We’re four weeks into the NFL season and reality is rearing its ugly head. If your team is 0-4 (sorry, Bronco fans) you don’t have much hope for the rest of the season. You’ve got that sinking feeling (sorry, Dolphin fans) that things won’t get better this year and will likely get worse. Even a team that’s fun to watch (hello, Cardinal fans) doesn’t bring much solace if the team’s record starts with a zero. Sports fans know highs and lows: elation after a big victory, hope and cheer if the team is doing well, that ho-hum feeling of a mediocre team that wins a few but loses all the big games, and the gloom that settles over a team that is, once again, in the cellar.
We’re two years into the Nelson presidency. How are you feeling? Are you happy and feeling good, realistically hoping for more changes that make your church life better? Or do you have that sinking feeling that things are headed in the wrong direction, that it’s worse this year than last year and it will probably be even worse next year? To help you read your own personal church vibe and report in the comments, go read Peggy Fletcher Stack’s latest article at the SL Trib reviewing the events and changes that have take place under the leadership of President Nelson.
We’re Sinking. That’s my take. Here are the losing events that give rise to my sinking feeling about the recent direction of the Church over the last couple of years. (1) The Day 1 release of Pres. Uchtdorf from the First Presidency was, in retrospect, a clear signal. Good-bye grace, hello conditional love. Doubt your doubts … or else. (2) Ministering, that clumsy word that now gets used a lot in church. I don’t really miss home teaching, but no one can figure out what ministering is, what you call the people who visit or call a-ministering (they are not ministers), and so forth. An institutional muffed punt. (3) Mormons, a perfectly useful moniker for you and me and other members of the Church, is now verboten. Members of the Church now self-consciously struggle to describe themselves and their co-believers in church settings and discussions. It’s almost embarrassing. (4) Temple movie, gone. It wasn’t Hollywood quality, but it was nice to just settle in and watch the movie. Who doesn’t like beautiful landscapes and nice wildlife shots? The slide show, not so much. I don’t just settle in and watch the slide show. Instead, my own personal still small voice whispers to me, “Am I really sitting here watching a slide show with dialogue?”
You May See Things Differently. I’m not saying Team Nelson is quite 0-4. There are some positive changes: two-hour church, missionary phone calls once or twice a week, one step back from the November Policy (and maybe they’ll even update the Handbook someday). Even just the fact that the leadership is now willing to change a lot of little things is good news. But I can’t get too excited about them finally making changes that should have been made twenty years ago. I expect some readers to feel otherwise and make their case in the comments.
Just Around the Corner: General Conference. The SL Trib article and this little exercise is a good warm-up for General Conference. There might be an announcement or two this week prior to Conference as well. If you are in the hopeful camp, feel free to throw out a good change you think might be coming. If you’ve got that sinking feeling, pick a bad change and grumble about it.
Wheat & Tares 
Longtime KC Chiefs fan here. The team with a 50-year Super Bowl drought. Anyway, just to get a conversation going, who in the Q15 (or elsewhere in the LDS church) is your “Patrick Mahomes”?
I prefer to call it the PowerPoint.
Overall I have been very pleased with much of the general direction taken. I am especially liking Saints, two hour block (although I miss Sunday School. I’m still rooting for a Saturday night block). I also like ministering (but not assigned companions and not reporting).
I do miss President Uchtdorf. I think we will see much more rotation in and out of the First Presidency going forward. With older profits, seniority and experience in the First Presidency is apparently important going forward. I think that the next move will be to release Eyring and put Holland in there. I also believe that the emphasis on first presidency is becoming a little bit lessened and that the 12 are being more “elevated”. Notice how many of them are dedicating temples and traveling around the world and doing things members of the first presidency used to reserve for themselves.
I’m not terribly hopeful, but perhaps something big will be done someday to actually include women’s voices more in local councils. Like perhaps female members of the stake high council. Or female counselors in the bishopric. Like I said, my hopes aren’t very high (I’ve seen some evidence that the Brethren still aren’t discussing things much with the women on the general level), but I would love to see these changes.
I would say that the church is “taking on quite a lot of water” and pardon the pun, listing to the right. The apologist working the bilge pumps can’t keep up.
