scottyg

I’m going to try to be charitable and assume that the SP has some local knowledge that is being omitted from the article.
Even assuming that the protestors were fastidiously polite:  the bottom line is that they crashed someone else’s event and flooded a venue that someone else had properly reserved.  If applied to our missionaries who were trying to hold a community information session at a public library seminar room which they had properly booked, I think we would be fine calling the tactic “divisive” or even “hateful”.  It seems to me that the better approach here would have been to name and fire the library personnel who let this happen or, if the personnel situation is incurable because of tenure or what-have-you, de-fund the library.  (In the spirit of bipartisanship and as a friendly nod to my friends across the ideological aisle, I’ll leave it deliberately ambiguous as to what I mean by “de-fund”.)
The issue, of course, is that LGBTQ advocates are fond of applying those labels (“divisive” and “hateful”) to our positions, quite irrespective of our behavior as we express those positions; and the million-dollar question is how carefully the SP was using those terms.  (The TWO-million dollar question is whether the reporter will release his/her entire correspondence chain with the SP; and based on past experience, I’m betting the answer will be “no”.)

A family in our previous ward from around 8-9 years ago was like that about Harry Potter. They were very verbally outspoken about how evil it was, and how it would lead children down a path that would eventually take them away from the church. These people were always the ones who brought up deep doctrine and gave philosophical answers to basic questions in church because their "grandfather's brother's neighbor was a second cousin to Hugh Nibley's sister in-law" (so of course they would know more about the church than all of us peasants do).
Their kids (ages 4-10) never seemed happy...because their parents never seemed to let them play or have fun with other kids. It was pretty sad.

Since when is an optional loan of 5% predatory? I'm an RN with a masters degree. I also graduated with zero student debt as I cash flowed my entire education. I didn't sign up for school unless I could pay for it myself upfront. It can be done as long as kids pay attention, make smart financial decisions, and don't live off of their loans. College for most is just a big party, and then they graduate with a worthless degree in communications or liberal arts that doesn't translate to real world employment. You want to look at predatory interest rates then take a gander at most credit cards with 19-25% interest...I don't see our politicians saying anything about that.

I don’t have time to engage with the historical allegations on these videos.  But I will say the following, with the caveat that I’m just a random guy in the internet and cannot document any of this.  But, for whatever it’s worth to those who do know me, I will say that I personally am satisfied that the following points are true:
—I am familiar with the personal dealings of several of the principals of the Joseph Smith Foundation.
—Some of them, at least, are not good people.
—Some of them, at least, are not honest people.
—Some of them, at least, subscribe to a series of private beliefs that are weirder than any public commentator has, or perhaps could, possibly imagine.
—Whatever they say publicly—in their their personal conduct—some of the principals, at least, do not accept the priesthood/authority claims of the modern LDS Church; or of President Nelson in particular.
Maybe someday these individuals’ private apostasies will boil over into the public sphere—and maybe they won’t.  Maybe the people of whom I speak will spend the rest of their lives keeping up their public charades of loyalty both to the ethical code of Joseph Smith, and to the authoritative claims of the modern LDS Church.
But I would encourage anyone paying attention to their claims, to consider now which way they personally will go if/when the JFS formally breaks from the LDS church.  Because I believe there is a very strong chance that the public break is coming.

Why don't you talk to your dad about it instead?

There is no such thing as repenting but remaining in one’s sins.  The point of these scriptures is that salvation without repentance is impossible; because salvation by definition pulls us away from our prior, sinful state.

D&C 63:10
Ether 12:6
D&C 130: 14-15
D&C 88: 63-65
 
The wife also shared the following:
Daddy?” young Corrie asked, “...What is rape?”

After a moment’s pause, the man held out his suitcase. “Would you hold this for me please Corrie?”

“Sure, daddy” she took it from his hands and it fell to the ground with a THUD. She tugged and pulled but could not lift it. He smiled and bent down to take it up from her hands.

“Let me carry that,” he said. “You know, just like this suitcase, your question is one that is too big for you to hold. I would not be a good father if I allowed you to carry it. Let your father carry it.”

