You good Mormons out there sneaking a peak at Wheat&Tares (W&T) blog during a boring Sacrament Meeting are in big trouble. None other that Dallin Oaks has told you to knock it off! In 1989, Oaks gave a talk in General Conference titled “Alternate Voices“. He explained that outside of those who have been called and have divine authority to do so (himself), that you should not listen to those other voices
My remarks will refer to those voices that speak of God, of his commandments, and of the doctrines, ordinances, and practices of his church. Some of those who speak on these subjects have been called and given divine authority to do so. Others, whom I choose to call alternate voices, speak on these subjects without calling or authority.
Oaks, 1989 General Conference
I think he means that those of us that write for W&T do not have authority to write about “God, of his commandments, and of the doctrines, ordinances, and practices of his church”. I was called by Hawkgrrl to speak on these subjects, does that count?
Other alternate voices are pursuing selfish personal interests, such as property, pride, prominence, or power. Other voices are the bleatings of lost souls who cannot hear the voice of the Shepherd and trot about trying to find their way without his guidance. Some of these voices call out guidance for others—the lost leading the lost.
Oaks, 1989 General Conference
The context of this talk by Oaks is that Sunstone, both the magazine and the symposium, where becoming a big deal, with the symposium drawing on faithful LDS speaker, some BYU professors. The Church was loosing control of the narrative. I wonder if any of the brethren “saw around the corner” on the coming internet? A few years after this talk, the Church issued a statement about attending symposia that delved into sacred topics. The Temple endowment had just removed the penalties, and without the internet yet in full swing, these symposia and magazines were the “Wheat&Tares” of the day. It is where you got the news of the Church.
To be fair, Oaks did say that members are free to listen (and read) what they want, but that the Church has an obligation to tell them what is authorized, and what is not (W&T)
So to all you heathens out there reading unauthorized material, welcome to your alternate voice!
Wheat & Tares 
Thanks for having this blog. Many of the believing blogs are too believing. Post anything skeptical or critical on there they’ll kick you out. Times and Seasons used to be good but they went downhill a number of years ago. I haven’t read anything from there in years. BCC is OK but caters to people who really are believers, even if they are a bit more on the liberal side. The ex-Mormon subreddit has way too many people commenting and is full of shrill overreaction. Victimhood narratives over there are hypercharged. I once wrote a post pleading with people to stop comparing the church to Iran, North Korea, or other dictatorships as it minimized the experience of the victims of those repressive and brutal regimes. I was met with angry responses about how all victims were victims. I knew I had had enough at that point. This blog seems to be about right. A voice of critical thought that allows a legitimate space for believers to express themselves. A hard balance to strike.
To add to Brad’s comment, even the feminist blogs have become too apologetic to the official narrative. I have been having a hard time being honest at Exponent II and recently had a VERY condescending response about how angry I must be. No, not angry, I just cannot accept that an intelligent God would pick someone as flawed and dishonest and disgusting as Joseph Smith as his spokesperson to restore the gospel. And I probably said how I do not enjoy people trying to make excuses for how polygamy wasn’t so bad. So, I tried to explain how the OP poster had misinterpreted my comment and I was more or less invited to not post any more. So, yeah I won’t. If you say anything except how much you enjoyed reading the OP, you are somehow out of line. 95% of the comments are, “beautifully said” and “I really relate to this” and echo, echo, echo. After 15 years of participating in the discussion, I was carefully trying to say things “just right” not to offend but still post a how I felt or what I had experienced or a different opinion honestly. It was tiring and just exactly like talking in Sunday school. I have more experience in life and feminism at 60 as a feminist than the permablogges who are maybe in their 30 with ten years experience as feminists, but I am treated as someone who doesn’t “get it” because I don’t repeat back to them exactly what they said. I am tired of feeling like I am in Sundayschool every time I tried to say anything. It wasn’t just that one discussion but something that has been getting worse ever since the “Kate Kelly feminist exit” when many of the feminists who had been involved with ordain women gave up and left the blogs or left the church. I expect most of them are over on exMormon subreddit angry at the church for all of it’s sins.
But where do you go when your whole life was Mormonism for 70 years and you have outgrown victimhood, and the anger, but are still too Mormon to ever be anything else?
It just feels like the last few years most of the believing but nuanced or “still attached” but not believing blogs and discussion groups have degenerated into one or two posters. Ziff is the only one posting at one of the feminist blogs and he is a guy. Feminist Mormon housewives doesn’t exist anymore along with a couple of others I used to read and comment on. New Order Mormon is down to one or two comments a month. So, the internet alternate voices are disappearing or joining the official narrative by making all kinds of excuses for how the church is still true.
Yuck, I don’t want apologetics and I don’t want screaming about how evil the church is. I *know* all that. Been there done that, still connected to the Mormon culture. I want an alternate voice. So, yea W&T my one remaining alternate voice.
As a fairly new (admitting that I am ) nuanced member I love Wheat and Tares. People with much more knowledge of the church comment and I learn. But the pedant in me (and my senior English teacher of 1961) must say that it is spelled ‘losing’, not ‘loosing’
Aah, Linda, you sweet soul. Welcome welcome to the W&T universe. Our most beloved contributor, Bishop Bill, at times makes typos in his rush to get his much-anticipated musings down on paper (so to speak). I learned long ago that to call attention to one of his mis-types is to call down the fury of The W&T Gods upon your head – from others of his acolytes who don’t appreciate anyone trying to point out any lof his less-than-perfect words or phrases.
I think “alternate voices” is the wrong image, as it implicitly compares “orthodox and trustworthy voices” (the Church and its leaders) with anything else, the “alternate and untrustworthy” voices.
Instead, let’s compare “free and open discussion” (what happens here at W&T and in a few other places) with “correlated discussion” or “managed discussion,” what happens in church on Sunday, in any LDS-controlled forum, and in a lot of other sites or real-world places. Free and open discussion can be messy, even contentious, but that’s what life is like sometimes, folks.
Then why did Dallin Oaks help found Dialogue in 1966? Who called him to do that?
Is it that big a slide from alternate thoughts to alternate spellings? We’re all doomed!
Dear Linda, you are correct, it should be losing. I do that on purpose so you know AI didn’t write the post. As regular readers of W&T knows, it’s a Sunday morning tradition to see who will be the first to find a mistake in my posts. I really don’t have any excuses for using there vs their, or which vs witch. I’m just a lazy retired engineer with slight dyslexia and ADHD according to my wife. But thanks for reading my posts, and don’t every stop from correcting them!
This is the crux of Oaks’ quote from the OP for me, “Other voices are the bleatings of lost souls who cannot hear the voice of the Shepherd and trot about trying to find their way without his guidance. Some of these voices call out guidance for others—the lost leading the lost.”
We (all of humanity, including the Q15) are all lost. We are all grappling with the mysteries that religion attempts to provide answers to. Some of us are more lost than others (Oaks would be a prime example). Many don’t recognize how lost they are (Oaks again).
LDS leaders have chosen for many decades to claim that their clairvoyance makes the Church unique and special. Just follow the Q15, and you won’t be “lost” like everyone else on the planet. This is very simple and comforting to many. In fact, it would be very comforting to me if I could believe it were true.
Unfortunately, the history of the Church is long enough to provide too many examples of where the Q15 itself was lost. Blacks and the priesthood and temple, polygamy, women working outside the home, the POX, “pray the gay away”, birth control, evolution, the origin of the Native Americans are just a few of the big issues that our supposedly not lost Q15 has, in fact, been very lost–often more lost than the average person, religious or not.
Perhaps the Church should continue doing what it has been doing. It could just keep claiming over and over again that Church leaders can see around corners and will never lead members astray. If they say it often and frequently enough, some people will keep believing it. It is a very comforting message for many, and it doesn’t require people to work hard to figure out what they feel is right themselves. As my least favorite primary song goes: “Follow the prophet, he knows the way”.
There is also great institutional power and unity when members just accept and follow whatever the Q15 tells them to believe and do. When the Church says to get behind Proposition 8, Church members immediatelyh get behind that message and donate lots of time and money to make it law. If the Church were to listen to alternate voices on an issue like that, it would be messy and time consuming. The Church accomplishes a lot–for good and for bad–because it has Church members that will believe and do whatever the Q15 tells them to believe and do. The problem is that since the Q15 is often just as lost as everyone else, it often has members believing and doing bad things. The Church’s support for Proposition 8 is just one such example.
While there is great power in the Church because its members will just do whatever Church leaders tell them to do, I think the Church needs to change course. The Q15 needs to come to terms with its past mistakes, which of course, implies that they will continue to make mistakes in the future as well. It would be better to give up on this false belief in infallibility than continue to lead Church members astray as they have in the past.
This new model would indeed require the Q15 to listen to alternate voices, which just means finding new ways to listen to the thoughts and feelings of Church members instead of believing that they will always do the right thing because God won’t let them make a serious mistake. This new model would mean that decisions take a lot more time and discussion. It might mean that the Q15 doesn’t even make the most important decisions any longer. This new model would appear messy at times while these discussions on difficult topics were happening. And, yeah, this new model would make the Church look a lot more like other churches out there that make decisions through messy processes that involve a lot of their members. So be it. It’s the right thing to do. “Do what is right. Let the consequence follow.”
