What LGBTQ+ hath wrot


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Just now, Nissan said:

So as a church body we are guaranteed to not become a wicked people?

You are saying the church can apostasize...again...

If that is what you believe, you believe something different than the LDS church.

Individuals may fall away, but not the church.  If that is what you are trying to say, you need to be more clear.

 

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9 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

You are saying the church can apostasize...again...

If that is what you believe, you believe something different than the LDS church.

Individuals may fall away, but not the church.  If that is what you are trying to say, you need to be more clear.

 

What you are saying is not logical. 

I understand it is really hard for the older generation to understand what is occurring.

All an organization or the body of Christ or the church all it is is a collection of individuals.

Think of a ward. You are making the claim that in a ward only individuals can apostasize but not the entire ward. Okay a ward is made up of 150 members.  One stays in church but starts apostasizing you still have 149. What if 10 or 50 or 100. Clearly at some point over you reach a critical mass of individuals who apostasize things are going to change.

What is true at a ward level is true at a stake, area and general church.

Now what can prevent it. Well the Body of Christ is like a living entity. If apostosy is spreading like a cancer What should you do? Cut it off.

Better to be without a finger than the entire body die.

The Church did that with homosexuality it tried to cut out the cancer. And the membership rejected the cancer being cut out.

 

Edited by Nissan
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26 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

It would be fascinating to watch. Every other religion that has sanctioned gay marriage has plummeted in attendance and had splinters break off. I'm sure the same sort of thing would happen in the LDS church. 

Overall I think I agree...but...

I've seen this (and many others have as well) pattern.  It's not merely Gay Marriage though, normally it starts by weakening standards that have always been in their church.  It is not necessarily by Gay Marriage, but doing away with the very ideas upon which their church was initially built upon.

Part of this in my opinion is that they are losing many of the men who are members in these churches.  Many of these religions or churches were built upon the idea of a male organized leadership. 

It does not have to be the way it occurs, but many times what happens is that they give women more authority.  This is not a bad thing, but the problem is that they are taking much away from male members and not replacing it with anything else.  There is no balance in what they are giving to each side of the equation or taking away..  As they give less and less for the men to do in those religions you see more and more men stop going.  As more men stop going, though many may deny it, in many families MEN will lead the family in various directions more than the women, you see those men who fell away leading their families away as well.

(edit: To be clear, giving women more authority is NOT a bad thing, I am not against it, that's not the point I am making.  I am saying when you take something away for the men to participate in and be a part of and do not replace it with something else, you inherently WEAKEN reasons for those same members to remain participating).

Of course, this is one part of the equation, but as churches built upon a male priesthood structure destroy that structure, though it can be beneficial to the women, if they do not balance it out with something for the men, in many cases...they start losing the male members of the church.  This of course is bad for family cohesion and eventually you'll have the women who would have never left in the first place, but without many of the male members and the families they took with them.

I feel it has more to do with Churches abandoning the foundational principles upon which they were built.

This is part of why I feel evangelical churches that have refused to budge in the light of changing attitudes of the world around them are being more resilient in retaining membership than those that choose to change.  The Evangelicals who are doing well are sticking with the beliefs that they started with.  If someone believes in something that belief is less likely to change than a church is.  If a church changes but the members belief does not, the member is more likely to leave.  The Evangelicals that have the Bible as the beginning and end of their authority have a very rigid system to stick with, and they realize that if they abandon what the bible tells them, they will lose the members that believe in the Bible.

Overall, in general I feel a LOT of younger people, and more so among men with middle age and older individuals are the ones abandoning religion these days.  I feel there is still a majority of the population of the US that are Christian (not necessarily in the entirety of the West these days though) because religion is no longer offering the stability of belief it once did, and the morals the youth are being taught secularly clash with what is being taught in the Bible, but many of those religions that claim to teach the Bible don't follow the very principles they claim to teach...thus leading youth to feel Christianity as a whole is hypocritical.

It's a complicated thing.

