Just_A_Guy

These questions bedevil me too. Where I’m kind of leaning at the moment is that there are probably a lot of things we go through in life that hurt, but that in and of themselves aren’t terribly formative on us in the long run (whether for good or for ill) and which, as exalted beings with a perfect love for and patience with our fellow man, we’ll be able to look back on with an indulgent smile (or at least a roll of the eyes) rather than any real lingering trauma. Maybe I actually wouldn’t have gotten in that fender-bender if my kids had just prayed for me a little harder last night . . . but, in the grand scheme of things, so what? I wasn’t put on earth to avoid fender-benders.

After twenty years of marriage, my wife and I are pretty in tune with each other’s short-term needs and wants, values, opinions on family and current events, etc. I am a dedicated introvert; and my “love language” is time/service—I could spend an entire day saying fewer than ten words to my wife, and at the end of the day think that it had been a great day and that our marriage was going swimmingly. But my wife, for her part, craves conversation; and the more people I meet the more I realize my penchant for solitude and silence is probably at least a little extreme. God is a god of relationships. Prayer, like an evening conversation with a spouse, isn’t about getting stuff or changing the other person’s mind (although vis a vis prayer, the scriptures tell us that can happen). It’s ultimately about the bonding, reconciliation, and strengthening that comes through the fact that the conversation occurred at all.

Welcome, Mageeha!

The lawyer-pedant in me wants to distinguish between “adulterous person” and “adulterer”; and further wonders whether there’s a meaningful distinction, at the end of the day, between adultery and fornication. From what statistical surveys I am aware of, in this day and age you could accuse pretty much any random non-Christian (and a solid majority, perhaps even a supermajority of Christians) of having fornicated at some point in their lives, and you’d be right. And that’s not even counting porn use.

I don’t necessarily disagree with your larger point; but I would just note here that Rittenhouse’s offense was an open- and- shut case of “failure to allow your butt to be kicked while publicly conservative-ing”. The prosecutor even (basically) said so in his closing argument.

For whatever reason [to the extent that it’s possible to generalize about such things] Church members, including Elder McConkie himself, have seemed to largely be able to articulate and maintain their theological disagreements with the Catholic Church without those disagreements descending into personal animus towards individual Catholics. Do I understand why Nephi’s and Moroni’s statements about a materialistic church in the last days that had only a warped shell of the doctrine of Christ and that loved riches more than people, could have application to (and perhaps even have been inspired by visions of) grand Catholic Church? Sure. Do I understand that some Catholics have done horrifying things in the name of their religion, and that even a lot of cardinals and popes were absolute stinkers? Yep. Do I see why Elder McConkie and other LDS leaders were so deeply frustrated at what the primitive church could have had and could have been, but which it lost/forfeited in favor of the Catholicism (and, in the east, Orthodoxy) that ultimately came to prevail in Europe and eventually throughout the world? Also, yes. Then again: I’m currently posting from a train in Florence, Italy; and am gaining an increasing appreciation for the Catholic Church. Problematic though they were—the Roman Empire was almost-pure evil; and the Catholics (or their institutional forbears) ended Rome’s most heinous practices while preserving (to the extent economically, socially, and politically possible) much of its beauty and instilling hope, meaning, comfort, and a smattering of scriptural knowledge into the lives of their largely-illiterate, desperately poor members. Churches build both physical and spiritual monuments. The spiritual monuments—the ones built in the life of each believer—pass away from our mortal view with each generation; the physical monuments can last for centuries or millennia and—if we are careless—eclipse the fact that the spiritual monuments ever existed at all. Elder McConkie lived and served at a time when the LDS Church was undeniably poor and the number of our temples could be counted on two hands and two feet (with perhaps a dozen of those perhaps worthy of being considered anything like “monumental”). But with over three hundred multi-million dollar temples on the drawing board or bearing our church’s name in our day, it’s probably healthy to make sure we are careful to keep the material aspects of our church solidly within their spiritual contexts.

I think in the wake of the Holocaust, most Americans understand that they aren’t supposed to dislike Jews. That doesn’t mean there aren’t many who dislike them anyways; but I dare say there are relatively few who would admit to it. And just as many anti-Mormons claim that they like Mormons fine but disagree with the church’s doctrine or political or commercial activities; there are probably a lot of folks who would claim that their antipathy is aimed at Zionism rather than Jews or Judaism per se.