I swallowed hard again. Loud and clear, I was hearing my heavenly Father say this very thing to me.
Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place

How much harm might have been avoided had the doctrine of the deification of man remained publicly unrevealed? Not only is that a club commonly used to bash Latter-day Saints over the head, but how many young (and not-so-young) Church members have taken that doctrine to absurd lengths? How many weak-at-the-moment Latter-day Saints have felt shame in hearing someone or other say something like, "When I'm a God and have my own planet..."? It's a gift to anti-Mormons, all wrapped up and with a nice bow.
How much harm has been avoided by our not knowing the nature of the Holy Ghost? How much suffering, unbelief, and apostasy have we been spared because the doctrine of a Mother in heaven has not been propounded or added upon? Church members make fools of themselves on these and other topics as it is, with no other internal help. How blessed we are to know what has been given us, and how blessed we are that a great many things of God have been withheld from our carnal, immature spirits and the filthy eyes of the world.
Ponder on the patriarchal order, the very system of God. We used to talk about that often in the Church, a great deal in some cases. But our grasp never matched our reach. As a child, I would hear (at Church, not at home) some men refer to the patriarchal order as if it were a scepter of ruling power that conferred The Last Word on them. You don't hear much about the patriarchal order at Church these days; I believe that certain important temple references have been removed on this account. Part of the reason is undoubtedly the cancerous feminism in our society that uses "patriarchy" as an ugly epithet. But I suspect an equal or perhaps larger reason is our collective insistence on misunderstanding the sacred and vitally important principle of the patriarchal order.
Moses broke the tablets containing the original law of God to Israel and returned instead with what we call the lesser law of Moses. I think that even today, God continues to dumb down our teachings until they reach a point that we are willing to grasp. Perhaps at some point we can return to growing in our collective understanding through revelation instead of retreating from sacred truths that we are too impure to receive.

I've long had an interest in politics but it is this ^^ concern that has held me back from further involvement. I think the way that politics is usually played in Australia, there is often a correlation between how fast you rise up the ladder and how fast you abandon your principles. To succeed in politics, I would have to become the kind of person that is not naturally me. So I've looked for other ways to serve instead. 

So just in case anyone missed it, Elder Oaks's statement:
"Some of our members have expressed concerns that the new national Respect for Marriage law is in conflict with the Church’s teachings against same-sex marriage. We see a need to clarify the Church’s position on that new law.
At the time the national Respect for Marriage Act was adopted, the Church publicly reaffirmed our Church doctrine approving only marriage between one man and one woman.
Marriage bills previously proposed in the Congress made no attempt to protect religious freedom. The Church came out in favor of amendments that added religious freedom protections to the proposed Respect for Marriage Act. The amended bill was signed into law, but its overall effect was misunderstood because many news stories focused on only the part of the act that affirmed same-sex marriage.
The Respect for Marriage Act did restate same-sex marriage as the law of the land, but that added little because that law was already in effect under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision. The focus of the Church’s efforts was not on same-sex marriage, but on ensuring the act contained the necessary protections for religious freedom.
As signed into law, the Respect for Marriage Act included valuable provisions to assure that no federal or state laws could be used to harm the religious or conscience rights of faith-based institutions or their members. In the end, the total law ensures that religious organizations, religious schools, and their staff do not have to perform or host same-sex marriages or celebrations. It protects the tax-exempt status of religious organizations. It protects the grants, licenses, contracts and accreditation of religious schools. And it specifically provides that its own provisions cannot be used to violate anyone’s rights to religious freedom. Putting such protections in the federal law was a big step forward. We will be alert to proposed future state action and legislation as we continue our defense of religious freedom."

Some people fear positions of power and wealth because of the temptations they may bring.  I am reminded of this scripture in Proverbs chapter 30:
8 Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me only food sufficient for me,
9 lest I be full, and deny Thee, and say, “Who is the Lord?”— or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.
Most of us cannot handle power righteously.  (See Doc. and Cov. 121: 39-44.)  To truly test someone give them a position of authority and true integrity of character will be tested.
Maybe it is just a fear of mine, but I work for and wish for only so much wealth.  Maybe my mind will change if I ever get to around one fifth of what Abraham and Sarah had.  Abraham and Isaac had great wealth and it did not corrupt their souls.

I largely agree with NT, but I would point out that mechanically we know far more about how blood pressure medication works (and how it interacts with the broader cardiovascular system), than about  how antidepressants (or any other medication used to address behavioral/psychological issues) work and how they interact with a particular person’s overall neurophysiology and psychology.
Meds are a great tool, but they are not a cure-all and over reliance on them can sometimes backfire in catastrophic fashion.  Careful mental health professionals and others in counseling roles (including religious leaders) will want to be careful to keep a nuanced approach.

Well hello there! I'm Ashley!
 