So, overall I agree with your statement (and it is much shorter than what I typed, but you know me), but I think it is a lot more complicated if you look under the surface.

Edited by JohnsonJones
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1 minute ago, JohnsonJones said:

and it is much shorter than what I typed, but you know me

We know and love you bro. You are the Herman Melville of the forum. Interesting posts, but I find myself saying "Yes, yes get on with it." as I read them. 😉 

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1 hour ago, estradling75 said:

And by the same token you have ZERO stewardship over them. Where is your authority to call them to account?  You have none... Worse yet you are substituting your judgement where you have no stewardship over someone that God has called and appointed that stewardship to.  What make you think you have divined the mind and will of God on the matter when you have absolutely no stewardship on the subject?

For me it is a simple matter of Faith.  Christ is in control. He guides his church.  If he causes something to be done that I do not understand or agree with... it is my understanding and agreement that needs to change.  And if someone God has called has messed up... He has that too.  Our mistakes do not, can not thwart God's plan.  If something is happening in the church that we have no stewardship over,    it is not our place to act like we do and to try to assume power.   Nor it is our place to treat the Kingdom of God like a Democracy and demand our voice be heard, even if we are absolutely convinced we are right... That is ark steading.  If we do have some form of stewardship relationship then we can act within the limits of that relationship and we are entitled to know the mind and will of God with in those limits.

If that person had stewardship over us, I’d give more deference to your point.  And again, if this were President Nelson or a general authority or general officer, it may change the calculus.

But by the same token, we know that people do sometimes go rogue with their stewardships, and sometimes do a great deal of damage because no one dares challenge them.  Surely you don’t mean to suggest that none of us had any authority to publicly disagree with Dehlin, Kelley or Snuffer, or Peter Danzig (or Joseph Bishop, or the mercifully small number of LDS bishops who have done horrific things during their tenure) prior to their excommunication; but that is the natural and logical implication of your post.

Gay sex is wrong.  That is not exactly a mystery within the Church; devining the Lord’s will isn’t that complicated in this case. 

Whoever authorized that group to perform on the temple grounds—the Church’s “flagship” east-coast facility, as some here have noted—is creating an impression, even amongst active Saints, that gay sex is not really wrong (or might not be wrong at some future point).  It requires no extraordinary  spiritual insight or even worldly intelligence to see that; one only needs to listen to other people’s responses when they hear the news.

When Saint A infringes on Saint B’s stewardship, Saint B is not bound to shut up.  As I explained upthread, someone at the DC temple has infringed on my stewardship as a Saint and priesthood-holder, which is to condemn sin and stand as a witness of God at all times, in all things, and in all places.  I’m pushing back.  If we really aren’t supposed to interfere with how another manages their own stewardship, then aren’t you “steadying the ark” by daring to publicly disagree with me? ;)  

Eventually the GAs or their designees may have to mediate between us; until then, the fact that the DC temple presidency retains their position in spite of their activities is of no more moment than the fact that I retain mine in spite of my activities.

And if I am exceeding my stewardship—well, I’ll stay in my lane when the DC folks stay in theirs.  And using the “flagship” Church facility on the east coast to suggest to all and sundry that the Church is tacitly green-lighting (or about to green-light) fornication and sodomy, is not staying in their lane.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Christianity in the US is dying literally and rapidly. Only about 40 percent of millenials are Christian and it is rapidly diving.

Inside the church about 40 precent of millenials believe in homosexuality.

Demographics is destiny. Either the church in the us massively shrinks as it cuts out the cancer or the cancer takes over the body.

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Guest MormonGator

I don't know about the actual numbers but all Christian churches around the world are shrinking, and the LDS church has a massive problem with it's younger members being more accepting of homosexuality, that's for sure. 

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1 minute ago, Just_A_Guy said:

If that person had stewardship over us, I’d give more deference to your point.  And again, if this were President Nelson or a general authority or general officer, it may change the calculus.