Oaks’ model of the Church is broken. The Q15 is just as lost, and sometimes more lost, as the rest of us. Based on the Q15’s actions, it is obvious that they often do listen to these “alternate voices” (the POX was reversed in only 3 years!). Instead of disparaging these voices, as Oaks does so strongly, the Church should transform itself into an institution that encourages and provides mechanisms for the voices of all of its members to be heard.
W&T is a huge relief, and many thanks to hawkgrrl for providing this little corner of the Internet. I was around (mostly as a lurker) when the bloggernacle was starting out. I started reading Feminist Mormon Housewives at its third post. I spent hours at By Common Consent and Times and Seasons. The discussions in the comments were as interesting as the posts. And I think that’s the strength of W&T. Here, the comments are likely to be just as good and thought provoking as the original post. As Anna points out, other blogs have slid into being mostly echo chambers. The permabloggers aren’t the only alternate voices here — the commenters are too.
There is no mechanism in the church to keep in touch with “alternative” and maybe even correct voices. It’s so sure of its mission that there is an echo chamber to reinforce it. I often wonder what it would be like to have open communication up and down the “authority” ladder. But I realize that there are many members who just like to be told so they don’t have to think. Here’s to thinking!!
Mountainclimber:
Well said!!
Lots of thoughtful comments here!
I recently watched “Mao’s Last Dancer”, a beautiful & true story with 5 star rating. I was struck by how much Mao’s Orwellian, controlling regime resembled all high-control religions, including LDS, in so many ways. The idea of being “church broke” in comparison to the required party loyalty seemed obvious to me.
mountainclimber479,
The reasons you give for the apostles being lost fall within the scope of a progressive world view. There are good explanations for those reasons–that is, for people like me who are more of a TBM mindset. But however that may be, the real question is: are they the Lord’s servants or aren’t they? And if we judge them by our own lights without any reference to the Divine–then, of course, we’re bound to reject them–even those with a conservative bent like myself will have a hard time receive them as inspired servants.
And so the thing to do is to appeal to God directly–that’s the only way to really know that they are true servants of the Lord. And then once we’ve learned for ourselves that they’ve been divinely appointed–then we can revisit those things that troubled us before and try to understand why they took the actions they did. And, you know, we may not get a satisfactory answer to every question–but at the very least we’re likely to come away with a better general understanding of the whys and wherefores of their decision making process–which includes human weakness.
In Doctrine and Covenants Section 1 we read some verses that very strongly imply that the Lord’s servants aren’t perfect–or perhaps better said: that the Lord’s servants don’t need to be perfect in order to be called as his anointed.
24 Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.
25 And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;
26 And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed;
27 And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent;
28 And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time.
@Jack, the things I listed are all things (priesthood/temple ban, polygamy, women working, the POX, etc., and my list wasn’t anywhere near complete) that the Q15 has changed its position on. Unlike some others, I do think there is room for God potentially changing His directions to people based on a different time and place (Oaks recently referred to these sorts of things as “temporary commandments”). The Law of Moses from the Old Testament not being followed by Christians once Christ arrived would be a good example of this that makes some amount of sense to me.
If you were to take any one of the issues I listed (or others I didn’t list) in isolation, I could probably accept that God changed His will based on time/place/other unknown reasons, at least in some of the cases. It wouldn’t be very satisfying, but if there were only a few cases, then I might be able to swallow it. It is the pattern–the number of frequency of these changes–that leads me to conclude that the Q15 really do make serious mistakes and that I am personally able to do better than them at least some of the time and is some of these cases.
You are starting with your personal conclusion that the Q15 are divinely appointed. Because of this (and based on our previous, lengthy conversations), you do not believe that they have ever made a serious mistake (You have previously told me that you would disagree with me that any of the items on my list represent errors on their part). Because you are starting with the conclusion that the Q15 can’t make a serious mistake, you are able (or you are compelled) to accept explanations for these changes in position that those who don’t start with that conclusion would not naturally accept.
I have, and do, appeal to God directly. I have had no inspiration to make me think that any of the items on my list were His will. I have also not received inspiration to help me know that the Q15 are His divine servants. They could be His servants, but based on their actions, it doesn’t seem like they are what they claim to be and what many TBMs believe them to be, namely, a source of truth that can never “lead them astray”. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” I think they have led the Church astray on numerous occasions. Sure, you can argue that despite these errors, the Church is still good and has a lot of good direction (and, thus, the Church hasn’t technically “gone astray” in that sense), but the Q15 has given extremely bad counsel to its members many times (which is what I mean when I say that they’ve led members astray).
Often when you comment here, you use language that leaves open the possibility for the Q15 to be imperfect. Again, I would remind you that you have very clearly told me multiple times that you do not believe that the Q15 as a united body can make a serious error for the Church. Most members, including myself, would be quite able to accept minor personality flaws or smaller, less important errors by the Q15. I’m talking about big mistakes. Mistakes that really affect people’s lives in a negative way. You are on the record as saying you don’t think that this has ever happened.
Look at the scripture you quoted:
“And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;” It is extremely rare for the Q15 to admit they made a serious mistake. Have they ever done it? I would be much less frustrated with them if they would openly “make known” their errors.
“And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent;” When has the Q15 repented of anything? Don’t you have to apologizxe to repent? Oaks says they don’t apologize. They still haven’t brought themselves to apologize to black people for the priesthood/temple ban (or anything else on my list).
Your comments to me often seem like you want to have it both ways. You want to openly admit that the Q15 isn’t perfect, and you even quote scriptures saying as much, but then you will say that they’ve never made any big mistakes, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Either they make big mistakes, or they don’t make big mistakes. I’m convinced that they make big mistakes. You can’t have it both ways.
Where might you and I find common ground? Nothing that I’ve said implies that the Q15 needs to be eliminated. The Q15 could still exist and be involved in the decision making process, but for me to be satisified, they’d have to openly admit that they are capable of making big mistakes (and hopefully own up to some of those mistakes made by their predecessors). Ideally, in my opinion, the Q15 could openly admit that the Church is in a period of time (and has been for some time) where it isn’t really receiving much, or any, direction from God (Hinckley famously said that they weren’t receiving much revelation in one of his television interviews–we had almost everything we needed from Joseph Smith). Their role could be to stick around and announce such revelation if it were ever to start happening again. In the meantime and in the absence of divine direction to the Q15, the Church could operate more like other churches do, with decisions happening in messy, more democratic, ways (and the Q15 could have a role here, too, but they couldn’t just rule over the Church with their opinions as they do now, unless they can make a strong claim that God has revealed something to them). Yeah, it’s not the ideal that Mormons were taught from their youth, but it’s better (in my opinion) than insisting on the fantasy that everything the Q15 says comes straight from God (or they can’t make big mistakes). If God ever decides to start directly working through the Q15 again in the future, then the Q15 could have the power to give this direction to the Church (yes, this is dangerous because it could be easily abused, but I’m trying to find common ground here).
For the record, I was quite conservative both politically and religously when I was younger. Indeed, on certain political issues I still do have quite a conservative bent (while on others, I am certainly on the progressive side). In any case, I began to see the (to me) obvious fallibility and big mistakes of the Q15 when I was very much still in my conservative years. This conviction did not originate from adopting a more progressive lens on some issues as I’ve grown older.
My wife is cousins with the Oman clan and I met Nate Oman and his dad at our wedding in 2003 and thus became hooked on T&S. My favorite posts were always from Julie smith. Most blogs kinda fell apart during the POX years and I had a front row seat to the regime change over there when all the amazing bloggers left. What’s left is quite disgusting.
BCC is fine is you are on board with the approved list of things you are allowed to be nuanced about otherwise they tend to delete your comments.
For whatever reason I’ve never gone down the subreddit rabbit hole. I think the Reddit conversation format and design muddles me so I don’t enjoy it.
If prophesying means thoughts and prayers to end a pandemic on day 1 then ignoring it after, or means creating horrible policies that you have to reverse a few years later, or silencing voices calling for protecting the youth while simultaneously making the changes they suggest, or making sh$t up about steeple heights to get your way, or pretending to not have the foggiest idea where baseball baptism culture came from, hard pass. YMMV.
@ Mountainclimber @Jack
A few months ago, I was listening to Alex O Connor discuss the philosophical problem known as the “Preface paradox”. Imagine an author writes a book filled with 100 claims they believe to be true. Each page contains assertions about things they have absolute certainty in. However, in the preface, the author admits: “Despite my best efforts, there are most certainly mistakes contained in these pages”. Now, we certainly could confine the possible mistakes to mere grammar, but it also extends to substantive claims that are subject to further examination. The Book of Mormon itself begins with its own Preface paradox, “And now, if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men”.
This seems reasonable and even rational—people make mistakes, and total infallibility is unlikely. However, the paradox exists specifically because the author makes an admission up front that there are mistakes, and then upon examining each page independently, one by one, systematically refutes any errors. This is a problem between the general and the specific.
