As a result, he taught a number of times on the essential nature of communing with God directly for truth and that anyone who failed to do so was at risk to go astray from where God wanted him or her to be — relying on what others said would not do the task of leading one to truth because everything that was said was flawed.

Of all things, Elder Oaks recent talk at Harvard made me think of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young in the lens of an experience my mother had.

She needed to sign a legal document and have it certified and sent to Greece.  So, she got the document, took it to the embassy in Los Angeles, and had it certified.  The official then typed a translated copy, put the original in a tray in the safe (along with a lot of other documents) and stamped wax and seals on the copy and mailed the copy off to Greece.

In theory, anyone who wanted to verify the document could come back to Los Angeles and compare the typing and the translation for themselves.

Elder Oaks suggested that revelation from prophets was like getting a certified copy and that we had access to God to confirm the meaning and accuracy of the copy.  It struck me that we had not so much the opportunity to do so, as the obligation to do so, much as Brigham Young preached, because the copy necessarily will have some flaws of language, culture and expression that only contact with the author can rectify as to our needs, understanding and comprehension.

To fail to seek God out is to guarantee that we will be misled.  Perhaps only in insignificant ways, perhaps more so (thinking of a translation of a text I studied in college that used the term “valley” when it turns out that the author meant “warm bath.”).  But we can’t know until and unless we seek out God for ourselves.

For me, as to Elder Oaks talk, that meant a convergence of meaning that included my mother, Brigham Young and Joseph Smith.  You probably don’t share my experiences with my mom, the context and meaning you might gain could well be different, as well it should, which is what inspiration and revelation is all about, bringing us to truth in spite of our differences.

So why do we have unanswered prayers?

The question is easy to ask, but the facile answers often distract us from find the real answers.  At the same time, the facile answers are often true.  In addition, while my study of twelve step groups did not yield much of use in in grief recovery, it did give me a great deal of thought about the nature of God and prayer.

After all, most people come to twelve step programs because of unanswered prayers.  Otherwise, the addiction that plagued them would not have driven them to a twelve step group, prayer would have resolved it.  Yet, the key to a twelve step program is reliance on a power greater than yourself — basically on answered prayers.  Such groups have well developed understandings of why prayers are not answered, and then they are.

1. Lack of essential honesty.  Jen’s comment was about someone who lacked an essential honesty about what they were doing, coupled with a lack of insight.  Many in twelve step groups feel that the only true barrier is a lack of honesty (since twelve step programs work for atheists who are honest — including those who remain atheists).
2. Looking in the wrong place for God.  In spite of an incredibly amorphous definition of a Higher Power, people fail in twelve step programs when they do not deal with God as a power greater than themselves that can do for them what they can not do for themselves.
3. Lack of a will to accept.  If you are not willing to accept God and change, that will block answers.
4. Lack of willingness to repent (or make amends in twelve step parlance). Those who refuse to make amends, fail to succeed.
5. Lack of willingness to “act as if.”  There is something similar that goes on in missions when an elder can feel the Spirit bear witness to those he is teaching, yet complains that the Spirit has not born witness to them. Pointing out that they had been there as the Spirit bore witness was often enough for them to realize the break in their thinking, but some insist on God taking a step past in answer before they treat it as a “real” answer or witness.
6. Failure to put out sufficient effort.  Prayer and answers to it are a process of attunement and receptiveness.  Most of those who read Jen’s comment would have seen it as her frustration with someone who wasn’t willing to put out enough effort, though I’ve focused on the lack of the person’s honesty as to what they were doing.
7. Lack of the right effort.
8. Lack of patience.
9. Lack of recognition when God has answered.  “I pray, I feel calm and assured and reassured, but when will God answer me?”

Now, are there other reasons?  Surely.  Could I have written more on the reasons I’ve noted? [Hint, that is what the comment section is for.]  But people who have dealt with those in doubt or who are complaining will have seen those nine reasons so often that it is easy for them to start looking for which one applies rather than to conclude that a failure to obtain a basic answer (cf Moroni 10:3-5) is caused by something else.

