MrShorty

How do we know this? When I look for sources on this "foundational" belief underlying so much of the discussion, I find fallible prophets and errant scripture. Those claiming personal revelation from God seem mixed -- sometimes for and sometimes against this teaching. In many ways, this also parallels the priesthood and temple ban, because fallible prophets and apostles used errant scripture to claim that they KNEW the reasons for the ban, but all of those reasons are now officially disavowed. While I find there are different meanings people ascribe to "disavow," to me it means that everyone who spoke with certainty on this issue before spoke with much more certainty than their knowledge could possibly have justified. We speak with an awful lot of certainty when we speak of LGBT issues. Are we certain that this level of certainty is justified?

I can't imagine any biologist (especially if he/she has also had some education in statistics within biology) that does not understand that naturally occurring traits will frequently exhibit "bell curve" (or similar distributions) behavior. Naturally, "normal" experience is going to be in the middle regions of those bell curves and not the extremes. And, it seem quite natural to expect that such common experience with the middle of the bell curve will cause many to pathologize or demonize the extremes of the bell curve. However, we as Latter-day Saints frequently say that our goal in life is to know God's will and truth. Does normalizing the middle of bell curves and pathologizing/demonizing the edges of bell curves really represent a good way of getting to know the truths and will of God? This often reminds me of the talk given by then Elder Oaks when he talked about general authorities teaching general principles, but that he didn't want to comment on exceptions because that is up to individuals to decide exceptions. If we really believe in a model that includes general principles/truths with exceptions, it seems like LGBT issues could easily fit into that kind of model. Assuming 90% of people fit nicely into the cis-hetero standards the Church outlines (which seems to be about what I usually find when I go seeking for how commonly people identify as LGBT+), with somewhere around 10% of people finding, by personal revelation, that they are exceptions to the normal cis-hetero rules. If we truly believe in general principles with exceptions, it seems like we ought to embrace people in their exceptions to make it easier for them to stay in the Church. Of course, maybe we don't really believe in general with exceptions or that this specific issue cannot tolerate any exception, but then we are back to understanding how we come to know what exceptions God allows and which exceptions God doesn't. I don't know how we decide, but I certainly don't think that biological norms can tell us about God's views about those at the ends of the bell curves. In some ways I like this "utilitarian" view of revelation -- that God chooses to withhold real truth or provide partial truths or even allow His people to believe falsehoods because tolerating or accommodating less than the full truth serves some purpose. The main problems I see with these kinds of models of revelation are things like these: If history is any indications, God can tolerate some pretty immoral stuff in His people -- slavery, forced racial segregation, genocide. Is there really anything God cannot tolerate or endorse among His people? If God stands behind these practices, is God a reliable source of moral truth? If God tolerates immoral "false" traditions among His people, are the practices of God's people reliable indicators of truth and morality? As it relates to the LGBT question, if God could tolerate slavery among His people, could He not also tolerate a few same-sex couples getting married? I agree with much of what you say here. These kinds of ideas are part of why I'm not sure I believe the Church is true in the sense of being the only true Church and representing the only path through mortality that leads back to salvation and exaltation.

