Sometimes I recall nuggets of spiritual wisdom but cannot remember when or where I picked them up. One in particular has increasingly taken on new meanings for me as I’ve wrestled with some of life’s tougher questions. You might call it the “Parable of the Elephant.” This is how it goes, as best I remember, with a few adaptations of my own:
Archive for the 'tesimony' Category
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There seem to be a number of disaffected Mormons lurking the Bloggernacle these days.
I am not one of them.
Here is why.
Not so long ago I thought I knew certain things were true and wavering was a self-inflicted condition. I also really thought I was an independent thinker who had chosen to be a conservative Republican, and to believe that homosexuality was an illness, and that the priesthood ban was imposed by God for some reason we just couldn’t understand, and that polygamy was a holy practice when it was sanctioned, and that church leaders past and present were inspired in all things and represented the will of the Lord. I thought I chose those positions because they were simply the right, or true, things and I felt that it was of paramount importance to be right with God.
Something changed. Continue reading…
With this episode we begin a 3-part series dealing with the idea of “Inoculating the Saints.” This first episode hails from the 2007 Salt Lake Sunstone symposium. The abstract reads:
Would fewer members leave the Church if they were taught about the stickier issues of LDS history and theology in faithful, institutional settings rather than stumbling upon them on the Internet or from other sources? Perhaps fewer members would feel “betrayed” by the Church when they encounter troubling information after being in the Church for years without being taught about discrepancies. But were the Church to more proactively engage in “information inoculation,” would so doing better serve faith and spiritual growth? What should the role of the Church as an institution be in doing this versus that of LDS independent and apologist groups? In the lead-up to the 150th anniversary of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in September, 2007, we are seeing a few Church-directed efforts to teach members about this terrible episode. Are we seeing an institutional shift in the way they will engage challenging issues from now on?
The speakers on this panel include:
- CHARLES RANDALL PAUL, Ph.D., Panelist director, Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy; board member, Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology
- BLAKE OSTLER, attorney; author, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God and Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God
- KEVIN BARNEY, attorney; author of numerous articles on LDS scripture and theology; member, FAIR board of directors
- MIKE ASH, owner and webmaster, MORMONFORTRESS.COM; author, “The Sin ‘Next to Murder’: An Alternative Interpretation” (SUNSTONE, November 2006)
A big thanks, as always, to Clayton Pixton for providing the wonderfully inspirational bumper music for this podcast.
In the subsequent 2 Mormon Matters episodes, our panel will discuss this panel presentation, and the idea of inoculation.
If you enjoy this presentation, please check out other past Sunstone presentations here.
