In order to get any serious notion of how to run a system of churches from the Bible, it is important to read into the text what you want it to say.
I know there are a lot of LDS people here
- Thread starter green
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In order to get any serious notion of how to run a system of churches from the Bible, it is important to read into the text what you want it to say.
Because LDS doctrine (as is currently revealed) only allows the POSSIBILITY of plural marriages with one husband and multiple wives. But it doesn't FORCE the marriages into eternity, plural or otherwise. Why would it?
You are misstating LDS beliefs.
I think he got that one right.
It seems green doesn't believe equal rights for women includes the possibility that two or more women could choose to associate with one another under the plural marriage covenant.
Of course ordinary temple sealings in this day are contingent upon a lifetime of faithfulness to God in the desire to progress towards one day being much more like God in our character, and things like cancellations and failed covenants here below may be all too commonplace. . . . but it is ultimately God who will judge us all and in Mormon belief will accept our faith in Christ and further offerings of deeds and faith in determining who will be "moving on up" in His order of things.
The ultimate fact of a faith belief in God is that it cannot be made subject to human criteria, theoretically, or it is no longer, theoretically, "God's Religion", but ours.
It might be useful to green to reflect on that a bit before going headlong on a crusade for social justice aimed at reforming a religion. . . .I find myself coming up against that restraint when I am going off on one of my critical tangents. . . .
The NY Times is now covering an apparent effort to have a "mass resignation" in protest of the policy change.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/...policy-on-gay-couples-and-their-children.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/...policy-on-gay-couples-and-their-children.html
I saw this. And I have no problem with how they are going about it.
I do wonder how large this "mass resignation" will be. I have my doubts it will include any more than a dozen active members. It will mostly be non members, LBGT advocates and inactive members that had no intention of going back to the LDS church anyways.
We'll see how many people actually resign their membership because of this. If you look at the Facebook event that the Times article links to, there are 1200 people signed up to attend. I'd bet most of those are not members, or are members in name only (i.e. haven't been to church in years but haven't bothered to remove their names from the rolls). So maybe a hundred active members? Something for church leaders to be concerned about but not really what I myself would call a mass resignation.
J
JAZZGASM
Guest
You are right. This is not how membership ends. The number of people resigning now is a drop in the bucket. How many people will just stop going? From my experience, most people that leave the church don't care about taking the time to revoke their membership. I have a large group of Mormon friends, and a large segment of that group have told me they don't know if they want to continue going. Many other members like green will just stick with the status quo because it is easier, but it doesn't mean they still have the same feeling about their church. Another friend asked me if he should have his membership removed. I asked him if it mattered to him, to do it, and if not, why waste the time? Technically, he is still a member.
The other side of the coin is how the church is losing supporters. Up until this "policy" while I know it is not true, I would defend the church and it's values. I won't do that anymore. This hurts the church much more than a few lost memberships. It tarnishes many members and nonmembers view of the institution.
I don't disagree with any of that. however I will continue to defend the church on issues I feel warrants it.
J
JAZZGASM
Guest
ROFL. Oh, OK, so just based on what all the doctrine states I am correct, but that is all that has been revealed, it could be different. Hard to have a discussion with responses like this. Sorry.
When I left the church my bishop sat me down and asked me why I was leaving. I gave him many things that didn't make sense to me to the point I couldn't continue as an active member, including these (abridged).
1-The inconsistency of the "missing pages". The small plates are very vague, written different than any historical test (names were important back then). Essentially the story becomes much more detailed towards the end of the section where the small plates were still being translated.
2-J. Smith was convicted of glass looking in NY over two years before he translated the BOM. Essentially he put special stones into a hat and told farmers if they gave him $ he'd find treasure on their lands, and of course, he never did. This was three years before "translating" the BOM in much the same manner. An additional charge of glass looking was brought but JS fled out of NY before the trial.
3-Historical inaccuracies in BOM, glass mentioned but did not exist. Horses, cimeters (Scimitars), elephants, steel, silk, Barley, wheat, goats, pigs, etc., did not exist at the time or had not been brought to the Americas.