So late to respond, but there are a few things I feel I ought to respond to: As a biologist, I have long found it interesting that almost every living thing has a sexual mode of reproduction, and the biological/evolutionary attempts to explain why (after all, asexual reproduction is far less expensive). Of course most explanations talk about the strong advantage to genetic recombinations. But, even though it is intriguing, I find any attempts to draw parallels between what occurs naturally and advantageously in this fallen world to what is happening in the celestial realm ultimately unconvincing. I do not find much in the amoral natural world that helps me understand God's morality. Re: Paul Reeves and his book, the conclusions and impressions are mine and not Paul's, so set the record straight there. I would wonder exactly what "right time" means here, because a significant part of my own doubts and disbeliefs around this issue involve why God waited until 1978. Others of our offshoot branches ordained blacks to their priesthoods from their early days in the 19th century. There's a lot said about the history of the priesthood ban (including the Church's own essay) that includes the idea that God had to wait until 1978 because we as a Church were too stubborn, too set in our thinking, too unrepentant, to receive the revelation any earlier. Some mention Pres. McKay's experience in the '60s. One history mentions an internal "study" by the Q12 (can't remember if it was '50s or '60s) that concluded that the Church [membership?] is not ready to lift the ban. It seems to me that there should have been plenty of "right times" before '78 to desegregate the priesthood, but our own stubbornness handicaps God (an interesting idea??) in the revelations He can give us. Which, I wonder, might be another parallel to LGBT issues. In many circles (including this forum) I have seen many (a strong majority?) of Church members claim that they would leave the Church if it changed its stance on LGBT issues. Have we handicapped God's ability to give us new revelation by our own stubbornness? (At this point, I would almost want to invoke Spackman and his discussion of accommodationism as a model of revelation and prophets and scripture). I've been around this forum too long to be "scared off", but I do find it unproductive (so not usually worth engaging) when someone decides to draw moral equivalences between two men holding hands while enjoying a romantic movie together and sex trafficking and statutory rape. I can kind of see the slippery slope connecting the ideas, but those comparisons otherwise don't really seem to add anything to the LGBT discussion. What do we do with those who decide that lifelong celibacy (romantic and sexual) does not produce a good tree or good fruit? What do we do with those who plant the seeds of accepting and acting on their homoromantic and homosexual predilictions and claim that it brings goodness into their life? As a cis-hetero man, I cannot plant and test the seeds of homosexuality, so I can only rely on others' experiences. It seems that, in a large number of cases, those who follow an Alma 32 type model find that homoromantic/homosexual behavior brings goodness into their lives. Of anything said in this thread, I think this is the thing I can most agree with. I often feel like, as a high demand religion, the Church doesn't always handle those who question or doubt or reject individual tenets while trying to stay true to the "core principles" of the restoration very well. In many of the more progressive circles I visit, so many "leave" the Church, not because they want to reject all of the core principles, but because they get tired of needing to censor themselves among their correligionists, or they get tired of being suspected of being a wolf in sheep's clothing, or having concerns/questions/doubts casually dismissed, or similar. One of the things I noticed in David Archuletta's recent video was how much of the pain he felt comes from people who doubt his faith in and relationship with God just because he decides to start dating, even though he feels his relationship with God is as strong as ever and that God approves of his decision. If we truly believe that God leads each individual, would we do better as a Church to be more open to people's individual experiences with the divine, rather than insisting that God gives everyone all of the same answers? (That was long -- forum ettiquette question -- Is it better to break something big and long like this up into separate posts?)

@JohnsonJones In short, Ohman is talking about the cessation of "dynastic" or "kingdom" sealings where Church members with "questionable" sealing opportunities (married to a non-member or spouse/parent leaves the Church or just because) would be sealed to prominent Church leaders. Ohman suggests that the cessation of these non-familial sealings and insisting that everyone be sealed along family lines was a significant moment in our history that, in many ways, completely changed our ideas of what being sealed truly means.

@SilentOne Perhaps it is required to all be completed before the "final judgement", I don't know. Interestingly, your comment reminded me of when my wife got an I (incomplete) in one of her college classes. This grade meant, "the coursework was not completed before the deadline for submitting grades, but, due to "circumstances", this grade may be updated when the coursework is completed." Considering that I have no idea how "long" there is between death and final judgement (if time even has meaning after death), I have no problem insisting that everything must take place before the final judgement. I still think that most if not all will inherit Celestial glory.

Maybe just being a hit pigeon, but I feel I must defend myself (as J. Reuben Clark did when Joseph Fielding Smith accused him of somehow not believing scripture) that I believe in scripture -- at least to the extent that it is true. Just because I disagree or doubt the validity of certain interpretations or individual scriptural declarations, I think it is a bit too far to accuse me of some kind of wholesale rejection of scripture. Not all of it, but I believe some of it is is merely opinion and tradition. I do not believe scripture is inerrant or that prophets are infallible. I do not believe that the Holy Spirit chose every single word in the scriptural canon (as one fundamentalist/Evangelical on the radio once claimed).I believe that scripture represents apostles' and prophets' and others' best attempts at explaining their spiritual journeys, and those explanations will include some things that are mere tradition and opinion. As it relates to the topic, I would say the difficult part is understanding how to distinguish between the traditions of men and the words of God in scripture.