This creates a paradox. The author believes;
1) That each individual claim is true
2: That there is at least one claim that is false
This appears logically inconsistent—how can you believe A₁ is true, A₂ is true, …, A₁₀₀ is true, while also believing not all of A₁ to A₁₀₀ are true?
I believe that “revelation” has become a dog whistle for projecting error onto God. God told us to do it! It’s a convenient way to avoid responsibility for mistakes made. But this idea incriminates God in the mess of man and also calls into question divinities omniscience. If morality is in fact NOT relative, then why would God tell the Q15 to discriminate against blacks? Is God setting up the moral failure so he can swoop in and be the hero?
Revelation, at least, ones like the 1978 lift of the Priesthood ban, is really a cloak for repentance. Rather than having to accept responsibility for our “blindness” and ungodliness, we make the claim, God told us to do it. He told us first, to ban black people, and then he later told us to lift the ban. We are only doing what God told us to do. The reality is, we are blind, the Q15 is blind, they have made grave errors, human errors, which are the function of always being at least one step away from reality. It would be refreshing if we, as a church, adopted a distinction between “conviction” and “certainty”. Conviction maintains a sense of humility, approaching everything with the understanding that, we have reasons to believe what we do, but our deepest belief is that we might be wrong. Believe subject to revision is a life shaped and informed by “repentance” (to change one’s mind) as a positive life practice.
It’s much more probable that people who profess belief in God are making their best attempt, given their limitations, to make God alive in the world, but at no point are we responding to a Heavenly voice perfectly. Hold your claims lightly enough that when they are challenged, you can engage in positive change, instead of take up the sword to defend your certainty.
@toddsmithson, your description of the “Preface Paradox” is a very interesting. Many orthodox Mormons often repeat something along the lines of, “The prophet can make mistakes (at least one of A1 to A100 are false), but he will never lead the Church astray (A1 to A100 are all true).” They may not often say both parts of the paradox in the same sentence, but you will easily hear both parts if you listen to orthodox discussions for any length of time.
I think a mother and a father can be good parents and still make mistakes. I don’t see any paradox in that formulation. Of course, if I were to say “perfect parents” then–yes–it would be paradoxical. So too with the apostles–they can be inspired leaders and still make mistakes.
A few thoughts come to mind, mostly rehashed from other discussions on correlation and blogging and how much the church controls what people believe, think and say. I’ve said before (especially when I was teaching gospel doctrine or relief society), they can correlate the manuals, but they can’t correlate the contents of my mind. But damn, they sure do try to control what it’s “OK” to think and believe and feel and most of all express to others. The “alternate voices” are found throughout the congregation. EVERY person has an idiosyncratic perspective because we’ve lived different experiences and were raised in different families of origin. Variety is the spice of life, not something to be shut down.
I sometimes think of church leaders as babysitters left in charge of the church. They certainly aren’t the parents, but they assert their authority as if they were. Anyone who has ever been or hired a babysitter, or even more, been babysat, can tell the difference between a babysitter and a parent. So they might like to protest that you have to listen to them as if they were your parents, but they are not and can never be, and their representation of your parents’ view is no more accurate than the average babysitter’s representation of your parents.
@Jack, it appears to me that your statements fit comfortably into the “Preface Paradox”. In fact, your most recent comment is a great formulation of such a preface, “Of course, if I were to say ‘perfect parents’ then–yes–it would be paradoxical. So too with the apostles–they can be inspired leaders and still make mistakes.” That’s a great example of a preface for the Preface Paradox. You are saying that the Q15 can make mistakes. In other words, when the apostles make statements A1 through A100, you are agreeing that at least one of these statements is likely a human error.
However, if we pull in your previous responses to me on other posts on this blog, we will find that when presented with a fairly long list of potential errors made by the united Q15, you will go through them one by one and deny that any one of them was actually human error. They all end up representing the will of God in your mind. In other words, when you evaluate potential error A1 through A100 individually, you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge that any single one of those items is truly and error.
And that’s precisely the “Prefix Paradox”. You love to “preface” all your statements about the apostles by stating that the Q15 can make mistakes, but then when presented with a list of potential mistakes, you can’t bring yourself to admit that any one of those potential mistakes really is a mistake. When presented with problem A6, for example, you will point out that apologetic explanations exist for it, and the same goes for A7, A8, and so on. That’s the paradox right there! You preface your comments by stating the prophets aren’t perfect (there must be an error in A1 through A100), but then you can’t bring yourself to admit than any of A1 to A100 really is an error.
I believe that you are open to less serious errors by the Q15. It’s certainly fine to feel that way. If you’re going to take that stance, though, I would suggest that you further clarify that you don’t believe that the Q15 can ever make any serious mistakes–the mistakes you are talking about are pretty minor.
However, if you are only going to allow for “minor” errors by the united Q15, I would respond that the list of pretty serious errors that have really hurt people and negatively affected their lives is quite long. In previous comments you made, you have explicitly stated multiple times that you don’t think that the Q15 erred in any single one of these more serious cases. Again, you can’t have it both ways. That is, you can’t state that prophets make mistakes on the one hand, and then deny that any one of the potential errors isn’t really an error on the other hand.
As the list of such potential serious errors gets longer, the plausibility that all of the apologetic responses–which are almost almost much more complicated or convoluted than the very simple and obvious explanation of human error by the Q15–when taken together gets lower and lower. It just isn’t plausible that the complex and convoluted explanation for every potential serious error of the Q15, when considered as a group, can all be right. It’s much, much, much more plausible that in at least some (if not most) of those cases that the Q15 as a united body simply made a human error. We don’t even necessarily have to explicitly decide which cases (A5 and A8) are really human error and which cases (A2 and A4) are actually accurately explained by the apologists. The fact that the list is so long, and the apologetic solutions so much more complex than the simple solution of human error, it just becomes implausible to believe–given the size of the list of possible errors by the Q15–that the apologists are right in explaining away prophetic error in all cases.
In other words, many people might be able to accept the best apogetic explanation for the priesthood/temple ban (and the best apologetic answer right now is “We have no idea why God wanted the ban, but He must have had a good reason”) if that were the only potential prophetic error by the united Q15. However, let’s think about all the various apologetic ways to explain away prophetic error by the united Q15 in a number of other cases:
1. The practice of polygamy in the first place
2. The absolute requirement for polygamy to be part of the Church and then its subsequent removal as a requirement
3. Women are not to work outside the home, but a few years later, it’s totally fine, and the General Relief Society President is a career lawyer.
4. Birth control is bad, but now it’s OK.
5. Evolution is wrong, but now it’s (mostly) OK.
6. The Native Americans are all descendents of the Lamanites and Nephites, and now they probably aren’t.
7. Gay people choose to be gay. Now they don’t.
8. Gay people can pray, and God will take their gayness away. Now we don’t believe that any longer.
9. The Book of Abraham is a translation (in the normal sense of the word), but now it’s simply inspired.
10. Women need to keep their shoulders covered, but with the new garments, now they don’t.
11. Interracial marriage is a sin. Now it’s perfectly acceptable.
Again, the list is much, much longer than this, but I’ll stop at that. Sure, apologetic explanations for all of these issues exist. The apologetic reponses for every, single one of these issues is almost always significantly more complex, convoluted (and thus less plausible) than the simple explanation of human error by the Q15 as a united body. When you only consider one of these issues in isolation, it may be possible to swallow the apologetic answer. However, when taken as a whole, it becomes highly, highly, highly implausible that all the apologetics for all of these issues is correct. The simple answer–human error by the Q15–then becomes the only plausible explanation for at least some of these issues.
To get back to the OP, the Q15 are fallible. They are lost just like the rest of us. They’ve made grave mistakes in the past and will continue to do so in the future. That’s why it’s important that they listen to “alternate voices” in the Church. History demonstrates that God is not going to prevent them from making serious errors, so perhaps fewer of these types of errors would be made if they were open to listening to such alternate voices a little more.
Oh yes–I could give you what I believe to be good answers to all of those cases. However, with the exception of polygamy, the simplest answer is that we need to remember that the modern world is ever evolving. And as passengers in that world all of us–including the apostles–do the best we can to make sense of the world and, hopefully, do what good we can while rumbling along in our spaceship Earth.
Now here’s a question for you: if I and a lot of other people can give you what we believe to be good answers to all of those queries–do you think it’s possible that there might be a simple solution that has more to do with your approach to these questions than with the apostles making serious mistakes?
I hope I’m not coming across too condescending here — but, hey, when you get to be a certain age you think you have the right to tell everyone what to do — but I would start by trying to climb into the skin of folks from the past and seeing their world through their eyes. Next I would remember that some prophetic pronouncements are more limited in scope than others–and also that some pronouncements don’t carry the weight of inspired counsel.
