Is this True? Gay Electroshock Therapy within the Church


clbent04
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6 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

As a lifelong, active member of the Church, as long as I can remember the Church had an emphasis on seeking Truth (with a capital T). I think you are right, that condoning SSM would require some rethinking about what is in the Proclamation on the Family and what we believe about the nature and purposes of God. The only reason I can see to assume that this process must be a step backward is to assume some kind inerrancy to the document or our understanding.

I hope that, in our quest for truth, if we find things in our understanding of God or the Proclamation on the Family that are not True, we would discard those things. If/when we find new Truth that overrides our previous understanding, we would be willing to adopt it. Moving forward, to me, means discarding old, False ideas and replacing them with new, True ideas. I think that's what would make this a forward moving venture. Of course, the difficulty with this is always trying to discern Truth from Error.

That is why I compared it to the Heaven/Hell and Three Degrees of Glory...  There were and are a lot of false things accepted about Heaven and Hell that are not correct and had to be discarded.  That is why we need to learn to 'Hear Him' for ourselves... so that when someone claims to have a revelation from God... either we will hear a very familiar voice and it will make sense, or we will not, and it will not.

 

 

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4 hours ago, clbent04 said:

I'm questioning these topics to get a better idea on where I stand personally with society's influence in the Church, and assessing how I would feel if the Church continues to evolve around society rather than society evolving around it.

I really should have just made one OP about societal influences within the Church, but instead it's branched out into two involving gay electroshock therapy and homosexuality as a sin.

Me 10 years ago about my opinion on the Church changing it's stance on homosexuality as a sin: ABSOLUTELY NO WAY, WASTE OF TIME TO THINK ABOUT!

Me 5 years ago:  ABSOLUTELY NO WAY, WASTE OF TIME TO THINK ABOUT!

Me today: Okay, I could possibly see it happening in another 20 years. Things are happening within the Church today I would have never guessed. The Church went from actively trying to thwart the legality of gay marriage to now allowing children of gay parents to be baptized in the Church.

You and I both are probably perfectly fine with the children of gay parents being allowed to be baptized in the Church.  But what would we have thought of that even 13 years ago back in 2008?  The Church had a strong position at the time to not allow such a thing.

Think of how in 2008, the Church was actively trying to promote the banning of gay marriage in California of all places (Prop 8).  Now look at the map of the legality of gay marriage in the US.  I think we would be kidding ourselves if we think this trend isn't going to affect some of the Church's positions in the coming years.

IMG_4324.thumb.jpg.954c30bb29af3143f677a3cd52f633ef.jpg

 

I’m still trying to understand/engage with your larger point, and will probably need to take some time digesting your other posts before I can do that well.  But for the moment I would point out that it’s important not to muddy the waters by taking at face value the claims of libertines who, in furtherance of their own agenda, want to gaslight us into seeing changes in the Church where there haven’t been any.  [I’m not saying the Church doesn’t or can’t change; but I’m saying we should be clear about what has changed and what hasn’t.]

The purported ban on baptism of children of gay couples, is one such example.  There was no such ban until November of 2015.  That’s why the announcement caused such a brouhaha. Until then, the question when teaching children of gay couples (as with children in any other nonmember family) was simply whether the parents objected to the child’s conversion and whether there was an adult member who was willing to assume responsibility for the child’s spiritual instruction going forward.  The Church implemented the policy as a result of Obergefell’s forcing the acceptance of gay marriage nationwide, with the Church being initially reluctant to baptize children en masse only to teach them (as it would have to do with children of polygamous households, and for whom a similar policy exists) that their parents would have to get a divorce in order to get right with God.  Putting children through that could conceivably result in emotional trauma and perhaps even legal liability.  Once we had a couple years’ experience with the First Presidency evaluating these situations on a case-by-case basis, it was determined that the pre-2015 status quo could be relatively safely restored—and so it was.

So—I mean—yeah, social conditions certainly resulted in Church policy changes; but it’s wrong to represent this particular instance as an example of an inexorable drift towards progressivism.  

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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6 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

So—I mean—yeah, social conditions certainly resulted in Church policy changes; but it’s wrong to represent this particular instance as an example of an inexorable drift towards progressivism.  

Considering the extra context you added with the baptism of children of gay parents, I would agree it’s not the best example.

But absent of that example, the Church is full of other instances that show societal influence in Church policies:

-Polygamy: “Stop or we will exterminate you.” “Okie dokie, we comply.”