Which causes frustration for those seeking answers, as well as for those dealing with seekers who have not received answers.  Most people seeking an answer are not pleased to be referred to a point, or points, on that list.  Most people responding to those who claim not to get answers are frustrated that those with questions are not more open to being diagnosed “by the book.”

Is there a way past that problem?  Are there standard problems on the list of points I have missed (after all, I started with insights from twelve step programs, shouldn’t my list have twelve points?)?  Are there details I should have answered?  Are there prayers to which we should not expect answers?

I’d like your comments and thoughts.

It gets better in Genesis 6:4.  Nephilim were on the earth before and after the flood.  See also Numbers 13:33.  Reading context, translator notes and older traditions makes the point very clearly.  There appear to have been no Nephilim on the Ark. Which fits with the dividing the land with the gentiles, “everyone, after his tongue.”

Which makes for interesting implications.  What other survivors were there outside the Flood?  The Nephilim, the gentile nations speaking other languages, all the fish (salt and fresh water — no fish on the Ark, just FYI), there is a lot to think about there.

But better, lots to speculate about!

Discuss how your discussion of the first lesson in the manual went.

Did you discuss how almost all astronomers are atheists, the difference between denotation and connotation or that beer is probably from God, even thought it tastes terrible?

What would you like to say over at:

http://ldsmediatalk.com/2010/01/24/gospel-principles-class-member-survey/ but would rather say here?

Ok, I cheated and updated the language a little, and did not make it gender inclusive at the same time, but, seriously.  As you read the bloggernacle, where do you think people are following foolishness in their own wisdom, where do you think they are breaking away from the foolish traditions of the fathers.  Over and over again, in the Book of Mormon we have two themes.  One is those who are following foolish traditions of the fathers without questioning them or looking to the scriptures.  The other is where people are turning to their own vanity and deciding they are smarter than God.  How can you tell which is which?  Or is it all just vanity?

Psalm 36:1 is written “There is no fear of God before his eyes” while Paul quotes it in Romans 3:18 as “before their eyes.”  He does that quite a bit, and it is obviously intentional when he starts in quotes such as 2 Samuel 7:14 which reads “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me” and Paul changes that to “I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters” in 2 Corinthians 6:18.  Paul does that a number of times, even changing my daughter’s favorite scripture from “the feet of him who brings good news” to “the feet of those who …”

He isn’t using a common or even known version of the Old Testament when he makes these quotes many times, he is editing them for inclusiveness.  There is more, but I’ll leave that to Pistas3.

If Paul can use that language, why can’t we?

I was looking at a news item.

Canadian School of Peacebuilding Research studies verify what experience tells us: the majority of Christian congregations endure internal conflict. At any given time, one fifth of congregations are engaged in serious conflict. Conflict is a fact of congregational life that can be skillfully or awkwardly managed. This course will examine the “firest…orm” of faith-based conflict. We will survey problems that typically lead to conflict, unique dynamics of healthy and unhealthy group interactions that commonly occur, and creative ways of using conflict in faithful, lifebuilding ways. We will use didactic methods, which include personal reflection, academic investigation, case study, and a variety of resource materials.

Location:Canadian Mennonite Unviersity, Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA

I always read that to say that it did not matter if God fulfilled his words directly, or through his servants, it was the same.

The first time I really thought about it was when a friend complained about how he had been in need and God had let him down.  No matter how much he prayed and trusted and exercised faith, he received no relief, just calls from his bishop, butting in.  He saw absolutely not relationship between his cries for help and the fact that the bishop kept calling up and asking him if he could help.  My friend would say no, and then go back to praying to God for help.