But by the same token, we know that people do go rogue with their stewardship, and sometimes do a great deal of damage because no one dares challenge them.  Surely you don’t mean to suggest that none of us had any authority to publicly disagree with Dehlin, Kelley or Snuffer, or Peter Danzig (or Joseph Bishop, or the mercifully small number of LDS bishops who have done horrific things during their tenure) prior to their excommunication; but that is the natural and logical implication of your post.

Gay sex is wrong.  That is not exactly a mystery within the Church; devining the Lord’s will isn’t that complicated in this case. 

Whoever authorized that group to perform on the temple grounds—the Church’s “flagship” east-coast facility, as some here have noted—is creating an impression, even amongst active Saints, that gay sex is not really wrong (or might not be wrong at some future point).  It requires no extraordinary  spiritual insight or even worldly intelligence to see that; one only needs to listen to other people’s responses when they hear the news.

When Saint A infringes on Saint B’s stewardship, Saint B is not bound to shut up.  As I explained upthread, someone at the DC temple has infringed on my stewardship as a Saint and priesthood-holder, which is to condemn sin and stand as a witness of God at all times, in all things, and in all places.  I’m pushing back.  If we really aren’t supposed to interfere with how other manages their own stewardship, then aren’t you “steadying the ark” by daring to publicly disagree with me? ;)   Eventually the GAs or their designees may have to mediate between us; until then, the fact that the DC temple presidency retains their position in spite of their activities is of no more moment than the fact that I retain mine in spite of my activities.

And if I am exceeding my stewardship—well, I’ll stay in my lane when the DC folks stay in theirs.  And using the “flagship” Church facility on the east coast to suggest to all and sundry that the Church is tacitly green-lighting (or about to green-light) fornication and sodomy, is not staying in their lane.

Except you are making an Assumption you can not prove... And that you are not entitled to receive guidance on.  Does the Lord want the Choir to sing?  I worship a God of Miracles... A God who can work with Sinners and still protect the innocent from said sinners.  I also Worship a God who tests all of us.  That test included letting find whatever excuses we want to use to justify disobedience.   It is part of the whole shifting of the wheat and tares.  You can not stop that, I can not stop that.  It is the will of the Lord that it happens. The best we can do is work to strengthen those individuals that we see faltering. Anything else is beyond what God has given us to do

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I think there is a great deal of confusion in the world today over what is right and what is wrong...what is good and what is evil.

With so much influence via various media and other resources it probably is hard for many people in figuring out what they truly do or do not believe.  For a Young person without as much experience in developing their own individuality it is doubtless even harder than any of us could imagine with so much telling them one thing or the other.

However, in some ways I think they see the hypocrisy among many of the religions and the teachers of religions today.  Rather than try to figure out the truth from the hypocrisy, they just give up on it and decide NONE of it is for them rather than trying to follow a certain church or religion.

Many of the youth that are not religious in my classes surprisingly have read the Bible (and some of them probably far more than many of the Christians or even members of our Church) and are very familiar with it.  They can identify when churches are not following the teachings they find there.  I think in many cases young people are more educated on a great deal of things than the older people of my generation (or the next one down) give them credit for. 

If you don't stand for something, you stand for nothing. 

If we stand for our original principles and standards and stick with it, we stand as a banner.  When we change...we show we never stood for it in the first place.  If a Church says they follow the New Testament but not to love their neighbor...a young student familiar with the Bible will call that Church out on it quick.  To them, it is a hypocrisy...and I think that's a LOT of where the trouble comes in with the LGBT.  We claim we love all men, and yet we discriminate against LGBT.  To a young student's eyes it can be very hard for them to discern between the ideas of...love the sinner and not the sin...and we disapprove of the sin and thus we hate the sinner.

Being a young person today I imagine is a tough position to be in.

