http://mormonmatters.org/2008/01/19/what-is-mormon-doctrine/

http://mormonmatters.org/2008/01/12/whats-wrong-with-the-creeds-of-christendom/

“If Mormonism were to keep Romney from the nomination, the Mormon Church hierarchy may through continuing revelation and guidance respond by shifting its theology and practices even further in the direction of mainstream Christianity and thereby minimizing its outlier status in the culture.”

My initial response was “not bloody likely.”

By which I mean, Mormon revelation and guidance are unlikely to be conscious reactions to individual events, even an event of as seeming importance as Romney’s candidacy.

I think the reason for the secrecy (re temple marriage and endowment) boils down to three things:

1) We’re talking God’s wonder and glory, so limiting it to the expression of people at one point in time limits God. Let people who desire to understand God’s glory go with prepared hearts to the places it is symbolically represented and receive truth from the source via personal revelation. People have a surprising tendency to say, “I already ‘know’ A, B, C, D, …,” and be surprised with the kiddie-level understanding, particularly practical minded folks (like Mormons). Keeping it sacred reduces that probability.

2) Joseph got the crap beat out of him over and over again both physically, spiritually, emotionally, familially, financially (though not, to my knowledge, literally – but the pistol whipping in June 1842 was close) by those who were not ready to hear what God was commanding him to restore. No wonder he became secretive about it by Nauvoo. They still killed him.

3) Once Joseph was gone, it took decades for those closest to him to start to understand the core doctrine. For example, George Q. Cannon didn’t understand individuals should be sealed along family lines until circa 1879 (when he “broke” his sealing to John Taylor and was sealed to his own father). Joseph F. Smith didn’t understand the purpose of the New and Everlasting Covenant as the foundation of the salvation of the dead (versus getting lots of wives) until 1918 (see D&C 138:53, realizing that prior to that point he maintained he’d never had a Revelation).

My opinions, at least.

I love coming here to read the forums. Frankly, the forum here often inspires me greatly. Mostly because people here aren’t afraid to openly discuss matters of the church or the gospel or the plan of salvation, even if their views are different. Individual points of view are accepted – even embraced here. And honestly, the depth of thought that is displayed here is amazing. My first Bishop (5 years ago), is the only member I know personally who has the same depth of thought / knowledge that I see here, and I respect him immensely.

My newness to the church is one of the reasons why I’m reluctant to weigh in on most of these threads. But every once in a while, I just can’t help but to ask, to try and better understand, or to relay my own little take on things (even in fear of being totally wrong).

Thanks again.

Not being a life-long member myself either, I really appreciate what you’re saying about the shocks that happen even after you’ve joined. I keep experiencing those “Whaaa…?!” moments myself.

mneilson and Gecko, I look at the Man becoming God thing by – like Gecko – taking a statement literally. As God is, man may become. Considering the gap between us at the moment that means that by the time we attain God’s present level he will have advanced to a commensurately more exalted state and in that sense we never ‘catch up’. We can become in the future as he is now, but we never become as he is in terms of simultaneous parity. But as you say mneilson, there’s widely varying views and that’s my subjective way of wrapping my head around the idea while retaining some perspective and humility.

When it comes to the other part of the couplet I have a different thing I don’t understand but it’s complicated and probably would be taking this thread too completely on a tangent. I keep expecting the thread to close down in any case.

I think I can glean what you mean by the connection to the temple endownment and our quietness regarding it. Still, that’s not a topic I’ve asked about. Clearly it’s an instance of ‘not propagating’ certain things (not to mention that Alma gives a well explicated version of the logic and spiritual meaning of ‘milk before meat’).

The line of my mine you quoted in #156 wasn’t about ‘soft secrecy’, however, although I appreciate that’s the general subject of this thread. It was about changes of doctrine and the truth/doctrine dichotomy. On the latter subject I was quite happy with the link Ray sent me to the church statement in #139.

Always appreciate your responses Clark.

It might help a bit to see the other answer Pres. Hinckley gave:

Mr. Ostling (the Time magazine interviewer) replied with a handwritten memo stating, “Here’s the transcript of my question and President Hinckley’s response to me. This came just after a long discussion on whether men can become gods, which the President affirmed.”

Here is the portion of the transcript in question:

Q: Just another related question that comes up is the statements in the King Follet discourse by the Prophet.

A: Yeah

Q: …about that, God the Father was once a man as we were. This is something that Christian writers are always addressing. Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?

A: I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.

There is no denial here, just a statement of it’s real status in the Church. Also, there is a positive affirmation of the idea that we can become “gods” though this is never really defined what it means. (See intro portion)

The stumbling block you had was “For the longest time I questioned whether or not man could really progress to the extent of being like God the Father (literally).” You might be interested in knowing that there is room for interpretation even on this. The standard approach here is to affirm that we will have the same power as God the Father, but not the same glory. But frankly, even this rather widespread belief is not technically scriptural either.

What *is* scriptural is that we will be called “gods” whatever God means by that. See D&C 132:10 – “Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have call power, and the angels are subject unto them.”

This is as far as the revelations actually go on the subject. All else has yet to be canonized.

I see your point that as a new member that had his head spinning over this doctrine, you might be shocked that not all Mormons believe it and that the President of the Church considers that “orthodox” so to speak.

Just think of this a slightly different way. You are now prepared to accept this either way.

Also, this ought to go a long way towards helping you realize how open the LDS church is to interpretation of doctrine. The key is to always affirm the scriptural teachings but to be open in how they are specifically interpreted. If you do this, you are always “orthodox.”

I think, as a new member, you would be deeply shocked to realize the wide variety of interpretations that exist on just about every subject you can imagine. I love that about the LDS church. Being non-creedal is so liberating!