4-Moroni and Comoros (Moroni and Comorah) were in William Kidd treasure hunt books that were very popular at the time.
5-No one but JS physically saw the golden plates (spirtual eyes).
6-Jaredites and Nephites shared names despite the Jaradites being of a different time, place, and language than the Nephites.
7-The Book of Abraham/Egyptian burial scrolls
8-A lot more, but the above were the ones that concerned me most
My bishop has answers for everything, and every answer, while probable, seemed unlikely. My response after our discussion, in shorthand, was essentially the aphorism "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras". Every justification I hear is zebra. But the worst one was, well, yeah, that may not make sense but that is just what has been revealed. Sorry, carries no weight.
J
JAZZGASM
Guest
I don't disagree, but IMO, the main reason I defended them has gone out the window. I think I spoke with you about my defense of the church a long time ago via PM. Those reasons do not exist if the church is going to have policies like this.
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I don't do the ROFL thing.
I think intellectually-oriented thinkers will have issues with any religion. I could do this whole routine with any Christian religion, and with any other religion as well. I realize that the aspect of human nature that flows into religious faith is keyed on other aspects of our whole beings. If we were not willing to make wholesale concessions to participate in religious communities, we would have no religious communities. Even OB can see that if I required my religion to comply with all my little scruples, I'd have no community to support, and if everyone did that, there would be 7 billion religions.
It appears to me, since I got myself a textbook on Egyptian language and writing, that the Pearl of Great Price has nothing to do with the scrolls which were adduced as the text the "translation" was based on.
Some of the objections based on estimates of ancient American resources and technologies don't stand up to actual materials on exhibit in museums in the Hopewell area.. . the mound people did have cement, steel, and some other stuff the B of M mentions, and there is evidence supporting a genocidal war at the end of the Hopewell age, about 400 AD. I am sure the deep layers of bones in some areas excavated for the Erie Canal, and other Hopewell artifacts surfacing in the early 1800s fuels notions of wonder at the people who lived there anciently, like Solomon Spaulding. . . . who I believe is a relative of mine. . . . . who wrote little romances about it like "Manuscript Found". He was familiar with the iron-making skills demonstrated by ancient people in the Ohio area.
What I find most compelling is the historical account of Joseph Smith reading the Book of Mormon in Carthage Jail when he knew the mob was assembling and reasonably concluded that it was his last day among the living. Joseph Smith believed the Book of Mormon.
If I was charged with translating or producing a "faithful" text as I believe he was, I'd probably have a lot of critics who could reasonably question me on the basis of my past as creative writer and spinner of tales, and working for various people in various jobs. I think I've even played with little "peep stones" at some point, but it was just some kind of joke.
The larger criticism of the Book of Mormon is the post-Christian theology it lays out. Jesus in His lifetime believed he was a Jew, and some of his followers were attending synagogue in Jerusalem long after his crucifixion, and it required Paul arguing with Peter to move the believers over to being a religion for the whole world. I like the Book of Mormon, but it is obvious to me when I read the theology of Paul in it throughout.
But I can't argue with what I believe because of my own relationship with God, as I think I have cause to believe, and that belief fits with nothing but Mormonism.
The LDS Church policy announcement, while I understand the sort of life it makes for kids, is OK with me. When I was a missionary, I knew of a family where the children and mom all wanted to be active baptized Mormons, but the father refused to give consent because he met the proselyting elders in the local red-light house one night. The elders got excommunicated, and he lost respect for the Mormons. I think basic lifestyle issues are valid concerns for any religion or belief system, and we get to make our rules where we think it makes a difference. I am sure there will be kids who can persuade their local leaders to permit them to be baptized regardless of their parents' lifestyle. Those kids will affirm their belief in eternal marriage for heterosexual monogamists, and their parents will say "yeah, he/she really doesn't believe we're a good example of eternal marriage, we won't quarrel with one another about it."
I support the policy announcement because it is consistent with the Mormon basic belief set, and a lot of people need that clarification for their faith.
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