I like this different approach to our leadership. changing our attitude to leadership is key to avoiding spiritual injury, I also think if we focused on Sustaining rather than blind faith in our leadership they would achieve more and “”"fail”"” us less.

#42 – I am not implying that we should have faith in our leaders but that it seems a common sentiment within the Church. I rather believe we should sustain them. Which is a different dynamic.

Kierkegaard once said it is better to think our leaders monsters than to lose faith, however he seems to miss the fact that (for Mormons at least) thinking our leaders are monster often implies the loss of faith.

Which implies that many Mormons believe it is “our leaders” that we are supposed to have “faith” in.

Two quibbles:

1. The Mosaic law mandated the death penalty for one heck of a lot of things. Measuring something’s relative wickedness simply by the fact that back in the day, doing it would have gotten Hebrews throwing big rocks at your head may not be the best yardstick. Too many competitors for “the sin next to murder.”

2. The Mosaic law’s view of sexuality was less strict than Alma’s across-the-board “all sexual sin is next to murder.” The Law was very strict about adultery (STONE THEM!!), but as regards other heterosexual sex, it was basically the Pottery Barn Rule: You broke her, you bought her. (See Deuteronomy 22: 28-29.) It was a little stricter for women (no surprise there; men wrote the rules); an allegedly virginal wife was supposed to be killed if her husband noticed the “tokens of her virginity” were missing. (Needless to say, with anatomically-illiterate desert tribesmen writing the rules, Hebrew maidens were probably careful to ride sidesaddle and avoid pre-marital athletic activity.)

“I’m not saying the church needs to air its dirty laundry, but they shouldn’t be guilty of deliberately altering it to make it more palatable.” I totally agree with you, and I agree with Richard Bushman’s assessment. We don’t do people any favors when we promote the ignorance of historical facts that they later find disturbing.

“But then again, there are BIG differences between what we tell children and what we would tell adults.”

I agree completely. And maybe that is part of the thinking of church leaders as well in relation to church history.

MH-

“Intent (greed vs survival) makes a big difference in how lying is perceived.”

That’s true. I heard some radio hosts discussing this issue the other day. They were asking if people would loot in order to feed their starving kids in Haiti. I think the answer is an easy yes. I know I wouldn’t even think twice about it and I would expect that others would expect me to get food if I had it available to me rather than watch my children starve to death.

CarlosJC-

“And many of the choices made by the church in deciding what is faith promoting takes into consideration what the enemies of the church will say and do.”

That’s a good point. I guess they figure the church would attract and retain less people if they told the truth straight up about JS.

#21 – I am not sure he is fear-mongering. In fact there is a huge section in it about the value of ‘innoculation’ regadring these issues. He is asking for caution.

#25 – Is it possible then that people unfairly x’d will turn in be irreparably damaged by those actions? I agree that true enemies should be excommunicated, but I just think there are less of those than are generally supposed and that P. leaders should be very careful in using these types of measures.

#27 – Why would Bushman be in more danger? I did not follow your point sorry?

#30 – Thanks firetag, you add a nice insight into the discussion. I wonder however whether it is in the same category. I know that generally murder is considered to be outside the remit of the atonement and thus placing this sin next to the son against the HG.

#31 – You make a good point. My only issue is that seeing that Al refers to this form of action as ‘murder’ himself, perhaps his own life experiences led him to see this particular issue in a light which reflected his own life. moreover, it definately seems that they did live the mosaic law of executing children for not honoring parents in the BoM e.g. Laman, Leuel, Alma the Younger etc. so maybe they did have a slightly different religious context, even if it was rooted in the same history.

#33 – I will try and say it this week and see what happens. i firmly believe that is right. I have repeted for things that have happened.

I guess I want to make a few comments first before I respond to specifics.

Some seem to make assumptions about the article I did not get from the article itself. If you have not read I think it is worthwhile. For example, although the argument is completely water-tight it is very strong and Ash deals with a number of the issues people raise in te preceding comments. For those that thought the argument weak, it is worth noting that Alma belives he murdered many of God’s children (see Al 36) although this is in reference to the way he tries to destroy the Church. I should also note that Ash is not saying that chastity is not a sin, nor that it is not serious, only that it is serious because of the impact it can have on others (i.e. its potential to cause spiritual harm/murder).

#10 – Hawk, I agree. I think that Ash was perhaps trying to convey that and I did a bad job prsenting his ideas.

#13 – Holden thanks for the comment. Although I agree, I thik that it is even more difficult to judge accurate motives, because of thes issues i raise in the OP.

#14 – I think care is needed because people are not atomistic in their approach to life. We need other people and are invaribaly tied to them and their actions. This means our testimonies as well. Thus people need a ‘friend’ to help them stay active, a testimony is not enough for many people.

