MrShorty

@mirkwood So you are predicting an all field goal game when BYU and WSU face off in pullman in late October?

@mikbone It is kind of crazy that people want to ride the slippery slope all the way to the bottom. I don't know how to make the slope less sloped or less slippery. In the case of ectopic pregnancy, the decision to terminate is pretty black and white, but there are many other cases where the choice is not as clear cut. What might the moral calculus look like when we consider these exceptions? What goes into the decision to terminate or keep the pregnancy?

Perhaps it is just trying to understand how we are using the term "inspiring" in this discussion. I have a hard time seeing God as only the "comforter" after the difficult decision is made. Perhaps I do not understand God's role in making a difficult decision like this, but I tend to think that God would help "inspire" a decision that He knows is best. I have a hard time seeing Him saying, "I don't care whether you choose to terminate or keep the pregnancy, but I'll be there for you whichever choice you make."

And that is their prerogative, to not talk and explore the morality of the exceptions. But, if they choose not to engage in discussions of the exceptions, then it will always be the progressive and liberal voices that control that part of the dialog. I'm reminded of once exploring the question of ectopic pregnancies and how to think about them. The LDS commentators I read decided that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is not abortion, so there are no moral considerations. Interestingly, I found some Catholic commentators with some interesting views. Since Catholics consider that life begins at conception, an ectopic pregnancy was clearly an abortion, but it was just as clear that medical necessity demands the termination of an ectopic pregnancy. These commentators then weighted in on the different treatment options for terminating the pregnancy and suggested that some are morally acceptable and others aren't. Whether or not I agreed with the conclusions, I was simply impressed that they had put forth the effort to think about the morality of abortion when it was medically necessary.

I think you are right. And I expect that too many (probably even a majority) of abortions are "casual and selfish." I think where we run into trouble is when we talk as if all abortions are casual and selfish, while ignoring the existence of those where the woman must try her best to balance life and health or the trauma of rape or incest. I like that we can try to tackle the question, even if I don't expect we can come up with some kind of "checklist" or "formula" for deciding, but just trying to grapple with the moral gray area seems good.

I'm not certain I understand. Certainly, the existence of these exceptions does not automatically mean that God inspires all who find themselves in those scenarios to get abortions, but it does suggest to me that God might inspire some in those morally ambiguous circumstances to terminate their pregnancies. As @The Folk Prophet said, it isn't a clear cut legal thing. Navigating this moral gray area means balancing competing good and bad and risk and reward and seeking God's mind and seeking counsel from wise people and so on.

The Church seems to disagree, but, at least in the conservative/orthodox circles, the exceptions are barely mentioned. They are never discussed with any seriousness, which, I sometimes think, leads to some who believe that the exceptions don't really exist.

I don't know if there is anything I can say to help bridge this gap. The one thing I began to wonder here is how much of this is because the orthodox/conservative circles are just not tackling the gray areas of this issue. It seems that most if not all conservative voices are saying things like @The Folk Prophet is saying, that the "exceptions" (that have long been a part of the Church's official position) never really apply or like @person0 said where they cannot believe that God would ever inspire someone to get an abortion even thought the exceptions are part of the official position. It seems to me that the best way to take the sting out of the weaponization of these kinds of stories would be for the orthodox/conservative community to actually take up the discussion (like @Just_A_Guy has done so well here) and really talk about abortion and the exceptions and do more to explore the moral gray areas.

I know this group tends to disdain the more liberal and progressive sides of the Church, but, if you look over there, you will find anecdotes of people claiming to have received such revelations. Perhaps I have no moral backbone, but I have no desire to try to decide which of these revelations was legitimate and which were not. I certainly don't want the state charged with adjudicating what constitutes "genuine" revelation. I believe that abortion is a morally significant issue, but I don't know how to craft legislation that adequately addresses the moral issue (recognizing that the Tx law is probably more about political messaging/posturing and not really about wrestling with the moral ambiguities) with it's gray areas. I find myself preferring to leave government out of the difficult decisions and leave those decisions up to individuals. Sure, that means that some people will abuse the privilege, but that seems preferable to me to having the state be placed in a position of choosing for people how to make morally ambiguous decisions.