Edited by JohnsonJones
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4 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

Except you are making an Assumption you can not prove... And that you are not entitled to receive guidance on.  Does the Lord want the Choir to sing?  I worship a God of Miracles... A God who can work with Sinners and still protect the innocent from said sinners.  I also Worship a God who tests all of us.  That test included letting find whatever excuses we want to use to justify disobedience.   It is part of the whole shifting of the wheat and tares.  You can not stop that, I can not stop that.  It is the will of the Lord that it happens. The best we can do is work to strengthen those individuals that we see faltering. Anything else is beyond what God has given us to do

Except you are making an Assumption you can not prove... And that you are not entitled to receive guidance on.  Does the Lord want the MTC president to have a dysfunctional sister missionary to remove her clothing so that the president can grope her?  I worship a God of Miracles... A God who can work with Sinners and still protect the innocent from said sinners.  I also Worship a God who tests all of us.  That test included letting find whatever excuses we want to use to justify disobedience. . .

See how easy that was?

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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29 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

Individuals may fall away, but not the church.

Amen brother. We have been told that the church, as a whole, will not apostasize in this generation. Doctrine and Covenants 138:44:

"44 Daniel, who foresaw and foretold the establishment of the kingdom of God in the latter days, never again to be destroyed nor given to other people;"

President Jospeh F. Smith received this revelation, as have many others going back to Joseph Smith. Individuals will apostasize, even large groups of individuals. But God will not allow his prophet, as imperfect an individual as he may be, to lead us astray. Wilford Woodruff said as much in Official Declaration 1 

"The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty."

Either we believe these men are prophets and President Woodruff was telling us the mind of God, or we don't and our church is no different then any other.

FWIW this does not apply to the original discussion about whoever let that men's choir preach as that's not a church wide thing.

Edited by Midwest LDS
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2 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Except you are making an Assumption you can not prove... And that you are not entitled to receive guidance on.  Does the Lord want the MTC president to have a dysfunctional sister missionary to remove her clothing so that the president can grope her?  I worship a God of Miracles... A God who can work with Sinners and still protect the innocent from said sinners.  I also Worship a God who tests all of us.  That test included letting find whatever excuses we want to use to justify disobedience. . .

See how easy that was?

What part of God testing people would not include God allowing abuse to occur?

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6 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

What part of God testing people would not include God allowing abuse to occur?

The issue isn’t what evil God permits to occur; the issue is what we are—or as you argue, aren’t—supposed to say about evil when we see it.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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27 minutes ago, Midwest LDS said:

Amen brother. We have been told that the church, as a whole, will not appstasuze in this generation. Doctrine and Covenants 138:44:

"44 Daniel, who foresaw and foretold the establishment of the kingdom of God in the latter days, never again to be destroyed nor given to other people;"

President Jospeh F. Smith received this revelation, as have many others going back to Joseph Smith. Individuals will apostasize, even large groups of individuals. But God will not allow his prophet, as imperfect an individual as he may be, to lead us astray. Wilford Woodruff said as much in Official Declaration 1 

"The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty."

Either we believe these men are prophets and President Woodruff was telling us the mind of God, or we don't and our church is no different then any other.

FWIW this does not apply to the original discussion about whoever let that men's choir preach as that's not a church wide thing.

Just to bring up the hypothetical...

That actually is NOT part of the OD #1, it is from an excerpt.

The question then, was that him speaking as a Man or as a Prophet.

Also, that's not from the JoD, why is that?  Why is it instead quoting from the Deseret News? (PS, just in case no one got the joke..the JoD ended in the 1880s...and if that is not clear enough...the manifesto is dated in 1890...though there WERE more official other sources for conference then the DN...)

His next statement which they excerpt ALSO from the Deseret News seems more true to the sources and his actual opinion which to quote the beginning of it is

Quote

It matters not who lives or who dies, or who is called to lead this Church, they have got to lead it by the inspiration of Almighty God.  If they do not do it that way, they cannot do it at all...

Of interest...even after the Manifesto... Wilford Woodruff allowed polygamy in the Church and polygamous sealings inside the Temple.  The same with Lorenzo Snow.