Yeah, I was a little taken aback by the wording there. In the US, obviously one can use deadly force to defend against a bona fide home invasion; but if I take pot shots at a doorbell ditcher—even an aggressive one— on the grounds that “his knocks sounded threatening” or “he traumatized me”, etc; it probably isn’t going to end well for me.

Your comments are, as always, eminently fair and reasonable. But to @zil2’s comments I would add a citation to Mosiah 3:7 and an observation that the phrase “every pore” appears in conference sermons no fewer than 100 times, in sermons going all the way back to Brigham Young. I don’t necessarily want to say that the idea that Jesus didn’t *literally* bleed at every pore, is incorrect; but within the LDS Church it certainly seems to be a minority position at present.

Agreed. I would just note that “what updates or revisions would God want for His Church” can include revisions that react (or anticipate) the effect we have in our broader society and/or the way society reacts to us. I would venture to guess that in the end the Lord doesn’t care all that much, in the abstract, about whether we put a golden statue of Him on every temple, or every chapel, or every street corner. But I suspect He is at least *somewhat* interested in the ways we reach out to others in order to facilitate good will and create opportunities to share our message . . . or unnecessarily slam the door shut on such opportunities through our own obstinate tone-deafness. 🙂

1) I doubt it. We all know we don’t pray to, or do anything that smacks of worshipping, Moroni; whereas we *do* worship Christ (or, to be pedantic, we worship the Father in the name of Christ whom we revere as Creator, Lord and Savior). These things are perhaps squishy by nature; but it *feels* like erecting a statue of someone who is actually the object of our devotion crosses a sort of cultural line about idolatry. 2) Until very recently, nearly all the people outside the LDS Church who knew we existed at all were either a) Catholics and Orthodox Christians, who have no problem with statues in a devotional context; or b) Protestants, who frown on statues of anyone in a devotional context. Replacing statues of Moroni with statues of Christ isn’t going to win us any friends in the Christian world.

John is the last of the Gospel writers, and throughout his account he is addressing various nonsense theories about Christ that had spring up in the first century—one of which being that Jesus wasn’t really God, but just a man who God’s “essence” could jump in or out of at will. (Note too that John, the only Gospel writer who actually saw Christ praying and suffering at Gethsemane, doesn’t mention Christ’s suffering there at all. He just makes it look like “they went there after dinner, and suddenly Judas showed up”. Perhaps the account of Jesus’s suffering in Gethsemane was already common knowledge when John wrote—or perhaps it was just too tender for him, the eyewitness, to discuss in any detail.) Bear that in mind as you look at John 18:5-6. And note that when the account has Jesus saying “I am he”, “he” is in italics—it’s not in the original Greek text; the King James translators added it for clarity. In the original account Jesus asks who they’re looking for, the soldiers reply “Jesus of Nazareth”, and Jesus simply replies “I AM”—the Tetragrammaton—the name of God that no one in Israel dares utter except the high priest, and him only once a year on the Day of Atonement. Jesus is, in effect, proclaiming Himself to be one and the same as Jehovah; which fits into John’s overarching theme. John is subtly saying “see? Even the guys who KILLED Jesus sensed they were dealing with a god made flesh, and understood that this gnostic in-and-out-stuff is nonsense!” What Jesus has said is shocking enough, but then we remember Luke’s account of the sweating blood. Jesus, drenched in blood and his clothing stained accordingly, is asked “where’s Jesus of Nazareth”; and His reply is basically “oh, you mean, Jehovah? I’m right here.” If you aren’t backing away from Him because of respect the horrific majesty of it all, you’re backing away because of the apparent unhingedness/ insanity of the guy who’s talking.

“Discrimination” (i.e., treating people differently and giving them different counsel, resources or privileges according to their circumstances, commitments, behavior, etc) is part of the job description when it comes to serving in LDS leadership. Now, if you’re talking about race-based discrimination, I think your answer is already upthread: assuming that the procedure outlined in D&C 42:88 has been tried and failed, you can probably get the names of your area presidency members through your area website or the Church’s most recent announcement of area presidency assignments. If there isn’t a direct contact link/address on any of those sites, you will at least have their names and can write to them through Church headquarters.