@Just_A_Guy If we decide it is important, I guess we can spend time defending Pres. McKay's character, but I don't think that resolves the problem. If Pres. McKay was ready and willing to receive the revelation, but it didn't come, then either someone else was unwilling/unable to receive the revelation (and God chose not to out them) or God Himself chose to perpetuate the practice for reasons He did not explain. In either case, the revelatory process created/perpetuated a practice that does not represent eternal truth, and we still potentially face the question of how reliable are the alleged revelations of our current cohort of prophets and apostles. That last made me wonder. Typically this discussion is focused on "prophetic fallibility," which, as you demonstrated, often leads to a perceived need to defend the character of the prophets. Maybe we need a new term for the concept. How about "revelatory fallibility" since the real problem is whether or not to trust the (alleged) revelations from God?

A couple of different thoughts: 1a) "often" is not the same "always, without fail". The Biblical prophets did not seem to expect an end to slavery (the BoM prophets did, though). 1b) I'm not sure, in the case of the priesthood/temple ban, if the known temporary state changes much for me. As you note, Pres. McKay reportedly asked (some accounts suggest repeatedly) about lifting the ban and God reportedly told him, "no". I am uncertain of the exact dates or date range here, but the problem with the "perpetuation" of the ban still seems the same as the "origin" of the ban. If the prophets in the '50s and '60s could/would not receive the revelation to change the ban, can they be trusted to know the current mind and will of God on our difficult issues? If God really did tell the prophets to perpetuate the ban, how can we trust that God won't change His mind on the other important issues we face?

That is hard. I agree that I don't see an easy path from "past prophets were wrong about this key issue" and "current prophets are reliable on key issues." We are fond of saying that God can ask us to do hard things, so maybe it's just a matter of pressing on and keep trying, but it is a difficult path. The next problem I see, though, is that I'm not sure it gets better if I start from "God really did tell us to do this immoral/less moral/lower law thing." Sure, the path from there to "relying on current prophets to also accurately relay the word of God" is easier, but I find myself then struggling with questions about the nature of God and Truth. If God can give one command on a key issue (reasons only He knows -- @clbent04's detour theory seems as good as any), and then do an about face 100 years later (again, reasons and timing only He knows -- maybe because the detour is no longer necessary is as good as any), can I rely on God to be telling us capital T Truth through His prophets? Cynical answers might include, "God doesn't really care." or "Absolute Truth/morality doesn't exist" or "God is capricious/flighty". Personally, I don't go with the cynical answers. I believe God is good and that He wants, "the immortality and eternal life of man." If God is the ultimate source of key "errors" like the priesthood and temple ban, then there must have been a path through the racially charged system that resulted for men and women to be saved and exalted. If so, are there any practices that are truly beyond God's ability to find a path to salvation and exaltation through? Does this become some kind of universalism? I really don't know, but thanks for provoking the thoughts.

@Just_A_Guy Well Done! I think you have almost perfectly articulated the main problem statement for these issues. I don't know if I can add anything. It will require a lot of thought, but I think the only thing I would quibble over is the final, stark dichotomy you draw.I think some who leave the Church come to that stark dichotomy and decide that prophets can and have made serious mistakes of praxis and therefore they cannot be trusted and therefore they leave the Church. Part of me would like to hope that there is a way of bridging that dichotomy so that we can talk about how to stay in the Church while accepting that prophets can make serious errors of praxis. But, maybe I am deluding myself and it really isn't possible.

As a lifelong, active member of the Church, as long as I can remember the Church had an emphasis on seeking Truth (with a capital T). I think you are right, that condoning SSM would require some rethinking about what is in the Proclamation on the Family and what we believe about the nature and purposes of God. The only reason I can see to assume that this process must be a step backward is to assume some kind inerrancy to the document or our understanding. I hope that, in our quest for truth, if we find things in our understanding of God or the Proclamation on the Family that are not True, we would discard those things. If/when we find new Truth that overrides our previous understanding, we would be willing to adopt it. Moving forward, to me, means discarding old, False ideas and replacing them with new, True ideas. I think that's what would make this a forward moving venture. Of course, the difficulty with this is always trying to discern Truth from Error.

