Leaderboard

Let’s add some more context here. The source is Journal of Discourses 9:150; a sermon given in 1862. I’m posting about the last fourth of the sermon. I will bold the extracts already cited: I will say a few words in regard to your belief in being led, guided, and directed by one man. Brother Jackman has said that our enemies hate the fact of our being led by one man. Thousands of times my soul has been lifted to God the Father, in the name of Jesus, to make that verily true in every sense of the word, that we may be led by the man Jesus Christ, through Joseph Smith the Prophet. You may inquire how we are to know that we are so led. I refer you to the exhortation you have heard so frequently from me. Do not be deceived, any of you; if you are deceived, it is because you deceive yourselves. You may know whether you are led right or wrong, as well as you know the way home; for every principle God has revealed carries its own convictions of its truth to the human mind, and there is no calling of God to man on earth but what brings with it the evidences of its authenticity. Let us take a course that leads to the perpetuity of the natural life which God has given us, and honor it. Should we pursue this course faithfully, and never bestow one thought for the life that is to come, we are just as sure of that immortal life as we are of the life we now possess. This, in fact, is the only way in which we can be prepared to inherit that more glorious life. What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually. Brother Joseph W. Young remarked this morning that he wished the people to receive the word of the Lord through his servants, be dictated by them, and have no will of their own. I would express it in this wise: God has placed within us a will, and we should be satisfied to have it controlled by the will of the Almighty. Let the human will be indomitable for right. It has been the custom of parents to break the will until it is weakened, and the noble, Godlike powers of the child are reduced to a comparative state of imbecility and cowardice. Let that heaven-born property of human agents be properly tempered and wisely directed, instead of pursuing the opposite course, and it will conquer in the cause of right. Break not the spirit of any person, but guide it to feel that it is its greatest delight and highest ambition to be controlled by the revelations of Jesus Christ; then the will of man becomes Godlike in overcoming the evil that is sown in the flesh, until God shall reign within us to will and do of his good pleasure. Let all persons be fervent in prayer, until they know the things of God for themselves and become certain that they are walking in the path that leads to everlasting life; then will envy, the child of ignorance, vanish, and there will be no disposition in any man to place himself above another; for such a feeling meets no countenance in the order of heaven. Jesus Christ never wanted to be different from his father: they were and are one. If a people are led by the revelations of Jesus Christ, and they are cognizant of the fact through their faithfulness, there is no fear but they will be one in Christ Jesus, and see eye to eye. My takeaway: Young wasn’t worried about a day when the Church authorities would lead us to sin. He was worried that without divine confirmation, we wouldn’t follow the Church authorities zealously enough to truly come to Christ, change our natures, and attain salvation.

And we close the first session reminding everyone that no, we ain't budging an inch on our beliefs about gender, marriage, or family. Zero room to doubt here.

I don’t think you can extrapolate from the above, a calculated policy of trying to make Mormonism look more like other Christian sects: 1) From the get-go Mormonism held that monogamy was the rule and polygamy was the exception. As you say, the underlying theology of plural marriage is very much intact in the church and in our scripture. 2) From the inception of the priesthood ban, it was known that it would someday end (though various authorities did not always agree about when, why, or under what circumstances that might happen). The change in policy was viewed as a fulfillment of prophecy, not a reversal. 3) Without going into too much detail here: the nuance you miss about the old portrayal is that it ultimately became clear that the minister was *deceived*, not *knowingly colluding*; and that he readily cast aside old deceptions in favor of new truth once it was revealed. As for the reason for the liturgical change—the focus on exclusively Christian theological errors simply became less relevant as Mormonism made preliminary inroads (and anticipated making many more) into societies that were not historically Christian. But as far as theological differences go, we still consider ourselves to be right and many of the “orthodox” teachings to be in error. 4) It’s hard to engage you meaningfully in this without knowing which scholars, apologists, and teachings you are talking about. As a general response, though, I will make two observations: First, Mormon apologetics of late has, rightly or wrongly, been trying to broaden Mormonism’s appeal by drawing a distinction between (and this is my own terminology here) core doctrines that good Mormons are bound to accept, versus ancillary teachings that may be deeply embedded in Mormon discourse and culture but that a Mormon may individually choose to reject without adversely affecting his or her spiritual journey. In that sense, you’re probably right that some unique LDS teachings (some of the aspects of theosis, for example) have been shunted into the “ancillary teachings” category. That said, I think they’re too deeply embedded in Mormonism to go away unless the Church leadership makes a much more aggressive effort to stamp them out than it has hitherto done; and I don’t think that’s going to happen. And second, many of the so-called “unchristian” teachings in early Mormonism were actually *very* much within the Christian mainstream of their day (e.g. “curse of Cain”). To the degree that Mormonism sometimes gets itself into theological trouble, I find that it’s often because we pay too much attention to what other Christians think we should be believing and teaching and doing.