Hawkgrrrl, your babysitter analogy is intriguing. There might be scriptural support for it. See the parable at D&C 88:51-61. The D&C doesn’t have many parables, and we have to try to make sense of it, and this one is modern so it is for our day. One way to read it: a man having a field (perhaps the Lord) sent a servant (perhaps Joseph Smith) to labor in part of the field. The master also sent servants to other parts of the field, but it seems that the servants weren’t in communication with each other. The master worked with him for a while, and then he left to work with other servants. While the master was away, the servant was left to labor on his own as best as he could. The master may well return at some point, but until he returns, the servant is doing his best, but he is alone. In the meantime, the master is working elsewhere in his field with other servants. We have to make sense of this parable in our day, and one way to make sense of it is to see the master of the field as the Lord and the first servant as Joseph Smith. I don’t have a clue who the other servants are, but they are in other parts of the field, and it seems that the many parts of the field are separated from each other, with no visibility or communication. I’ve never heard this parable explained at general conference, so I don’t know what the “official” interpretation is.
@Jack,
“Oh yes–I could give you what I believe to be good answers to all of those cases.” Possibly. I’m open to learning new things. However, I am quite familiar with LDS apologetics for many of the difficult issues in our past, so I’m afraid that most (if not all) of your “good answers” will be almost certainly be much more complicated and convoluted (and thus less probable) than the simplest solution: human error on the part of the united Q15.
“And as passengers in that world all of us–including the apostles–do the best we can to make sense of the world and, hopefully, do what good we can while rumbling along in our spaceship Earth.” This is another formulation of the preface portion of the “Preface Paradox.” You are again stating that prophets can make mistakes. However, we’re going to see that you follow the paradox perfectly and will refuse to accept that any one of the potential serious errors of the united Q15 from my list was actually an error. Do you see the paradox that you’re living in yet?
“If I and a lot of other people can give you what we believe to be good answers to all of those queries–do you think it’s possible that there might be a simple solution that has more to do with your approach to these questions than with the apostles making serious mistakes?” I try to always be open to truth and other people’s points of view, so yes, I would be open to simple solutions. Also, the fact that there are “a lot of other people” believe your good answers does not mean that those answers are correct. Indeed, if you want to play that game (which again, is a logical fallacy, so we shouldn’t play that game), there are many, many more people who would accept the simple explanation of prophetic error than would accept your “good answers”. That said, I am already quite familiar with LDS apologetic arguments for the difficult issues in our history (and, again, my familiarity with the apologetic explanations is due to my attempt to be open to understanding all sides of an issue). I believe that what you claim are “simple solutions” for each issue are almost always much, much, much more complex and convoluted than the much simpler explanation of error on the part of the united Q15.
Let’s say I’m feeling very generous (and I do think this is overly generous), and I give equal probability to both the best apologetic solution and the simple explanation of prophetic error for every issue in my list. It’s 50/50 for all 11 items across the board: 50% chance that it’s simple human, prophetic error, and 50% chance that the best apologetic solution is correct (no human error). When I consider just one issue in isolation, it’s not that hard to accept the apologetic explanation. After all, there’s a 50% chance it’s correct. Then let’s add in the second item. The chance of the apologetic answer being correct for *both* issues is 50% times 50%, or 25%. Well, that’s not great, but hey, life is complicated sometimes, so maybe I can take that. The probability that the apologetic solution to problems 1, 2, and 3 are *all* correct is 12.5%. Well, hmm, that’s getting worse. By the time we consider the probability that the apologetic solutions for all 11 items is correct (and rounding up because, again, I’m in a very generous mood), we’re at 0.05% that *all* of the 11 best apologetic solutions are correct. Well, that’s not looking so good. And, don’t forget, the list of serious problems is much longer than 11.
The “Preface Paradox” is a paradox for you because you insist on prefacing your statements with an admission that prophets can err and then you refuse to specifically name any one of the errors. However, I am going beyond the Preface Paradox and claiming that it’s not even necessary to name the specific errors as the Preface Paradox would like to happen in order to eliminate the paradox (although specifically naming them is more precise and satisfying and would bring so much healing to the Church is the Q15 were they to do so on behalf of the Churchj). The chances that the apologetic arguments are right in all cases, even when I’m very generous and give them equal odds with the simplest solution of human error, is simply not plausible. Therefore, the only plausible result is that at least some of the items in my list are serious errors on the part of the united Q15.
What you are asking me to do is accept the apologetic answers for *all* 11 items in my list. Is it possible that the apologetic solutions to *all* 11 items is correct, and there was no serious prophetic error? Yes, it is possible. We can’t completely rule out the possibility that the the best apologetic solutions are correct for all 11 issues. Is it plausible? No, 0.05% is not plausible. Is it probable? Most certainly not.
Finally, you make 3 points, all of which I will challenge:
1. “I would start by trying to climb into the skin of folks from the past and seeing their world through their eyes.” This is another “preface”. I believe what you’re getting at is if I were to see the world through the eyes of people in the past, then I would understand why they erred in the way they did. Yes, I would, and I have a lot of sympathy for that (I’m sure I’m doing and saying things today that will repulse future generations), but it doesn’t change the fact that they erred. The important part here, again, is that you are admitting that they erred in some way (the preface–they erred because their worldview was different than ours), but you will subsequently deny any particular claimed prophetic error really is an error. You can’t have it both ways (i.e., you can’t claim the Q15 will err, even if it’s due to a different worldview in a different age, and then refuse to accept that they have errored).
2. “Next I would remember that some prophetic pronouncements are more limited in scope than others.” I specifically hand picked a short list of potential serious errors by the united Q15 in anticipation of this sort of defense. I don’t see “scope limitation” arguments working for at least most of the items in my list. Gay people chose to be gay was official doctrine. What’s the scope limitation on that? People were not to marry outside their own race-again, presented as very official and inspired by numerous prophets and apostles (even years after the priesthood/temple ban was lifted in 1978). What’s the scope limitation on that?
3. “Some pronouncements don’t carry the weight of inspired counsel.” Again, I specifically gave you a list to avoid this sort of argument. I believe that most of the items in my list were very official and were made by the united and inspired (their claim) Q15. Polygamy was official and inspired. The absolute requirement for the Church to never, ever drop polygamy was official and inspired, and then the Church’s reversal on that requirement was official and inspired (which was so jarring to members that it is the source of the “prophets can never lead us astray” language that we are now heavily burdened with). There was a huge push by the united Q15, including both Kimball and Benson, in the 70s and 80s and into the 90s to have women not work outside the home. This was portrayed as very official and inspired and indeed codified into the Family Proclamation, but Church leaders no longer teach this. The POX (which I didn’t put on my list–again, the list is much longer than 11 issues) was very explicitly stated to be official and inspired by the united Q15 when it was announced as well as when it was reversed in the space of just 3 years. The same goes for most, if not all, of the other items in my list.
Finally, “I hope I’m not coming across too condescending here.” Don’t worry. I don’t really feel like you’re being condescending at all. In fact, if anyone is being condescending here, it’s probably me. I really, really, really think that your reasoning is terribly flawed here, and I’m trying my best to make my case calmly and logically, but I could probably do better.
I would suggest to you that dropping the idea of prophetic infallibility–where the united Q15 can and does make serious mistakes–doesn’t have to be the end of your faith. It’s not official LDS doctrine, though many Mormons, including yourself, believe it. LDS prophets and apostles can still be prophets and apostles even if they make grave errors sometimes if you shift your understanding of what it means to be an apostle or prophet a bit (in ways that don’t violate official doctrine, mind you). Finally, it’s good to remember that the vast majority of good Christians get along in life quite well without even believing a prophet or apostle has been on the earth for the last 2000 years or so. The LDS Church can still be more special or unique than other Christian denominations even if our prophets and apostles make serious mistakes on a fairly regular basis–which again, going back to the OP, is why they should be more open to hearing “alternate voices” in the Church.
I think we have to be careful not assume that because a complex explanation is necessary that it must be off-base. Most of the time the complexity comes from establishing background and context–without which some things are unknowable. As they say: the past is a foreign county. And so, when we have questions about why things were wrong at one time and right at another it could very well be that we’re talking about two different worlds–especially when we consider how fast things change these days.
You seem to handle logic better than I do–but let me just say–I think the paradox that was introduced by toddsmithson might be a bit too blunt for our purposes. There are so many things that may seem wrong in the moment that could turn out to be right with some hindsight or clarification. Plus there’s the moral calculus or lack thereof. A crook can do all of the “right” things vis-a-vis a particular objective and still be bad. And some things that may appear to be bad at first blush–like Abraham offering up his son–may turn out to be acceptable.
I get what you’re saying about how my claim that others agree with me doesn’t make my answers correct. But let’s look at what’s happening on the ground. I’m talking about people who are well educated in both their secular pursuits and in the gospel. People who have lived the gospel for most if not all of their lives and are well grounded in the operations of the church. People who are striving to be good disciples of the Savior and trying to emulate his attributes and virtues. OK–having said that I should clarify that I’m talking about people who are generally better than I am. And so what we have are people who are not only level headed with a good moral compass–they are the experts on these subjects. They know the church’s history, its theology, its leadership, etc.