I told him the old story about the guy who hears from God that he will be rescued from a flood, so he ignores the various rescue parties that come by.  When he dies and is remonstrating with God, God says “but I sent a bus, a car, a boat and a helicopter, why didn’t you take one?”

How often do you think God tries to work through others?  How often do you think God would work through us if we would let him?

We need complete freedom to express our honest feelings [to God]

…

Freedom is an essential factor in the healing process because recovery is based on the practice of honest with ourselves and with [God].

Who, besides God and ourselves, do we need to have that level of honesty with?

How can we be sure that our honesty truly is honest?

After all, the old question “do these pants make me look fat?” has as a meta question “do you love me, am I still desirable to you” and to answer the question the wrong way is to send the false message that you don’t love the person asking it, that they no longer fit in your life.  God can see through that all, but how much should we expect of others if we can not see the false messages in our “honesty” ourselves?

Yet, how can we find forgiveness, restoration, the full healing of the atonement without it?

There are many stories we tell.  Often they are true, some times they are fables. I would suggest that the stories we tell about virtue being immediately rewarded, about doing the right thing as a painless task, about always being rescued, those stories may fail those we tell them to when they face adversity.

I did the right thing and lost my dream job,it hurt to have the offer withdrawn. Daniel’s contemporaries, when they were about to be thrown into the fiery furnace, noted that they were doing the right thing and that if God allowed them to die, as they expected, no one should take that as a time that their faith was in vain. They were delivered, but they knew that not being miraculously saved did not mean that God had failed them or that their faith was false.

Which is what we might be tempted to conclude from the stories we tell these days.

As an aside, the girls failed to hound my daughter into suicide, though they tried their immature best. When a similar situation arose a few years later, with a group of boys propping a chair to block a door and then ganging up to beat up a Jewish kid in the class, my shy, quiet child rose and berated them until they backed down. She had no expectation, really, of anything but being beaten up with him. She did not really know him (he was quiet and bookish), but she knew what was right and when it was wrong to keep silent. The guys backed down. She wasn’t beaten up by them, nor was the young man.

She was ready to pay a real price. Most people who hear our modern stories are only ready to pay no price at all. I think we betray our listeners by sharing such stories, by the implicit promise they make that we will have no negative side effects, no negative outcomes. We do not prepare them to make real sacrifices.

That is my story about the stories we tell. That easy virtue stories lead to no virtue at all.

Which is what this post is about.

If only one out of a hundred members makes one suggestion a year, with a million people in an organization that is ten thousand suggestions a year to filter through. But, if you have an insight so blinding, penetrating and superior, clear and commanding that it deserves consideration, how do you get an organization to recognize your transcendent virtue over those that are already inside the hierarchy?

That is the real question, isn’t it? The real answer is found by looking at what works and what doesn’t work. One voice in the static doesn’t work. Joining a choir of second rate professionals and forming your own chattering class does not work.  It happens all the time, mind you, but it doesn’t work.  So, what does?

1. Work your way up the hierarchy by superior and diligent service. I’ve watched my wife do that to rise to statewide office (and to being invited to take statewide office) in professional and auxiliary organizations. Do that and you will have a voice in the organization and in ones that are close to it. The Catholic Bishop of Salt Lake gets listened to by the Catholic Archbishop when he calls because he has worked his way up the organization’s ladder.
2. Work your way up a parallel group. Why do young men’s leaders listen to Boy Scouts? Why does a Cardinal get listened to by LDS General Authorities? Olympia Snow, a Republican, is being listened to by Democrats.
3. Develop an area of recognized excellence and skill in an area that has some intersection. When the group needs help in that area, they are likely to listen to you.

Consider, (1), Thomas S. Monson worked his way up.  People listen to his input. The same is true of Boyd K. Packer. The LDS community listens to them because they have worked their way up.

Consider, (2), a number of successful LDS members have succeeded in related areas and are now listened to (e.g. FARMS/J. Welch). Kathy Pullins was successful as a member of the BYU law school faculty and was listened to and put in charge of the BYU Womens Conference.