As was just announced, Sunday schedules will change to a 2 hour block. Sacrament meeting will be 60 minutes and will focus on the Savior and the Sacrament. Classes will be 50 minute and will alternate each week. Sunday School will be the 1st and 3rd Sunday. All other organizations besides Primary will be the 2nd and 4th Sunday. Primary will meet each Sunday. 5th Sunday under the direction of the local leader.

Thank you. That FAQ page is really helpful. See #10 on the FAQs page from the link zil posted.

I don't want to say " I told you so" to those that thought I was crazy to even suggest that they would announce this.

I think it depends on what you mean by "Mormonism" and "orthodoxy". By "Mormonism", do you mean the body of the Saints of God? Or do you mean the institutional structure of the Church and the formal doctrines taught therein? I will assume the latter. That leaves us with the question of "orthodoxy". What do you mean by that? In the sense of the Orthodox Catholic Church? No. In the general sense of orthodoxy? Depends on what you mean. In the sense of the overall "orthodoxy" of larger Christianity, e.g. the belief in the Trinity and in the incorporeality of God? No. Or do you mean in the sense of being "orthodox" to foundational LDS teachings? By definition, the Church is and has been "orthodox" to its own teachings. So it would be wrong to claim that "Mormonism", either the formal institution or the body of Saints, is moving toward what it has always held to. Huh. I guess maybe it doesn't depend. The answer appears to be "no" in any case.

Honestly, I think this is a quote that is highly misunderstood by many, and has been used by some to think they know more than the prophet (or that the Lord will reveal something to their mind in contradiction to the Lord's prophet -- when they are acting in their authority and keys). I believe this quote correlates perfectly with Joseph Smith's often quoted statement, "a prophet [is] a prophet only when he [is] acting as such." The prophet will not lead us astray, as the Lord will correct his servant, the prophets, if indeed they need to be corrected. This is evident with the following experience we have with Brigham Young: I do not believe at all that Brigham is implying that a prophet is able to lead us astray. I do believe that Brigham Young is teaching the following principle, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." We are here to know for ourselves. Nephi is a perfect example of "knowing" for ourselves as he learned for himself that his father was indeed following the witness Lehi received from the Lord. Laman and Lemuel on the other hand believed their father to be a visionary man. My biggest fear in this modern world of politically correct ideologies that members will be more like Laman and Lemuel due to misunderstandings of quotes like these. I think some people forget spiritual history. It was Moses that was translated, and those who thought they knew more than the prophet wandered for another 40 years and they missed out on the promises which the Lord promised due to their lack of obedience and trust in the Lord's servant. Thus we still hear whining in the wilderness even today. When a prophet is acting in his role as a prophet, and if he speaks incorrectly, the Lord will chasten his servant and correct his course. I trust in my God, my Savior, and his mercy and grace that he will correct his servant if need be. When the prophet though is acting as a man, providing his own words, Brigham's words come into full force. The Adam-God theory is a perfect example. The Apocrypha I believe are perfect examples of what Brigham is meaning also, and what we have said in scripture regarding the Apocrypha also correlates with this statement. The prophecies given by other leaders are a perfect example also. We are responsible for our own "salvation" not the prophet, and this is what I understand these statements to mean.

https://www.lds.org/manual/come-follow-me/individuals-and-families/sabbath-day

"Gender is eternal. Before we were born on this earth, we all lived as male and female spirits in the presence of God." - Elder Oaks 👍

Mormonism: Longer name. Shorter services. And now, with homework!

Yes, you do.