It took Joseph F. Smith with some VERY AGGRESSIVE actions as well as a second manifesto to actually stop polygamy in the Church itself. 

I feel that they were still prophets...all of them.  I think Woodruff's intention was not that the Prophet was infallible, but that as long as the Prophet was leading by the inspiration of the Lord it would remain true.  If they ever decided to do it on their own, the Church itself could fall away.  In this, then, Wilford Woodruff repeatedly stated HOW his decision in the Manifesto came about through that self same inspiration he was discussing.  He was showing that the Manifesto came through inspiration of the Lord and not him acting upon his own decisions.  I feel he was also stating that if it was through his own ideas rather than the Lord...he himself could not be leading the church in following the Lord at all.

Of interest, the Lord has put into instruction HOW to remove a Prophet and President of the Church.  We have never done so, but we have removed apostles previously.  We are NOT a church of leader worship, we worship the Lord. 

That said, the Church should never go astray.  The Lord seems to have stated that we should not have a church fall away at least...however...the Lord also will not abridge our free agency.  If we as a Church become determined to fall away...we still have our agency to do so (not that I expect or predict that we would do so).

However, my HOPE is if the Church ever appeared as if it were going to go astray due to leadership in the Church leading it astray...I would hope the Lord would provide a way for the church to continue true to him rather than allow an apostasy to occur again.  It is this assurance that I hope is included in the idea of the Church remaining true, that if ever a leader of great position decided to lead the church astray or depend on their own strength rather than the inspiration of the Lord, the Lord would provide a way for the Church to remain true to the Lord rather than falling away into apostasy.

Thus far it has happened thus, with the most obvious being at the Death of Joseph Smith.  At that time there was a great deal of indecision of who was to lead the Church.  Only through the correct Leader being led by inspiration and the members also was the Church preserved in it's form in following the Lord. 

To a lesser degree this occurred later when they finally made stringent strides to finally end Polygamy once and for all.  A Leader took it upon themselves to try to do something different and led a great many after him (and today they are still there and still practice polygamy).  At that time, once again, the Lord had the prophet remain true in his inspiration in revelations from the Lord (and he was quite clear how it occurred and why in the revelations).

So, it is possible for the church to go astray as has been demonstrated in the past, but as also with the Past, at least thus far and what I hope will also occur in the future should a similar situation occur is that the Lord will provide leaders inspired from him and led by him and the spirit to lead us in the path that we should follow.  Thus far the church as we know it has remained as it has, but there have been a great number who have fallen to different paths even in our church within it's short existence thus far.

Edited by JohnsonJones
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1 minute ago, Just_A_Guy said:

The issue isn’t what evil God permits to occur; the issue is what we are—or as you argue, aren’t—supposed to do about evil when we see it.

Fair enough.   The very first step is making sure we are seeing evil which is where this case fails.  Groping a sister missionary (or other form of abuse) is in no way allowable within a stewardship anyone is granted.  It also breaks the Law and both the Legal system and the Church have been very clear about our expected action (And while in the pass it might not have been as clear they have corrected that).  Therefore both its evilness and the course of action have been given to us.

This is not comparable to the Genocidal, Pedophile, Nazi, choir.  Did the Event Coordinator exceed their stewardship or break the law?  Does not appear so.  Did the Event Coordinator try to hide it or sneak it past their local leaders.. this seems unlikely.  Did the Event Coordinator follow the process we are all given to receive revelation? Namely prayerful study the matter.  Make a choice. Take that choice before the Lord.  Unknown.  But as someone noted earlier at this level such rookie mistakes seem unlikely.

Therefore your calling the action Evil is inherently making an unrighteous judgement on the Event Coordinator.  If the Event Coordinator followed the process correctly then it was the right thing to do no matter who disagrees with it.  This means the only clear evil in this actions is in those making the unrighteous judgement.

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2 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

Just to bring up the hypothetical...

That actually is NOT part of the OD #1, it is from an excerpt.