“Finally, it’s good to remember that the vast majority of good Christians get along in life quite well without even believing a prophet or apostle has been on the earth for the last 2000 years or so.”
Yes, we’ve all been blessed–and most of us in the West don’t know how good we’ve got it. We live better than emperors of the past. And sadly all too often it’s our wealth and ease that keep us from receiving the gifts that the Lord has made available through his servants. From Section 121:
26 God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit, yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost, that has not been revealed since the world was until now;
27 Which our forefathers have awaited with anxious expectation to be revealed in the last times, which their minds were pointed to by the angels, as held in reserve for the fulness of their glory;
28 A time to come in the which nothing shall be withheld, whether there be one God or many gods, they shall be manifest.
29 All thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, shall be revealed and set forth upon all who have endured valiantly for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The saints are receiving this knowledge even now.
Reading Wheat & Tares has helped me organize and investigate my own thoughts and feelings on the church and the gospel. Above all, it helps to know that there are people who feel and think similar to how I do, even if I wouldn’t recognize them if I passed them in the street.
And, frankly, I would give a call from Hawkgrrl to speak on gospel topics much more weight and consideration than from just about any other source.
Jack, Climber, It seems to me the real question boils down to whether (1) the Lord reveals his will and all the answers every week to church leaders; or (2) the Lord expects and allows church leaders act more in their own, in sincerity and good faith with inspiration as appropriate. I am a faithful Latter-day Saint, and I tend towards the latter.
I sustain President Nelson as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To me, that is his primary role, and it empowers him to make essentially all of the decisions he has to make every day that he comes to the Church Office Building.
I also sustain President Nelson as prophet, seer, and revelator, along with his counselors and the Twelve, but they only exercise that role if and when the Lord himself decides to speak. Considering the parable in D&C 88 that Georgia cited, and along with what President Hinckley said in General Conference after his 60 Minutes interview, I see Joseph Smith as the great prophet of this dispensation, and his successors who have sincerely tried to best magnify their callings as president of the church.
I think we err if we attribute all church leadership decisions to the Lord — I think the Lord had a hand in establishing the church but that he expects leaders and councils and members generally to act largely on their own, in faith, seeking inspiration as we understand it but without having to be commanded in all things. A speaker at a recent BYU event spoke of church leaders as the Lord’s “oracles,” suggesting that they receive the Lord’s will every week, but I would not use that word — yes, they are good men, even holy men, who are engaged in a good work, and I sustain them in their efforts in their church callings even as I try to magnify mine.
Part of my disquietude with attributing all church leadership decisions to the Lord himself is the Lord’s counsel that church leaders should not command, compel, or exercise dominion such as by virtue of claiming the Lord’s imprimatur, but instead by persuasion, meekness, gentleness, love unfeigned, and so forth.
We are all sojourners in the land, and hopefully we benefit from a multitude of counselors — some of us are called to high office in the church, and some to low office, and maybe even some to serve outside the church. I may not persuade anyone here, but I just wanted to share one faithful Latter-day Saint’s views on these things.
@Jack,
“I think we have to be careful not assume that because a complex explanation is necessary that it must be off-base. Most of the time the complexity comes from establishing background and context–without which some things are unknowable.” I agree with this. However, marrying multiple women, 14 year old girls, and already married women didn’t make sense when viewed through a 19th century lens, either. John Taylor (and many other apostles) adamently claiming the Lord will never let the Church abandon polygamy, and then abandoning polygamy just a few short years later, is pretty easy to understand as an impossible to resolve conflict with both a 19th century lens and a 21st century lens (which is probably why the Church hid the existence of the John Taylor letter that polygamous offshoots claimed existed–and the Church had denied existed–for decades until just recently owning up to the fact that the Church has the letter in their possession). Joseph got away with claiming the Book of Abraham was an Egyptian translation because no one could read Egyptian at the time, but now that we can, it’s obvious it isn’t a translation (i.e., in this case, it is valid to use or more modern understanding of the Egyptian language to verify Joseph’s older claims about Egyptian–Joseph didn’t translate anything). There were tons of Americans who were pushing for equality for blacks in the days of Brigham Young. He simply wasn’t living in an age where treating blacks equally (or, at least better than the Church did) was not practical or possible. I agree that some of these issues are difficult and complicated to analyze, but others really aren’t nearly as complicated as you and other Mormon apologists want to make them out to be.
“I think the paradox that was introduced by toddsmithson might be a bit too blunt for our purposes.” No, I don’t think it’s too blunt. I think you just have a very hard time acknowledging any serious mistakes by the Q15. The dogma that prophets don’t make serious mistakes is deeply rooted within you. When dogma dictates your worldview, it is very difficult to see where the data would most naturally lead you. As noted above, some of these issues aren’t that complicated. Attempting to find complexity where there really isn’t any is, in fact, a common (bad) apologetic technique. If the bad apologists can generate a big enough smoke screen, some people will give up and just rely on the “experts” (i.e., the experts/bad apologists) for relief.
“I’m talking about people who are well educated in both their secular pursuits and in the gospel. People who have lived the gospel for most if not all of their lives and are well grounded in the operations of the church. People who are striving to be good disciples of the Savior and trying to emulate his attributes and virtues…We have are people who are not only level headed with a good moral compass–they are the experts on these subjects. They know the church’s history, its theology, its leadership, etc.” This is another logical fallacy. It’s a clear appeal to authority. Just because someone is an educated, temple-worthy expert, does not make their arguments correct. You still have to look at what they’ve said and evaluate their arguments on their own merits. Furthermore, we’re talking about religion here. Religion is a world where supernatural claims are made and defended. There are plenty of extremely well-educated people in the world (and the LDS Church) who readily drop their normal logical analysis skills when it comes to defending their faith. They will perform whatever mental gymastics are necessary to provide a solution–no matter how unlikely–to any and all challenges to their faith. Religion is powerful, and it makes people behave differently than they would in all other areas of their life/education/profession. This does not make them bad people at all–just potentially bad apologists.
We’ve already threadjacked this post long enough, so it’s certainly not appropriate to dive into all of these issues and analyze them one by one. All I will say is that I have personally looked at a lot of the solutions to defend Church leadership by the experts I believe you are referring to on the troubling issues on my list, and in many cases, I don’t find them very convincing. Possible? Sometimes. Probable or even plausible? Often, no. Furthermore, on the flip side (and this is a reflection of your logical fallacy, so this is also a logical fallacy) there are numerous very well educated experts who are very good (righteous, Christlilke) people (some who are still members, others who no longer are). They have made very strong arguments against the cases laid out by the experts you are referring to. Many of these people are still fine, Christlike, temple recommend holding members of the Church. You don’t have to believe in prophetic infallibility to be a good member of the Church. It’s not official doctrine.
One such example is Paul Reeve. The Church, through Deseret Book, actually sought out Reeve to write a book (“Let’s Talk about Race and the Priesthood”) that very specifically laid the blame on Brigham Young for the race/priesthood ban. They literally asked him to write the book, and they knew he was going to blame Brigham Young, and his successors down to Spencer Kimball, when they made the request. How do I know this? Because he has publicly said so (and I think he mentioned it in the introduction to his book, too, but I’m not at home with my copy of the book now to verify). However, here is a Church/BYU source that mentions that Deseret Book did, indeed, ask him to author the book: https://socialsciences.byu.edu/book-of-the-year-panel-discussion-2023-11-02). He publicly said that he initially pushed back against writing such as book since he didn’t believe the Church/Deseret Book would publish it, or if they did, that his findings would be heavily edited. He said that he was provided very firm assurances from the Church/Deseret Book that they already knew his solution to the Church’s racism (Brigham started it, and subsequent prophets just followed along), and that they would not edit or censor his conclusions. Let’s be real here. That book does not get requested–much less published by Deseret Book–without Q15 approval (and it seems likely that it may have actually been initiated by a Q15 request although I have no evidence of this). In this case, the Church is carefully, yet explicitly, making room for its members to believe Brigham Young–and his successors–blew it when he instituted–and the successors perpeturated–the race ban. Again, you do not have to believe in prophetic infallibility to be a good and faithful member of the Church. It is not official Church doctrine.
The Q15 very rarely officially back up the work of your experts. If their work was so great, it seems like the Q15 would seek inspiration and officially back them–at least some of the time. This very, very rarely happens. In fact, the trend over time is for the Q15 to back away from many of the solutions provided by your experts. For example, the Church has completely and officially backed away from any and all explanations for the race/priesthood ban proposed and supported by your experts. Same with polygamy. The Church now accepts that Joseph used a rock in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon–a claim that your experts vehemently denied for years. The Church has also backed away from the Lamanites being the primary descendents of the Native Americans (oh, how I remember all the pictures from Mesoamerican arrchaeological sites in my high school seminary manual!) The Church does very discretely fund some of their efforts. Their proposed solutions to tricky problems do help some members keep the faith. There are people out there who just need an explanation–any explanation–no matter how improbable or even implausible (even if it’s just at the 0.05% probability level) to keep their faith. And, I truly do believe that people who really understand and buy in to many of these apologetic solutions to difficult issues are often operating at 0.05% or lower chance that all of the solutions they accept are all true. Church leaders understand that these solutions and “proofs” are often so tenuous and speculative that they are not normally willing to officially approve most of them, so they keep these people–and their theories–very much at arms length.
