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I think with sacrament meeting, as well as a lot of other things, there’s no “perfect” solution. I think with our current approach, and the approach you suggested, there are some real upsides and downsides. I’ve said before a problem we have with sacrament meeting, is it can be pretty boring. Our SM speakers are all lay, and usually don’t have any training in public speaking. I think a lot of us would do well to take a course in rhetoric. But I think it really helps people get involved, if everyone is participating in giving talks and contributing to sacrament meeting. It’s like with my experience with yard work recently, my daughter wanted to help. Of course, she’s not really going to “help” much and mostly get in the way. But I am still grateful she’s showing the effort and desire, and while it doesn’t do much for me, it means a lot for her.
Working with members who are unpaid and untrained, things won’t be optimal. A lot of wards will take advantage of those with musical talent, and try to have “special musical numbers”. I really appreciate those. But you can’t expect people to put in the time and practice every week to come up with something like that.
As for “upbeat songs”… if I never hear “In Our Lovely Deseret” EVER again, it would be too soon.
I think there is goodness and beauty in all churches. Certain approaches work better for some people than others. But personally, if I had to choose between what you described, and sacrament meetings as they currently stand in the LDS Church, I’d probably stick with the LDS Church. I appreciate the quiet reverence.
I had a question, I’d like to put out there: How often do you think this “new policy” will be put into effect? It’s great to have that option available. There are several weddings I would’ve loved to attend. But I wonder if the emphasis on temple marriage over civil is far too strong. Despite the policy change, I wonder if most members would’ve still opted for only the temple ceremony; it’s definitely now a chance to “one-up” the “less-faithful”, which is often a problem I see in the membership. It still seems like Bishops will strongly encourage only a temple ceremony, though without the threat of penalty. Plus, adding an additional “wedding” onto the occasion, seems like both an added stress and added expense to an already expensive and stressful day.
Would I have felt worse, if it was my family which “excluded” me, rather than the Church? The policy has changed, but the doctrine remains the same. I think I would’ve still been left alone on the temple grounds.
DarkJedi wrote:
We want change and want change of things we thought wouldn’t change and now those things are changing. Now we complain about the change.
I don’t think anyone on here believed it wouldn’t change; nor do I see any complaining about the change.
nibbler wrote:
The challenge… the policy needed to change. 20 years ago, 20 years from now, whenever it changed it was going to hurt, especially knowing there will be no formal recognition of the real pain the policy caused. The only solace is that this particular policy will now hurt less people.
I’m in the boat of wishing it happened even a couple years soon. I’m glad it happened.
Maybe this goes back to other topics on this forum, but I can’t help but feel no matter how many changes are made, it doesn’t change the underlying truth or validity of the Church. If this change had happened sooner, would it have made it easier for me to remain active and believing? Absolutely. But it’s never been about policy for me, and retrospectively I don’t feel this improves my opinion much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a wonderful thing! But so were facebook’s policy changes on how they handle user data, and I’m still not getting back on board.
LookingHard wrote:
I have seen some chats about this being announce was to distract from the negative press coming from the Vice episode released a few days ago that focused on how the church responds to sex abuse. Not sure, but it is a normal PR strategy to pull the limelight away from the negative.
While I don’t think so, I completely get the cynicism. I have a hard time believing there is anything the Church wouldn’t do, if they thought it’d increase membership conversion and retention rates. Sometimes the best way to do that (as all companies know), is to do things that make your customers happy. But being “happy” isn’t always in the best interest of the customer, especially when there have been other shenanigans going on since the beginning.
Or like in grade school, when a bully comes up to you and apologizes and hands you a cupcake… it might be a fine cupcake. They might be genuinely sorry. But I wouldn’t blame anyone if their knee-jerk reaction in “Why are you being nice to me? What’s your angle?! What are you trying to pull?!”
SilentDawning wrote:
What makes people want to “throw the misdeed in the face of the other” do you think?
We’re still hurt.
We’re ashamed of being hurt.