Is "rarely" a key word here? Because we are limiting to 2 of how many dozens/hundreds of moral issues that prophets/scriptures have addressed. I have been reading Reeve's Religion of a Different Color, and it is interesting how the implementation of the priesthood/temple ban sure seems to fit a "We [meaning the 19th century Church leaders and/or members] are being told by 19th century American society that blacks and other races are definitely less civilized (or something) than white America, so give us a revelation that will segregate the Church/priesthood along racial lines." and then claim revelation to ratify that decision. It isn't that God can't or won't "sign off" on my bad idea (or a prophet's bad idea), but how do we know when we are twisting things to fit our own predispositions and when are we truly following God's will. I have to doubt "never". My own experience suggests that God is willing to grant reliable revelation even when the question is about getting more sex. The harder question behind it is truly understanding God's will for our sexuality so we can understand when and how God would answer the "I want sex" question. I fear we have too much of St. Augustine and other Christian beliefs buried deep in our understanding of sexuality to have a good handle on that question.

I don't think I have the wherewithal to argue this, but I will say that this could be one of my key "shelf" issues. If I boil it down to its essence: Sure there's a public, signed document, but is it still possible that much of our beliefs on LGBT is, as with blacks and the priesthood, a hodge-podge of tradition and teachings mingled with some truth and revelation? In the absence of a "testimony" type experience, it seems awful difficult to disentangle tradition and apostolic opinion from Truth. Appeals to scripture sometimes work, but, scripture is also full of traditions and opinions, and it is often difficult to detangle truth from tradition in scripture.

I'm not sure I have what it takes to respond to everything directed at me, but, I think this suffices for a bottom line. It's all about discernment -- how we individually and collectively decide what is right and wrong, Yes, personal revelation is fallible. The priesthood line might be less fraught, but history shows that it is not immune to error. I don't know how to navigate when the two lines of revelation do not come to a unified conclusion. At times, I wonder if God wants individuals to submit to the priesthood line even when it is in error, but other times, that just doesn't feel right, either.

I would agree that we know a lot less about what it means to be created by God than we often claim. Many complementarians (and many LDS seem to lean towards complementarianism) defend complementarianism by claiming that God made men and women to be --insert stereotype here-- so that they can fill divinely appointed roles in the family and the church. Do we really know how much of our gender differences and similarities are created by God? My username is derived from my stature being in the 1st percentile for height for US men. Did God make me short? Being short is certainly a complex outcome based on genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors, but does all of that mean that God made me short? Some would say yes. In a fallen, mortal world, Christianity has long struggled to decide what parts of being human are part of God's perfect creation and what parts derived from Adam's fall. Right now, we are struggling to apply this specifically to LGBT issues, with plenty of confusion and disagreements. I find it interesting that many -- like Archuletta himself -- claim that God has revealed to them personally that He created them this way. How do we feel about such personal revelation from God? I agree that God wants to overcome the natural man. I think the challenge we have -- similar to the previous -- is trying to decide exactly what falls under the umbrella of "natural man". Again, what is God created and what is a consequence of the Fall. Years ago, when my marriage was descending into sexlessness, I recall my frustrations being mostly about how come I could not let sex go. Sex and desire were "fallen" things that, while they were allowed and acceptable within marriage, should be easily discarded if/when your spouse lost interest. Sex was clearly under the "natural man" umbrella and something that should be easily overcome. I now believe very differently about sex, and a big part of the change is deciding that is not universally "natural" but can be spiritual and God not only tolerates sex in marriage but celebrates it. I might even go so far as to say that sexless marriages are borderline sinful, but usually stop short of that (mostly because I don't think the sinful label helps anything). Anyway, so how do we decide what parts of sexuality are compatible with the spiritual man and what parts are clearly under the natural man umbrella? @Just_A_Guy I probably don't have the same exposure to pedophiles that you do, but I have read a few articles (usually by the therapist(s) treating the kinds of pedophiles you describe), and I agree they do have a rough time, and I don't envy them one bit. My own struggles have been hellish enough, but pale compared to theirs (and, frankly, to run of the mill LGBT+ people, too). I don't have any real answers for those with a true orientation towards pedophilia, but I do feel like their is one important distinction between pedophiles and most other LGBT+ like Archuleta. Archuleta's potential romantic partners will be adults who are able to choose to reciprocate or not his overtures. The pain and frustration felt by the "ethical" pedophile (did I just coin that?) like you describe is, I seem to recall being mentioned, is a recognition that the children they are attracted to cannot reciprocate because of their age. I know many conservatives do not like it when consent is touted as the only or primary legitimizer of sexual activity, but it certainly isn't small potatoes, either. Consent is a significant part of a romantic and sexual relationship. The other thing I might push back some against is the idea that God "coerces" people into being eunuchs as applying to all LGBT+. Certainly pedophiles who are not "fluid" enough to be attracted to adults as well would be best to stay single and celibate. Can the same thing be said about other LGBT+ -- that God is coercing them to be single and celibate when society has evolved to see these relationships as acceptable? In the end, I don't think I really have any answers, and I'm not convinced that the Church has any more answers than I or Archuleta do. Consider all this lack of certainty, I find myself wondering if we ought to be a bit more tolerant when someone claims that God accepts them and their LGBT+ tendencies and let them run their life and retain fellowship in the Church.

