Just_A_Guy

Why would that be, Mr. Libertarian? What else, beyond expulsion, could possibly happen? AFAIK, he’s committed no crime. He’s expressed speech—odious speech, to be sure, but speech nonetheless.

FWIW, I think 800 North (where this occurred) is well south of BYU campus. And I don’t think chalk art on common areas really counts as “vandalism” (I say this as a former BYU grounds crew worker who cleaned up more than his share of chalk, including the “permanent” kind that doesn’t just rinse off). [EDIT: Having checked Google Earth, it appears to be part of the “old campus” near the old academy building and and right in front of the old Amanda Knight Hall, which the university recently sold to a private developer. So, no, not part of the modern BYU campus.] This kid is a schlub. I do wonder if expulsion (as opposed to suspension and/or sensitivity training) might be excessive; but I suppose BYU has a reputation to protect and there’s bound to be collateral damage. 🙄

True; I was using a broad definition of agency in the same vein as (I thought) @Jane_Doe was. One could certainly quibble as to whether “agency” was the right word for either of us to do.

1. Sure. And maybe @mikbone’s experience is driven by the fact that it’s human nature for us to complain about wherever we are. When we’re at work, we complain about work. When we’re home with the kids, we complain about being home with the kids. But Mikbone was also, in context of this thread, talking about specific boys who were such louts that for any woman unfortunate to marry them (ie, potentially, his daughter), her working would have been a necessity rather than a choice. 2. Indeed. And it’s one thing to marry someone, find out post hoc that they have some kind of chronic illness or disability, and shoulder a disproportionate share of the marital responsibility thereafter out of a sense of love and commitment. I have some personal experience with that. But it’s another thing to see a potential mate and commit to them, knowing from the get-go that marriage is probably going to be harder than it would need to be given a different choice of mate. Again—props to the people who are willing to make and keep those commitments; but I will maintain to my dying day that a person doesn’t have a moral obligation to do that. I think Franklin’s old adage about keeping one’s eyes wide open before marriage and half-shut afterwards has bearing here. There’s a bizarre subculture in the Church that leans on single women to “don’t be too picky”, and tells them they should go ahead and accept the advances of whatever doofus happens to be the first one to court them. LDS women are often shamed for “discriminating” against men who lack the virtues/qualities that have defined “good husbands” in pretty much every culture in global history except our own. I see @mikbone as having empowered his daughters to push back against that culture, and I admire him for it, and I hang around this thread in the hope that he will teach me his ways. 3. Does the book say that women shouldn’t even have that kind of knowledge? Or just that men should offer to step up and do the work when they are actually there and the work needs doing? And, what talents does the book say men shouldn’t develop? Here’s an alternate assumption set for the passage you cite: a) work sucks, b) the kinds of work the author cited are particularly sucky kinds of work, and c) when you love someone, you try to do the suckiest work so that they don’t have to do it. I don’t see that paradigm as altering agency. To the contrary, I see the biggest threat to agency as being stuck with a partner who habitually shunts the dirtiest, most unpleasant work onto someone else (especially: me).

There’s a ginormous presupposition here, and that’s the idea that God would have revoked the ban in the 50s/60s if only McKay could have been trusted to implement the revocation. I deny that the failing was McKay’s. Those closest to him knew very well—he wanted that revelation. He never got it, but he dearly wanted it. I’d recommend Prince’s “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism” on that issue.

He’ll be back when he sees the tuition rates of those “real universities” . . .

My parents have bought two Subarus in the last year. It’s really quite humiliating…

The second Pfizer laid me flat for a couple of days. I’m mostly good now (this was some months ago), except for some reason I have this insatiable urge to vote for Joe Biden. It’s probably nothing . .