I think the biggest issue is the fact that in the US the next PEW poll may very well show that retention of the youth falls below 50%. With convert baptisms also dropping, it is a simple middle school graphing exercise to show the church is probably shrinking in the US. It isn’t any secret that the tithing from the US is the majority of the income stream (at least as donations).
I agree that some good changes have been made and I agree that they are decades to late.
There might be changes this weekend, but I don’t hold a lot of hope that they will stop the leaks.
“what you call the people who visit or call a-ministering”? Minstrels. Properly spelled min’st’r””’els. It’s a 2-syllable contraction of “ministering angels,” a useful uni-sex term.
Minstrels may also be useful in the half-time show.
Tom Brady and the Patriots are 4-0. I’d love to see Patrick Mahomes in the AFC title game, but of course Pat’s all the way baby!
Go Patriots!! The only true and living NFL football team, amen.
I can’t take seriously any criticism that mentions renewed emphasis on the name of the Church (something that has been attempted multiple times in the past) and a slight change in format of the temple video as negatives but fails to mention the fundamental shifts in emphasis that they are a part of. The emphasis on the name of the Church and deemphasis of the term Mormon are part of efforts to trim back the Ameri-centric cultural norms of Mormonism as an American religion. Efforts like dropping Scouting and introducing a standard youth program across the world for both young men and young women are part of the same theme. And criticizing the temple presentation seems beyond petty to me. You make it sound as though the format was the only change, when the change actually represents a crucial reexamination of the roles of men and women in the eternities. But sure, slide show vs video is the important element there. (And it seems obvious to me, although perhaps this is not the case, that the current format was put together in order to get a new temple video out as quickly as possible. I imagine that a video will be reinstated within the next year or two.)
Go Saints!!!
I am cautiously optimistic. The church is definitely becoming more progressive, even if it is not as fast as some would like. That is the trend and it is undeniable. Deep down, I sometimes kind of like the balance of the conservative old timers as it keeps the pendulum from swinging too hard or too fast. However, the old timers are getting a second wind with all this end of world and personal revelation talk and it is getting a little out of hand at times. I think the church will be pretty awesome in 20 years, I just don’t know if I will be able to sit through the next 20 years of some of the horrible things said at church. There are 4 particular people in my ward I wish someone would give one of those Priesthood euthanizing blessings to. It would make my week to week worship a little more peaceful.
I do get that sinking feeling whenever I see Wendy Watson’s face, hear the phrases “ literal gathering of Israel” or “stay on the covenant path”, or hear BRM quoted in church.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Sounds like the 4-0 teams have a lot more fans than the 0-4 teams.
Elder Mahomes would have to be either Pres. Uchtdorf (and he’ll always be President Uchtdorf to me) or possibly Elder Gong, one of the new and younger apostles who, I’ve heard, is smart as a whip. I was pulling for Elder Christofferson a few years back, but not after his 2015 damage control PR interview painting lipstick on the November Policy.
A couple of policy caveats: First, yes organizations have to be careful about changing too fast and losing the commitment of some of their membership who come to feel alienated by all the changes. Not too fast and not too slow. The LDS problem is there has been almost no change for decades now, so there is a backlog of needed changes. They need to change a bunch of things just to get back on the conservative trend line of slow change from the last third of the 20th century.
Second, almost every policy change has a cost versus benefit balance. A certain change will make some people happier but not others. A certain change will give better outcomes for one demographic but worse for another. Example: the younger age of 18 for young men to leave on missions increases the total number of young men who serve but also probably increases the number who have a tough time mentally and end up returning early. So potential policy changes are very rarely win-win propositions. There are always competing values and outcomes to balance. No one said leadership is easy. There are very few who really shine in the top spot on the org chart. That’s why good CEO’s get paid so much. There’s only one Bill Belichick.
I would have thought it was the conservatives who had the sinking feeling, not the progressives. The progressives have gotten much of what they’ve demanded for years: Women’s session of conference on par with the priesthood session, symmetrical temple liturgy between the sexes, elimination of the scouting program, two-hour church, women leadership much more visible (even if you doubt they’ve got any influence), home church focused on the scriptures rather than the despised church manuals, walking back of the POX, and no more “number tracking” home teaching, If progressives can’t find anything to be optimistic over, they’re kinda determined to be sour.