The question then, was that him speaking as a Man or as a Prophet.

Also, that's not from the JoD, why is that?  Why is it instead quoting from the Deseret News? (PS, just in case no one got the joke..the JoD ended in the 1880s...and if that is not clear enough...the manifesto is dated in 1890...though there WERE more official other sources for conference then the DN...)

His next statement which they excerpt ALSO from the Deseret News seems more true to the sources and his actual opinion which to quote the beginning of it is

Of interest...even after the Manifesto... Wilford Woodruff allowed polygamy in the Church and polygamous sealings inside the Temple.  The same with Lorenzo Snow.

It took Joseph F. Smith with some VERY AGGRESSIVE actions as well as a second manifesto to actually stop polygamy in the Church itself. 

 I feel that they were still prophets...all of them.  I think Woodruff's intention was not that the Prophet was infallible, but that as long as the Prophet was leading by the inspiration of the Lord it would remain true.  If they ever decided to do it on their own, the Church itself could fall awayIn this, then, Wilford Woodruff repeatedly stated HOW his decision in the Manifesto came about through that self same inspiration he was discussing.  He was showing that the Manifesto came through inspiration of the Lord and not him acting upon his own decisions.  I feel he was also stating that if it was through his own ideas rather than the Lord...he himself could not be leading the church in following the Lord at all.

Of interest, the Lord has put into instruction HOW to remove a Prophet and President of the Church.  We have never done so, but we have removed apostles previously.  We are NOT a church of leader worship, we worship the Lord. 

That said, the Church should never go astray.  The Lord seems to have stated that we should not have a church fall away at least...however...the Lord also will not abridge our free agency.  If we as a Church become determined to fall away...we still have our agency to do so (not that I expect or predict that we would do so).

However, my HOPE is if the Church ever appeared as if it were going to go astray due to leadership in the Church leading it astray...I would hope the Lord would provide a way for the church to continue true to him rather than allow an apostasy to occur again.  It is this assurance that I hope is included in the idea of the Church remaining true, that if ever a leader of great position decided to lead the church astray or depend on their own strength rather than the inspiration of the Lord, the Lord would provide a way for the Church to remain true to the Lord rather than falling away into apostasy.

Thus far it has happened thus, with the most obvious being at the Death of Joseph Smith.  At that time there was a great deal of indecision of who was to lead the Church.  Only through the correct Leader being led by inspiration and the members also was the Church preserved in it's form in following the Lord. 

To a lesser degree this occurred later when they finally made stringent strides to finally end Polygamy once and for all.  A Leader took it upon themselves to try to do something different and led a great many after him (and today they are still there and still practice polygamy).  At that time, once again, the Lord had the prophet remain true in his inspiration in revelations from the Lord (and he was quite clear how it occurred and why in the revelations).

So, it is possible for the church to go astray as has been demonstrated in the past, but as also with the Past, at least thus far and what I hope will also occur in the future should a similar situation occur is that the Lord will provide leaders inspired from him and led by him and the spirit to lead us in the path that we should follow.  Thus far the church as we know it has remained as it has, but there have been a great number who have fallen to different paths even in our church within it's short existence thus far.

While I don't neccessarily disagree with what you said, and I understand that you said this was hypothetical, I would like to make 2 points.

First, Section 138 is canonized scripture and it's very clear that the church will not fall into apostasy. You did not mention that part of my argument so I assume you agree with it. 

Second, while my quotation was not an original part of Official Declaration 1, the church chose to include it there. They, and by extension the Lord, must consider it scripture whether or not it was originally in the Deseret News or not. Apostasy is not the members of the church doing something wrong. We have been lead by continuous revelation since God spoke to Adam, and I know we as members fall short of the glory of God regularly and frequently. Apostasy is the loss of priesthood authority on the Earth, as happened after every other dispensation. We either believe that is true, or President Woodruff and President Smith were lying, or at least just being optimisic in their opinion.