“The saints are receiving this knowledge even now.” If you are referring to many of the tenuous and shaky solutions to difficult issues that your apologist experts are generating, then, in many case, I respectfully disagree. Besides, if your model of prophetic revelationi is operating as freely as you claim, why isn’t the revelation flowing directly to the prophets–God’s anointed revelators–instead of to these experts whose theories the apostles are very reluctant to acknowledge, much less endorse (and they frequently publicly denounce as time passes)?
@ji, I would agree that your take on things is much more realistic and defensible than Jack’s. YMMV.
I suppose W&T might fit in the category of “alternate voice”, but I don’t think it’s the sort of forum that worries anyone in Salt Lake too much. If readership grew by 100 times, then maybe. I’d say you really know you’re an “alternate voice” when your stake president calls you in and tells you about the dossier he was given on you by a mysterious source in Salt Lake.
Regarding the thread in the comments here about the “babysitter” model, I think this is close to how I’ve thought about things for some time. Present day apostles still officially use the grandiose sounding “prophet, seer, revelator” title introduced by Joseph Smith, but practically speaking virtually everyone since Brigham Young has been acting like more of a caretaker of his legacy. Only a handful of times have we deemed anything said by someone after Joseph Smith to be important enough to add to the Doctrine and Covenants. Ironically, our cousins in the Community of Christ have toned down the grandiose titles a bit while continuing to add to their scripture regularly. Which group is acting more prophetically?
This tangent into the preface paradox has been fascinating for me. As I let my search engine take me a few places around the internet, it seems that one of the resolutions to the preface paradox is to understand it as an expression of epistemic humility. Even if I/we/the author cannot identify what the current errors are, we recognize that they likely exist and that we are humble enough to revisit any of our claims when new information or new understandings comes along.
This is where I find the history of our difficult issues most challenging. Contra Sheri Dew, our prophets and apostles don’t always seem able to see around corners because they are not able to see where change is needed. We are consistently conservative (resistant to change) so that change comes slowly and with great “wailing and gnashing of teeth.” In the ’30s and ’40s as questions around racial segregation are starting to come up, we are either ignoring them or dismissing them. In the ’50s, when the US government starts to desegregate the nation, the church insists on the status quo in spite of progressive voices like Hugh B. Brown encouraging change. The problem that I see coming out of the preface paradox isn’t so much our inability and/or unwillingness to identify the errors of the past. It’s that it highlights our epistemic pride in our current understandings and our unwillingness and/or inability to recognize when we need to consider change.
Jack, I think it really matters how big of a mistake, not just that there are mistakes and the percentage of right answers compared to the percentage of wrong answers. Forgive me if someone made the argument above, but I just saw things going back and forth about the same issue of perfection vs a mistake or two.
For example, my parents in some ways were pretty good parents. They only made a mistake or two. But when you consider the magnitude of one “mistake” you can no longer claim good parent, let alone perfect parent. My dad was abusive, not in minor ways but big ways. Sure how big you see the mistake depends on whether or not you were hurt by it. Some of my siblings consider it a little mistake because they don’t think it hurt them. It is purely subjective.
So, you don’t think keeping priesthood and temple from anyone of African descent a very big mistake because it didn’t hurt you. Well jolly for you. But don’t you dare tell those who were harmed by this mistake you think doesn’t matter that they should just overlook it and continue to honor their abusers like so many people wanted me to do about my abuser. That IS what you are doing. And I find it kinda offensive.
There is also the problem of how many mistakes. I think the leaders of this church hit their quota for “prophet” a long time ago. This again is subjective, because you make excuses for 99% of the church leader’s mistakes while I want to count each and every one. So, how many mistakes are acceptable.
And you admit mistakes, so name some you admit are mistakes and maybe I will take you half serious instead of just a church apologist who says they words that church leaders make mistakes, but each and every thing they say, you will claim that no, that isn’t a mistake. Did you read about that paradox above where the author says there may be mistakes, but insists that each individual item they are sure is perfect. Do you understand that paradox because you are arguing like it went zipping over your head.
mountainclimber479,
Just to clarify–when I speak of our own scholars being the experts I’m addressing the notion that a small number of people who believe the way I do cannot stack up against the much larger number of people who believe differently. You see the problem is that there are very few experts in the relevant fields vis-a-vis these arguments among the larger group. And so, as it is with anything else–like learning an ancient language or launching a rocket into space–there are comparatively very few experts that we can turn too to get the real scoop on things.
Also, I think it worth noting that the experts I’m thinking of are top notch scholars in their respective fields–and the brethren are very interested in their work. And it is because of their work that we’ve moved on from believing that the people of Lehi were the primary ancestors of the Native Americans. And the same can be said for many updates and improvements in our thinking on other topics.
I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that not all roads lead to Rome. It may seem that way at times–but sure enough we’ll have an experience or two that will thump us on the head and get us to view things in ways that we hadn’t imagined before. It’s kinda like the geocentric model of the solar system. It was simple–and it worked well enough for our purposes in ancient times. But oh how different is Copernicus’ model. It doesn’t change the way things look in the sidereal heavens but it gives us a much better understanding of the underlying mechanics.
Lastly — and thanks for hearing me out; I’ve enjoyed the conversation — as per your final paragraph–in response to something you said earlier I was referring to what we may know because of the restoration of apostolic authority.
Anna,
“So, you don’t think keeping priesthood and temple from anyone of African descent a very big mistake because it didn’t hurt you.”
I hope I’m not doing that–I try not to. I think I have some good explanations for the ban–or partial explanations, I should say. I don’t claim to know all the reasons why it was implemented. But, I don’t want to dig myself in any deeper than I already am–so I’ll forbear.
“So, how many mistakes are acceptable.”
As many as the Lord is willing to accept. And as Hugh Nibley famously said: “Jesus Christ is the head of the church–and don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing.”
@Jack, sure, some Mormon apologists are much better than others. You and I had a discussion a long time ago where you rejected my the evidence I provided to support my claim because the FAIR article on the topic didn’t include this information (I believe the topic was whether shock therapy of gay students ever happened on BYU’s campus–you claimed it did not mostly based on the FAIR article, while I provided some pretty solid evidence in the form of first hand accounts that it did.) FAIR is really a mixed bag in my experience. Some of their stuff is pretty good, while some of their other stuff isn’t so good. I suspect that the FAIR article in question did not include references to the kinds of sources I cited (that honestly pretty much leaves no doubt that electroshock therapy did happen on campus) since the Church/BYU has not (or hadn’t–not sure what their current stance is) publicly acknowledged that shock therapy actually did occur on campus, so rather than include all the information, they decided to omit some information in order to align with the Church’s/BYU’s position. If that is true–and I suspect but cannot prove it is true–then that is bad apologetics (ignoring sources of information that are bad for your case is bad apologetics). In any case, I think part of the reason I assumed you were referring to bad apologetics in your previous comment is that you previously relied on what appeared to me to be bad apologetics in a previous discussion and completely ignored some pretty solid sources that I provided because your (poor) apologetic source didn’t mention these sources.
The other reason I assumed you were referring bad apologetics is, unfortunately, because most, if not all, of the difficult issues I listed, in my opinion, simply don’t have very good apologetic solutions, even when we adjust our lenses to account for different conditions in the past. In such cases, the better apologists will acknowledge the lack of a good solution, and if they are the sort that just can’t accept the idea of the Q15 ever making a big error, they will back off to something like, “We don’t know why, but we just believe that God wanted it that way because we don’t believe the Q15 can make a serious mistake.” That’s not terribly satisfying, but that honestly is the best a good and honest apologist can do when there simply is no known good apologetic solution. Indeed, that’s exactly the Church’s official stance these days on both the race ban and polygamy: we don’t know why, but we believe prophets were doing what God wanted at the time.
Except…the Church has seemed to pretty clearly also have left open the possibility that the race ban could also be due to prophetic error. You see this in the way the Gospel Topic essay on the issue was written as well as the fact that the Church actively sought out Paul Reeve to author a book whose sole purpose was to throw Brigham and his successors under the bus as the source of the ban (the book pretty much leaves no opening for the race ban to be the will of God). That’s a teeny, tiny step in the direction of openly admitting to the fallibility of the Q15 that has gone unnoticed by many. I can only pray that there will be more steps in this direction–the direction of honesty in openly acknowledging that the Q15 can make big mistakes–in the coming years. And, again, if such a change does materialize, it will probably be those pesky alternate voices that Oaks despises so much that will push the Q15 in the right direction.
@Jack, just read your response to Anna. I take it all back. You do use bad apologetics.