I bought a house in 2012 with 4 kids and a wife who didn’t work at all, on $60K per year with no military/VA benefits. I don’t want to downplay how tough it is out there. But I think it’s worth noting that (as I recall, and please feel free to disprove me if I’m misremembering) several eastern European countries of late have tailored their social safety nets for the specific purpose of making it easier to raise additional children; and the affect on fertility rates in those countries have been effectively zero. Child-bearing and child-rearing is enormously costly not only in simple dollars and cents, but in terms of physical labor and emotional investment and self-sacrifice and delayed gratification. If you have those attributes and you prioritize child-rearing, poverty in and of itself is unlikely to really stop you from procreating; and if you don’t have those attributes/priorities—money itself seems unlikely to change the calculus all that much.

That’s not true! 😁

Well, I’m aware that there’s a long-standing discussion about whether men and women can/should ever really be “just friends” with each other, and the notion that because of the way the male libido usually works the man in such friendships almost always—almost always, even if just subconsciously—is considering the female a potential sexual partner. I have never felt a powerful urge to weigh in on that debate; but I imagine that if there is some accuracy to it—that would probably apply to gay man/straight man relationships. Regardless of whether that’s true—one of the regrettable things about the rise of the LGBTQ movement is the associated decline in the cultural idea that men can have deep, intimate, emotional, non-sexual friendships.

Yup, they built a 32-story commercial high rise nearby. The city seems to have been kinder to the Church than SLC has been, perhaps because—unlike SLC—they haven’t gotten to the point where they can take the Church’s perpetual presence and ongoing community development efforts for granted. I happened to be at a child welfare conference in Philly during the temple’s open house around 2016; so I went over to see it and missed the bus from the temple area back to my hotel afterwards. I started walking back, took a wrong turn or two, and pretty soon it became obvious that I was in Philadelphia’s equivalent of a gay district. Interesting trip . . .

Philadelphia is lovely, and very well situated—the Church couldn’t have asked for a better site there. There are so many Utah temples under construction, I wonder if the GAs are waiting for a few of those to come online before re-assessing the need for any additional temples in the area. (Utah County has three under construction, with the original Provo temple slated to close soon for renovations.) On the other hand: Indonesia has fewer than 8,000 members in the whole country, and they’re getting a temple.

I thought that, at least 20 years ago, same-gender-attracted folks were considered honorably excused from missionary service even if they had 100% complied with the law of chastity. I’m wondering when, or if, that policy has formally changed. Certainly we hear a lot of out-gays talk about their missionary service, but I’m not sure that they had “come out” prior to their calls. The funny thing is that Boyd K. Packer gave a talk thirty years ago that the LGBTQ lobby interprets as endorsing violence against gays—but in context, he was talking about an anecdote where a straight missionary had woken up to find himself being molested by his gay companion (the missionary had, as I recall, given the perp a swift punch in the face and then felt guilty about it; whereas Elder Packer suggested that it was well-deserved). So, yes; I think scenarios like you describe are inevitably going to be an issue; especially as LGBTQ advocacy progresses into what I think is the inexorable next step (and which I understand is already happening with male-to-female transgender folk demanding acceptance within the lesbian community): that refusing the sexual advances of an LGBTQ suitor is per se bigotry. But to your question: I think pairing self-identified gay elders with self-identified lesbian sisters creates its own set of issues—sisters wondering if the elder is *really* gay (and the fact that sexual orientation is often more of a spectrum than a binary) (and, what about bisexuals?); and many women (LDS or not) are just plain intimidated/threatened by the idea of living with men generally, regardless of orientation. And frankly, LDS missionaries are (by design) highly visible and since outsiders who see them wouldn’t necessarily know that they’re LGBTQ and would just see an unmarried couple living together—it becomes sort of an image, “Caesar’s wife must be above reproach” sort of thing.