-Blacks and the Priesthood: yes, I know the apologists’ defense on this, but societal influence seems obvious nonetheless

-Men to be clean shaven: Seemed to largely stem from the 60’s and 70’s era of long hair and facial hair being associated with drugs, orgies, and that dang rock n roll

-Word of Wisdom and “hot drinks”

-Church culture has drastically changed around even just approaching topics like homosexuality

You probably could come up with a list 3x longer than that, but that’s what I initially thought of.

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4 hours ago, clbent04 said:

I've also read that in addition to the shock therapy, BYU would induce the patient to vomit whenever shown a picture of something homosexual.  Patients reported issues of PTSD-like symptoms later on in life when faced with a sexual situation.

Fun story: When my daughter was around 7, she needed double-foot surgery to give her arches, so she could have normal feet and walk without problems.  A month or two after surgery, she needed to have the steel pins removed from her feet.  We put her on the table, and the doctor grabbed each pin, and pulled all 3-4 inches of it straight out of her feet while she shrieked in terror and pain.  Me and mom held her down while she struggled and screamed.  A dozen years later, she still remembers the trauma and pain.  She thinks of the event, as the day she stopped being a little girl, and became a big kid. 

I hope someday that medicine advances to a point where we've got a better option, and such a procedure can be considered inhumane and barbaric, even punishable by law.  I'm even ok with some clueless person from that future time, ignorant of their place in history, thinking evil of me and accusing me of child abuse.  Telling me I can't consider myself a disciple of Christ after doing that to my own daughter.  Because, you see, when faced with that future clueless person, I'll know the truth, and they'll be ignorantly wrong.

This isn't a condemnation, clbent04.  I figure you can think your way past this issue that is obviously troubling you.

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41 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

Considering the extra context you added with the baptism of children of gay parents, I would agree it’s not the best example.

But absent of that example, the Church is full of other instances that show societal influence in Church policies:

-Polygamy: “Stop or we will exterminate you.” “Okie dokie, we comply.”

-Blacks and the Priesthood: yes, I know the apologists’ defense on this, but societal influence seems obvious nonetheless

-Men to be clean shaven: Seemed to largely stem from the 60’s and 70’s era of long hair and facial hair being associated with drugs, orgies, and that dang rock n roll

-Word of Wisdom and “hot drinks”

-Church culture has drastically changed around even just approaching topics like homosexuality

You probably could come up with a list 3x longer than that, but that’s what I initially thought of.

Sure.  And again, I’m worrying about engaging too deeply without fully understanding your point (will have to sit down with this thread tonight); but one thing to consider:

—If nothing about the Gospel (or the policies that guide the way we live the Gospel) were to change, then why do we need living prophets at all?  And . . . 

—If we accept that some aspects of how we live the Gospel would have to change over time—what kind of influences would necessitate those changes, besides social influences?

I mean—we don’t want the lunatics to be running the asylum, naturally.  But I’m not sure we should be expecting the Church to be impassive and unchanging as the world spins out of control.  Fundamentally, social influences are just people influences, and the Church’s mission is to connect with and then exalt people.  In any age, the Church to some extent has had to meet people wherever they are. 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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3 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Polygamy: “Stop or we will exterminate you.” “Okie dokie, we comply.”

I’d point out that we did t really stop. We sent people to Mexico and continued to practice it there. It wasn’t till later that we official stopped it as a church.  We do the same in other countries today. We change the way we worship based on Laws of the land.

3 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Blacks and the Priesthood: yes, I know the apologists’ defense on this, but societal influence seems obvious nonetheless

This is different simply because there is no known revelation that started it. It was clearly instituted because of racist ideologies and the collision of slave owners and anti slave believers in Utah.

The social movement only sparked the question to be examined critically. You don’t get revelation till you ask the question

3 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Men to be clean shaven: Seemed to largely stem from the 60’s and 70’s era of long hair and facial hair being associated with drugs, orgies, and that dang rock n roll

This seems totally fine to me. If I had a pendent depicting the Indian symbol of divinity, I would certainly stop wearing it once WWII started.

3 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Word of Wisdom and “hot drinks”

I don’t get this one. What is the issue here?

 

3 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Church culture has drastically changed around even just approaching topics like homosexuality

Culture… this isn’t dictated by leaders. 

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54 minutes ago, Fether said:

[The Priesthood and temple ban on black people of Sub-Saharan African descent] was clearly instituted because of racist ideologies and the collision of slave owners and anti slave believers in Utah.

This is false.

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54 minutes ago, Fether said:

This is different simply because there is no known revelation that started it. It was clearly instituted because of racist ideologies and the collision of slave owners and anti slave believers in Utah.