I would simply remind you of the Church’s official statement, which was certainly approved by the Q15 as a whole, who you believe cannot make big mistakes, so their statement must be understood as true by you, “Church leaders today counsel against speculating about the origins of the restriction.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/race-and-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng). When you suggest that you have explanations or partial explanations for the race ban, you are violating the explict counsel of the prophets, seers, and revelators, who you believe can’t really make an error in judgment on a matter of this import and who concur with me that there is no good apologetic explanation for the ban.
Also, Anna said “So, how many mistakes are acceptable?”, and you responded, “As many as the Lord is willing to accept.” That again is a preface to the Preface Paradox. You are acknowledging that the Q15 make big mistakes while at the same time you are refusing to acknowledge that they ever have made a big mistake. You can’t have it both ways. You’re not making sense.
This presentation reflects my own attitude towards past leaders–and has some interesting things to say about alternate voices.
Jack
Sorry to pile on more here.
“So, how many mistakes are acceptable.”
As many as the Lord is willing to accept. And as Hugh Nibley famously said: “Jesus Christ is the head of the church–and don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing.”
A few things:
1) You are once again suggesting they are making mistakes by saying, “As many as the Lord is willing to accept”.
2) “As many as the Lord is willing to accept suggests these “revelations” were in fact not from God, and if they are directly God spoken then see #3.
3) If these revelations are from the Lord, then you have now implicated God in making the mistakes, if not completely making him the maker of them.
4) The paradox, as Anna said well is not that flawed people cannot also be inspired or good, it’s that you continue to assert that they are flawed
and then systematically deny each individual claim as a mistake.
5) If God is speaking to the Q15, and they have made mistakes, then which end of the connection is muddled?
I don’t understand any explanation given that makes God the giver of the Priesthood ban. If you claim that God is unchanging and that morality is NOT relative, then how would God extend a ban that would, in a later time be seen as
immoral. It’s not just the ban either Jack, it’s the doctrine that justified it, that blacks were less valiant in pre-mortality. That is man-made all the way, not a shred of divine fingerprints on that gem. So, if God is all knowing, never
changing, and morality is NOT relative, then how can you argue that God gave something the straightforwardly violates that claim. It appears with the apologetics explanation that, morality is confined to time and cultural influences.
That’s all fine as long as you keep the problem confined to human limitations, but once you suggest that God gave the order, then the whole system just imploded.
Elder Corbitt’s decisions are informative. He married his spouse of a different race in 1985, when church leaders still disapproved of, but did not ban, miscegenation. (I am informed that our lesson manuals in those days still printed counsel against miscegenation). In other words, he heard the counsel to marry within his own race and he ignored it, determining that the prophets’ words did not apply to him in that circumstance. I would hope that he grants the same allowance to others, and I agree with him that counsel is not commandment. Same for the RS president who pursued a career outside the home. General counsel is not commandment, and almost everything we hear at GC and locally is general counsel. Exact obedience should not be the standard when dealing with counsel, as evidenced by our current leaders. But we generally do not differentiate between commandment and counsel. We probably should.
Jack wrote “ I think I have some good explanations for the ban–or partial explanations, I should say.”
This gives off major Brad Wilcox vibes. In my worldview that’s no compliment.
And for Jack and his youngling members for whom he protects, church leadership promoted Wilcox after he said things.
As they say, the house always wins.
Jack,
The Elder Corbitt presentation is illustrative of the culture of LDS leadership. Elder Corbitt focuses on the need to forgive “Past Prophets”. I agree with this teaching. Where Elder Corbitt fails is in explaining why members should trust current leadership. He says they should be trusted because they try really hard to do the right thing (I’m paraphrasing but this is the essence of his explanation).
That current leadership tries really hard to do the right thing does not mean they will do the right thing! Trying really hard does not mean that the chosen course of action will yield desired results. Trying really hard does not mean that information won’t show the decisions made were flawed.
Elder Corbitt provides no acknowledgement that current leadership might err and need forgiveness.
How can membership trust leadership that asserts as a matter of dogma that it cannot make mistakes? I don’t think such people can be trusted. I think people who refuse to acknowledge fallibility are dangerous. And consider the paradox. Current leadership reserves the right to acknowledge mistakes of past leaders but it refuses to allow that it can err – that judgment is suppressed until new leadership comes along (as we saw with President Nelson calling out former President Hinckley for being totally wrong about the name of the church).
How can one trust in an organization that operates this way?
A Disciple et al,
Elder Corbitt shared this quote from President Nelson towards the end of his presentation:
“When we convene as a Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, our meeting rooms become rooms of revelation. The Spirit is palpably present. As we wrestle with complex matters, a thrilling process unfolds as each Apostle freely expresses his thoughts and point of view. Though we may differ in our initial perspectives, the love we feel for each other is constant. Our unity helps us to discern the Lord’s will for His Church.
In our meetings, the majority never rules! We listen prayerfully to one another and talk with each other until we are united. Then when we have reached complete accord, the unifying influence of the Holy Ghost is spine-tingling! We experience what the Prophet Joseph Smith knew when he taught, “By union of feeling we obtain power with God.” No member of the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve would ever leave decisions for the Lord’s Church to his own best judgment!”
Aside from the appearance of the Lord himself I don’t know of a better way to lead the Kingdom.
@Jack, the “Kingdom leading” process Nelson describes that Corbitt quoted is very much the way Nelson described the process for both enacting the POX and subsequently reversing it 3 years later. In his description of the POX decision making process, Nelson also described the enlightened and open discussion that occurred which led to unanimity amongst the Q15 as well as the good internal feelings he felt that they were doing the right thing. I want to emphasize again that Nelson stated that the process worked this way both when the POX was enacted, and again when it was reversed 3 years later.
It is really, really, really hard for me to conclude anything other than Nelson–and the Q15 as a whole–got it wrong one of those times. Indeed, if Nelson were being more candid, it was the “alternate voices” in the Church who spoke up loudly and clearly that they felt the POX was wrong that caused the Q15 to reconsider the matter. In light of the POX failure, and the many other failures in Church history, I think that there may very well be better ways to “lead the Kingdom” than the present system that Nelson describes so glowingly.
mountainclimber479,
I think saying that the “POX” was reversed is the product of an incorrect narrative. What happened was the apostles moved the particular judgments involved from the general councils to the local councils–allowing more leeway in judgment as per individual cases.
That said, I think we sometimes–mistakenly–view the Lord’s will as being as fine as a geometric point–when in fact there can be a range of acceptable actions that would satisfy his will. And I think that’s what happened here; it was a relatively small adjustment within the scope of what was acceptable to the Lord.
Re: alternate voices: yes, there was a great outcry–and President Nelson acknowledged that that was the reason they made the adjustment. That said, only the Lord knows IMO if the first iteration of the policy was a mistake–I think it can go both ways. I’m open to the idea that it was a wakeup call to the saints–but that’s probably a subject for another thread.
Jack,
The “POX” and reversal was disastrous church management. Our ward lost multiple active families as a consequence. This was not a “small” thing. It was a massive blunder.
I don’t understand the claim that the leadership “being united” makes them immune from accountability. If they are united in a bad decision then they should stand all together and acknowledge it! But we never get any reflection from leadership on how a great idea failed. Do they believe nothing they do fails? I hope they are not that proud. So why is it that the leadership cannot acknowledge failure?
The “POX” disaster would have been a great opportunity for reflection. For while I believe there was a valid spiritual concern, the implementation of policy and communication of it was greatly flawed. What was the policy mismatch? How can communication in the church be improved? How can policies better align with doctrine?
But there was no reflection. There has been no improvement. The leadership closes ranks, doubles down on the lie they cannot do wrong and then points fingers at members for not trusting them. This leadership response does not strengthen the church and it does not improve the trust of the membership in the leaders.
Events around the initial rollout of the POX demonstrate pretty convincingly that they were not at all united around it. Not. At. All.
@Jack,
I think you’re just playing word games.
The number one thing that people objected to when the POX was enacted were that people objected to was that the Q15 was denying baptism to innocent children with LGBTQ parents. That was reversed. You’re right that first presidency is no longer required, but arguing that it wasn’t really a reversal since local leaders now must approve is not a good argument. Local leaders have to approve all baptisms (including those of children with straight parents), and as far as I understand local leaders readily approve these baptisms.
I had forgotten that children of LGBTQ people could also not be blessed. That was also reversed.
In addition, the POX changes had also classified LGBTQ individuals as apostates. That was also reversed–they are now just considered to be grievous sinners, just like they were before the POX was enacted.
The Q15 may not have explicitly called it a reversal, but all of the most troubling parts of the POX were, indeed, reversed. To object to labelling it a reversal just appears to be playing word games to me.
“It was a relatively small adjustment within the scope of what was acceptable to the Lord.” Baptism is an essential Mormon ordinance that is supposed to be open to all, for “God is not a respecter of persons.” Your minimization of the magnitude of this error of the united Q15 dismisses the pain that those who were denied baptism, and their loving parents, family members, and friends felt.
Here’s a Church source verifying the reversals above: https://www.thechurchnews.com/2019/4/4/23214935/church-to-allow-baby-blessings-baptisms-of-children-of-lgbt-parents-no-longer-defines-same-gender-ma/.