I just re-skimmed the relevant parts of President Oaks's biography. He was released as president of BYU in 1980 and nominated to the Utah Supreme Court in November of 1980. (He had acquired something of a reputation as a conservative, both for his handling of BYU and also because when he was a professor at the University of Chicago he had been involved with the university council that disciplined some hippie rioters/vandals.) He was also chairman of the board of PBS at this point and was in Washington DC fairly often. When Reagan was inaugurated there was talk of offering Oaks a job relatively high up in the Attorney General's Office, and a January 1981 article from the Washington Post also mentions him as a potential candidate for Secretary of Education. Oaks's biography says he told the Reagan administration that he wasn't interested in another administrative job and was happy on the Utah Supreme Court; but when an AG Office executive asked if he'd be interested in the Solicitor General spot Oaks replied in the affirmative. He flew out to DC in March of 1980 to meet with several judiciary officials, senators, etc., but later that month he received a spiritual impression to withdraw his name from consideration. He was nevertheless called out to DC again for another round of interviews regarding the SG job, which he did half-heartedly; and the slot ultimately went to Rex E. Lee instead. Oaks's name was bandied around in 1981 after Potter Stewart resigned from SCOTUS, but he never really pushed for the job and it went to Sandra Day O'Connor instead. Right after that Reagan admin officials reached out to him to see if he was interested in a slot on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and he replied that due to other constraints he wasn't interested at that point but might be interested in the future. By late 1983/early 1984 Oaks let the Reagan admin know that he was ready to accept a position if it were offered; and then in April he was called to the Q12. It's impossible to disprove such speculation, of course. But, this struck me as an extremely Christ-centered conference (off the top of my head, I'm not sure I can remember a single reference to Joseph Smith). My initial reaction was something like yours--disappointment at not hearing something more original from President Oaks's keen mind. But the impression very clearly came to me that intellectually, I'm playing checkers and he's playing three-dimensional chess. I will be reviewing the written text of his talk very closely.

I’ll have to look it up; but I think it was the O’Connor seat.

It was the Reagan administration that had Oaks on the shortlist for (IIRC) either SCOTUS or the DC Circuit. President Oaks’s biography mentions some correspondence he had with (I think) then-AG Ed Meese with the administration probing about whether or not Oaks would accept such a nomination. At U. Chicago, Oaks was also good friends with Robert Bork.

This is the danger of retconning twenty-first century western mindsets and (translated) linguistic patterns, into centuries- or millennia-old documents created by wholly separate cultures. OT passages stressing the unity of God, are made in the context of the people of God being a minority in the midst of pagan cultures that were more politically powerful, economically prosperous, culturally pervasive, and technologically advanced than the monotheistic Hebrew rubes; and who attributed their material success to their devotion to a chaotic pantheon of competing and sometimes-warring gods. The BoM authors were the product of that mentality, and there are textual clues that paganism continued to be an issue in the broader cultures that surrounded the Nephite nation. I would venture to guess that if you had to spend all day, every day combating rumors that your marriage was in the rocks, you would reply in ever-escalating rhetoric about how you and your wife were in perfect harmony and unity. You might even describe yourselves as being “of one mind” (even though you (presumably!) don’t actually have a Borg-like shared consciousness) or of “one heart” (even though the two of you do not, as a matter of anatomy, share a single heart or even a combined circulatory system). So it was throughout Biblical times. Early Christians, as you probably know, struggled with how to maintain the by-then “respectability” and order of Jewish monotheism, while reconciling that with an apparent plurality of gods suggested by veneration of a god who was the son of the Jewish god (and this nebulous thing called the “Holy Spirit” being thrown in for good measure, adding to the chaos). After a couple of centuries the debate was ended by imperial fiat through the development of a couple of creeds that basically said “Three. But one. And three. And one. And yet not three. But three. And yet not one. But one. Mystery, and tiny human brains, and blah, blah, blah”; with physical violence and torture (or the threat thereof) deployed against those who asked too many questions. I don’t think you’ll find a place in the BoM that explicitly comes out and rejects trinitarianism. The BoM continues to speak of the unity of God, though it also (like the Bible) has instances where the Son and the Father (or Holy Ghost) are seen as distinct entities. Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of his 1820 “first vision” clearly depicts (like Stephen’s vision) the Father and the Son standing next to each other—ie, separate corporeal entities—though some of his earlier accounts of that vision suggest he had not initially understood the full theological ramifications of what he had seen. And the Lectures on Faith (released under Smith’s imprimatur in 1835, though a significant portion of them may have been ghost-written by a former Campbellite preacher) contain a description of the Holy Ghost that was superseded by later teachings of Smith.

I like this very much, doc. Very much indeed.

I see he also finally moved to that commune in Washington State he keeps mentioning. Living in a yurt, no doubt.