The jury is still out, but one thing I’ve learned is that leadership would be very difficult. There have been a lot of good changes, but they often come with a bit of a sting.
Martin is right about the fact that progressives have gotten a lot of things they/we wanted. But that doesn’t mean they/we are happy for a few reasons. The thirst for improvement can be insatiable, for one. The changes sometimes come with barbs, for another.
Let’s take some examples.
Two hour church is a clear improvement, but it isn’t as much of n an improvement as I expected. Our Sunday school, which was already dangerously boring, is no LONGER, but the content has not improved.
POX removal is a boon, but it in its wake there is no salve to soothe those wounded by it.
Martin suggests that conservatives maybe should be more queasy than progressives, an interesting thought that rings true too me. It makes me wonder if maybe there aren’t quite as many conservatives as I thought. Instead of categorizing members as conservatives and progressives, perhaps there is an additional contingent whom I won’t label who support whatever the leadership says. This group, perhaps the largest group of the three, is not progressive because they don’t advocate for change, nor is it conservative because when change is implemented by leadership they actively embrace and support it. People tend to like these in with conservatives, but they don’t hold a truly conservative position.
I don’t want to criticize leadership too much. Rockwell is correct that leading this church would be very difficult. I get the feeling that the 15 are trying to walk a very fine line and that’s always an extremely difficult thing to do. And taking Martin’s comments into account, I wonder if both progressives and conservatives consider the church to be sinking. If that’s the case, we’ll likely end up losing membership from both ends of the political spectrum, though it’s too early to tell about that, I suppose. That might be an interesting article/project for someone who’s brilliant at it, like Jana Riess. Finding out why and whether we’re hemorrhaging members from the right would be quite useful. My sense of things is that it’s just sort of business as usual. I’m to a point as a member where I just don’t pay any attention to what leadership does and I’m not convinced (and haven’t been for a long time) that they’re any more capable of receiving revelation that will improve my life than I am. On the one hand, I sort of like having a leader that’s not afraid to shake things up, but on the other, I also think some of the stuff is just a waste of time. The whole “get rid of the term Mormon” thing is just absurd. It’s the most ridiculous and trivial of hills to die on. And I have the feeling that whether the ship is actually sinking or not, we’re still going to lose members at an alarming rate. The fact is, you can’t really turn around almost 200 years of sketchy history, racism, homophobia, half truths and gaslighting by giving women a meeting (but not the priesthood!) and trotting out websites that actually don’t announce up front that they’re associated with the church. In that context, I don’t think it matters who is in charge since whoever has been in charge really hasn’t been about substantively addressing issues involving telling the truth and admitting mistakes. And until that happens, I think we’re just going to keep limping along.
Zack, You might like what Jonathan Haidt said that I quoted in https://wheatandtares.org/2017/11/17/does-religion-have-built-in-conservative-pressures/ He has a few good lines that we need conservatives and progressives. If we only had conservatives, we wouldn’t adapt (I think the church leans this way a bit), but if everyone was a progressive people would just be constantly changing things and it would be hard to learn from past mistakes.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
As to the idea that Conservative Mormons might be unhappy, two words: Denver Snuffer. The fact that we suddenly have a variety of Conservative Mormons (there are plenty of Snuffers out there these days) pushing a fundamentalist (in the non-polygamous religious sense) agenda that appeals to Latter-day Saints who pine for the good old days suggests there are, in fact, more than a few Conservative Mormons who feel the Church has abandoned some key doctrines and practices.
Disclaimer: I don’t like the labels “Conservative Mormons” and “Liberal Mormons,” but most people seem to understand what is meant by the terms and we have to have some sort of vocabulary to talk about the spectrum of opinion within the Church on various doctrines and practices. Those are better terms than “McConkie Mormons” and “followers of Hugh B. Brown” or “Uchtdorfians.” And these are *not* political labels. A Mormon conservative (politically) can be a Liberal Mormon (religiously). A Mormon libertarian (politically) is almost guaranteed to be a Liberal Mormon (religiously).
Uchtdorfians sounds like a slur!