“That said, only the Lord knows IMO if the first iteration of the policy was a mistake–I think it can go both ways.” Well, the fact that you are even open at all to the possibility that the Q15 made a mistake here is at least a litte promising.
mountainclimber479 & A Disciple,
OK–Maybe I’m overstating my position. I can accept the change being viewed as a reversal with respect to certain aspects of the policy. But with regard to the principles involved in formulating the policy–I don’t see it as a reversal so much as an adjustment.
That said, I think we have to be careful about making an argument based on the importance of baptism–because, taken to its logical end, we should be outraged at restricting children of polygamous families from being baptized under the age of 18.
And so, while I agree that there was a lot of suffering because of the policy–I think it had to do (mostly) with reasons other than children being restricted from baptism. IMO it had more to do with the message that a lot of folks felt the church was sending to the LGBTQ community both in and out of the church–and I believe that their pain was sincere reaction for the most part.
Also, while the last thing I want is for people to leave the church–it can be argued that losing members doesn’t necessarily mean that the church is doing something wrong. Were people right to leave when the Savior preached the Bread of Life sermon? Or when the Kirtland bank failed? Or when the priesthood ban was lifted?
As I stated in a previous comment–I think the “POX” could very well have been a wakeup call for the church. Far from being a blunder it help us (collectively) to get our bearings with respect to the church’s teachings on marriage, family, and chastity. And then once the “ship” righted itself then the restrictions were loosened.
That said, I must say that I truly believe that the apostles were–and continue to be–genuinely concerned for the welfare of children caught between loyalty to their family and loyalty to the church. And the reason the initial policy restricted them from baptism until the age of 18 was so that they would be less worked upon psychologically and emotionally by the conflict between the to loyalties–that is until they were old enough to make an their own informed decision that might set themselves against their family. And even the way the policy is formulated in the present–it is still of paramount importance (for reasons that should be obvious) that local leaders tread very carefully when considering the possibility of baptizing these children (which is one of the reasons why I don’t love calling it a reversal–it’s still a supper delicate situation for children).
Has anyone noticed how similar “Jack” is to “MG 2.0” (short for Mental Gymnast) over at DiscussMormonism? Both individuals feel the need to comment on nearly every thread, and their comments always defend the Brethren from criticism. There are no actions, statements, or policies of Church leaders that they cannot accept or rationalize away. They deflect and obfuscate, but they exercise no independent moral judgment, and thus it appears that they worship the Brethren rather than Jesus Christ. That’s where their ultimate loyalty lies, and consequently, their constant, heedless rush to the defense does more harm than good. Perhaps I’m being too harsh here–I’m sure they mean well–but Jack, are you willing to name a single thing that the Brethren have ever done that you think is a major mistake? In your considered opinion, have our current top Church leaders made any major mistakes? Is there a significant error that you think they ought to take some responsibility for? If you can’t or won’t answer the question directly, then you (along with MG 2.0) are a prime example of the Preface Paradox that toddsmithson brought up, and your contributions to these online discussions are minimal. Indeed, as the self-appointed representative for sincere, believing Latter-day Saints, you make them look mindless, dishonest, and unappealing.
“The Church accomplishes a lot–for good and for bad–because it has Church members that will believe and do whatever the Q15 tells them to believe and do.” Trying to figure out how one would measure in which ways the Church has done “a lot of good.” Charitable giving? Literature? Art? Architecture? I do know that Mormons were important in approving torture of prisoners after 9/11. Is that what is meant?
I’m glad I jumped back in to read this interesting exchange on the Preface Paradox. The LDS church isn’t the only place where this problem happens, but it’s certainly going to be the most familiar one to most of our commenters. Church members are asked to sustain everything leaders say as divinely inspired, even when those teachings change or we say that leaders are not infallible and may make mistakes (waving hand vaguely to downplay the importance of such errors). If we believe that no human leader is perfect, then we must confront the fact that there are errors, and that we can’t in fact trust them to get it right every time.
The easiest way to identify when this has happened is when a change occurs to an existing teaching or policy, sometimes because a new leader disagrees with things done by previous leaders, and sometimes done by the same leader who basically changed his mind (!). This leads to:
– Cognitive Dissonance. Typically you either believe the thing BEFORE the change or AFTER the change is more correct. If the latter, you tolerated the problem of upholding a belief you felt was wrong, but now that it has changed, you feel relief. If the former, well, you’ve got an even bigger task to justify the change. You think it was right, but now it’s wrong, and since you can’t allow yourself to identify specific mistakes made by leaders, you have to come up with something to explain this. You can say that the people who wanted the change just weren’t ready for the truer, higher law (e.g. the racist temple and priesthood ban), and that eventually they will have to get right with God’s true law (a color-based racial order). That’s an example of how someone who believed more strongly in the racist ban might justify the Church changing its policies. And it sure seems that Wilcox (promoted) was willing to entertain that, as was Randy Bott (sidelined). Bott taught students that the ban was because black people were less valiant (an outdated explanation that was 100% preached pre-1978). Wilcox instead suggested that a more important question was the delay suffered by white people (a novel distraction that put conservative white people in their preferred role of unrecognized victims). Good going, Schmendrick. I particularly enjoyed how his wife defended him by saying he “didn’t have a racial bone in his body” (so THAT’s where the racism is!) and that being criticized by students and then promoted by the church was like when Jesus was crucified. Stand by yer man.
– Institutional Flexibility. Churches have to be able to explain why they are making a change without undermining the authority of current leaders. Directly blaming past leaders for mistakes risks pointing out their own fallibility. They can do this by claiming that policies have a season or a time during which they apply, making them temporal in nature. They can also claim (as in the previous example) that members were not ready for the changes yet, so a lower law prevailed for a time. That only works if we don’t really know what members thought. Was Mitt Romney’s claim that he pulled his car over and wept in 1978 exceptional or was he in the majority? Were Church leaders leading or following the membership?
– Boundary Control. Leaders use the Preface Paradox to enforce loyalty to their authority. Members often listen to each other (and self-censor) to imply that they don’t understand all things (dismissing doubts) but that they trust the church leaders regardless (implying that church leaders’ understanding is superior to their own, yet that they are theoretically fallible). Whenever people are socially required to squelch criticism of leaders, you’ve probably got a Preface Paradox sitch.
This is a robust conversation.
Jack, I would say in regards to scholarship—it is an activity of following the data (all data) where it leads you, not leading the data where you want it to go. The latter is the fundamental problem with relying on apologetics. And when I say data, I mean those things that are observable, testable and replicable. Dan McClellan is a wonderful example of this. In fact, I would say that a lot of his work shows how religious dogmas steer or exclude data that doesn’t fit the approved narratives. Based on your responses, I would say you’re great a steering the data where you want it to go, which is your conclusions. I would say church scholars are only experts when they stick to the data. There are some really smart historians putting together the JS papers and other material now. However, as soon as they try to mix and match to try and fit church dogmas, that’s where they get lost. They then transition from expert to gymnast. Take Kerry Muhlestein, a credentialed egyptologist. Smart by all measures. But take his Let’s Talk About the Book of Abraham book. It was supposed to be a scholarly approach to the BoA, but it was horrible. Rather than spend time on the scholarship, he starts in the book with the assumption that the church is true and then jumps off a cliff into some of the worst apologetics of the series I’ve ever read and ignores completely any scholarship on the topic. Why? Because not a single other egyptologist of his caliber remotely comes close to agreeing with anything on him related to the BoA. Not one. That’s the thing with scholarship, you have show your stuff convincingly to other scholarship who are just as informed as you. They have to be able to verify your findings. McClellan has been great at showing how as we’ve discovered more data, that consensus views change over time that take into account that new findings. Religion (and also politics) seems to be the only thing where someone stands their ground in a particular spot, because their identity is so tied up in it, that to step outside of it would essentially destroy their identity. You literally cannot be open to all truth when your identity is wrapped in something that requires you to believe a certain way.
Over the last 5 years, work from Paul Reeve has been seminal is demonstrating that the priesthood ban was not of revelatory origin, rather it was made up by BY as a means of essentially discouraging interracial marriage. Because, at the time, there was a very prevalent belief across the US that interracial marriage produced sterile children. Keep in mind, Paul is the man who was tasked by the church with producing the content that the GTE is based on. Jack, before 5 years ago, were you one of those, like Brad Wilcox, who has repeatedly defended the position of divine origin for that? After the Paul Reeve stuff came out definitively showing this new information (along with heretofore unreleased historical documents), Brad got raked over the coals for repeating the same racist nonsense AGAIN. That’s not to say that Brad is a bad person, in fact, I think very much the opposite concerning him. I think he is truly a good man. Even Scripture Central changed their tune and started trying to make sense of the fact that the priesthood ban is not revelatory. By extension of this new information, you then HAVE TO wrestle with the FACT that BY made a serious mistake that led the church seriously astray on race that resulted in 150 years of damaging rhetoric and harmful treatment of black people. To say or apologetisize otherwise is like looking at the sun and saying it is not shining. Instead it is just defending identity markers at that point and that is not truth seeking.