@carlimac: I probably cannot fully explain what I mean. Closest is probably how Jim Bennett describes his view of the issue: https://canonizer.com/blog/words-of-revelation/ In short, we claim to "know" so much more about how God views LGBT issues than I think we actually "know".

I'm sorry, but, considering that the discussion started with David Archuletta, this seemed at least a little bit ironic to me. Perhaps I am assuming too much, but it seems like, of any of the high profile LGBT members of the Church, Archuletta is among those who is already quite passionate about music, and it doesn't seem to have changed the dynamics around his struggle. Based on the "fruits" that Archuletta described, I don't think the Church's stance or approach to LGBT issues can be completely right. Something, IMO, is just off about the whole thing. I won't claim to have any understanding of the difference between Archuletta's frustration and the alcoholic who is frustrated that he has to choose between a good life and alcohol or the the thief that is upset because he got caught, but there is something different, IMO, about the frustrations expressed by LGBT Latter-day Saints. My advice to Archuletta (and probably about worth what he/you paid for it) would be to use his personal relationship with God and choose what he thinks is best for himself. If that means dating men, then he ought to date men. If that means reducing his participation at Church (or accepting "membership restrictions" imposed by priesthood leaders), then accept those restrictions. I would like to hope that he can find comfort in the examples of those few who embrace their LGBT identity and still find some way to maintain a working relationship with the Church (here I'm thinking of John Gustav-Wrathall and the like), but I am also comfortable that some just need a clean break from the Church. Perhaps it is my universalism showing, but I find myself believing that God can lead people like Archuletta -- if they maintain and grow their relationship with God -- through this vale of tears into a place of salvation and exaltation through the Atonement of Jesus Christ independent of their relationship (or lack thereof) with the Church. If Archuletta is blessed to find a spouse/life partner that he can commit to, then I wish him all the best in that relationship. If Archuletta decides that he must sever his relationship with the Church, I think the Church will be a little poorer for his decision.

@prisonchaplain since you have been absent from the forum for a while, I wanted to bump this to make sure you had a chance to see it, just in case you find Dr. Thomas's work interesting.

You may be right. I really have no objection to the possibility. I think the main thing I am objecting to is the certainty behind the statement. I don't think we can state this as true with the kind of certainty that I am reading into this.