As the title shows, it has been awhile since I have been on this site.  I joined back in 2014 and posted only 1 thread.  
 
That was almost 9 years ago! However, I am coming back and how time has changed!  
When I first created my account, I had just moved to Pennsylvania from Illinois.  Gotten married!  Started a new job 1 month after I had created my account.
 
It is really amazing how much things can change in 9 years!
Last year, my husband and I moved to Western Kentucky where we now live nearby his mother!
I am also an hour and a half from my family in Southern Illinois.
I started a new job after working for 8 years for Amazon!
 
But probably the best news of all............
 
After 10 years of investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints........
..............My husband and I were formally baptized and confirmed into the Church on Sunday, February 5, 2023!!!
 

If this is how the issue were actually approached, I think you would find few who would not agree. Sadly, that is not the world we live in.

Yeah, I think America has been more of a salad bar than a melting pot, but I love salad bars!
Having salad with just lettuce is boring to me. 
I think the woke crowd is just carrying too far the message that some voices haven’t been heard as much as others and a little balance would suit the choir well (that’s my compassionate take anyway).

The LDS author Orson Scott Card wrote an essay in which he made the comment that singing or playing a hymn at Church should be an act of worship and never a performance. (Not those exact words, but that was the thrust of his comment.) I could not agree with him more. We should always seek to avoid turning a sacrament meeting talk or gospel doctrine lesson, or for that matter anything of any sacred significance, into performance art. The focus should never, ever be on us, except for those specific moments where it is appropriate. I suppose—and I am not trying to level any criticism here toward anyone—that some of what I was watching seemed a bit too much like a performance for my tastes.
Nibley claimed that The Church (meaning the ancient Roman Catholic Church) replaced spirit with emotion and rhetoric. I'll leave it to those more knowledgeable than myself to determine whether that is the case, but there is certainly truth in the idea. The irony is that such overwrought emotionalism is (in my view) the antithesis of a spiritual experience. I have on occasion heard in Church what I considered to be performances, and I think the experience was lessened thereby.
Again, I am not trying to be critical. In fact, I am trying not to be critical, but just point out my observations.

Well your job is about to get a whole lot easier. 😁 But that is unfortunate that even in the temple people would complain about things like that. How can they hope to be taught be the Spirit when they are so focused on being critical of those doing their best to serve? I guess there will always be those people.

Correct. It's important for all to remember that the Endowment itself hasn't changed at all...just the presentation of the Endowment.

I had a mission companion from there that was scared to death to do it. He truly thought we would get in trouble by pumping it ourselves. Then, once he knew it was normal, and that it was his area of the country that were the outliers, he still wouldn't do it because he "didn't want to smell like gasoline all day", and something to the effect of "it takes a professional to work with flammable substances".

Correct. It's important for all to remember that the Endowment itself hasn't changed at all...just the presentation of the Endowment.

I did a session this morning and found that the brethren have made some very significant changes to the endowment, not the covenant parts of course but in it's presentation. The doctrine behind much of what takes place is now described in detail so there can be no mistaking what the Lord expects of us.
It made me think about the motivation behind these changes and the thought that came to mind is that as the hastening increases, both the good and bad, we really don't have a lifetime to ponder and study and slowly come to this knowledge, especially the younger generation. Plainness is required and a hastening in preparation for what lies ahead. 
For agency to exist there must be opposition. We often refer to this opposition in the negative sense, darkness in opposition to light. But with evil and lies becoming ever more prevalent I think an increase in good and truth must accelerate in order to maintain true agency. But only if we avail ourselves of it.
I remember a quote by one of the brethren about not whispering the gospel to our kids in an almost subliminal way of teaching it but rather teaching it clearly and upfront. Perhaps the heavy use of symbolism in the temple has for some become a hindrance in a world where blunt, unscripted and in your face "reality" is causing young people to lose the ability to comprehend let alone appreciate the form of teaching found in the temple. 

Y'all wrong.  Only Squidward has it figured out.

" I do not know that things were worse in the times of Sodom and Gomorrah."
“Nothing happened in Sodom and Gomorrah which exceeds in wickedness and depravity that which surrounds us now."
 
Personally, I think there are some things that our world is doing today that those people would have found abhorrent. It is remarkable how quickly and how far man can fall.

Gordan B. Hinckley and Boyd K. Packer were right: 
 

No. No one has a problem with profit-making. People have a problem with conflict of interest, with those who make money from a project also being the decision-makers for what is supposedly the public's best interest.