37 But as you cannot always judge the righteous, or as you cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous, therefore I say unto you, hold your peace until I shall see fit to make all things known unto the world concerning the matter.

NewToThis, I don’t mind using whatever words we choose to use to describe the phenomena. There’s an old joke that 90% of any discussion is agreeing upon the meanings of the terms we use to describe the debate. I think there’s a lot of truth to that.

My point is just that if it’s a matter of obedience then we have to explain why it only applies to some matters and not the matters than the authorities actually spend the most time on. (Things like home teaching, tithing, doing service, doing your callings etc.) Instead obedience is tied to things that most people see as pretty minor (both the complainer but also the people being obedience) Any discussion on obedience has to engage that. If it avoids that central issue then I think it’s really being a bit dodgy.

I think many, most liberals would agree that abortion should be rare, exceptions in cases of rape, incest, severe fetal abnormailites or maternal health issues. The difference lies in how we move in that direction. Liberals believe we can and should put our full efforts behind preventing unplanned pregnancies. Conservatives favor an outright ban. The problem with the conservative approach is we have been there, done that–at the cost of women’s lives. The liberal approach will never deliver a zero abortion rate (but neither will the conservative approach).

Rather than frame the argument in terms of hetero vs homo marriage why can’t we frame the problem as promiscuity?

Pornography vs decency?
There have been varying court decisions on pornography laws/restrictions and attempts to restrict it. There are some restrictions easily upheld such as laws against child porn.

I think often there appears to be less common ground than actually exists because of one side inaccurately framing the other side’s position. Example: arguments for gun laws becomes “they want to confiscate (all) our guns.”

Reading the LDS newsroom piece I did not get out of it what Dave got out of it. I too am all for the sailboats, unless I need to catch a scheduled train. I thought the spirit of the piece was an attempt to recall what binds us in common, despite different political/cultural/religious points of view. To me, the whole sailboat/train metaphor was an attempt to draw a distinction between our vast differences and our fundamental similarities.

This tension has never been fully resolved, but was addressed in the idea of a melting pot where differences were set aside for a greater, unified, identity. Such an ideology obviously didn’t work well for many minorities. Still, multi-culturalism has brought forth a disbanding momentum that has actually fractured the melting pot into tribalism, and the public idea of a common people has retreated behind a different kind of egocentrism as a result. There is a fractured moral framework in our culture. The legal framework will not bind it, but only be used to justify it. In this I believe Dave has it backwards. I am more than interested in his thoughts on the subject.

Taking up an angry tone is a rhetorical tool, a reminder to FarSide that such tricks are not acceptable. He does not get to shift the foundations of the discourse. He’s trying to get us to acknowledge that if you don’t accept active protests against authority figures you are being “reflexively obedient” and probably “spiritually totalitarian” as well. I acknowledge that I may be wrong about his intentions and methods – but I will note that I haven’t been before, in similar cases. Anti-Mormon rhetoric is depressingly homogenous.

In my personal, lived experience, some bishops allow colored shirts, some don’t. In wards that don’t, there are usually white shirts and ties in a closet somewhere nearby for boys that don’t have them, and there are always youth leaders willing to shell out three bucks at a thrift store to help out boys with poor families. It’s not that big of a deal. When a twelve-year-old is making his own pantsuit protest, and his dad leaves church in disgust when somebody comments on it, there’s something else going on. In my personal, lived experience. And it’s not prima facie evidence of dictatorial culture, especially when compared to the lesson manuals up and down the Church that promote the opposite.

FarSide has pointed out one common LDS use of the word “obedience” that can have negative effects. Clark has pointed to his preference to reserve the word “obedience” for something other than the way some use it. While Clark’s implied definition is theologically far more defensible in my view, it is also important for dealing or communicating with those leaders and followers who insist upon “reflexive obedience” to recognize that they do not limit the word in the same way Clark seems to wish they would.

Thanks for pointing out what the Church is currently doing to attempt to counteract a counterproductive strain of Mormon culture.