The changes that have been made are largely procedural and it’s hard to view most of them as either progressive or conservative. So I disagree with Zach. Messing with the Church’s nickname is just plain silly. It’s neither. Changing to a 2-hr service is neither. Doubling down on LGBTQ+ issues is definitely conservative. Even discarding POX was just returning to the previous status quo. Changing the temple dialogue is a feminist issue and there must be a lot of conservative feminists. Doubling down on coffee and tea is definitely conservative. Progressives were lobbying for a de-emphasis of that part of the WoW. If anything the Prez Oaks/Nelson axis is trying to separate the wheat from the tares. I don’t think they view departing members as a problem. They are preparing for the Last Days. Only die-hard members wanted.
The Titans are 2-2 and that is about where it seems the RMN presidency is. Like the Titans, he came out of the gate looking much stronger than expected (2 hr church, end of HT/VT) and got our hopes up with some easy but needed changes. But then its a series of losses (the whole Mormon thing, failure to fix children interviews, POX as love), and now we are back to hoping for the occasional win that almost seem like losses (POX reversal but doubling down on most LGBTQ+ issues, temple endowment change but true inclusion of women in leadership looking farther away). For the Titans, even four games in, it now seems unlikely there will be a Super Bowl at the end, just another 8-8 or 9-7 season which only really looks good because of the recent 2-14 seasons. Same for the RMN presidency. Maybe the good ship Zion isn’t completely underwater yet, but there seems little willingness to take on repairing the most serious holes in the hull, so the odds are not looking great.
Although I view a lot of the procedural changes as positive steps they don’t in the slightest way mitigate the fundamental weighty problems that I see within the church. Too many questions and not enough answers to assuage my faith crisis: LGBTQ issues, history, polygamy, patriarchal systems, etc. I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t even listen to or watch Elders Nelson or Oaks speak. The ‘changes’ are too lightweight and insignificant to be considered prophecy from this camp.
Martin that first women’s session last year came with a) fewer women speakers and b) a massive gender essentialist slapdown from the entire 1P. Rockwell isn’t wrong about the sting.
I’m very nervous about the upcoming session.
The fact is that there is no change in policy or doctrine that will make progressives happy. For a change to be made, that would mean that God’s true church (as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints claims itself to be) wasn’t right to start with, and therefore must not really be God’s church after all. This is the thinking that causes people to leave over historical issues such as polygamy, etc.. It would be no different with any contemporary change. Incidentally, it’s essentially the same reason conservatives leave — if it was God’s church to begin with, then it shouldn’t be changing.
Thus, giving women the priesthood might benefit the follow-the-prophet types, but the progressives would remain on the critical fringe and the conservatives would leave. Same with recognizing same-sex marriages. Future adherents disinclined to either camp might benefit, though.
Personally, judging from what I read in the New Testament, God doesn’t direct everything his apostles did and them a fair amount of discretion. They were allowed to make mistakes and correct them (and each other). God also tolerated things like slavery within the church, which I simply cannot fathom (neither in Peter/Paul’s time nor Brigham’s). On the other hand, if the church simply moves with the prevailing attitudes of the day, there’s not really much point having it.
I’m just amused that I can think of this Presidency as the Richard Milhous Nixon one.
I have some more thoughts to add, hopefully with fewer typos/swypos than my last.
The change to leave the boy scouts was one I had wanted for a long time, but the way it happened was rather disappointing. I had bad experiences in the program. I also thought it was weird that the church would outsource its program to an external organization. What if the BSA membership rules didn’t allow a membership to someone in the ward?
When the BSA started allowing gay scout leaders and then girls were the last straws for the church; the BSA was now too liberal. Nevermind that the church didn’t have to allow girls in the troops. Nevermind that the church picks its own scout leaders.
Now the church is leaving the BSA, but there are few details about what is going to replace it. On Sunday children ages 7-17 watched a video talking about the new program coming up. A certain 8 year old said that was the longest, most boring video he ever had to watch. While I feel I should withhold judgement, I don’t know how you make an activities program that includes both 8 year olds and 17 year olds.
When changes happen quickly, there are going to be unforeseen consequences, both good and bad. Things will have to be adjusted, and some mistakes will be made. See the POX as an example.