To the contrary, now I pad my bills more than ever! (Or was it an inverse relationship that he set up between billable and lifespan? Fetch, I’d better rethink this— [JAG drops over, dead . . .] I don’t know that Mikbone has said we shouldn’t be givin’ the wimmin’ none o’ that thar fancy book larnin’. I read him as suggesting that a) women in the gospel have the privilege of not being expected to work outside the home unless they want to, b) women in the gospel have a right to a husband who will make that happen for them, and c) seen through the lens of the Gospel, a woman’s experience at BYU is worthwhile if it makes her a better mother and wife in the new and everlasting covenant marriage, whether or not she actually gets her academic degree. The book title page that Mikbone offered, seems to provide a useful bullet list of what his view of healthy masculinity entails. I’d recommend taking another look at it, if you are truly perplexed as to what kind of vision he’s putting forward here. I don’t know that I agree with (or perhaps, fully understand) his vision in its entirety; but I think I understand the gist of it and I don’t think it’s fair to characterize it as either inherently harmful, spiritually stunting, or restrictive of agency. (Yes, patriarchy opens the door to those kinds of abuses . . . but so does parenthood, and so does love, and so does institutional education, and so does government, and so does modern medicine, and so do the structures surrounding competitive sports, and so does media; and none of those institutions get the kind of bad rap that “patriarchy” does. So we should probably ask why this one institution happens to be the only one of the above that is being almost universally pooh-poohed in our modern society; and whether that singular degree of criticism is related to the fact that that that same institution is a core concept of our temple liturgy and the crowning rituals of the church’s “covenant path”.) People will naturally speak from their own experiences; but for whatever mine is worth—among the active, temple-recommending Church membership, toxic masculinity is less of an issue than outright misandry. (Maybe toxic masculinity is more of an issue among that uneducated, rural subset of jack-Mormons who go to a cousin’s baby blessing on Sunday and shoot up with meth on Monday—I’ve known plenty of those through my work—but in my experience those aren’t the ones going to the temple and showing up regularly on Sundays and holding callings and generally making the Church work.)

I saw Phantom as a kid in LA with Crawford in the lead role. It was pretty awesome. As an adult, the plot seems amazingly stupid. it seems to me that the difference between “classic” movie musicals and the newer ones, is that the classical ones still kept the story in the forefront. The newer ones focus more on wowing audiences either by spectacle, CGI, or the star power of the performers. Thoughts on The Scarlet Pimpernel, Jekyll and Hyde, and Hello Dolly?

I think this needs a little more pushback. “Need”, as @mikbone says, is relative. I have six kids, and Just_A_Girl hasn’t done paid work since getting pregnant with our first kid sixteen years ago; and my paycheck just climbed above $70K for the first time four years ago. It was well under $45K for nearly all of the years before that. We’ve had to embrace a standard of living most of our non-LDS peers wouldn’t be caught dead living; we’ve been blessed with extended family and church supports of a nature that most of our non-LDS peers wouldn’t feel comfortable requesting or receiving (if they even had such extended family supports at all); we had to do some very careful educational and career planning at a very particular stage of our lives. But it has absolutely been possible—and worth it. I can sympathize with the argument that as time goes on, one’s financial opportunities become more and more constricted due to choices made (or *not* made) early on. But for purposes of selecting a marriage partner, which I think is the thrust of Mikbone’s point—the Church provides a pretty solid set of priorities, plans, and resources through which a man (and, in time, his sons) is perfectly capable of becoming a sole breadwinner for his family; and by the early 20s it should be fairly easy for a young lady to discern whether a potential mate has accepted those priorities and plans or not. LDS women will do what they will do; but I believe it is the responsibility of every LDS husband and father (certainly within the first world) to support his family in such a manner that his wife doesn’t have to work outside of the home unless she wants to.

I actually amazoned that (is that a verb?) when you brought it up the other day and copies were from $60 to north of $400. Got any leads on a cheaper copy?

So, I *think* I understand where you’re going; but let me ask a question and you can tell me if I’m going off on some wild tangent: 1) I think that often, though, the prophets themselves tend to pretty clear in designating a policy as a temporary or ad hoc or not-universally-applicable measure. Young and his successors did it re the temple/priesthood ban. Joseph Smith, in conjunction with the BoM prophet Jacob (and even Brigham Young) did it re plural marriage. Again, often critics and progressives tend to downplay the amount of wiggle-room that early Church leaders left on these and other issues—again, because as people who disagree with modern Church leadership, they have a vested interest in discrediting the hierarchy structures that impede the changes they want to see. 2) As it pertains to the priesthood and temple ban, and wondering if God wouldn’t provide a way that would allow for exaltation in spite of the system’s possible ill effects—isn’t that where proxy temple work comes in? 3) Probably not, but the fact that God can co-opt evil and turn it to good doesn’t justify the evildoer. Frankl’s experiences do not justify Hitler.