All of the above over the years. I've watched conference on my computer, I've gone to friends places and had friends/family over. I've watched at church buildings, I've caught up later because I had to work. I've had a cat snuggled on my lap, but currently have no pets. As far as eating goes conference often lands on Thanksgiving weekend for those of us who are Canadian and so I expect I'll be eating a turkey sandwich with leftover pumpkin pie at some point Sunday, but I can't say for sure that it will be during the conference. I tend not to eat while watching conference as it seems a little disrespectful from my perspective, but I have on occasion grabbed some munchies because I was really hungry and/or falling asleep. Staying awake through conference has always been a challenge for me. It's just so conducive to putting me to sleep, not because the content isn't interesting, but the reverent tone and the fact that I'm just sitting there not up and doing while my mind is not racing thinking of everything else that I need to get done is a recipe for sleep.

If Trump supporters are remembering good things about Nixon, then Kavanaugh-detractors must be remembering good things about Joseph McCarthy.

There never was a time that we were "gender neutral" or "non-gender."

Now in classical argumentative and condescending fashion let us all accuse those wishing for longer church of being uninspired, and then let us accuse those advocating for two-hour church of being slothful and blame the change on them for being unwilling to live the higher law of three-hour meetings 😋 Perhaps, we'll just all have to adjust and be sure we do take advantage of the additional time. My fear is that it will feel like a lot more time for about six months at which point it will become routine and the hour will be occupied with "stuff" and most everyone will be "too busy" to do ministering and so on. My suspicion is that those already doing a good job of teaching in the home will continue to do so, and I have to believe in the inspiration that this change will allow some others doing a mediocre to poor job to rise into the ranks of doing a fair to good job, I'm admittedly in this latter camp and hope to improve by getting my house in order. Our scripture "study" is currently merely reading children's scripture stories to our children at bedtime which is consistent but not terribly in depth. Maybe this can also kill the myth that ministering visits should not be done on Sundays as though being about the Lord's work is somehow Sabbath-breaking.

Sorry Vort. You can come to my house after the two hour block for gospel study if you'd like. 😁

Cool! You don't meet many Catholics who believe in Joseph Smith that sacrifice lambs before their congregation.

Wow it actually happened. I'm excited to try out the new home study Come Follow Me!

I would not suggest either. Do you divorce a spouse for becoming inactive or leaving the church? I would hope not. Do you join them in leaving the church. That, too, I would hope not. My spouse has chosen a different path for now. I have prayed, and while I receive no firm confirmation that she will come back, I do have a feeling that she will someday. But more than that I had the strong prompting to love her. It hasn't been easy at times, but I have grown tremendously.

No I am speaking about the path of the church if it continues in the way. @zil was making a joke. When President Eyring was walking toward the Pope, he was "moving toward orthodoxy". (Except that I don't think Orthodoxy recognizes the Pope as the leader of the whole Church and Christ's sole emissary. Sorry, zil.)

Actually I don't believe you're doctrine to be a heresy. Actually I believe in Joseph Smith. But I am speaking about what is the path that LDS church is going through.

I don't believe in slavery as a condition of citizenship.

Yup, Full of magazines. Checks out.

To be honest, we really don't spend much time thinking about matters of Catholic orthodoxy. We believe our church is led by Christ, through His prophets. We believe in current, ongoing revelation. So we occationally change this or that, have a revelation about this or that, emphasize something more and something else less. When these things happen, I really doubt any of us think much about whether that brings us closer to the Catholic way of being Christian, or not. I mean, I like Catholics. I know you guys see the Christian world through a motherly lens of "We raised you, and now you are off wandering strange paths, but as you mature you will come back to us, because we're Christ's church." I know you think in such terms of "this wayward child recently changed and is moving closer" and "that wayward child is still believing wrong things so I'll pray for them". But we don't. If you want to see any changes my church makes in terms of orthodox or heresy, go for it. Happy to have you here. Perhaps you might someday add to our number of former Catholics who were directed by God to come over to the restored Gospel.

http://josephsmithfoundation.org/faqs/science/11-adams-father-who-was-the-father-of-adam-do-we-have-a-royal-heritage/

Apologies for the misquote @zil it's actually 56:4

Note to self: don’t let them see inside my safe.