We want to feel justified in our misdeeds towards those who have wronged us (including feeling hurt); or at least feel we’re “not as bad as they are”.
I think one of the primary struggles in forgiveness, is we feel we have to forgive, and forgive “right away”, or we’re bad people. It’s practically considered a sin to “feel hurt”, especially long after the event. I wish we would allow ourselves to feel hurt, to realize it’s okay, so that we can deal with those feelings, overcome them, and truly forgive.
And it’s not even conference! :clap: :clap: :clap: Still, I wish this had happened much sooner.
😥 But better late than never.I found this article, written by Boyd K Packer, called “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect”Quote:In an effort to be objective, impartial, and scholarly, a writer or a teacher may unwittingly be giving equal time to the adversary.
Quote:“There are plenty of scholars in the world determined to find all secular truth. There are so few of us, relatively speaking, striving to convey the spiritual truths, who are protecting the Church. We cannot safely be neutral.”
Quote:“Those who have carefully purged their work of any religious faith in the name of academic freedom or so-called honesty ought not expect to be accommodated in their researches or to be paid by the Church to do it.”
Roy wrote:
According to one common LDS assumption if the prophet is about to lead the church astray then God removes that prophet from his post. Thus, there is no such thing as a fallen prophet in modern LDS interpretation. A prophet and president of the church is either a “living prophet” or …(makes slicing motion across throat).
:sick:
From what I recall, Joseph Smith was “abruptly removed from his post”. So was Jesus.
Quote:The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.
I take this quote to mean, quite literally, that the prophet will never lead you astray from the prophet; which is pretty redundant. If a prophet were to “fall” and “lead astray”, how would anyone tell?
Roy wrote:
I suppose it would be somewhat strange if an organization did something that didn’t benefit its continued existence either directly or indirectly. I suppose there can be some exceptions but as a general rule that is what organizations do.
It’s “survival of the fittest”. But I still wish they would, and greatly respect any organization that make an effort to reach out and “do good” without any thought of their own reciprocal benefit. And it still makes me very hesitant to praise any organzation for doing something which is ultimately self-serving.
Tying back in with the OP, I have a hard time seeing it as “Best Value” from my own personal experience. Your milage may vary. But I think the ranking came from very specific numerics, that didn’t consider a lot of factors. I think using very similar metrics, Forbes could declare the LDS Church “Best Value Religion in the Word”. I’m still hestitant to recommend it.
It definitely goes against LDS doctrine. But I think when learning that a belief we held turns out to be more “complicated”, like with Joseph Smith, we end up reframing it in a way that both makes sense, and helps us maintain our world view (and dignity). For example, Emma Smith was in clear and absolute denial about Joseph’s polygammy to the end of her life. She absolutely could not believe it. She’d rather believe he had an “affair”, or weakness of the flesh, than believe he was going around marrying other women behind her back. Beliving Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet allows you to maintain a belief in the Plan of Salvation, Eternal families, modern revelation, etc… but not in polygammy, racist doctrine, etc. Of you could just believe that “Joseph Smith never claimed to be perfect”, those teachings were his “personal opinion” held by many of the time, the restoration is an ongoing process, and now the Church is “truer” than at the time of Joseph Smith.
DarkJedi wrote:
Having a child who just received a degree from the College of Life Sciences I have to say that if this was one time the case, it is no longer. He came home his first semester at BYU with a testimony of evolution. Evolution is freely and openly discussed and accepted by the Life Science faculty, several of whom I have met. Even the Bean Museum now has an evolution display section. And FWIW, the Church has no official stance on evolution.