Missionary age changes have had a lot of side effects. MTCs had to grow and then shrink. I’m hearing that more service is being encouraged, and yes, I think that is partially related to the age change. More missionaries are coming home early. More women are serving missions. I think we are still learning the side effects, good and bad, of changing the mission age by 1 and 2 years for men and women respectively.
Changes to the youth program could have far reaching effects. But right now, it’s hard to say. Other than seeing goals, I really don’t know what the new program is going to look like. There has been a lot of talk about what the change is from, and less about what the change is going to be.
Well, I feel like I have a lot more to say, but I have to stop now. Perhaps I’ll be back.
As if my preference means anything, I would prefer Uchtdorf in the FP rather than Oaks, though I don’t see Oaks as quite the bogeyman that some others do. But I am very pleased to lose the expectation that the previous counselors have to be retained. It’s not a rule (I’m old enough to remember Marion G. Romney and Hugh B. Brown) and I don’t like the idea that a “promotion” to the FP is for life. Nobody else in the church is required to retain the previous counselors; why should the president be the only one who doesn’t get to select his own counselors? I might have preferred a different choice this time, but still I prefer having the possibility of making changes in the future. For that matter, I would like to revive the practice of non-apostles serving in the First Presidency. I guess I just like to see some fresh faces in there.
I don’t think girls in scouting and gay scouts and leaders were as big a factor as commonly assumed. In theory, just being gay is not supposed to be a bar to church callings or participation. The church policy would allow (celibate) gay members to serve as YM presidents or teacher’s quorum presidents, and to hold a recommend. But gay scoutmasters were not allowed due to BSA rules, not church rules. And gay youth are not barred from the Young Men or Young Women organizations, but had been barred from scouting. The church was in theory, already less restrictive than BSA when the scouting changes were made. Girls have been participating in Exploring / Venturing since the late 1960s and that didn’t stop the church from using those programs. There ought not to have been any reason why the church could not have continued in Scouts BSA after that program went coed.
Leadership isn’t hard. The only hard thing is convincing the proud they need to humble themselves and follow. (See Jesus Christ)
Ralpo, you sound like you must be a Cowboys fan. 🙂
Talon, I’m more of an NFC North Guy
I’m with you, Dave, on seeing some good and some bad, but overall leaning bad. I was crushed by Nelson’s demotion of Uchtdorf. Conference has never been my favorite time, but it sure was brightened up by getting to hear multiple times from such a grace-promoting man. Now his extra talks have been replaced by extra talks from Oaks, who loves nothing more than to lay out a case very clearly for why God hates what you’re doing, and he’s on the right side and you’re on the wrong.
And speaking of Oaks, I know Nelson looks healthy and spry, but he is 95, and I think an Oaks presidency is close on the horizon. I worry that now that Nelson has changed the norm from doing little to actually making changes, that Oaks will lower the boom in unexpected ways. He was added to the quorum because he was thinking about ways to fight “the gays,” and that has really been one of his central concerns for his entire time in the Q15. I fear that he’ll come out with some awful policies that will make the November policy look like child’s play.
For me, it’s a mixed bag. I think the changes (temple, 2 hour church, quorum restructuring) have been good and were overdue. I really struggle with the doctrinal shift, conditional love, vending machine obedience and emphasis on the covenant path. I also don’t like the WOW doubling down and the family proclamation anti-gay marriage rhetoric.
I agree that we are probably losing a lot of conservatives who doubt the authority/revelatory capacity of the Q15 and see the softening of certain things as signs that the Church caves to liberal/external pressure.
I am optimistic that I will outlive both Oaks and Nelson.
So, any member can now be a witness to a baptism.
First reaction: Great! Women and girls can now participate more equally.
Second reaction: so if they are going to let women do it, they figure they may as well let eight year olds do it? WEIRD.
I mean, this is good, and I refuse to let the second reaction dominate my feelings, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t there.
Pressing forward.