And I don’t mind. There are far more destructive idiosyncrasies we have culturally. I think it’s kind of cute. You’ll be all right, just stop worrying and start giving a little.

(incoming list of FarSide’s contributions and lifetime of service, qualifying him above all others to provide binding criticism)

The same thing happens everywhere of course. There’s a great economic paper that managed to show empirically that people prefer to buy a Prius to signal their environmental cred rather than other hybrids that aren’t as noticeable as hybrids. This happens a lot with politicians who’ll pass laws designed to show their virtue rather than actually reducing the rate of whatever they’re against. You see this especially with gun control, abortion and many other things.

Now of course virtue signaling is exactly the phenomena among the Pharisees that Christ condemned. And I’d certainly never deny it among us. I’ve seen it regularly. I just don’t think it has much at all to do with obedience.

Old Man, D&C 130 has nothing to do with being obedient to Church leaders. The question is when a Church leader is actually inspired. I think it a fair position to take that you try and figure out if they are but give them the benefit of doubt. I can’t say I’m always obedient because I’m not. I wish I did better. But I do honestly try to give all my leaders the benefit of doubt. There’s then the question of how much leeway they get in a calling where they have stewardship but have to figure things out themselves. But ironically that’s an issue precisely because we get vague commands from God and have to usually figure the details out for ourselves. The the very fact this is a problem actually demonstrates that the benevolent dictator model isn’t happening. Usually what people really are complaining about are well intentioned leaders trying the best they can and screwing up at times. But again, I’m not sure that has much to do with obedience.

Somethings are more than just social norms of course. Pres. Hinkley’s request to get rid of tattoos and too many earring seems minor but I’d consider that being obedient if we follow. I remember when it happened and I knew several friends who had tattoos removed. I don’t know if it was a command from God (I doubt it) or Pres. Hinkley trying to keep us separate from the world as best he could manage (what I suspect is the case) I’ll confess I see nothing wrong with following his counsel in this case.

In our last ward, the bishop would not allow any member of the Aaronic Priesthood to pass the sacrament if he wasn’t wearing a white shirt. A young boy in the Teachers’ Quorum—I’ll call him Jason—didn’t believe it was proper to exclude otherwise worthy priesthood holders from performing this ordinance, so he always wore a colored shirt.

As it turns out, this young boy’s father was not active in the church. He was bothered by certain aspects of church doctrine, history and culture. But, to support his son, he decided to attend sacrament meeting one Sunday to hear Jason give a talk.

After the sacrament service, another boy in Jason’s Teachers’ Quorum saw his father. He promptly approached him and the first words out of his mouth were: “When is Jason going to start wearing a white shirt to church?” We never saw his father in church again.

But wait. This gets better. Guess who told me this story? It was the bishop, who had overheard the conversation. He shared this with me during a discussion we were having about the growing problem of intolerance in the ward, utterly clueless to the possibility that his pharisaical attitudes might be a contributing cause.

Mars, the words you quote from your lesson manual ring somewhat hollow in the face of experiences such as these.

We are strongly discouraged from using any material not in the correlated manuals. If you teach that Moses didn’t write the first five books of the Old Testament or that Jonah really wasn’t really swallowed by a big fish, then you are not in harmony with church teachings. And we are repeatedly admonished not to seek out anything on the Internet about church history that does not appear on a pro-LDS web site.

What kind people does this environment breed? Hugh Nibley provides an answer in his essay “Zeal Without Knowledge”: “It actually happens at the BYU, and that not rarely, that students come to a teacher, usually at the beginning of a term, with the sincere request that he refrain from teaching them anything new. They have no desire, they explain, to hear what they do not know already!”

I’m delighted to hear that the Junior Sunday School lesson manuals are encouraging the youth to be self-reliant. But the church is far from a model of consistency when it comes to encouraging independent thought and questioning. The last apostle to repeatedly do that was Hugh B. Brown and, for his trouble, he became the first member of a First Presidency to lose his position once the prophet died and someone who didn’t share his liberal views became president of the church.