Oh, sure. In fact, I think we have a modern analogue with the Church’s ban on doing proxy temple work for Holocaust victims. It’s a detour, and puts the spirits of dead Jews in a situation very similar than (worse than, theologically) that of blacks before the priesthood ban. But in the short term, the decision keeps other doors open to us that would otherwise be closed and thus allows the overall work of the kingdom to move forward.

And yet . . . would they find polygamy preferable to solitude? I keep having visions of the Church permitting polygamy and “single adult” activities becoming kind of like an informational seminar for a nudist colony*—full of a bunch of creepy middle-aged schlubs, milling about and asking each other where all the hot chicks are . . . *So I’ve heard . . .

You may be right in general terms; but as to specifics—I haven’t seen Bushman or Givens concede that point, and Mason is frankly kind of a LGBTQ libertine who concedes the point precisely because he does know the ramifications for doing so. And Elder Holland’s recent talk suggests that the days of engaging in mealy-mouthed “apologetics” on the Church’s dime are numbered. I think this invokes questions about the degree of God’s sovereignty over human history. Did God want the LDS Church to pull its missionaries out of Germany in September of 1939? I doubt it. But the move was necessary due to the beginning of World War 2. It is one thing to say that the move was contrary to God’s will; it is another to say that George Albert Smith “erred” by making that decision. The priesthood ban, I think, was of a similar nature. Perhaps if American society in general, or the Church membership in particular, had been more righteous; the ban may have never been instituted or could have been lifted sooner. But that doesn’t mean that Young (or McKay, who prayed for permission to lift the ban and was rejected) “erred” in understanding the will of God and applying that will through various Church policies.

1. But when it comes to personal revelation, isn’t everything potentially subjective? Isn’t that a major reason why we have prophets—to provide a disinterested cross-check against the personal revelations we think we’re getting? Surely the answer isn’t to pooh-pooh prophetic counsel and lean to our own understanding (which we may or may not classify as “inspiration”) out of some sort of conclusion the former is “subjective” whereas the latter objective? 2. Then again, when Brigham Young says “If there never was a prophet or apostle of Jesus Christ spoke it before, I tell you . . . I know . . . . Thus dairy the Eternal I Am, what I am, I take it off at my pleasure, and not one particle of power can that posterity of Cain have, until the time comes He says He will have it taken away”—that’s pretty unambiguous. Young said he got it from God. Either he was right, or he wasn’t. 3. In isolation, sure; but Woodruff’s assurance offers some more specific guidance. It’s subject to twisting, sure—all language is. But we aren’t existing in a state of nihilism here.

I’d be interested to see what you come up with. I don’t remember if it was in this or another of @clbent04’s recent threads; but I mentioned earlier an attempt I made to write a hypothetical statement on behalf of the Church that would basically say “yes, our predecessors led you astray about this key issue in the past, but we aren’t wrong now and you can rely on us going forward. Really! We promise!” I couldn’t figure out a way to make it work. To me, that’s why it’s been so frustrating to see even apologists concede (or at least, strongly hint) that some past Church actions—especially the priesthood/temple ban—were indeed errors, when the historical record is so infamously scanty (and even, in some cases, actually supportive of the traditional/orthodox LDS position). If the binary paradigm I’ve floated is correct, then apologists simply can’t concede that kind of error. They can’t. If they do, their entire position unravels.

What constitutes a “testimony with solid footing”, if not the belief that the prophet speaks for God, at minimum, on the occasions where he specifically invokes that mantle and authority? The idea of individual prophetic fallibility over relatively minor points of theology, does not justify collective prophetic/apostolic fallibility over major points of praxis. See, e.g., President Woodruff’s semi-canonical guarantee that the prophet will not lead the Saints away from the oracles (ie revelation) or from their duty. A spurious priesthood restriction does both. It shuts black people out of a major part of the covenant path and blocks them from the saving ordinances and spiritual endowments associated with that path. It leads white Church members to limit their soul-saving outreach and fosters division. It spiritually stunts people of both races. If the policy was not a divinely-instituted short-term expedient, then it was a huge abuse of authority. It would be Very Big Deal. I frankly don’t see how one can argue that the modern Church leadership is at all credible on the controversies of today if one accepts the preposition that past Church leadership has led us, not only into piddling little errors of obscure speculative theology, but into major sins of praxis. Either we can trust that there are bounds behind which the apostles and prophets cannot pass, and that their counsel (even if imperfect, at least) provides a sort of “safe harbor” for the Church membership to follow . . . or we can’t.