Consider, (3), the BYU pysch department faculty members whose input was sought concerning a Brazilian trangendered member who was ordained as a result. Or Hugh Nibley and the Manti temple lectures.  More prosaically, Don Norton and editing.

What are the limits? If I’m an expert on children’s music that doesn’t mean I am likely to be asked about legal responses to Canadian tax issues. Rule One:  Stick within your area. Do not over reach. Don Norton, for example, never offered any input into what he edited or into anything else.

If I am a public critic, or a member of a chorus, I should not expect to be mistaken for a friend or seen as having a separate voice from the chorus. Rule Two: Be aware of culture rules. In LDS circles that means keep confidences, do not engage in public disagreements, do not claim authority where you do not have it.

If I am not somewhat holy, I should not expect those who are to fail to notice the lack. Rule Three: pay attention to and nourish your spiritual state, the same way you would shower regularly.

If I am ignorant of the context of an issue, I should expect to be seen as ignorant. Rule Four: whatever the issue, anyone who wishes input needs to be aware of organizational history, context and the structure of the discussion at multiple levels.

If I am not rendering service, I should expect to be seen as self serving. Rule Five: those with a history of sacrifice and service are seen as more likely to be seeking God’s will rather than their own. Everyone knows people with histories of selfless service. Everyone knows people who resemble egos with legs. Which voice are you going to respect and listen to more?

I really hesitated to share this post. Of course Christ gave a similar lecture when he told his disciples that the leaders should be the servants of all. As should each and every one of us.

• One of his significant goals was a desire to have more leadership from women in the Church.  President Hinckley saw a significant need for more leadership from the sisters.  It was a serious point with him and others, and one he took the time to communicate in person with the woman in charge of the conference.
• The conference arrangements and structure were put together by consensus.  Rather than a hierarchical structure (where I could put together a conference in an afternoon, heck, I’ve done it, conferences take a couple of hours, a successful year long speakers series took me about fifteen minutes), it was more like a facilitation initiative.  It was an incredible amount of work at a high level of skill.
• There was a real desire to have diversity to reach out to people in all circumstances and all of life’s paths.  Having a female law professor as the coordinator was intentional, not accidental, as were many participants, intended to be role models for many paths through life that fulfill the measure of our individual creations.
• The amount of ego was extremely low.  No one remembers Kathy Pullins in connection with years of conferences.  Her name isn’t even on the title of the conference collected speeches. The same is true of others.  They were serving the participants, not themselves.

If you were doing a conference, what would be your concerns and your goals?  How do the conferences of various groups you have attended compare?

Without narratives, we don’t have history that matters.  The problem with narratives is that it is easy for people to use them to decide that someone else’s facts are false.

Take the narrative of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon.  In describing the event, the witnesses stated it was not only physical, but that to withstand the presence of the angel they had to be strengthened spiritually adn that they saw both physically and spiritually.  Their narrative meant to them that they did not just believe, they knew.

So how could people reading these statements conclude that the witnesses had denied belief or that they stated that the experience was less than real? Or why would anyone trust that sort of analysis?  It is because of the narrative need that alternative story feeds.

Yes, one witness said “I do not believe” but he went on to say “I do not believe because I know.” Having knowledge instead of faith is not a repudiation.  Unless, of course, one has needs that such a narrative would feed.

Some who construct such narratives are just dishonest, seeking to lie, as children of the one who loves and makes a lie.  But, having deposed scores of witnesses and having tried a fair number of cases (four this year, for example), I can tell you that most people who are out of contact with consensual reality have gotten there because the alternative story fills a need and their belief causes them to embrace the story — and the necessary conjectures just fill themselves in.

So, what are standard narrative isseus:

1) You have a narrative, you emb race all the conjectures that fill in the gaps, even though they are unfounded (early edition Mormon Doctrine, anyone?).