#15-6 – You both raise excellent points. Kierkegaard once said it is better to think our leaders monsters than to lose faith, however he seems to miss the fact that (for Mormons at least) thinking our leaders are monster often implies the loss of faith.

All Church leaders must repent. I don’t know for what particular causes, but one of them may be, that they’ve been too much “organization men” over seeing individuals behind the numbers &c.

..about Nephi and how he was constrained by the Spirit to chop off a man’s head…. how that’s all ok to teach to children, but all the more “recent” stuff involving JS is off limits? How is Nephi’s story faith-promoting and Joseph Smith’s not? If they were both commanded by God to do the things they did, what is the difference in what it was? Kill a man, steal his property…

Point is that the killing committed by Nephi was still murder within the Israelite jurisdiction but was not considered murder by God so Nephi could go on to heaven and so forth but face the death penalty back in Jerusalem.

However, today the issue is what the enemies of the church will use to ‘prove’ the church false. I met people on my mission who were critical of the Nephi story and the fact that the BofM talks about wars, but the biggest group of critics and criticism has always targeted Joseph Smith and his character since if he was a fraud then the entire church is false, as president Hinkley once noted.

I’d say that this is why we see this PR battle over Joseph Smith’s character with the church covering up any flaws while the church’s enemies emphasizing and even exaggerating at times his problems. And many of the choices made by the church in deciding what is faith promoting takes into consideration what the enemies of the church will say and do. If church opponents could accepted that Joseph could have been a prophet who had mortal shortcomings (as Nephi would have had too) and lived like Abraham, or had enemies like William McLellin who could exaggerate their stories or simply lie about him, then I think the more “recent stuff” involving JS would not be off limits. But today even active members loose their testimony after finding out about Josephs’ problems so I doubt the church will open up more in the near future.

If we look at Alma in the context of a pre-Christian view against adultery, the Mosaic law made adultery a capital offense (as well as dishonoring parents and breaking the sabbath.) So, in this context, I don’t view Alma’s views on sexual sin “an abomination in the sight of the Lord” as materially different than a Pharisaic definition. In light of Alma living prior to Christ, this logic seems to line up very well with Jewish thought, and seems quite consistent. In our day, we don’t view adultery, sabbath breaking, and dishonoring parents as capital offenses, but these more primitive people did.

This is a bit off topic, but I do remember hearing someone say that there are situations where we would all find lying morally acceptable. If you lived in Germany in 1942, would it be morally acceptable to lie to Hitler and save a Jew’s life? Yes. Then he asked another question. Would it be morally acceptable to lie to save a man’s job? Perhaps. Would you lie to provide for your family? Well, that gets a bit dicey now, doesn’t it? Obviously, Bernie Madoff lied way too much, but if you lived in Haiti now, would you lie to provide food and medicine for your needy family? That certainly doesn’t fit the model of Bernie, now does it? Intent (greed vs survival) makes a big difference in how lying is perceived. Ok, I’m off topic now, so back to your originally scheduled topic….

I think the fact of the atonement is required because even the best of us always have a price we realize we were not willing to pay to save another. We may not have been guilty of spiritual murder, but we were certainly guilty of spiritual manslaughter.

As a minister of my church wrote recently, Christ made an end of the law because we were all found guilty. And it is only when we acknowledge in our hearts that our actions can’t ever restore our innocence that the Spirit can mold us into what we are supposed to be — not innocent, but forgiven.

I don’t know Jen; I guess there could be situations were not divulging the whole truth could be considered a virtue. But then again, there are BIG differences between what we tell children and what we would tell adults. For example, my disaffection from the church is common knowledge to my returned missionary sons, but my youngest boy just thinks I’m just too lazy to go to church anymore. I believe that most religions provide more good than harm, so trying to make my son not believe in Mormonism is not something I’m willing to do right now. The day will come though, when we’ll have to talk about why I don’t believe.

Let’s take your example of the raped women who chooses not to tell her child the truth of his paternity. Just for the sake of argument, say the child is born to white parents and the woman was raped by a black man. Let’s also say that the child is born in 1960 and his parents are a very active LDS family. How will they deal with his friends getting the Aaronic Priesthood while he is told he’s not worthy of it? Should the parents create a “correlated” story of half truths to hide what really happened? And what does he think about his parents once he does discover the truth?

The story is relevant to the church as we’ve all been victims of leaders deciding what we should know and what would be better spun to present a more acceptable history. Wouldn’t we all have been better off learning our history without the spin? I’m not saying the church needs to air its dirty laundry, but they shouldn’t be guilty of deliberately altering it to make it more palatable. Now I suspect there will be those here who will say that the church hasn’t been guilty of that. Why then did Richard Bushman say he wrote “Rough Stone Rolling”? Wasn’t it to clear-up some of the misinformation that has been taught by the church for over hundred years? And in his interview with John Dehlin, didn’t he say that the church needs to be much more honest about its history to its members? So Jen, I think that at least for adults, truth is more important than the well meaning deception, even if that truth produces a lot of pain and heartache at first.