Martin: Saying that progressives have gotten much of what they’ve “demanded” and are therefore determined to be sour if they aren’t thrilled with all these changes is really unfair. It’s like telling women there is no more inequality and they should quit squawking about it because we added a pregnancy parking space with a pink sign on it. There’s a lot more to do to make gay people have a place in the Church than to revert a hateful policy (without actually changing the handbook or the rhetoric), and the so-called progress on women’s issues is just nowhere near seeing us as full people. I applaud the changes, but with a muted golf clap.
For example, today, the Church announced women can now be witnesses to ordinances. Yay! How quickly that begs the question “Why on earth could women NOT be witnesses before??” Why is such a change needed in 2019? Talk about a “believe women” gap!” We are supposed to be thrilled that women (as young as 8??) get our own meeting, but it’s led by men. We are supposed to be excited that women can pray in Gen Conf, but almost no women are assigned to speak and absolutely no women are ever asked to speak in the men’s session. Sorry, but how am I supposed to be jazzed about these window-dressing changes? It’s like saying “Hey, we quit smacking you in the face! Why aren’t you happy now?”
I think your other comment that change is hard for both sides if the individual believes the Church should be led by an intervening God who sets the course is more on point. At some point, people realize that there is no Great and Terrible Oz, just a man behind a curtain pulling a bunch of levers and a little dog running around making a lot of noise, exposing the whole thing for what it is. It would be easier (as adults) to take the idea of leader fallibility if they weren’t constantly beating the “follow us, we are right” drum. As noted by several commenters on my post today on the point of Gen Conf, the refrain of obedience to human leaders is beginning to sound desperate and insecure, but it also isn’t what real leaders do, and in this day of Ted Talks, that lack of dynamism and confidence stands out. I’m reminded of a time we were on a family hike when my then 9 year old daughter realized she was behind the rest of us and she made everyone stop insisting “Hey, wait up! I should be in front! I’M the leader!”
Rockwell: For some, women and children is one category, not two.
Well Angela, let me explain it to you this way sweetie. There are “Men” and they are most important, and there is everyone else.
And if Angela lived anywhere near me I would assume she would be visiting me to slap the smile of my smiley face. And I would deserve it even if I was trying to be sarcastic.
One thing I’ve learned from these comments: Martin clearly doesn’t understand progressives.
Angela’s indignation is righteous. But there is change in the wind, and that’s better than there being no change (or negative change). I hope that my daughters will look back on today (or this year) with some anger, yes, but also, ultimately, as an important inflection point. I take courage in looking at the history of progressivism: change is hard work, happens slowly, and is never predictable and rarely permanent. But it does happen!
I also think it is really odd now that 8 year olds can witness baptisms. By the same logic, couldn’t 8-year old girls start participating in baptisms in the temple? For boys, the magic age is 11 when they can be ordained. But since only boys have to be ordained to go to the temple, why not let 8-year old girls go who have been baptized?
If 8 year olds are mature enough to make covenants themselves, witness baptisms outside the temple, then why not inside and why not have them be proxies?
What I’m saying is kind of tongue and cheek. But part of my frustration is the total lack of consistency with this new “see women are equal because they have priesthood power and authority through making covenants” except how they still can’t do stuff because of ordination. But now that we don’t need ordination to do some things, let’s have kids do it, but then have all of them wait to do more because half of them have to turn 11 first.
I’m not truly suggesting 8 year olds should go to the temple, but by the church’s own standard, at least the girls could.
Dave B writes “A Mormon libertarian (politically) is almost guaranteed to be a Liberal Mormon (religiously).”
I consider myself politically libertarian (*) while religiously conservative (**).
* Libertarian: I choose for me and you choose for you.
** Conservative: Conserves values. What is right and wrong today will still be right and wrong tomorrow. Who would follow a fickle church? Light bulb moment: Nobody follows such a thing but you might enjoy leading such a thing; rather like the children’s game “Simon Says” where the actual winner is whoever is calling out the instructions. Progressives do not see themselves as followers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Says
Progressives follow things, Michael 2. Just different things.
Different things than conservatives, that is.
I believe that until a few decades ago, baptized boys and girls under 12 did go to the temple for proxy baptisms. I’d have to look around for the reference, though.