Doctrine and Covenants 55:4 Wherefore I, the Lord, command and revoke, as it seemeth me good; and all this to be answered upon the heads of the rebellious, saith the Lord.

Morning Sessions: 5:00 pm British time Afternoon Sessions: 9:00 pm British time Women's Session: 1:00 am British time

This was announced before the last General Conference, I believe. With the number of other announcements at that conference, it's no surprise many may have forgotten.

No. Yes. He's saying this: 3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall [hear] these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should [hear] them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. I don't agree. It's having a soft approach to the prophets words causes people to use that quote to justify what they want. It is not a result of the quote.

A cross dressing fetish is not good. I can't say for certain, but I would guess that he is at least bi-sexual. And that is most likely the real cause of the disinterest. I don't know how you fix that or if you even can fix that. But I do believe you can love each other. You have discovered that cleaning is not his thing. He doesn't really care if you clean or not. My wife would do the same. She would try and show me love through cleaning. I was grateful, but it just didn't do it for me. I really didn't care if the house was a bit of a mess. What I wanted was affection and she wasn't giving that to me so all the cleaning in the world really didn't mean much. I tried to show her affection to try and get her to show me affection. It didn't work. Essentially we were out of phase. We were both trying, but doing all the wrong things. I finally figured out that what she wanted was me to help in a big way with taking care of the cleaning. Showing her acts of service. It doesn't come natural to me. But now that I know how much she appreciates it, it is far easier for me to do and I have started enjoying it. She on the other hand has figured out how much I like her affection and she has been making strides. It is going to take some time to figure out how to love him the way he wants to be loved. And it may take some time for him to figure out how to love you. I really don't think it was the porn in his life that is the real issue here. Yes, it is a big issue. But the real issue is that he isn't attracted to women. I would bet that is why he likes you without the makeup and what not. That would make some sense. Anyway, I would forget about the porn issue for right now... Yeah, pretty hard to do. Work on loving him. You aren't going to change him, but you can change you. Learn to be patient. Learn not to judge. Learn to always be kind. Learn not to fight. There are many things about you, that you can improve. That you need to improve. Yes, your husband has many as well. Don't worry about his demons, worry about your own. He will notice. And if he is worth keeping, he will want to change as well. I know you want him to put as much effort into it as you do. He probably won't right now and you are probably going to have to be the strength for a while. I've been there. It sucks. But if you are determined to love him and be a positive force, things will get better. I appreciate you sharing. It is not easy. I can feel you are a good person. Let go of your ego and not worry about whether you are good enough or not. I don't know you, but your father in heaven does and I know that he knows you are good enough. So let your ego go. Find the things you can control and fix those things that you can. Try to let go of the things you can't control. I don't know what the future hold for you and your husband, but I know that if you really work on being a better you, regardless of what happens you will end up a better person.

Mormon.org is framed inside become.org. Note the two scrollbars on the right. Also, if on a computer, you can right click in the white space off to the side (at least in Firefox) and choose This Frame > Show Only This Frame, and it shows that the frame is mormon.org. ETA: The same is/was true with worshipwithus.org.

I just did a chat with the missionaries from become.org. Even more interesting is that I started the chat on mormon.org then switched to become.org and it maintained the same session and loaded the chat that I had started on mormon.org. So it is the real thing, but that still doesn't mean the Church owns it, someone could just be forwarding it.

Because it is Thanksgiving...pumpkin pie! In a chair, with a notebook!

Occasionally, we hear about people who lose faith based on the behavior of a bishop or stake president. Sometimes we hear about people who do dumb things at the counsel of one of these local leaders. I can't begin to know what Brigham Young intended by the quote beyond the literal meaning of the words (and I'm not in the mood right now to go find it and see the context around it), but I think as far as application goes, it can be applied to local leaders as well as prophets and apostles. Further, I think we could find something else in there - namely, if all we do is passively follow our leaders, what might we miss that the Lord would have specifically and only for us? I expect the highest levels of leadership in the Church are filled with those who are led by the Lord rather than by mortals, people who have sought that guidance not just to confirm that they should follow their leaders, but also for what else they should be doing.

The scriptures are full of allegorical teachings of a shepherd and his sheep. Jesus is both a Lamb and a Shepherd. I believe that we should follow his example. We should start as Lambs but grow into Sheep. But at some point we must evolve into shepherds. Its always better to be a sheep than a goat. But any Sheep that dosent evolve into a Shepherd is only good for a meal.

