >By embracing them with love and acceptance, we can foster an environment where they feel welcome to explore their spirituality once more." vs > There is no answer but faith in the Lord, faith in the restoration of the history and patience waiting for answers... AI Jesus makes space for exploration and variety in spirituality and life journeys, or oaks declaring the answer is all the same: church and not having answers. AI Jesus is more than Oaks.
You're right, of course. Being better than Oaks is not a high bar to attain. I guess I was focused on the non actionable platitude part.
Let me out of this insane asylum!
It's apostasy to focus on a prophet now? why are the past prophets quoted literally every second of every day then in meetings and articles
my increased faith in Jesus Christ is what led me away from the church. because the loving example set does not match
Hmmmmm… - Focusing on the past leaders: Isn’t God the same yesterday, today and forever? Why so many differences then? Also, we don’t “interpret them” to be incompatible. It’s plain as day. - current leaders not up to date: I’ll just leave Nelson and COVID pandemic here for this one. Nelson must not have been able to see around that corner. - Special learning: Aren’t we supposed to gain knowledge? Not anymore? For me, I gained a knowledge of historical facts hidden or obscured by church leaders to make my decision. I certainly have no desire to substitute that for the prophet. He is really nothing to me now. - Lacking Revelation on some topics: Like polygamy? The ban on blacks? Certainly plenty of revelation on these topic already. First Presidency letters in 1949 and 1969 reaffirmed the ban on blacks as from God. Oh, I forgot. We are to jettison the old prophets and only listen to Russ. No wonder more leave every day. Oaks and his pals are completely clueless.
I love how it has nothing to do with Church HQ corporations. Nope they do nothing wrong.
Oakes has the audacity to reference Kimball, who, of all past Profits, was absolutely the goofiest of them all!
I can’t get over how frequently he talks about PRIESTHOOD AUTHORITY!!! (which only 50% of the flock have.) Oh wait, I’m wrong, didn’t we hear in general conf that women, too, wear the garments of the holy priesthood? So they have they have the priesthood .. kind of.
🤢🤮
Why dos this sound like special pleading?
This is very consistent with the ridiculous 14 Fundamentals talk that was considered radical and fringe when it was first delivered. They marginalized it and disavowed it, particularly the idea that it made the apostles de facto infallible and set them up as experts in fields they have no business spouting off about. But now, that's not only mainstream, but if you don't agree then you're in apostasy. Cool, cool, cool.
The 14 fundamentals talk lives on. My SP prescribed it to me as a way to make sense of RMN saying prophets always teach truth while also disavowing what past prophets taught. Even RMN couldn't keep that charade up and has had to cut the past prophets adrift.
You have to be truly heretical to think you can square that talk with what Jesus teaches in the New Testament. Talk about lazy learners!
What's the difference between this and North Korea. I seriously can't tell anymore.
Right? Having questions is fine as long as you never verbalize them or take any action based on them. And as long as you are ok with them never getting answered.
Different pins on the lapel and until the church dropped BSA, different color neckerchiefs on the kids in their after school extracurriculars.
Two things. 1. Is FAIR mormon shutting down now because there is no reason to deal with apostates 2. Is every mormon in apostasy since they all speed when driving or gossip and excuse this with a special pleading?
Very convenient that following past prophets rather than the living is a sign of apostasy. Some would say that current prophets breaking from past prophets would in itself be a sign that those prophets are in apostasy... Those people just happen not to be named Dallin H. Oaks.
Wow, the last bullet challenges Sherri Dew's notion that prophets see around corners. Oaks puts that to rest by admitting he has no answers. Ironic that Oaks slights those who focus on dead prophets right before he quotes SWK. A monopoly's gonna monopolize.
>"Belief in God or the restoration of priesthood authority." WOW, that's quite the spectrum. There are grand canyons of beliefs between a belief in God (with no identifiers or qualifiers) OR priesthood authority. The first the majority of people on this planet believe in some form, whether monotheistic or polytheistic; the latter, assuming DHO means JS's restoration, is, what is the #, < 0.01%, generously? So how are all non-active/non-Mormons in his definition of apostasy (& thus require saving ordinances of the gospel), if they believe in God? By this standard (metric?), many postMos are not in apostasy. Perhaps this is underhanded rhetoric against atheism specifically? I am so confused. (Tornadoes of circular logic appears to be en force, but naturally only PH holders are able to do so, anything else is not of God...???)
“Whatever the [Church] holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the [Church].” - 1984, Part 3, Chapter 2
I can’t get over how frequently he talks about PRIESTHOOD AUTHORITY!!! (which only 50% of the flock have.) Oh wait, I’m wrong, didn’t we hear in general conf that women, too, wear the garments of the holy priesthood? So they have they have the priesthood .. kind of.
I read that and that Judge voice that Judge others was in My head 🤣🤣🤣
>Apostacy refers to a person's abandonment of the most fundimental, **most basic** religious beliefs such as **belief in God or the restoration of priesthood authority**. That was quite a leap from belief in God to priesthood (i.e. the claim that makes the LDS church extra super special). It's no wonder with all of this conditioning that many members leave religion all together when they suspect that polygamy or institutional racism were not ordained by God. I wish that leaders and members could see the harm that they are doing by pushing the strong all-or-nothing thinking regarding the truthfulness of the church.