 

I’m not sure this is accurate.  Young himself claimed it was the product of revelation; we just don’t have a contemporaneous record of that revelation.  Remember, the first time Young met William McCary and his white wife, Young was very progressive about Black priesthood holders.  It wasn’t until a year later when McCary’s moonbattery could no longer be ignored, that the Church embraced a policy that (coincidentally or not) deep-sixed McCary’s claims to leadership and stopped the growth of his burgeoning congregation of followers in its tracks.

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3 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Regardless, for many years the church denied the priesthood to Africans. That is no longer the case, thank God. We can argue about the “why” forever, but I’m not sure it matters anymore. 

I think it matters very much if the denial represented church leaders acting against God’s instructions to them or otherwise exceeding the scope of their authority; because that would have massive implications for the credibility of the Church leadership going forward.  

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Just now, Just_A_Guy said:

I think it matters very much if the denial represented church leaders acting against God’s instructions to them or otherwise exceeding the scope of their authority; because that would have massive implications for the credibility of the Church leadership going forward.  

Perhaps, if it’s your thing than by all means dive into it, but to me, the big picture is that it’s over, it’s done, and we can move on from it. 

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18 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I’m not sure this is accurate.  Young himself claimed it was the product of revelation; we just don’t have a contemporaneous record of that revelation.  Remember, the first time Young met William McCary and his white wife, Young was very progressive about Black priesthood holders.  It wasn’t until a year later when McCary’s moonbattery could no longer be ignored, that the Church embraced a policy that (coincidentally or not) deep-sixed McCary’s claims to leadership and stopped the growth of his burgeoning congregation of followers in its tracks.

I remember in the essay the church released, there was a section that said they do not know the origin, but I can’t seem to find it right now.

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10 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Also https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/race-church

See also the updated heading to OD-2, which includes the line “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.”

That said—I’d have to look it up, we can date Young’s flip-flop on blacks and the priesthood to within a year or two.  It was earlier than the commonly-cited 1852 date.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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12 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I think it matters very much if the denial represented church leaders acting against God’s instructions to them or otherwise exceeding the scope of their authority; because that would have massive implications for the credibility of the Church leadership going forward.  

It might affect those who are doubtful about the Church, but I don't think it would affect members who already have testimonies with solid footing.

If Brigham Young did exceed the scope of his authority, the all-men-are-fallible argument steps in.

If not, then it was God's will.

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2 hours ago, clbent04 said:

It might affect those who are doubtful about the Church, but I don't think it would affect members who already have testimonies with solid footing.

If Brigham Young did exceed the scope of his authority, the all-men-are-fallible argument steps in.

If not, then it was God's will.

What constitutes a “testimony with solid footing”, if not the belief that the prophet speaks for God, at minimum, on the occasions where he specifically invokes that mantle and authority?

The idea of individual prophetic fallibility over relatively minor points of theology, does not justify collective prophetic/apostolic fallibility over major points of praxis.  See, e.g., President Woodruff’s semi-canonical guarantee that the prophet will not lead the Saints away from the oracles (ie revelation) or from their duty.  A spurious priesthood restriction does both.  It shuts black people out of a major part of the covenant path and blocks them from the saving ordinances and spiritual endowments associated with that path.  It leads white Church members to limit their soul-saving outreach and fosters division.  It spiritually stunts people of both races.  If the policy was not a divinely-instituted short-term expedient, then it was a huge abuse of authority.  It would be Very Big Deal.

I frankly don’t see how one can argue that the modern Church leadership is at all credible on the controversies of today if one accepts the preposition that past Church leadership has led us, not only into piddling little errors of obscure speculative theology, but into major sins of praxis.  Either we can trust that there are bounds behind which the apostles and prophets cannot pass, and that their counsel (even if imperfect, at least) provides a sort of “safe harbor” for the Church membership to follow . . . or we can’t.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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@Just_A_Guy Well Done! I think you have almost perfectly articulated the main problem statement for these issues. I don't know if I can add anything.

It will require a lot of thought, but I think the only thing I would quibble over is the final, stark dichotomy you draw.I think some who leave the Church come to that stark dichotomy and decide that prophets can and have made serious mistakes of praxis and therefore they cannot be trusted and therefore they leave the Church. Part of me would like to hope that there is a way of bridging that dichotomy so that we can talk about how to stay in the Church while accepting that prophets can make serious errors of praxis. But, maybe I am deluding myself and it really isn't possible.

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15 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

@Just_A_Guy Well Done! I think you have almost perfectly articulated the main problem statement for these issues. I don't know if I can add anything.

It will require a lot of thought, but I think the only thing I would quibble over is the final, stark dichotomy you draw.I think some who leave the Church come to that stark dichotomy and decide that prophets can and have made serious mistakes of praxis and therefore they cannot be trusted and therefore they leave the Church. Part of me would like to hope that there is a way of bridging that dichotomy so that we can talk about how to stay in the Church while accepting that prophets can make serious errors of praxis. But, maybe I am deluding myself and it really isn't possible.