2) You encounter a “fact” that does not fit your narrative, you then reject your narrative (which is what much anti-Mormon literature attempts to cause people to do). You don’t think to question the “fact.”

3) You encounter a fact that does not fit your narrative.  You reject the fact.

4) You don’t recognize the conjectures in narratives.

5) You devolve into the belief that all of any narrative is mere conjecture and there are no facts.

You can see variants of these five different issues in action, over and over again.  Often the “facts” and the conjectures obtain independent life, with people losing sight of the fact that they are dealing with a narrative, often based on the memories of secondary reporters who disagree with the primary actors (some common bloggernacle narratives are based on the comments of grandchildren of witnesses that disagree with statements by participants, for example).

Other times the “facts” fit the narratives of the primary actors, which complicates things.  For example, Thomas B. Marsh had very critical things said of him by Brigham Young.  However, Brigham Young’s statements follow Thomas B. Marsh’s narrative telling of Thomas’ story in the same terms.  Do we criticize Young for agreeing with Marsh?  If we do, why?

Narrative is an interesting topic.  Too bad Nick never wrote his post on the weaknesses and issues in the narratives people tell about the Church.  Even without Nick, the topic of the weaknesses and issues implicit in narratives applies from teh writings of Paul to discussions of whatever was in the news last week.

What narratives would you like to see examined?

Myself, I’ve had an interest in modern mystery religions and paths of sudden enlightenment.  Some, like Primal Scream, are open.  Some, like EST, are closed.  A striking feature of many is the complete willingness of anthropologists studying them to complete disregard any interest the participants have in preserving the confidence that is part of a sacred space.

Of course their motives are pure.  They say so.  They take all the benefits, others experience all of the costs.  What other measure is there of pure motives.

Not to mention, what seemed like a hobby that crossed generations and brought me a sense of being closer to an estranged grandfather, now makes me feel like a voyeur, at least in the modern era.  Especially as I have my own sacred spaces I would like preserved.

…

I know, that is a long introduction to the question:  what level of encryption is required to preserve a sacred space?  With temple dedications, the parameters of the sacred are wide.  They are recorded and thereafter freely available, so there is no confidentiality expected.  They are sometimes broadcast, so they are not limited in space.  But the broadcasts are encrypted to preserve the nature of the sacred space while the dedication service is ongoing.

So what does it take to preserve a sacred space, and when are our motives pure in the violations of the sacred spaces of others?  What about the nature of the loss when the knowledge passes?  Nibley preserved the confidences of the Hopi sacred spaces, but his knowledge of those sacred spaces died with him.  Does that matter?  Are we better off with tatters of knowledge of a tradition that has suffered a break in transmission than we would have been with a complete knowledge gained forty to fifty years ago when the preservers of the tradition were still vital and able to discuss its depths and intricacies with a scholar?  How does that reflect on our own sacred spaces?

What level of encryption is required to preserve a sacred space?

Which is why the LDS Church is not destined to be completely mainstream and accepted (seems the inevitable force of history, doesn’t it) or why SSM has actually lost ground in California since Prop 8 and the recession.  Or why women, who had equality in 1100 a.d. Iceland, had lost it by 1400 a.d.  So that when a friend of mine was really afraid that equality was being rolled back, I did not tell her that the possibility did not exist.

At the same time, things that look cyclic are really about the changing balance of counterforces.  Which is why there are not inevitable cycles either (after all, if there were, there should have been another Franco-Prussian war in 1980 and 2005).

Next time you look at a trend, or the Church or guess where something will go and someone tells you that “everything is cyclic” so that any change will be rolled back, or that “the force of history is inevitable” so that the forces of change will just keep pushing things along, remember that history and its development is a matter of dynamic forces, not linear ones only.  A cliff may fall down, but that doesn’t mean it will fall back up, there may be changes, but that doesn’t mean they will continue forever (a cliff quits falling when it hits bottom) or that reversal is inevitable.