Hey! Who let you in!? At least now I know where the box of bullets and my seventh-favorite pistol went.

Brother Benevolence: “A specific promise of protection and revelation for those who strive to repent and keep their covenants.” Sister Stalwart: “Further light and knowledge about how to minister effectively to our sisters and brothers, both in our families and among others.” Brother Believing: “Instructions on what it really means to love as the Savior loves and how we can actually do that today, right now.” Sister Starry-Eyed: “A divine promise that if we take our ministering responsibilities seriously and really live by the Spirit, we can bring again Zion in our generation.” The Great and Spacious Membership: “TWO-HOUR CHURCH! SHORTER GARMENTS! EASIER TEMPLE WORSHIP! FEWER MEETINGS! QUIT WASTING OUR TIME AND PATIENCE WITH ALL THIS CHURCHY STUFF!” John 11:35 As a wise man guy once wrote: I am embarrassed for much of the membership of the Church that their idea of a monumental and joyous change inspired by heaven to bless God's children is to cut our communal Sabbath day worship by a third.

I disagree with this STRONGLY. To be fair, I agree honesty is the best policy and being open and honest should be done in every marriage. That said... My opinion. I think Pornography is damaging to anyone who watches it. I do not think it should be watched and a couple should not agree to watch it together or separately. I DO think open and honest communication is vital in a marriage and think that is a great idea, however, this is NOT something they should agree to do. I think in the end it will prove far more destructive to the marriage, even if they watch pornography together, than if they agreed NOT to watch pornography in the first place. Avoiding it will keep them stronger in the marriage. Once again, my opinion.

This site is a little concerning if not property of the Church as it is using logo and making itself look legit. Do we have anyone on here who can send this site to the Church and confirm. I wouldn't want sincere seekers to find this site and then run into wolves.

Hmm. Merge those together and you get an allergy drug: Hillaristalin.

Made me think of something Vort showed me a few years ago.

I was under the impression that California is a state run mental hospital. although not very well run.

I invoke the parallel structure argument.

@Lost Boy, here's what I hear you saying (and I'm only saying this to make a point, so please read the whole thing before your knee-jerk reaction sets you to typing): Women think wrong Women should understand how men think Women should change their thinking to be compatible with how men think1 Men don't think wrong, they just do wrong (sometimes) Love is an emotion and one's behavior has nothing to do with said emotion Now, if I wanted to, I think I could go and pick apart what you're saying and change my bullet list to match how you perceive what you're saying. Instead, I'm going to suggest that you (a) recognize that how a woman's brain works is as designed by God (or as eternal / natural) as how a man's brain works, and that if either needs changing, they both need changing; (b) that understanding will get you farther than criticism / complaint (same could be said of the wife of a porn addict); (c) that intentional or not, porn use inflicts pain on all involved; (d) that love is not an emotion, it's behavior, and what we love, we serve (aka spend time, energy, and attention on). Alternately, you can define love @anatess2's way - is your porn bringing your wife closer to Christ? No? Are you spending your time, energy, and attention on her as a wife? No? Then you're not loving her. As a final note, modernity (at Satan's bidding) has royally messed up the way men and women think about each other and their relationships. The ways in which this has been done are so subtle that I doubt the vast majority of the population are remotely aware of them, let alone how to properly think / overcome them. Complaining about the outcome, as if it were a conscious choice, is not helpful (on either side). See above. 1I expect men would really dislike this, regardless of how much they complain about how women think.

Short Answer: When you're not sure, avoid gender-specific pronouns and you avoid the problem. How do you do that? I have a lot of family in Portland and have spent enough time there to deal with it. I've found that the best way to deal with "incorrect" pronouns is to avoid them when possible. If you're talking to them, you can use you. If you're talking about them when they can hear you, you can use their name (I've had to do this when I wasn't sure what gender they were). They also works, although not grammatically correct because it is technically for plurals, it sounds natural in everyday speech. When they can't hear you (normally when pronouns are used) it shouldn't matter unless the person you're talking to is militant about pronouns.

We will all be long dead before he comes. I see no indications that a second coming is eminent.