McKenna Denson brings it; gets put down

[LogGrad98]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if this woman finally found the courage to out a rapist after 30 years, then more power to her. Also, what an absolute disgrace for any man to try and physically stop her from doing so. All that does is add credibility to the fact that religious organizations routinely try and cover this **** up. I understand that it's an awkward situation with kids listening, but too ****ing bad. If you don't want **** to come out in this way, stop covering it up when women do report such things privately.

And yes, there's no doubt in my mind that the Mormon church has covered up a lot of this type of dirty laundry over the years, much like the Catholics.

Again, I haven't taken the time to read all the details about this. I only watched the video up until the point those two *** clowns physically removed a woman who had to live with her nightmare for 30 years before she had the courage to do this. Good for her and hopefully it makes the church re-think how they handle these kind of issues.

I agree with this take. I do not think they should have physically tried to remove her from the pulpit. I do, however, understand the feeling they probably had that made them want to get her to stop. It was undoubtedly uncomfortable for all, and I could see, in the heat of the moment, a misguided leader or simply a friend of the family or relative or whatever move to stop her. It isn't that weird, while it was inappropriate imo.

As others have brought up, was this the correct avenue for this kind of thing? I honestly don't know. If it were just her baring her soul and reaching some level of catharsis or closure, that is entirely valid. However, the presence of multiple cameras and then the dissemination of the videos as almost propaganda seems to add an air of disingenuosness (is that a word?) to the whole thing. Cheapens it, tbh, imo. Was it done for her to confront her accuser, or for her to get attention. Maybe it was to bring attention to the topic so it doesn't get swept under the rug, could be and I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Still seems agenda-driven and a that is a bit off-putting, tbh.

However, I fully support her right to confront her accuser. The statute of limitations on things like this needs to be abolished. If you sexually abuse someone you should be made to pay for it, whether it happened while you were 20 and get caught at 80. You had 60 intervening years of peace, while the victim had years of pain you caused.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I do not assume every calling is inspired. There is no way that every second assistant teacher to the deacon's quorum is a calling by heavenly messenger. And of course every human being makes mistakes. Any given calling in a ward, I feel that God really probably doesn't really care who fills it, as I believe it falls in the "any good thing is a good thing" category of answers to prayers (such as a lot of the things we pray just simply aren't earth-shattering, and I believer that often God expects us just to simply use our free agency and choose something).

I feel that the church would have you believe, however, that the higher the calling, the more directly divine intervention had something to do with it. If you found out that a newly appointed apostle was a sexual predator, how would that make you feel? I don't think that the President of the MTC (or even a Bishop or Stake President for that matter) is really that far down this scale. I would hope that a good amount of inspiration went into these callings. Of course there will be Stake Presidents who don't get or don't follow their inspiration, and so you will have Bishops and the like called who probably shouldn't have been. We know that any organization run by men will be subject to the foibles of men, as JS points out in the outset in the D&C. However, when it gets into things like Mission Presidents, General Authorities, and the like, I would hope that an organization that is supposed to represent the eternal Father of Heaven and Earth would have more direct intervention from the one whose name the church bears.

I have seen this a few times in my life, in both my personal experience (as in people I directly know) and second-hand.

My BIL is a bishop, as I think I have mentioned here before, and he and I have had this conversation. He was part of an Elder's quorum when a Stake President was accused of rape and sexual misconduct. The local authorities were notified, by the accuser, not by the church. He eventually copped to a plea and did something like time served and probation, or whatever. And the church did...nothing. Literally nothing. He continued taking the sacrament (the man was in my BIL's ward), attending the temple, etc. No repercussions, to this day as far as we have heard (honestly I haven't asked my BIL lately, I think I will text him about it), and this event was nearly a decade ago. (I think I actually wrote about this one on here before, not sure)

What message does that send? Does that mean that God has withdrawn His support of the church when He allows that kind of blatant disregard of His laws among the leaders of His church? If not, how is it explained? As others have pointed out, these are not isolated instances.

I still cautiously hope that everything will turn out as it should, as I do believe that God has a higher knowledge than we do, he can see the whole puzzle while we are trying to make sense of a few disjointed pieces, so to speak. But how these will fit together is definitely beyond me at this point.

Thanks for posting and responding.

I don't know if we will ever know why the Savior called an apostle that would betray him, or in Joseph Smith's time there were apostles and other leaders that did some very wrong things. It would be difficult today to handle if an apostle did something like this or the equivalent.

I know what I know, and people doing extremely stupid and hurtful things will not change that, but it is disturbing and efforts should continue to be made to stop these things from happening as much as we can. Pretty much impossible though, because people will do what they want to do and find a way, especially if addicted.

I guess things like this will further increase the gap between believers and non believers. If the Gospel is about faith, these difficult questions increase the need for people of faith to have consistent spiritual experiences, or we will lose our faith when confronted with the messed up things that happen in the world, especially the messed up things that can and have happened involving church members or church leaders.

Myself, I keep my faith in the Lord and have had enough experiences and experience to know I need to continue to have them to stay strong in this changeable world. Many things don't make sense, but on the flip side, many things do, and as I learn more and understand the Gospel more and my role, it brings peace despite all of the bad around us. I do think we as Church members need to stand up for right more than we do, I think we need to encourage people around us to turn to God and do better in a positive way (not holier than thou), and I think we need to step in and stop things like this from happening if we can. Not just as leaders, but as friends and neighbors, and family (I hope this is not the case). I think we show more love by stopping this sort of stuff if we can, unfortunately much of it happens "in the dark" with nobody around, and I don't know how to stop that.