Controlling limits of intimacy in courtship

[estradling75]

So it seems we all agree that Gramps is right when he wrote this

Consider a 12 year old girl who has many trusted associations with men in her life. All too often, one of these men, acting on pure, wanton evil violates that trust and abuses her, sometimes for years. A culture that would even allow for her to ask the question, “what did I do to bring this on?” is at best, dysfunctional and at worst, evil. We must not contribute to the notion that the perpetrator is the victim and vice versa, yet that is the result of our current modest lesson delivery and content.

But I would wager that every one in this forum has at on time or another have said something that they thought was true and harmless... Only to be ripped into by someone else and called dysfunctional and shall we say even evil... For what we said because they took it in a way we never meant, never even considered going with it. But because we did say those words we are as much guilty of this quote as everyone else. In fact I would say many of you have experienced that right here on this forum.

So how do we get our message out to the ninety and nine without giving offense to the one? How do we get everyone to interpret what we say and teach the way we intended it to be taken and not through there own filters? Clearly our current methods don't do this but I am not sure we have a way.

Edited March 3, 2014 by estradling75

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

So how do we get our message out to the ninety and nine without giving offense to the one? How do we get everyone to interpret what we say and teach the way we intended it to be taken and not through there own filters? Clearly our current methods don't do this but I am not sure we have a way.

For the most part I completely agree with you. Christ was perfect and he couldn't please everyone, so we have no hope, LOL!

The small difference I see here though, is when you get feedback that your message is giving offense to a large number of people (I don't know how many, but certainly more than one), then it is time to reconsider how your present your message. After all, what is more important, getting your message across or being right.

And no, I'm not counseling Elder Callister here--I would never be so presumptuous. I was speaking in general, as you were, that we had all experienced that. I do hope though that in a general sense, all this controversy will help our leaders consider presenting this message in a different way. I have confidence they are humble men of God, who want to do his will more than be right. (I mean that in a good way, but I have a feeling someone is going to take me to task for it.) I support our leaders, if you read that any other way, you misunderstand me.