If they are prophets though, and I believe they are, we have been promised by God that the church will not be taken away from the Earth again. I said in my original post that individuals and groups of individuals will fall away. That's always been the case. But the church will not be taken away. If it falls apart, this was never God's church in the first place, and we all might as well eat, drink, and be merry because no one has the truth (something I do not believe to be the case just speaking hypothetically.)

Edited by Midwest LDS
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2 minutes ago, Midwest LDS said:

First, Section 138 is canonized scripture and it's very clear that the church will not fall into apostasy. You did not mention that part of my argument so I assume you agree with it.

I suppose it depend on how you define "The Church"

It seems clear that the Priesthood will not be loss again.  However inherent in the statement is that the Lord will remote prophets and other leaders.  Which implies the possible need to.  Next nothing promises that church will always grow.  A large falling away of the membership seems very possible based on scriptures.  Persecution from all sides seem a given.

My favorite scriptural shadow of what I think the Second Coming will be like is in Third Nephi.  Nephi was there when the Lord came.  Technically the Church survived but it was harsh.  Then the Lord came and basically reset them in the New Covenant.

So the idea that the Church will survive and the Lord coming to save/redeem it are not necessarily exclusive ideas

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7 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

Fair enough.   The very first step is making sure we are seeing evil which is where this case fails.  Groping a sister missionary (or other form of abuse) is in no way allowable within a stewardship anyone is granted.  It also breaks the Law and both the Legal system and the Church have been very clear about our expected action (And while in the pass it might not have been as clear they have corrected that).  Therefore both its evilness and the course of action have been given to us.

This is not comparable to the Genocidal, Pedophile, Nazi, choir.  Did the Event Coordinator exceed their stewardship or break the law?  Does not appear so.  Did the Event Coordinator try to hide it or sneak it past their local leaders.. this seems unlikely.  Did the Event Coordinator follow the process we are all given to receive revelation? Namely prayerful study the matter.  Make a choice. Take that choice before the Lord.  Unknown.  But as someone noted earlier at this level such rookie mistakes seem unlikely.

Therefore your calling the action Evil is inherently making an unrighteous judgement on the Event Coordinator.  If the Event Coordinator followed the process correctly then it was the right thing to do no matter who disagrees with it.  This means the only clear evil in this actions is in those making the unrighteous judgement.

I think then-Elder Oaks gave a conference talk sometime ago about judging; and suffice it to say, the criteria he gave to distinguish between righteous and unrighteous judgment do not align with the criteria you’ve set here. 

As far as considering whether something is within a person’s stewardship:  the criteria you set are somewhat arbitrary.  

—We recoil at the thought now; but in the past divine law gave men sexual dominion over slaves or “handmaidens”. 

—Divine laws and principles have at times run counter to secular law.  

—Yes, the Church has been clear about adultery—but Joseph Bishop, by virtue of his Church calling, abused his position to convince at least one young woman that the Church didn’t actually mean the logical implications of what it had said.  

So, there were no eternal canons limiting Bishop’s behavior; and Bishop himself was by virtue of his calling the final authoritative interpreter of Church doctrine and practice for every missionary at the MTC.  If, as you suggest, a person has no prerogative to rely on their own personal revelation and covenants to independently adjudge “evil” for themselves and define the scope of someone else’s stewardship, then who was McKenna Denson to tell her MTC President that something he wanted to do wasn’t in his stewardship?  If the only bases for condemning Joseph Bishop are the ones you cite above, then as a church we owe Denson every cent she’s demanding—and more.

Your argument re the events coordinator first seems to reduce to the idea that if something is procedurally right, it cannot be substantively wrong; and second, assumes the presence of a revelation that a) is contrary to the logical implications of the Church’s own teachings, b) has led many within and out of the Church to believe that the Church doesn’t actually mean the things it has said, and c) is in extreme tension with my own revelations on the matter.  I don’t deny that such a revelation can happen; but I strenuously deny that I am bound to defer to every non-authoritative (or even authoritative) yahoo who claims such a “revelation”—particularly when it has ramifications for my own stewardship as defined by my own covenants, ordinations, and revelations.  