What predicted change do you really doubt?  Which one do you think really can’t be stopped?

When God instituted circumsision with Abraham as an everlasting covenant, how long did that last and did it require Adam to become circumscribed?

What about Moses and blood sacrifice?  How long did that last?

Or Levi and exclusive access to the priesthood by a single tribe out of Israel?

Or keeping kosher in dress and food?  Was Noah told he could not drink wine and had to keep the word of wisdom?

Or how about polygamy?

Think about D&C 19: 6-12.  Endless, Eternal, Everlasting, do they just mean something instituted by God, no matter how long or how short a period they are for?

What else might be “endless” yet temporary, fitting this pattern?

Well, first you would be plunged right into administrative tasks, reorganizing and organizing Stakes.  Over and over again you would see a dramatic need for people with ability, temperament and time to serve as leaders.

Second, you would have a constant stream of people seeking you out for comfort and advice.  Even more than a bishop you would gain a strong perspective on certain classes of sorrow and travail, doubt and faith.

Third, you would be pestered constantly by people agitating for an agenda (think of Bruce R. McConkie and the people who were after him to condemn white bread and chocolate as Word of Wisdom violations).

Fourth, you would start to encounter the penumbra, the area where people hear advice and either fall short or look past the mark.  Told not to delay having children too long they start at 16.  Told to prepare before having children, they wait until 50 and go with in vitro to make sure everything is perfect.

Those are the four experiences that would be a constant in your life and that would shape your perspectives on the needs of the Church and its members.

So, think of a concern you have now.  Recast it in terms of the four issues that come to perpetuate in the life of a new general authority.  Ask yourself how that might shape how you frame your concerns.

This completes my three essays on understanding General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Next time you look at an essay on how someone feels the Church ought to be changed, I hope you will be able to look at it through the lens of how the presentation would affect you if you were someone who might have an input into such changes.

Are the arguments ones that appeal to a mindset based on deferred gratification and belief in spiritual guidance?

Do they fit within the values of consensus and collegiality?

Are they in terms of meeting one of the two positive needs (more qualified leadership, finding comfort and support) and do they avoid looking like a repeat pest with no concern for the penumbra effects?

Assuming anyone who writes is interested in institutional change rather than navel gazing, there really are two venues.  One is petitioning God for any change you want to see happen.  I’ve written about how to do that.  The second is building a framework for your issue that fits into the process.

So, if  you were a newly called general authority and wanted to promulgate a change, how would you frame it and what would you do?

If you think of any criticism of any core church leader in the past fifty years that has percolated out from the top, you won’t find criticism of competence, scope or anything but those who acted without consensus.  Consider Ezra Taft Benson or others.  No one criticized his competence, no matter how sick he got.  His only criticism was for his perceived taking of positions without consensus behind them. (Though I would note that the way Spencer W. Kimball kept being written off as terminal and then coming back to full competence probably had an effect on how ETB was treated.  His presidency in the later stages also gave people significant amounts of experience and training time that would have been denied them had it terminated earlier).

To understand better both our leaders and ourselves, you need to realize that we have a culture where the only two sins against the culture (that are experienced by those at a high level) are acting outside of consensus and failing of public unity (~ to criticize others publicly). That brings some focus to those who are surprised at the reaction they get when they make a private criticism public or where someone engages in public disunity.  You can see the same thing mirrored in the large blogs — how many are happy to have any public disunity?

The biggest counter-force to unity in the leadership of the Church is individuals who try to push doctrines or programs without consensus.  There really isn’t any other source for disruption of unity. For an example, think of Bruce R. McConkie on Blacks and the Priesthood or Evolution for a good example of someone trying to establish an opinion as doctrine (cf Mormon Doctrine, the book). Anyone living who pushes a doctrine even though the Church as firmly stated it does not have a position is cross-wise and part of that cultural force that goes against the current ethos.

