How to Study Prophetic Counsel from the 20th Century (And Not Go Crazy)


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Guest Mores
14 hours ago, Vort said:

Well said. The problem is (often, not always) not with the ideas, but with the presentation. I actually mostly agreed with Heather's infamous article a couple of months back, but her "not a member of Elder Oaks' fan club" presentation doused any enthusiasm that the column might otherwise have generated in me.

Sister Mangum's implied approach seems to be: The gospel message is offensive on first hearing, and the gospel as preached by our fathers and grandfathers triply so. Therefore, we must overlook our initial impression and instead listen more carefully to tease out the eternal truths that are there.

I suppose this is solid advice in any generation and at any age, but the implication rubs me wrong. Instead of saying, "I approached a certain gospel topic wrong, and it took a while until I could see the truths being presented," the article seems to say, "Those old generations said things funny, in a way that decent people today can't grasp immediately, but we have to be patient with our forebears and tease out the truths they articulated." Again, this is not incorrect, but it seems to suffer from massive implicit presentism. If Sister Mangum's article were the only example of this, I would chalk it up to a mere immature worldview by a specific writer, or perhaps just an unconscious slip. But it seems like this is the default attitude of the article authors for ThirdHour.

I'm interpreting this to mean that you agree with the bottom line principles outlined in the article.  But you don't like the reasoning or especially the wording.  I don't completely disagree with it.  But I would interject a different perspective.

The gospel of Jesus Christ asks a LOT of us.  ALL of us.  Even those with firm faith and foundation find it difficult to live a righteous life.  We may find difficulty understanding (or accepting) deeper truths.  Then to try to articulate these ideas and the "why" of our faith in them is even more difficult.

Then imagine a person with youth, inexperience, less developed vocabulary and logic skills try to do that which an older, more experienced and more trained individual takes some effort to do.  Yes, I'm pulling the youth and inexperience card.  And I do believe that is what is going on here.  They really are doing the best they can.  I'm especially talking about a few of the younger contributors to the MGF articles.

I remember when I was college age.  While I was more educated than my peers, I was nowhere near as educated as I am today.  I understand more about the world and the ways of men.  I understand so much more about life and what "makes sense" than I did back then.  I have learned and partaken of the goodness and the mysteries of God.  I honestly don't know how much better I could have done back then, than some of the younger writers here.

It is only when there is outright false doctrine or falsehood that would make me say a lot more about the younger writers.  And there have been a few (the Ashera worshipper springs to mind).

Edited by Mores
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22 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I would like to think that MGF is not that desperate for writers that they can't apply a modicum of discrimination.

I’m not in an official position to say.  It seems to me that what MGF (or anyone else) publishes will be likely to be somewhat representative of the materials submitted to them for publication; and I don’t believe most of the 3H authors are paid for their work.

I am not in a position to solicit submissions for 3H; but I’d encourage anyone with something to say to consider submitting an article to 3H and see if it gets accepted.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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1 minute ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I’m not in a position to say.  It seems to me that what MGF (or anyone else) publishes will be likely to be somewhat representative of the materials submitted to them for publication; and I don’t believe most of the 3H authors are paid for their work.

I am not in a position to solicit submissions for 3H; but I’d encourage anyone with something to say to consider submitting an article to 3H and see if it gets accepted.

I've actually contemplated doing so.  I write these very long answers to posts and think... I could just make this into an article.  Then I smack myself over the head - your English is not that good, you just think it is.

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11 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I've actually contemplated doing so.  I write these very long answers to posts and think... I could just make this into an article.  Then I smack myself over the head - your English is not that good, you just think it is.

99% of the time your written English here is indistinguishable from that of a native English speaker. You should go for it!

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image.png.07f4b6bf73300755a9f45d65f6830724.png

 

*shrug*.  What do you people expect?  These are college kids learning how to adult.  They've always said stuff at this level.  You and I said stuff at this level at one point in our lives.  Teh interwebs gives "saying stuff" more legs, more coverage, more reach than any other stuff in the history of people saying stuff.  