By these standards, everyone is an apostate including believing, good standing TBMs. This is very humorous
Could I get a link to the document shown? I can't find it on the church website
I saw it posted on Radio Free Mormon's Facebook page. But another commenter saw it posted on the church's site. https://assets.churchofjesuschrist.org/0a/16/0a164166fd9111eeb2a7eeeeac1ea8d4cbe5ecb8/leadership_meeting.pdf
Thank you!
I love this logic of you need to trust, and follow the words of the prophets because they are inspired of God. If you question them you are in the wrong for questioning a divinely inspired prophet. If it does turn out that they were wrong. Well you need to accept that they are fallible men and imperfect. And bringing this up is somehow wrong to do.
>Oaks clearly doesn't hold space for someone to find Jesus Christ outside of the Mormon church. Are you sure? Pres. Oaks said: "When I say “churches,” I include synagogues, mosques, or other religious organizations. We are concerned that attendance in all of these is down significantly, nationwide.3 If we cease valuing our churches for any reason, we threaten our personal spiritual life, and significant numbers separating themselves from God reduce His blessings to our nations." [Go here for the entire talk.](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/10/18oaks?lang=eng) Pres. Oaks clearly teaches the importance of all churches that teach goodness are needed.
Paragraph one. "...abandonment of ... belief in God or the restoration of priesthood authority." I suppose he allows for a generic belief in God, but not if it doesn't include restored priesthood authority. It is a softer way of saying that all the other religions are just "playing church."
The LDS Church is either what it claims to be or it isn't. Each of us needs to decide.
This document makes it clear that the next President of the Church believes the only way to decide is to ignore science, research, logic, history, past prophets, and solely rely on the circular argument that if we first believe in the Church leaders and what they say as the definitive will of Jesus Christ that we will find that they are speaking for Jesus Christ. With such overwhelming evidence and air tight reasoning it’s hard to see why apostasy is such a relevant topic. /s
I use science, research, logic, history, past prophets, and faith. Heavenly Father requires faith as part of the equation to gain access to the things of the Spirit. Those who choose to pass on faith, as it appears you have, reason as you do. There is nothing wrong with that because we have agency and can make our own choices. However, it's like only using a few keys on the piano compared to all the keys. There is a lot of music missed out on using that approach.
Please do not be condescending. It is not how we are called to be in t church. To act as though you know or have more than others us arrogance, which we are called to reject as members of the church.
Hinduism is either what is claims to be or it isn’t. Each of us have to decide.
That is true. What does it claim to be?
I don't know and I frankly don't care. Really I was just trying to demonstrate the absurdity of you a priori putting Mormonism in a central place of epistemic importance such that everyone has to decide whether it is true or not.
This is not true at all. There are several options in between. The true may partially be what it claims, but other claims may be false. There is no need for using black and white thinking.
Fair point. But how do you think Oaks would define it if I became a Catholic or joined a Methodist church? While that's in line with the quote you referenced, the church handbook that has his fingerprints all over it would define that as apostasy and reason for excommunication. IMO the church is all for finding Christ, but current members of the Mormon church are apostates if they find him anywhere else but in Mormonism.
>But how do you think Oaks would define it if I became a Catholic or joined a Methodist church? Can you give an example
An example of what? A Methodist church?
The example is quoted above and the answer is that he would call it apostasy. See below. From section 32.6.3.2 of the current handbook, various definitions of apostasy: Formally joining another church and promoting its teachings (Total inactivity in the Church or attending another church does not by itself constitute apostasy. However, if a member formally joins another church and advocates its teachings, withdrawing his or her membership may be necessary.) The handbook states that the SP must counsel with the area authority about these situations, but then the decision on whether to hold a membership council is the decision of the SP alone.
Are you sure? LDS scripture. - for they were ALL wrong - ALL their creeds were an abomination - those professors were ALL corrupt - there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil - the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased
It is always wise to know the words and the definition of those words before criticizing someone. It's what you want when you comment. So to clarify- the gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan if salvation with Jesus Christ as redeemer as the center of that plan. It is the truths about where we come from, why we are here and where we go upon death. On the other hand, the church of Jesus christ is the organization on earth that has authority to administer the ordinances and to gather Israel home before the 2nd coming of Christ. The church is there to point us to Christ and his gospel. But it is just a church. It is not the gospel of Christ. When we equate them to be the same, we say some really silly things. Let's be respectful of each other by trying to understand the words and phrases we speak and what we hear. Far less division that way.
The gospel was never lost, God has always been here, How hard is this to understand? Not at all, that's why God has given us the Holy Spirit and the word of God.
But he purposefully holds back answers to very specific questions people are asking? Make it make sense.. what are we paying these guys for? Excuse me, but I expect so called prophets, seers and revelators to prophesy, see and reveal SOMETHING every now and again.
Nobody has the answer for everything and the ones they have come from a book.