To understand the source of cross currents, it is important to acknowledge that most people who spend a great deal of time thinking about the gospel come to conclusions about some doctrines. Most people who spend a great deal of time administering the gospel either find that many doctrinal questions do not seem as important as ministering to people, or that they find a need to correct and expand doctrine.  So you have two types of evolution — those who see a need to correct or expand in a doctrinal area and those who find themselves putting people ahead.

Keep that in mind and think where that takes you in dealing with the hierarchy of the Church.  Share a private criticism — you just made whoever shared it with you a party to a gross social breach (they’ve just become a party to public disunity through your sharing). Push a doctrine where consensus is lacking — you’ve just joined a counter-force to unity that is the only real disruption to the equanimity and supportive love that is generally shared.

It is an interesting social dynamic. Understanding it is important to making sense of the narratives we all experience in dealing with those who lead us.

“For whom the Lord loveth, he chaseneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”  (Hebrews 12:6; 6-8, 11)”

Not only is “resentment like taking poison and expecting the other person to die” Christ warned us that if we are wronged and hold on to our resentment instead of giving forgiveness, we would have the greater sin.  Compared to anything that can be done to us, resentment is a greater sin.

Why?

Because by holding on to resentment we deny that Christ can heal us and we deny that God’s judgment of others will be sufficient.  With that denial we repudiate Christ and we exercise a sort of anti-faith.  Resentment, at its core, refuses redemption.

Now for a true story.  There was a BYU married ward that had a tradition of telling funny stories in priesthood and relief society.  That evolved into telling stories about the stupid things spouses did.  Which morphed into people trying to top each other each week with stories of their spouse’s stupidity or failings.  Which led to young couples spending each week looking for, framing, embellishing, and provoking bad behavior for the week’s stories.

Things got very bad and very intense.  Everyone’s focus was on negatives and resentments until a member of the board of trustees intervened.

But imagine what would have happened if the people involved had spent the time being grateful and looking for positive things to say instead of nurturing resentments.  What would have happened if they had met together once a month to share experience, hope, faith and gratitude?

In your own life, consider what you might do if beyond keeping the monthly fast and testimony meeting in mind you also prepared each day to have a conversation with God about what you were grateful for that day.  If you turned from irritations to being mindful of Christ i nyour life.

If you always remembered him.

You would have his Spirit to be with you.

What do you think?

Some said that result B obviously meant that the doctrine could not be doctrine A.  Others said that they would chose doctrine B because they could keep the doctrine and also escape outcome A.  Of course everyone’s framing and narrative interjected a great deal into the discussion.

But it made me think about how we should approach a situation where we are unhappy with what we perceive a doctrine to be (and where we feel that the doctrine is part of the result).  This is especially true from an LDS perspective where there is a teaching that we have errant scriptures, leaders, teachings and understandings.

What are the alternatives?

1. We turn things into mush.  One just assumes it is all a bit wrong, so everything is open and you just draw any conclusion you like on any point.  That makes doctrines both irrelevant and meaningless.
2. We can just decide that we know better.  As one person told me “it is obvious that I am right and you are wrong.”  Of course it isn’t as obvious as we might think, regardless of how we might conclude that everyone else is blinded by having the wrong narrative.
3. Third, we can just accept.  I’ve met people who accepted just about every defective doctrine you can name (or at least amazing collections of folk beliefs, rumors, cultural memes and suppositions).  That is thin gruel.
4. We can view the expression (e.g. the scripture or the ritual) through the lense of teachings.  Some times that leads to places we are happy with (e.g. the myriad of teachings by prophets that women are equal to men and that marriages should be equal partnerships), other times it can be unsettling (consider the discussions on race in the Church and the many narratives that spun from that).
5. We can approach God on the topic in patience and faith, looking for counterforces.  Much like a ship sailing against cross currents (which heads one direction in order to get another direction), some times God sends us in direction A to get to destination B.