Back when stuff got engraven in metal plates, or etched in stone, or painstakingly calligraphied onto expensive parchment, there was a necessary effort to make sure the stuff was worthy or valuable to others.  But again, with teh interwebs, it only needs to feel worthy or valuable to the person writing the stuff.  

Perhaps at some point, she'll take herself seriously.  Right now, hey, it's a blog.  It's her gig to help folks.  She wanted to bang it out before taking off into the mountains for the weekend.

Edited by NeuroTypical
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31 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

image.png.07f4b6bf73300755a9f45d65f6830724.png

 

*shrug*.  What do you people expect?  These are college kids learning how to adult.  They've always said stuff at this level.  You and I said stuff at this level at one point in our lives.  Teh interwebs gives "saying stuff" more legs, more coverage, more reach than any other stuff in the history of people saying stuff.  

Back when stuff got engraven in metal plates, or etched in stone, or painstakingly calligraphied onto expensive parchment, there was a necessary effort to make sure the stuff was worthy or valuable to others.  But again, with teh interwebs, it only needs to feel worthy or valuable to the person writing the stuff.  

Perhaps at some point, she'll take herself seriously.  Right now, hey, it's a blog.  It's her gig to help folks.  She wanted to bang it out before taking off into the mountains for the weekend.

I was the editor of the school paper when I was in high school.  I graduated high school when I was 15 (as was normal in the Philippines at the time).  This was a Catholic high school.  Some awesome writer, who was the reason I got into comic books, submitted a fiction short story for the paper titled, "The Creature in the Toilet Bowl".  ET was still quite the rage at the time and this story was built on the foundation of Elliot's brother's "alligators in the sewers" line.  But I spent quite some time reading and re-reading that story (and loving the thing!  it was so good!), pondering, reading, pondering some more, talked to the author, talked to the priest, and was in complete angst on whether I should publish the story.  I would have published it in a heartbeat if I was running Teen Beat magazine.  But I wasn't.  And I just wasn't sure if "alligators in the sewers" had a place in a Catholic school paper regardless of the excellence by which it was written.  Yes, I ended up publishing the thing without any revision complete with the fecal scenes.  But I'm just trying to show that even 13 year-olds understand and can exercise what is appropriate and what is not for certain settings and subjects.

Edited by anatess2
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59 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I am not in a position to solicit submissions for 3H; but I’d encourage anyone with something to say to consider submitting an article to 3H and see if it gets accepted.

The problem with that is it associates you with an organization that sees fit to publish things with which you do not wish to be associated.

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9 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

But I'm just trying to show that even 13 year-olds understand and can exercise what is appropriate and what is not for certain settings and subjects.

Oh sure.  But we all mature at different rates.  I'm sure we all know older folks who have lived their entire lives never developing what you had at 13 years old.  I know several.   

 

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Just now, NeuroTypical said:

Oh sure.  But we all mature at different rates.  I'm sure we all know older folks who have lived their entire lives never developing what you had at 13 years old.  I know several.   

 

Sure, I know several too.  They wouldn't be picked to be my high school's paper editorial team or even to write articles for my high school's school paper.

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Guest LiterateParakeet

This discussion piqued my curiosity so I read the article. I really enjoyed it. I agree with JustAGuy that the author made some great points.  

I don't always read the TH articles, but when I do I enjoy them. I think there is definitely an audience for these articles...people of various ages (who are still in  the church but struggling.)   I know people that could benefit. I'll start reading the articles more regularly and share them with friends.

Keep up the good work Third Hour and MGF. What you're doing is important work. 

Edited by LiterateParakeet
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13 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

MGF has apparently decided that it can best fulfill its mission by offering validation to the DAMU set.

@anatess2 has already jumped on the threads, but didn't meme it up like I would have hoped.

 

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

MoreGoodFoundation be like

xdd2020-1079.jpg

"DAMU, I've come to bargain"

 

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