I’d be interested to see what you come up with.  I don’t remember if it was in this or another of @clbent04’s recent threads; but I mentioned earlier an attempt I made to write a hypothetical statement on behalf of the Church that would basically say “yes, our predecessors led you astray about this key issue in the past, but we aren’t wrong now and you can rely on us going forward.  Really!  We promise!”  I couldn’t figure out a way to make it work.

To me, that’s why it’s been so frustrating to see even apologists concede (or at least, strongly hint) that some past Church actions—especially the priesthood/temple ban—were indeed errors, when the historical record is so infamously scanty (and even, in some cases, actually supportive of the traditional/orthodox LDS position).  If the binary paradigm I’ve floated is correct, then apologists simply can’t concede that kind of error.  They can’t.  If they do, their entire position unravels.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

What constitutes a “testimony with solid footing”, if not the belief that the prophet speaks for God, at minimum, on the occasions where he specifically invokes that mantle and authority?

A testimony with solid footing is one that cannot be destroyed regarding subjective issues.

When is the mantle officially invoked by a prophet?  How do we know he is speaking as a man versus in an official capacity.  It's largely subjective.  There's no clear-cut answer on this one.  Quite frankly, it's jumbled all over the place from Brigham Young to Bruce R. McConkie. 

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

The idea of individual prophetic fallibility over relatively minor points of theology, does not justify collective prophetic/apostolic fallibility over major points of praxis.

Again, a subjective issue. What seems a major point of praxis to you can differ from member to member.

Edited by clbent04
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20 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

To me, that’s why it’s been so frustrating to see even apologists concede (or at least, strongly hint) that some past Church actions—especially the priesthood/temple ban—were indeed errors

As blunt as this sounds, you better get used to it @Just_A_Guy. No, that’s not me being mean. 
 

The days of Daniel Peterson/Brian Hales apologist styles are over. It’s now morphed into a much more caring, more accepting, more open Richard Bushman/Teryl Givens/Patrick Mason style of “Yes we made mistakes, here’s the good and bad, there is room for nuance.” 

Edited by LDSGator
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11 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I’d be interested to see what you come up with.  I don’t remember if it was in this or another of @clbent04’s recent threads; but I mentioned earlier an attempt I made to write a hypothetical statement on behalf of the Church that would basically say “yes, our predecessors led you astray about this key issue in the past, but we aren’t wrong now and you can rely on us going forward.  Really!  We promise!”  I couldn’t figure out a way to make it work.

To me, that’s why it’s been so frustrating to see even apologists concede (or at least, strongly hint) that some past Church actions—especially the priesthood/temple ban—were indeed errors, when the historical record is so infamously scanty (and even, in some cases, actually supportive of the traditional/orthodox LDS position).  If the binary paradigm I’ve floated is correct, then apologists simply can’t concede that kind of error.  They can’t.  If they do, their entire position unravels.

Who's to say the priesthood ban on blacks and slavery weren't allowed for the same reason?

Could it be God never wanted the priesthood ban on blacks, but He allowed it to happen as a result of where society was? 

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2 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

[1]A testimony with solid footing is one that cannot be destroyed regarding subjective issues.

[2]When is the mantle officially invoked by a prophet?  How do we know he is speaking as a man versus in an official capacity.  It's largely subjective.  There's no clear-cut answer on this one.  Quite frankly, it's jumbled all over the place from Brigham Young to Bruce R. McConkie. 

[3]Again, a subjective issue. What seems a major point of praxis to you can differ from member to member.

1.  But when it comes to personal revelation, isn’t everything potentially subjective?  Isn’t that a major reason why we have prophets—to provide a disinterested cross-check against the personal revelations we think we’re getting?  Surely the answer isn’t to pooh-pooh prophetic counsel and lean to our own understanding (which we may or may not classify as “inspiration”) out of some sort of conclusion the former is “subjective” whereas the latter objective?

2.  Then again, when Brigham Young says “If there never was a prophet or apostle of Jesus Christ spoke it before, I tell you . . . I know . . . . Thus dairy the Eternal I Am, what I am, I take it off at my pleasure, and not one particle of power can that posterity of Cain have, until the time comes He says He will have it taken away”—that’s pretty unambiguous.  Young said he got it from God.  Either he was right, or he wasn’t.

3.  In isolation, sure; but Woodruff’s assurance offers some more specific guidance.  It’s subject to twisting, sure—all language is.  But we aren’t existing in a state of nihilism here. 

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