I disagree, I think there is plenty of room for doubt. Even the example of the Atonement, IMO, does not prove beyond any doubt that God must be subject to laws that He did not create. It certainly doesn't prove the converse or opposite or whatever you want to call it. I think, when all is said and done, I find my puny intellect is just unable to even commence to start to begin to want to fathom God's nature, that I find very little that I can say for certain other than God is Good and He is my Father (or maybe it is more appropriate to say They are my Parents, but that is a different rabbit hole).

I tend to think that we must first come to decide if we believe that God is subject to the laws of physics that we experience, or if God operates above or outside or even creates those laws. If God is above our laws of physics, then I don't think it matters whether or not our understanding of physics can explain what God is doing outside of that. From a recent issue of BYU Studies Quarterly: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/is-god-subject-to-or-the-creator-of-eternal-law/

A couple of thoughts: 1) For those that can get past the SL Tribune sponsorship, the Mormon Land podcast did an interview this week (episode 214) with Nate Ohman about Pres. Woodruff's change to sealing policies in 1894. Bro. Ohman suggested that this change was very significant because of the way it changed how we as Latter-day Saints think of the sealing ordinance and it's eternal implications. Bro Ohman's ideas might shed some light on the OP. 2) As one who leans more and more into my "heresies" (at least, as Elder McConkie saw them), I notice that much of the discussion assumes no progression between kingdoms. As I see more and more of the historical disagreements over this topic, I find myself more and more open to the possibility that those who are not prepared for Celestial glory at the end of life will have the opportunity to grow into Celestial beings in the next life. I know it has come up before, and many in this group are not fond of the idea of progression between kingdoms, but I said it anyway.

I can't speak for @marge, but a lot of days I seem to lean more towards universalism, and cases like Marge's are a big reason why. I have no explanation for why the scriptures can be so certain that God will never lie and will always keep His promises and that means everyone (without exception) who checks off the right boxes will get a testimony of the BoM, and, yet, many people do not receive that testimony. Sure we can say that they did not check of all the right boxes in all the right ways, but then I God starts to seem an awful lot like Robert Jordan's Aes Sedai (from Wheel of Time). Aes Sedai are an organization of women in the Wheel of Time universe who are magically bound to be honest -- to never lie and always keep promises. In spite of those magically bound oaths, nobody really trusts the Aes Sedai because they are also so adept at hiding behind half truths and answering exactly the question asked (rather than the intended question) and so on. If someone like marge is honestly seeking (but maybe missing something from the checklist) why does God withhold some kind of testimony from them? It seems to me that, if God were keeping His promise in the most generous way possible, He would overlook minor imperfections in people's methodology and grant them testimonies. However, I am confident that God is good, so, if God is withholding testimonies for seemingly minor reasons, then He must have some reason for withholding testimonies that still allow those who do not receive a testimony to still find their way to salvation and exaltation (perhaps, as estradling said, it is about timing and maybe that even includes receiving testimonies in the next life). Of course, that is a slippery slope that readily slides down to universalism. If so, I'm okay with that. I know many LDS do not like universalism (it seems that this was another of Elder McConkie's influences).

@person0 It seems a bit presumptuous (coupled with some hubris, IMO) to assume that your testimony MUST transfer to others or they have obviously done something wrong. I, too, have a testimony of the Book of Mormon from the Holy Ghost, but I'm not entirely certain I agree that my testimony means that ALL others are expected to receive the same testimony. In some ways, I think some of this "all or nothing" thinking is part of why many people leave the Church. They come to look at some of the difficult, contested issues, decide that the Church's position on that issue is not true and, because they believe it is all or nothing as we have been taught, their entire house of cards crashes. I don't fully understand how it all works, but I find myself shying away from some of this all or nothing absolutism that characterized my older faith.

I thought of @prisonchaplain while listening to Rick Bennet's (Gospel Tangents podcast) interview with Dr. Chris Thomas who recently wrote a book about his experience reading the Book of Mormon as a Pentacostal. I thought prisonchaplain and some of you others may enjoy this. I notice prisonchaplain hasn't been on the forum in a while. All's well, I hope?? https://gospeltangents.com/2021/11/pentecostal-bom-bible-treatment/

No spoilers, no real commentary, but, I guess I'm just hard to please. I give it one thumbs up and one thumbs down.