None of the alternatives are necessarily right in every situation.  All of them are sub-sets of the issue we have when we have difficulty understanding God (as they result from what we feel must be confusion in following those who are imperfectly following their imperfect understandings of what has been revealed to them).

All of these approaches also side-step the duty to act in love and kindness, remembering Christ and having his name upon us first.  That is a completely different frame.

After all, Christ did not change everything about the church of his day, even though parts of it were clearly unacceptable (buying the office of president of the Church from external civil authorities anyone?).  Even practices that were changed as a part of the primative Church seem to have taken a while (gospel to go to “all the earth” yet how long did it take before they decided gentiles could be baptized?).

Some tentative conclusions:

If what the Church is doing at any one time is tacking or fighting a cross current rather than heading in the direction it is pointed, complaining about the direction won’t get you very far.

If what you are resisting is a folk doctrine, don’t expect much if you attribute it to the Church rather than to folly.

If what you are doing is setting up your prophetic vision as superior, don’t think you have a new story.

And, sadly, if you propose a thought experiment, expect people to reach conclusions by trying to ignore the rules

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve constantly run across speculation to the contrary.  That proves just how dense some people are and explains why the huge mass of preaching correcting that conclusion.  It is obvious that some people just don’t get the message about what the doctrine really is and what the scriptures should mean, out of all the possibilities.  My thoughts, on realizing that point, were wondering what in all the sermons I had probably missed (just like those guys missed the point) and I got to wondering about my own blind spots.

Rather than leave you guessing, I am going to engage in some speculation so you won’t have to wonder where my blind spots are.  Don’t worry, I’ve more than enough mistakes for a lot more posts.

Consider, we know that the Church approves of some people fully cohabiting with each other who can never be sealed to each other.  How do we know that?  Because it approves of cohabitation between people who are married and sealed to other people.  There is no question that widows and widowers, when sealed to others, can still be married for time or joined in civil unions without any disapproval and with official Church sanction.  Apparently if your spouse is just far enough away (as in Paradise, rather than just on a mission or to another country) cohabiting with someone else is considered appropriate.

Think about the implications for theory and practice.  Obviously I’ve a blind spot there or you would have had many other essays in the bloggernacle in favor of weddings involving people who theology currently does not allow to be sealed using that point.

Go ahead, explain my mistakes on this point and other points I’ve made.  Comments are open

You can imagine what a shock that was to me when I was a libertarian marxist, it still affects me as a Republican.

But consider:

2 Nephi 28:13 “they rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries; they rob the poor because of their fine clothing;”

What rhetoric is that closest to?

Modern socialism, definitely.

What other surprising observations have you had while reading the Book of Mormon?

Logic tells us that Jesus Christ really lived.  Think about it.  The calendar.  B.C.  Before Christ.  How could people have missed that?

Kathy Rowley is the only true Relief Society President.

I’m certain I will go on a mission to the ten tribes in the center of the earth.

I am grateful to God for Christ and for Christ’s grace in my wife and children.

Hey, I promised the good along with the bad and the unique.

What sort of things have you heard that made you go “say what?!”

Other than getting lucky in what ward you move into, any ideas?

It would be fun to go over all the speculations others have had, and all the statements some had to make acknowledging that they were mistaken.  But why do that, why not engage in some unbridled speculation of our own?

A good place to start is David O. McKay .  What can we conclude about his earnest and prolonged prayers for authority to remove the Priesthood Ban and God telling him (a) the ban would be removed, (b) not with President McKay and (c) now quit bothering me about it.  Where does that get us and what does that lead to when we start to speculate all over again about how, when, why and such?

Apply logic, pride and uninspired inferences and ask yourself what does David O McKay’s experience tell us about the ban and what does it tell us about the future?  What does it tell us about the other unbridled speculations that are floating about?

What else is there to have unbridled speculation about?