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dande48 wrote:
On a semi-related note, I wonder what it would take to change the D&C revelation that kids be baptized at age 8. If I were in charge, I’d bump up the age of accountability to 16.
I’d like to see baptismal age bumped to age of majority, to make all equal in the eyes of the church.
To quote Elder Christofferson on the Exclusion Policy.
Quote:And so with the other ordinances on through baptism and so on, there’s time for that if, when a child reaches majority, he or she feels like that’s what they want and they can make an informed and conscious decision about that. Nothing is lost to them in the end if that’s the direction they want to go.
Quote:“Our message to you tonight is the same as the message we’ve given to others, that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that this is
His Church restored in its fullness,” said President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as he finished his global ministry tour Sunday, April 22, 2018, on the Brigham Young University–Hawaii campus in Laie, Hawaii.
Seems the message has evolved over the year.
Seems to me Bill has been on a downward trend in regards to the Church since the November 2015 policy, and more recently has distanced himself even more after confronting some dishonesty from church leaders. “Lo there, they do call to me, and bid me take my place among them, in the halls of Valhalla, where the braveshall live forever.” Seems to me in the past boundaries were drawn in such away to provide enough priesthood to run the place. In the third previous boundary changes I asked what a particular odd little bump into one community was for, and the reply was that is where the new bishop lives. My former bishop and stake president got a permit to be a celebrant to conduct secular (non-religious) funerals at a funeral home. Makes a decent fee, and doesn’t seem bothered by it in the least. In November of 2015, following the revelation of the Exclusion Policy, I decided I could not sustain or by association condone the Church’s behaviour by continuing to participate. I voted with my feet. Eighteen months later, my wife followed. You see, My wife’s sister is gay. The Church machine chewed her up throughout her youth, YSA, and mission. The despair was great and terrible. She was not able to survive in the Church. Now, her relationships are damaged, and her ability to relate to her family is permanently damaged, because the TBM’s will only acknowledge her failure in the Church, and not her success outside of it.
Seeing her bright personality be absolutely crushed mentally and spiritually while I was at my most self-righteous period, and me unable to even approach the magnitude of what happens to marginalized gay members is something I am very ashamed of. I could not comprehend what was going on, why her meetings with leaders and church councillors was making things worse, or why she called home bawling on her mission.
To quote Dr Bronowski: “It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.”
It does start to make the distinction between branches and wards a bit more blurry. Reminds me of growing up on the Mormonism frontier, and I think there is still plenty of room for downsizing in the average ward.
dande48 wrote:Since the Church responds to fault by saying “No one is perfect. Even we make mistakes”, you would think they’d to a better job of preventing such awful mistakes from happening.
The last guy to officially admit the Church makes mistakes got demoted out of the First Presidency.
In my view, which you are free to reject, taking God’s name in vain would be doing something in the name of God, or making a proclamation in the name of God, which God had nothing to do with. In essence, using a God as a form of authority to justify your ideas, and putting words in God’s mouth.
It’s like how the church uses Jesus’ teaching about swearing as another lesson on not using coarse language, but I’m fairly certain the real lesson is about making oaths and promises you cannot deliver on.
The whole act of “being redeemed” is steeped in the ideas and language of exchange and transaction. Being ransomed, paying for sins, delivered, literally buying back your freedom from bondage.