Would we "have to recognize it as a step backwards...rather than an advancement?" It really depends on which is the higher law and how much society influences our sense of right and wrong. As already noted, electroshock therapy for homosexuals was a result of the underlying belief across broad swaths of scientists and society that homosexuality was an illness to be cured. According to Wikipedia, it took a couple of decades for scientists to decide that it was not a mental illness, followed by another decade or two before the first governments started to legalize same sex marriage. Of course, conservative Christianity is still arguing against SSM. Our current cohort of prophets and apostles would have been, at the youngest, teenagers/YSAs during those early years. How much did broader society's rejection/pathologization (is that a word?) of homosexuality influence our current leaders beliefs about homosexuality, and how much of what they believe is pure revelation from God? Would condoning SSM be more like Israel wanting a king, or would it be more like our attitudes towards race? Either scenario seems possible to me.

I've had a hard time with this question myself. My thoughts will probably be unpopular in a conservative group like this, but, here they are anyway. Many "justifications" for the apparent tolerance and even acceptance of slavery from Abraham to Brigham Young involve some kind of "all the other clans/tribes/peoples were doing it, so why not Israel?" The Church's race and the priesthood essay spills a lot of ink explaining how the Church was just segregating by race just like the rest of 19th and early 20th century America complete with the same "Biblical" (now disavowed) justifications for the practice. Yes, just how much influence does broader (Christian) society have on what the Church believes and teaches? Ancient Israel lobbied God for a king, and God eventually relented, and it all started because Israel wanted a king like all her neighbors. How much influence does broader culture and society have on what prophets, apostles, and the Church teaches? It seems that God might allow for at least some influence. And He seems willing to allow that influence to make something as categorically immoral as slavery be tolerated and accepted by His people. For better or for worse, it seems to me that if God can allow His people to accept something as categorically immoral as slavery for most of human history, I see no reason -- whether same sex marriage is moral or immoral -- why God could not allow the Church to condone same sex marriage when the broader society and culture deem it acceptable.

@Carborendum I don't know how carefully government and other statisticians try to distinguish between those cases caused by COVID and those where COVID was not a factor, but I am aware that COVID is linked to increased risk of blood clotting which leads to a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and similar conditions. Again, I don't know if or how they distinguish between "would have had a heart attack/stroke anyway" and "COVID caused the blood clot that this patient died from". Without trying to pile on the grief from your mother's death, it is possible that COVID was part of triggering her heart attack, which would suggest that it could be appropriate to include her in the COVID deaths statistics. From April 2020: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/29/847917017/doctors-link-covid-19-to-potentially-deadly-blood-clots-and-strokes From April 2021: https://www.popsci.com/story/uncategorized/covid-blood-clots/ Condolences on the death of your mother.

@Just_A_Guy That makes for a nice, succinct dictionary definition, but I think we can all agree that there is more nuance than the dictionary definition suggests. Much of Christianity calls us apostate for renouncing Nicene Trinitarianism, to which we reply that Nicene Trinitarianism should not be one of the religious teachings/doctrines that define what it means to be Christian. It seems to me that there is a range or degree to apostasy. I think we all would agree that there are some "essential" doctrines (the existence of God and the atonement and resurrection of Christ, for example) that, if renounced, clearly make one apostate. I think we would also all agree that there are some obscure doctrines which, if renounced, would not be considered apostate. Patrick Mason (at least, I think it was Mason) introduced the idea of a truth cart for this kind of discussion, suggesting that there are some things that really do belong in our truth cart and some things that are not as important to put into our truth cart. If rumor has it correctly, he even accuses us (both the Church as a whole and the members individually) of sometimes putting the wrong things in our truth carts (perhaps an extreme example, but this might include all those heartlanders who insist that anyone who renounces their theory is apostate). So, while I agree with your definition, it seems that this part of the discussion often becomes more about which doctrines can be renounced and which ones cannot. A lot of the discussion and debate can end up being trying to settle disagreements about what teachings are essential and which ones are not.