They
HADan official stance… which has changed drastically over time. The whole week or two at the beginning of BYU life-science courses wasn’t discounting evolution. It was meant to reinforce that the current stance of the Church is “we don’t know”, but that the whole story of Adam and Eve, the creation, etc, etc really did happen, and no true science will contradict it. More or less, they were doubling down on core doctrines, in the face of formerdoctrines being proven wrong. Of course, those former doctrines they have regulated down to “personal opinion”, but I digress. My point is, they emphasize on getting in Church doctrine in the majority of their classes, and use all “learning” to reinforce Church doctrine. If evolution is true (or any other scientific theory), it confirms the truthfulness of the Church, or so we are taught. But personally, I have a hard time trusting any instructor who would be fired, if he were to say anything that goes against the status-quo.
Old Timer wrote:
I truly do believe the core motivation is based on the idea that the glory of God is intelligence and Jospeh Smith’s obsession with learning.
But it’s education with a Church/doctrinal emphasis. Most classes begin with a prayer. Every biology class started with a week or two going over documents and essays on the Church’s stance on evolution. Religion courses are required; at least one a semester. It’s education specifically geared towards supporting the Church, not education for education’s sake. There are strong incentives and pressures on non-lds students to convert, but converting from LDS to another religion will get you expelled.
I really think that scripture should be read as “The glory of God is Church-sanctioned and approved intelligence”. Historically, any kind of learning which goes against what’s been taught over-the-pulpit has been actively crusaded against… until the day the Church claims it’s what they believed all along.
Hope this isn’t too off topic, but along the lines of what SD mentioned… My sister-in-law’s husband, before he married her, basically told me that the purpose of BYU (they went to BYU-I) was not to get an education, but to get married. With the focus on YSA wards, and a lot of the rhetoric you hear over the pulpit, I have a hard time believing it’s not true. He convinced her to drop out. They both joined the airforce, but he didn’t make it through. Now she’s the primary bread winner, but I can’t help but think their lives would be better if they were actually focused on an education at BYU.
It’s probably more of a doctrinal issue, than a university one. But I can’t help but think everything the Church does is ultimately for the Church’s sake. Marriage between members, increases their chances of activity. Education increases prosperity, and as a result, activity and tithing. If the Church weren’t directly profited by it, I doubt they would’ve gotten so involved in secondary education.
nibbler wrote:
Under that model the church never attains perfection. As long as there is a future, that future will hold a more perfect version of the church. That might be the point though, that there’s always room to do things better.
Along this idea… the thing about “perfection”, is that what it actually means or looks like changes over time. Values change, and I have no doubt they will change and change again. I’d bet Brigham Young would think the Church today is father from perfection than it was in his time. I have no doubt those in the future will be equally revolted by our “perfection” ideals as well.
nibbler wrote:
Sticking with the idea of perfection meaning whole or complete… I think we mostly look at the concept of perfection from an individual perspective. What do I have to do to be more perfect? When will I become perfect? What if we looked at the concept of perfection from a community perspective? Where I lack another excels. Where another lacks I excel.Togetherwe attain perfection. The more people in a community, the more “perfect” it becomes. The more diverse a community, the more “perfect” it becomes; because the benefits of a large community are diminished when the community is completely homogeneous.
I completely agree with the above sentiment, that diversity leads closer to what I consider to be “perfection”. But it hasn’t always been that way. Diversity often leads to conflict. To me, “perfection” is one of those aspects that is, by its nature, unobtainable. We can get closer to “perfection”, and it’s good to try, but we will never arrive there.
“All trees produce something.” I think with most things, even things we “shouldn’t” do, have some benefit behind them. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. Alcohol has benefits. Smoking has benefits. Painkillers have benefits. Porn has benefits. Adultery has benefits… etc. You get the idea.
But there are still certain behaviors we should avoid, because the drawbacks are greater than the benefits. And there are behaviors we should embrace, not because of a lack of drawbacks, but because the benefits outweigh them. But it’s also very easy to rationalize doing the wrong thing, since we can always find reasons it is right. And it’s easy to avoid doing the right thing because we can find so many reasons why it’s wrong.
I guess coffee is like that. Drink it if you’re willing to put up with the consequences (both good and bad). Don’t drink it if you don’t want to deal with those consequences. I’d say the same for just about anything.