And I should point out that my Baltimore Colts haven’t lost a game since 1983.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. This is one of the more insightful comment threads attached to one of my posts. Some highlights since my last attaboy:
rogerdhanson: “The changes that have been made are largely procedural and it’s hard to view most of them as either progressive or conservative. … Messing with the Church’s nickname is just plain silly.” Yes, it’s wrong to shoehorn all changes into a progressive or conservative category. Shortening Sunday services or letting missionaries call home aren’t really one or the other.
10ac: “The Titans are 2-2 and that is about where it seems the RMN presidency is.” It’s hard to make a strong post (one that gets people’s attention and stimulates discussion) with a 2-2 argument, giving a little to both sides. I often pick a side and make the argument, hence my 0-4 approach. The Titans are pretty hit and miss this season. They can win any particular game if they play well, but they’ll probably end up 8-8. Maybe like the current leadership decisions are pretty hit or miss at the moment as well.
Ziff the Uchtdorfian: “I was crushed by Nelson’s demotion of Uchtdorf.” It’s not just that the best and most insightful speaker we’ve seen in Conference in the last generation was relegated to one talk per Conference. It’s that he was replaced by a leader who now seems to devote every single talk to the idea that heterosexual temple marriage is good and everything else is varying degrees of bad, with anything gay-related being super bad. It’s like replacing Dan Marino with … well, any Dolphins quarterback of the last quarter century.
Rockwell, on today’s announcement changing the policy for witnesses: “So if they are going to let women do it, they figure they may as well let eight year olds do it?” Let’s take the high road here. I’m sure 8-year-olds across the Church are pleased as punch to be regarded as being as mature and as important as adult women in the Church. I’m expecting a talk in Conference titled, “LDS 8-Year-Olds Are Incredible!”
Welcome back, Michael 2. I would never have guessed you are religiously conservative.
Left Field, when I think of the Baltimore Colts I think of their historic loss to Broadway Joe Namath and the New York Jets in Super Bowl III. They didn’t win but at least they were there.
I’m with Ziff on the concern about Oaks. I bought a solar powered prayer wheel in Tibet (you can get them on ebay) and I have it asking that Oaks does not become president.
Is it a big step from witnessing, to being in the circle to bless your child?
It would be so much easier to just make the priesthood available to all worthy members, rather than this creeping change. I assume this being announced means the big change not coming soon. Surprise me please.
As I said in another forum: they may not be vocal or visible, but there are a non-zero number of members who are enraged and alarmed at these recent changes. Who thought it was proper for women to be excluded from serving as witnesses, from giving invocations in Sacrament meeting, and for the temple ceremony and covenants to be worded as they were. Who are “exhausted” by Pres. Nelson’s changes and want them to slow down or stop.
Here’s the funny thing: as Angela pointed out, some of these changes may be things that so-called progressives had hoped for, but no healing or reconciliation has come with the changes. No acknowledgement of hurt, no admission that really, we didn’t have a good reason to introduce these policies to begin with. And having recently attended the temple, the funny thing is that it hasn’t really changed–the language is somewhat less patriarchal than before, but if you listen closely you can hear that the covenants women make are still very much in line with how they were before, just worded differently with a “See Section 132” reference.
There is no balm in Gilead. And nobody will publicly say so.
There is certainly a wide variety of reactions to the witness policy change — and a wide variety in the strength of the emotion behind those reactions. One dedicated sister in our ward did speak up privately. She is furious with the change; she sees it as giving in to those #@%* feminists and threatens to leave the church if they ever go so far as to ordain a woman. Bro Jones is right about the non-zero number. In fact that reaction reminds me of friends and relatives who threatened leaving the church if priesthood and temple eligibility were extended to people of black African descent. Some did.
Coming so soon after President Nelson’s September BYU speech on a different policy [“We knew that this policy created concern and confusion for some and heartache for others. That grieved us. Whenever the sons and daughters of God weep—for whatever reasons—we weep.”], I took the change to the witness policy as an implicit acknowledgment of hurt and that there is no good reason to continue the policy that caused or contributed to the hurt. Silence on whether there was ever a good reason for it in the past might have been perceived as the best way to minimize the hurt to people like that furious sister in my ward. I’m glad I don’t have to make such decisions about which members of the church to hurt or infuriate while trying to move the church in a changed direction..