A nice binary, but is there more nuance to this? How does someone like Bennett fit into this? It seems like Bennett is not merely asking questions ("Did Pres. Young receive a revelation to implement the priesthood and temple ban? Was the 2015 policy the result of revelation?"). Bennett seems to be stating that he disbelieves that these things were revelation. At the same time, I don't think it fair to claim that he is in full opposition to the Church and its leaders, either. @Just_A_Guy You list a few currently well known "apostates". I guess the question I would ask back is -- is it inevitable for someone in Bennett's position (disagreeing with some claims to revelation) to end up becoming an apostate, or can one hold and publish these kinds of opinions and remain "not-apostate"? If so, what does that look like?

@Just_A_Guy I kind of agree that we want to be careful not to follow the tangent too far, but it also seems to me that the tangent is potentially a case study for the question in the OP. I don't know how best to approach this, but maybe a couple of points. Re: 1) It's true that Pres. Young believed the ban was the result of revelation. Bennett disagrees. As it relates to me, I frequently ask myself whether or not it is possible for prophets and apostles to mistakenly call something a revelation when it is not a revelation. As it relates to the OP, when one disagrees with a prophets assertion that something is a revelation, is it appropriate to publicly express that opinion as Bennett does here? I could say more, but I don't want to bog down in the tangent. In the podcast interview, Bennett mentions that a ward member approached him in response to something he had published (not sure if it was in this document or in relation to something else on his blog) and suggested that he might be in troubled waters and should speak to leadership. He approached a councilor in his stake presidency (knew him from serving in a bishopric together?) and asked him. Reportedly, this member of the SP said that Bennett was trying to defend the Church, so he saw no reason for Bennett to back off from his writing. Whether or not we agree with Bennett's positions, Bennett seems to feel that he had a green light to put his opinions out there for public consumption. I don't want to bog down trying to defend or promote individual arguments or assertions or claims that Bennett (or others) might make. The question that I see in the OP is, when one disagrees with the brethren, is it appropriate to make public statements to that effect? The overall tone of the responses seems to be that, no, it is not appropriate, and maybe it can just end there with some satisfied with that response and others less satisfied.

I saw some Facebook posts from family in the Portland area that talked about "cooling centers" there -- places with air conditioning like convention centers that were being opened up so people could have a place to go to get away from the heat if needed. Is there talk of concern for those susceptible to heat related illness in these conditions? Some of us living in the desert southwest may not see these temperatures as really concerning, but maybe there is cause for concern in the PNW? Stay safe and take care of each other.

I made time this weekend to listen to some of Jim Bennett's interview that you sent me. While I really enjoyed Bennett's approach to the issues he disccussed, I'm not sure it all fully resolves the question(s) posed in the OP. I find it interesting, for example, that Bennett does not differentiate between these two situation. On the contrary, he claims that they are the same situation. to quote Bennet Browsing Bennett's blog, I found that he also clearly asserts that " I knew, as well as I knew anything, that this policy was wrong." (Edit to clarify -- referring to the 2015 LGBT policy). During the podcast interview, he talked some about his views on LGBT issues, and one thing he said repeatedly was that, in his opinion, our current stance on LGBT issues is "unsustainable". When Dehlin tried to bait him into making statements of exactly where he thinks we are wrong and what he believes is really true, he dodged the efforts to pin him down on something, but clearly he believes (and is willing to state publicly) that he disagrees with something(s) about the the Church's stances on LGBT issues. Bennett's opinion runs contrary to many opinions -- including leaders. Somewhere in my reading I encountered another document (Millet, I believe it was this time) where then Elder Oaks said So, I guess tying this back to the OP -- is it appropriate for Bennett to publicly express these disagreements with the Church and its leadership? One thing Bennett said in his interview was that he has been surprised at times how many conservative members of the Church respond to a blog post or opinion of his with some kind of "you ought to leave the Church." It seems that some who read his stuff don't think his opinions are appropriate. I notice that much of our discussion has used the word "protest". Is the difference for Bennett (if Bennett's expressions of disagreement are appropriate) that he is "disagreeing" and not "protesting"? Is there a difference between public disagreement and public protest? Ultimately, I stand by what I said in my first response. As much as I might like Bennett's views and the way he approaches disagreement with the Church and its leaders, I find myself unconvinced that his approach is something the Church officially sanctions and endorses. I still doubt that there is a satisfactory answer to what should we do with disagreements. At times, I sensed that Bennett was uncomfortable with his position relative to the Church's position, just as I find myself uncomfortable relative to the Church's position. It still sometimes seems like this question is as much or more about how to sit with that discomfort rather than trying to find resolution.

