I agree that Romney would not do well to point this out. But it will become an issue at some point.

in theory power and authority can be desireable goals in themselves.

Adam, there you go, trying to rule all our lives! *grin*

Martin James – I have no idea what lingo that you are referring to, but oh well. And your statement in 83 is just not true. Kolob still exists, even if we have no clue which star in the sky it is. The 10th article of faith is still in our articles of faith, and kids are still told to memorize it. The Book of Mormon is still the word of God, to us, even if we don’t know exactly where it all occurred. We do believe in our eventual eternal destiny, even if we don’t know all that it entails. And the fact that our church sends out missionaries to convince everyone to join our church implies that our beliefs, doctrines and practices are in a sense superior. And don’t get me started on global warming, but I still here all around me in the church how evil the world is getting and that armaggedon is coming soon to correct it.

Well if believing in an unusual and distinctive chosen people is a fetish, color me in.

Is it really so much to ask that when asked about church beliefs, the belief that there was an apostasy and angels appeared to men and restored a priesthood and keys that had been absent from the Earth would be an important thing to mention?

Maybe this quote from the Prophet for example.

“Can you imagine what a wonderful experience this restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood must have been for Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when John the Baptist spoke to them? Here was a man who had lived upon the earth more than 1,800 years earlier. Now he was speaking in English to two young men while he held his hands upon their heads. His was a resurrected body. Theirs were mortal bodies. They felt his hands, the materiality of them, and understood the words that he spoke. This tells us that resurrected beings are tangible, that they can move and act, that they can speak and be understood.

He told them, among other things, that, while the authority he gave them authorized them to baptize, it did not include the authority to bestow the Holy Ghost. He indicated that another order of the priesthood was necessary for this, and that it would subsequently be given to them by Peter, James, and John.”

Well, at least you’ve changed my mood. I’m no longer sad that assimilation is coming; I’m scared its already happened.

Its not the explaining that’s the assimilation, its the explaining in a way that doesn’t leave them with the impression that the LDS worldview is strikingly different from anything they have encountered before. I just don’t feel like the testimony-bearing coming through in the catechismic answers.

On reflecting further its not the assimilation that bothers me, its the disenchantment and the lack of magic that goes along with it. To me you lose more than 2/13ths of your beliefs if you de-emphasize the 7th and 10th articles of faith.

Adam,

I’m not hip to your lingo but I assume that’s on me, too. Come on brother, can’t you assume my grief is in good faith and comfort me in the time of my affliction. Unlike Jonovitch, I’m not not comforted by the phrasing of “The goal is not to equal [God the Father and Jesus Christ] or to achieve parity with them but to imitate and someday acquire their perfect goodness, love and other divine attributes.”

Although, I have some doubt that you can relate to my experience, in good faith I’ll put it forward. In the good ol’ days of the closeness of the second coming, global warming would have been one more sign of the times. Now, instead of current events being one faith promoting apocalypse after another everything seems so damage-control focused to me.

I may be mistaken, are there ways that LDS faith, revelation and practice are becoming MORE unusual and distinctive than they were historically?

I am curious if and when there will be a great deal of attention paid to Obama’s own church congregation. I researched his pastor and looked at their website prior to obama’s run for the nomination.

I was quite shocked. Obama belongs to a afro-centric church with clear racist leanings and tendencies. Eventually if Obama gets the nomination he will have to distance himself from the church and its pastor

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300135,00.html

This is very carefully phrased. I like it, a lot. Because while I think God does intend to raise us up to their level of power and authority, those who seek that are unlikely to find it.

I’m still in the extreme minority who believs that in theory power and authority can be desirable goals in themselves. But the way mankind usually approaches power and authority is to lust for it. I like this statement a lot the more I think about it.