Fascinating! I'm sure there is much more to do to further understand how religion impacts suicidal ideation and such, but this certainly looks like one entry level piece on the subject. Almost certainly not the last word (I think the authors themselves say as much) on the subject. A few non-expert reactions to the opinion piece and the BYU paper: 1) The BYU authors emphasize early on that "significance" in the paper means that they were able to conclude "statistically significant" from their statistical tests. "Significant" does not necessarily say anything about the real world "size" of the effect. In other contexts, I have seen some criticize "high n studies" (where the conclusions are based on a large number of participants -- I don't know if n=86k is considered large n for this kind of work). Because of the large n, the criticism goes, the study has strong statistical power to "see" small differences between groups, but the perceived differences are still very small. At some level, even if the difference between LDS and other religion or no religion is statistically significant, is the difference large enough to have practical meaning? 2) As with anything like this, there is always the "correlation does not mean causation" thing going on. The authors find a statistically significant correlation between checking the LDS box on a form and less suicidal ideation/attempts, but that does not mean that being LDS prevents suicide. I expect that a large part of the future work that wants/needs to be done is trying to understand what factors drive the correlation. 3) I appreciated their attempts to address how disaffiliation might confound the conclusions. I can't say that I understood everything they did, but it does seem like an important thing to include in this analysis. It was somewhat gratifying that, even using their best guesses at disaffiliation numbers, the final conclusion did not change. However, in their discussion of disaffiliation, they also note that, assumptions along the extreme end of their alleged uncertainty limits, could change the conclusions, so their appears to be just enough overall uncertainty to claim, at the outside, that maybe some of the paper's conclusions are because the SHARP data do not include any indication on disaffiliation. On a personal note, perhaps just because of where some of my own thoughts are on the topic, if identifying as LDS is somehow correlated with lower suicide rates, is there some way we as a Church can do something more to discourage disaffiliation? I do not have the expertise to provide any expert opinions, but it seems like a good entry into the discussion. I look forward to more data to help clarify the relationships between the Church and its LGBQ members.

This thread has ranged all over, so I think it's okay to ask this one. I recently saw that they are releasing a musical "Cyrano" based on the old Cyrano de Bergerac play. From what I understand, this particular musical was released on stage a few years ago (2018?) by Erica Schmidt with the title role going to her husband, Peter Dinklage. The twist (that intrigues me) is that she uses Peter's dwarfism instead of an oversized nose as the physical trait that causes Cyrano to avoid professing his love for Roxanne. Has anyone seen the on-stage play or heard anything good or bad from it? I've seen mixed reviews, leaning positive.

I'm not an expert in logical fallacies. What I see in your description is a kind of distraction, which, I think, is a Red Herring fallacy. The idea is that the one who wants to argue about existence is using that argument as a "red herring" -- a distraction from the real issue that you want to discuss. https://www.logicalfallacies.org/red-herring.html

As chorister, I don't know if I would want it brought up or not. It's a very common complaint around the Church, but it doesn't seem to change, so I don't know if bringing it up yet again will really change anything. Of course, I often feel like I am rushing the congregation and/or organist, so maybe I'm seeing this from the other side of the problem -- a fear of going too fast. Having also been the accompanist, sometimes I think the pace is set by the organist/pianist, because that is the position related to music that requires the most skill. If the organist/pianist cannot play any faster, complaining that it is too slow won't help until the accompanist improves their skill level. Unless and until the Church decides to make accompanist a paid position (like other churches) we maybe need to be patient and tolerant of the volunteer musicians we use for this. My feeling -- if you have a good enough relationship with the chorister/organist to gently say something, then say that you, personally, would like to sing some of the hymns at a faster tempo. Then, leave the job of leading/playing the music to those called to the job. If it changes, then good. If the tempo remains slower than you like, accept that they are doing the best they can with the skills and artistic vision they have, and be patient with them.