Even if it were decriminalized in the US, it would likely remain illegal in the vast majority of nations in which the Church operates. As far as the Church goes—the Lord will ordain whatever He ordains; but demographically, neither we nor any population I know of could sustain polygamy long-term—at a certain point you wind up with a bunch of extra men who just don’t have anyone to marry. IIRC the only reason territorial Utah got away with the practice for as long as it did, was that female converts tended to significantly outnumber the males through the late 19th century. (Note that Utah itself was fairly demographically balanced; but the non-LDS element in the territory skewed heavily male—mostly soldiers and miners—while the Church membership skewed female. So even though there was a nominal gender balance, from an LDS girl’s perspective a lot of the available single men just weren’t “marriageable”.) If the Church resumed the practice today I imagine it would probably be pretty tightly restricted to a statistically infinitesimal proportion of Church members.

Also https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/race-church See also the updated heading to OD-2, which includes the line “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.” That said—I’d have to look it up, we can date Young’s flip-flop on blacks and the priesthood to within a year or two. It was earlier than the commonly-cited 1852 date.

I think it matters very much if the denial represented church leaders acting against God’s instructions to them or otherwise exceeding the scope of their authority; because that would have massive implications for the credibility of the Church leadership going forward.

I’m not sure this is accurate. Young himself claimed it was the product of revelation; we just don’t have a contemporaneous record of that revelation. Remember, the first time Young met William McCary and his white wife, Young was very progressive about Black priesthood holders. It wasn’t until a year later when McCary’s moonbattery could no longer be ignored, that the Church embraced a policy that (coincidentally or not) deep-sixed McCary’s claims to leadership and stopped the growth of his burgeoning congregation of followers in its tracks.

Sure. And again, I’m worrying about engaging too deeply without fully understanding your point (will have to sit down with this thread tonight); but one thing to consider: —If nothing about the Gospel (or the policies that guide the way we live the Gospel) were to change, then why do we need living prophets at all? And . . . —If we accept that some aspects of how we live the Gospel would have to change over time—what kind of influences would necessitate those changes, besides social influences? I mean—we don’t want the lunatics to be running the asylum, naturally. But I’m not sure we should be expecting the Church to be impassive and unchanging as the world spins out of control. Fundamentally, social influences are just people influences, and the Church’s mission is to connect with and then exalt people. In any age, the Church to some extent has had to meet people wherever they are.

I’m still trying to understand/engage with your larger point, and will probably need to take some time digesting your other posts before I can do that well. But for the moment I would point out that it’s important not to muddy the waters by taking at face value the claims of libertines who, in furtherance of their own agenda, want to gaslight us into seeing changes in the Church where there haven’t been any. [I’m not saying the Church doesn’t or can’t change; but I’m saying we should be clear about what has changed and what hasn’t.] The purported ban on baptism of children of gay couples, is one such example. There was no such ban until November of 2015. That’s why the announcement caused such a brouhaha. Until then, the question when teaching children of gay couples (as with children in any other nonmember family) was simply whether the parents objected to the child’s conversion and whether there was an adult member who was willing to assume responsibility for the child’s spiritual instruction going forward. The Church implemented the policy as a result of Obergefell’s forcing the acceptance of gay marriage nationwide, with the Church being initially reluctant to baptize children en masse only to teach them (as it would have to do with children of polygamous households, and for whom a similar policy exists) that their parents would have to get a divorce in order to get right with God. Putting children through that could conceivably result in emotional trauma and perhaps even legal liability. Once we had a couple years’ experience with the First Presidency evaluating these situations on a case-by-case basis, it was determined that the pre-2015 status quo could be relatively safely restored—and so it was. So—I mean—yeah, social conditions certainly resulted in Church policy changes; but it’s wrong to represent this particular instance as an example of an inexorable drift towards progressivism.