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6 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

I suppose it depend on how you define "The Church"

For me when I say Church in this instance, I'm refering to the authority to act in God's name, so the priesthood. The insitution itself changes frequently and often as we receive revelation from God so it is not permanent in itself.

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2 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I think then-Elder Oaks gave a conference talk sometime ago about judging; and suffice it to say, the criteria he gave to distinguish between righteous and unrighteous judgment do not align with the criteria you’ve set here. 

As far as considering whether something is within a person’s stewardship:  the criteria you set are somewhat arbitrary.  

—We recoil at the thought now; but in the past divine law gave men sexual dominion over slaves or “handmaidens”. 

—Divine laws and principles have at times run counter to secular law.  

—Yes, the Church has been clear about adultery—but Joseph Bishop, by virtue of his Church calling, abused his position to convince at least one young woman that the Church didn’t actually mean the logical implications of what it had said.  

So, there were no eternal canons limiting Bishop’s behavior; and Bishop himself was by virtue of his calling the final authoritative interpreter of Church doctrine and practice for every missionary at the MTC.  If, as you suggest, a person has no prerogative to rely on their own personal revelation and covenants to independently adjudge “evil” for themselves and define the scope of someone else’s stewardship, then who was McKenna Denson to tell her MTC President that something he wanted to do wasn’t in his stewardship?  If the only bases for condemning Joseph Bishop are the ones you cite above, then as a church we owe Denson every cent she’s demanding—and more.

Your argument re the events coordinator first seems to reduce to the idea that if something is procedurally right, it cannot be substantively wrong; and second, assumes the presence of a revelation that a) is contrary to the logical implications of the Church’s own teachings, b) has led many within and out of the Church to believe that the Church doesn’t actually mean the things it has said, and c) is in extreme tension with my own revelations on the matter.  I don’t deny that such a revelation can happen; but I strenuously deny that I am bound to defer to every non-authoritative (or even authoritative) yahoo who claims such a “revelation”—particularly when it has ramifications for my own stewardship as defined by my own covenants, ordinations, and revelations.  

No  you wanted to discuss what we should do about evil.

My last response is first you have to prove it is evil. 

The only proof offered into evidence is that they promulgate a life style against the church teaching.  Aka they are sinners that do not follow the church. 

While that is a definition of evil.  The church has a history of working with many groups that met this criteria.  So either you have have to be equally critical of all of the Church's interfaith outreach efforts and many community support efforts.  Or you have to show more directly the evil of this choir group.   Preferably more then the fact that they are sinners (already a given)... and that some times people will use what ever justification is handy to excuse themselves from following the the Lord ( not exclusive to this group)

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10 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

No  you wanted to discuss what we should do about evil.

My last response is first you have to prove it is evil. 

The only proof offered into evidence is that they promulgate a life style against the church teaching.  Aka they are sinners that do not follow the church. 

While that is a definition of evil.  The church has a history of working with many groups that met this criteria.  So either you have have to be equally critical of all of the Church's interfaith outreach efforts and many community support efforts.  Or you have to show more directly the evil of this choir group.   Preferably more then the fact that they are sinners (already a given)... and that some times people will use what ever justification is handy to excuse themselves from following the the Lord ( not exclusive to this group)

False equivalence.  Being a sinner (and ideally, hoping for redemption) ≠ advocating for/making excuses for remaining in sin.  This barks back to the discussion of a hypothetical AA choir from upthread.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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7 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

False equivalence.  Being a sinner (and ideally, hoping for redemption) ≠ advocating for/making excuses for remaining in sin.  This barks back to the discussion of a hypothetical AA choir from upthread.

How is it false?  The Saint Mary's Bell Choir is going to be very much advocating for and making excuses for remaining in their brand of sin (After all they think Catholicism is just fine and dandy no matter what we or the Lord thinks about it)

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