I think you make a good point. It will be interesting to see how the Lord deals with those who have a sincere reasons for leaving the church. In other words, not everybody who can’t deal with issues of the kingdom are insincere. I believe the Lord will make things right for those who follow into that group. The word “sincere” isn’t used a lot in the scriptures, but when it is it conveys great meaning.

The Lord doesn’t protect everyone from accidents, some He does, and others not. Why? I used to get upset with this seemly callous approach until I realized He is perfect. The same thing applies to those who are x’d, not all of them really deserved it, like an accident. The Lord will make it right, and I believe some church leaders will be required to repent of some of the things that have happened on their watch.

It’s easy to look beyond the mark and get confused; even with the most basic question.

Here are a few ideas I’d like to add to this discussion to keep it simple.

Alma is teaching is son about sin. The definition of sin is: Willful disobedience to God’s commandments.

Was Corianton’s sin willful? I think the answer is yes. He was supposed to be doing missionary work (in other words, he had been taught the gospel, so he knew what he did was sinful).

Alma taught is son that some sin is worse than others, and therefore has a greater penalty.

What is the penalty for sin? Answering this question is where it can get complicated if we’re not careful–stick to the basics.

The greatest consequence of sin is the loss of the Spirit (light of Christ, Holy Ghost, gift of the Holy Ghost), for the one who sins, as well as for others who are directly or indirectly involved.

There are other consequences of sin, but from the Lord’s perspective is appears to be the greatest.

Paul Toscano asked to see the body count. One doesn’t get to see the body count until the war is over. Until the war is over those who oppose the Lord’s work (enemies) should be x’d. They can always come back if they want, the door isn’t closed, unless they close it. The Lord will be the one to show the body count—at the judgment bar.

“I don’t like to speculate on motivations too much, because like you said, it’s hard to know our own motives, let alone someone else’s.”

Maybe in some things it is harder to tell what our motives are, but I don’t think it is that hard to know what our motives are in most cases.

I don’t like to speculate on motivations too much, because like you said, it’s hard to know our own motives, let alone someone else’s.

But yes, I think that Paul talked about Milk vs. Meat intentionally. There are some things you’d be better off not knowing. But if you do the dirty work and dig them out anyway, you’ll likely be able to deal with it.

On the other and, I’ve raised my kids (let’s face it, I’ve been away so much that my wife’s done the majority of what’s been done at home, but still) with the assumption that pure knowledge is the best inoculation against sin or anything like “shaken faith”. I mean, if our kids think everything is sunshine and roses, and then find out it’s not, their opinion of the Church goes south fast. If they know that we know the bad stuff as well as the good, and that we love the Gospel because the good stuff is more good than the bad stuff is bad, so the good kicks the bad’s ass and they’ll know it’s not really so bad.

So there! I managed to make it sound like a Hollywood movie complete with a climactic action in the end where the good guy kicks the bad guys’ asses and goes home with the wife/wives.

I think it is difficult to know what will promote one person’s faith and destroy another’s and I do think intent is very important. If my intent is to destroy it is almost guaranteed that I will be successful. Likewise, if my intent is to protect and care for another, it is highly probable I will succeed, even if something affects another in a way I didn’t expect or hope for. I think the desires and intents of the heart matter a lot to God. I do think God uses people who don’t care about Him to do His work though. Because there is opposition in all things, I think He uses people to their level of willingness or unwillingness to accomplish His purposes and they end up helping him out even if they don’t know it.

Doug G.-

I don’t agree that truth can never be a bad thing-no matter what the consequence of that knowledge brings. Sometimes the truth is just too painful to tell. For example, if a married woman is raped by a violent man and she gets pregnant, keeps the child and her husband and her raise it together, is it best to tell the child that their true father is a rapist? I don’t think it is. Sometimes the truth is better left unsaid.

If God was so worried about the example Corianton was setting to the Zoramites perhaps He shouldn’t have sent an angel with a sword to tell Joseph to take other men’s wives. I’m mean really; would anyone like to speculate on the body count from that particular supernatural event? People like Paul Toscanos or Fawn Brodie can’t even begin to hope they had that kind of influence.

Michael Ash is guilty of distorting a simple teaching in the BoM into something ridiculous. Truth can never be a bad thing no-matter what the consequence of that knowledge brings. Having said that, you can’t murder something that was dead to begin with. If your spirituality is rooted in a “church“ than you really are in trouble anyway…

I think we tend to minimize the damage we do, consciously or unconsciously, when we do such things. I suspect that Corianton was minimizing it in his mind.

I think Ash’s idea is worth consideration, though it’s clear from this discussion that his decision to label it as “spiritual murder” in his essay, though an interesting literary coinage, probably bears some implications to the minds of his readers that he may not have intended.