Forget the comparison of leaders to football players. I want to elect my own apostles to the Q 12. I feel that a spiritual leader can only lift you as high as they are. The present leadership just doesn’t inspire in their teachings/conference talks. I elect Richard Rhor. Or for a couple females: Krista Tippet or Brene Brown. We need imagination to elevate the members spirituality and to cut though the tough issues facing our leaders stuck in their antiquated ways of thinking.
Until then I carry books to church to find new insights.
“I would never have guessed you are religiously conservative.”
I get that response sometimes. Liberty is orthogonal to morality or judgment; I recognize that if I want to choose for me, I must allow you to choose for you, even if, or especially if, we do not have the same beliefs. Libertarian is not predictably “left” or “right” since both left and right are very happy to tell others what to do and not do. I *lean* right with regard to human reproduction, but *left* with regard to many social values, provided I do not have to be told, or tell, what to do. This causes me some ethical dilemmas when I am not sure whether, or to what extent, I have a duty or right to stop you doing what I consider bad things.
Brian says “Martin clearly doesn’t understand progressives.”
Nor do they understand each other, for there is no single definition of what the word means. I have invested nearly a lifetime trying to figure it out and I have a doubt that I am any closer to understanding the hive mind; for it is certainly that, but who or what is the queen? The evidence for my assertion, that progressives do not understand each other, is the huge investment in blogging and media by each progressive to make sure the Word gets out what is currently woke. It might not have a queen; it could be like herring swimming in a circle, nobody knows how it started and the entire circle will drift with the current, an “emergent” property of the crowd, the “priesthood of believers” arguing like a bunch of evangelicals who is more right; with God in Heaven LOL’ing because nobody has it exactly right but that’s okay because the real requirements seldom get discussed (broken heart and contrite spirit comes to mind).
Michael 2, Welcome back, I guess? Though also, like clearly, you clearly don’t understand progressives.
About Michael 2 characterizing himself as a libertarian who is religiously conservative, and the many comments asserting that he does not understand progressives.
I had always considered myself as a political, social, and cultural conservative (although with the triumph of Trumpism in the Republican Party, many people would claim that because I am anti-Trump, I am not conservative. The definition of conservatism has changed). I cut my conservative teeth on Goldwater and Reagan. But now I am an independent.
But I am emphatically not a Church conservative.
(I also am not a “progressive Mormon.”) Although I am orthodox in practice, I simply think that God reveals Himself to us, but not in the immaculate ways that Santa Claus-Easter Bunny-Tooth Fairy testimonies imagine. Sorry. Pejorative language on my part, but I react strongly to people who try to put the Gospel and me in their neat, little pre-set boxes.
But the point I want to make is this: if Michael 2 declares himself to be A, people of a B persuasion might not understand that, but it is presumptuous for them to try and tell Michael 2 that his world view does not make sense. It makes sense to Michael 2, even though I personally disagree with it.
I am tired of Church conservatives telling me that unless I believe and say A, B, and C, then I cannot say that I am a believing Church member. I am going to affiliate myself with the Church on MY terms, not theirs, and if they don’t like it, they can just back off.
I also think many progressive Mormons could show more tolerance toward people who do not share their viewpoint. Simply typecasting someone as being benighted and narrow-minded doesn’t help. Do we want to discredit the opposition, or do we want to understand each other better? Why do we post comments here on Wheat and Tares, anyway? Is it to argue or to shame the opposition, or is it to share information and to try to understand differing viewpoints? Conservative viewpoints have their weaknesses, but so do progressive viewpoints.
When Christ comes again, I do not think that He will be either conservative or liberal. He will be Himself, and ALL of us, me included, are going to have to change ourselves to be able to stand before Him.
In 1978, One day we were racist, the next not. Decisive.
Now we are dealing with sexism, one tiny step at a time. I can’t see how this is better. Stop with the games and make priesthood available to all worthy members, as soon as possible.
For those who are worried about whether they or others are progressive or conservative. Respond to a post on millenial star, if you are censored you are progressive.
the Q12 will never let women receive the priesthood because there would be an uproar when women realize there never was discernment and when you give a blessing – we are just making up the words we say – God isn’t directing us what to say.