I got all 50. Like @Vort i frequently do the mental exercise, end up with 48 or so, then spend the next 30 monutes racking my brain for the two I missed. Having served a Canadian mission, some Canadians observed that Canadians are better at correctly picking out many of our 50 states than Americans are at identifying many of their 10 provinces.

I know that feeling all too well.

Overall -- excellent questions. If I may say, these are the kinds of questions at the heart of my own faith crisis and, if we could come to satisfactory answers to these kinds of questions, my faith crisis could be resolved. However, I've been around these questions long enough that I doubt there are satisfactory answers, so I would also throw into this that perhaps a big part of these questions may not be about finding satisfactory answers, but learning to sit with the tension and discomfort of these kinds of questions. IMO, yes, they were doing the right thing. Whether or not it was appropriate is a more difficult question. I think it was appropriate, because, as one of your other questions suggests, we won't get a revelation until we seek the revelation and we don't always seek revelation without some kind of outside pressure. I know we are uncomfortable with the idea that the Church is reactive to public pressure, but it seems that it does respond to public pressure. Pres. Nelson, in his remarks at BYU in the fall of 2019, explicitly said that the brethren sought further direction on the 2015 LGBTQ policy because of the "concern and confusion for some and the heartache for others" (reported in the Church News 17 Sep 2019: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-09-17/president-nelson-byu-devotional-god-love-160666) created by the policy. At the same time, we are uncomfortable with divisions within the body of Christ, and I think we struggle to know how to deal with these kinds of disagreements when they come from our co-religionists (for lack of a better word). I have observed here before that one of the most contentious debates I see on these internet forums are creationism vs. evolutionism debates where the Church does not even have an official position. When we struggle to keep contention out of our discourse when the issue is one where we are free to decide for ourselves, how much more difficult will it be to keep discomfort and contention out of our discourse when we disagree about something that the Church has chosen a side on? I've kind of addressed this, but I would say here that we are very much a conservative church. This means that we believe that what we have been teaching and practicing up until now (whenever now is) is "true" and we hold to those beliefs and practices until evidence that they are "false" becomes overwhelming. If no one protests, then our conservative inertia maintains the status quo. I don't know why God is not more proactive in making these kinds of changes sooner, but He seems to be quite willing to sometimes wait for us to come to Him to seek change. And so we come to the $64000 questions. Up front, I don't know the answers to these questions (as I indicated above, if I could answer these questions, I would not feel like I am in a faith crisis). The Church can be one source of truth. Other sources might include my own witnesses from the Spirit, the scriptures, and human reason. I find that each of these sources is reliable in its own way and also fallible in its own way. When they disagree with or contradict each other, I don't know what should be done. Sometimes, it seems right to elevate one source above the others (like when we talk about giving canonized scripture a primary place by saying that whatever we decide should not contradict the standard works). Other times, it feels more like a "vote" of the different sources (3 of the 4 suggest that X is true, so I'll reject the one dissenting voice). But there does not seem to be a single method or standard or source to turn to for arbitrating the differences. One interesting thing: Pres. Oaks at the 2019 Be One celebration spoke of a time while the priesthood and temple ban was in effect that he did not receive a testimony of the reasons for the ban. At that time, he chose to be loyal to the Church and the brethren, but did not go into any detail of what that loyalty meant to him. Perhaps part of the answer is that loyalty to the Church is more important than what we believe is or is not true. I wish Pres. Oaks had elaborated more, but I expect I would still find myself uncomfortable choosing loyalty over truth. Which isn't to say that loyalty is not important, but it just does not seem like it should be the answer to every disagreement. If you endured to the end of that, congratulations. These kinds of issues sit at the heart of my own struggles with the Church, so it should be obvious I don't have any real answers for them. At present, I am resigned or content (not sure which) to sit in discomfort with them with no certainty of what the future might bring. I will definitely be following the rest of this conversation with interest.