- RLD on What We Can Learn from Visions of Glory, Part 3: “The Lord communicates with us in ways that will make sense to us, so it fits that he might send a glittering tow truck to a modern member where he would have sent a chariot of fire to an ancient Israelite. On the other hand, I suspect the reason we hear of fewer incidents like that today is that so many of us are comfortable with statements like my previous sentence. What makes sense to us is abstractions, and the Lord communicates with us accordingly. I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing. “…formulaic reasoning promotes homogenous ideas of who can receive revelation, how it arrives, and what questions it answers.” True, but unnecessarily. There are rules for personal revelation, but they proscribe certain things (mostly what we do with it) rather than limiting the scope of it. We fall short of what we could be receiving by personal revelation–and that was an authoritative message from President Nelson. I like your solution of focusing less on trying to authenticate personal revelation and more on making sure it changes us in good ways. That fits with Moroni 7. “Finally, revelation must be weighed against right and wrong.” Yes. I came away from my reading this week firmly convinced that the story of Abraham and Isaac is NOT telling us to ignore right and wrong when we think we have received revelation. (See my comment on the Akedah post if you really want to know my reasoning.) The story of Nephi and Laban can still be abused, but note that the Lord took the time to convince Nephi that what he was being asked to do was right and did not expect him to act until he was.” Mar 1, 08:55
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “Artimes: Just from random members who are repeating what someone told them. The LDS grapevine. No details, sorry. E: Amen” Feb 28, 17:22
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “I think it’s natural to get fatigued and less engaged when program changes are too frequent, especially when they seem hasty or half-baked, which they sometimes do. I wonder if the church is over-correlated, with too much decision-making by one person and not enough buy in by others, which leads to abrupt and major swings in policies/practices depending on who the President of the Church is. I’m thinking of things like the temple announcing spree that occurred during the entire Nelson presidency, that seems to have immediately halted when he died.” Feb 28, 16:18
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “REC911 – you mentioned hearing about 1 hour church. Can you share more? Are their plans to reduce our services to solely a one hour sacrament meeting at some point in the future?” Feb 28, 16:16
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “Different things work for different people, and the one advantage I see of having a succession of new programs that are soon mostly forgotten is that people can latch onto the ones that work for them. But overall I agree that fewer programs with more sustained attention will bring (somewhat) better results. The example that comes to my mind is the way the Church as an institution responded to President Benson’s call to focus on the Book of Mormon. It was relentless, and it made a difference.” Feb 28, 00:44
- on Unbinding Isaac: Aaron Koller on the Trauma and Theology of Genesis 22: “The Akedah starts with God’s command that Abraham sacrifice “thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest” and ends with God commending Abraham because “thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” It’s all about the potential loss of Isaac. There’s not a word about Abraham suspending his ethics or being willing to kill just because the Lord said so. How can this not be about ethics or killing? In the culture of Abraham’s day, children were the property of their father (as was their mother) to be disposed of as the father saw fit. If he wants to send them out into the wilderness to die (i.e. Hagar and Ishmael), he can do that. If he wants to sacrifice them to his God, that’s his choice. It’s a waste of valuable resources, but it’s not particularly “wrong.” We can and should find this abhorrent, but that shouldn’t prevent us from heeding the intended message of the Akedah, which is that we must be prepared to sacrifice even what is most precious to us if the Lord so commands. We also shouldn’t read into it a message that wasn’t intended just because what Abraham was asked to do is completely unethical in our culture (and rightly so). If anyone thinks the Lord is asking them to do something that’s wrong, the relevant Abraham story is his conversation with the Lord about Sodom and Gomorrah, not the Akedah. In that story the Lord has absolutely no objection to Abraham insisting on his own ethical judgement, or to his claim that God himself must “do right.” Similarly, we can and should be appalled that Lot was willing to sacrifice his daughters to protect the angels who were under his roof, but that should not prevent us from heeding the intended message: that we have a duty to protect strangers and foreigners even if our society turns on them. We also learn that dire consequences follow when a society turns on the foreigners among them. (Yes, the duty to guests is part of the story of Lot, but the angels are not Lot’s guests when he pleads with them to shelter under his roof, perhaps hoping that giving them the status of guests would protect them.)” Feb 28, 00:29
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “It is also worth considering, I think, that divine revelation might not always be a way in which new ideas or truths are presented. Revelation might be a directive to hold onto old or received ideas and truths that are currently besieged and are slipping away in the general society.” Feb 27, 11:53
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “REC911, I understand where you are coming from. If the President of the Church receives a revelation (such as in his Prophet role), it is through his President of the Church role that he implements it among the members. But whether he receives revelation or not, he is still the President of the Church and has to make decisions. Elder Stephen L. Richards said it this way in his April 1932 general conference address: “The Church believes in new and continuous revelation, and ever holds itself in readiness to receive messages from the Lord. To that end the people sustain the President in particular, and others of the General Authorities, as the media through which God’s word may be delivered. A revelation to our living president would be as readily accepted and become as much a part of our scripture as the revelations given to the Prophet Joseph. “In the absence of direct communication from heaven, however, the Church and its people must be guided by the revelations already given and the wisdom and inspiration of its leadership. I have great confidence in the wisdom of the presiding authorities in all departments of church service, first, because they hold the Holy Priesthood, and second, because I know them to be good men. There is virtue in the endowment of the Priesthood. It brings to men who receive it and appreciate it an enlarged conception of iife and an altruism that is Christlike in character. It brings spiritual knowledge and power, and the judgment of a presiding officer holding the Priesthood is generally an inspired judgment. It is the product of noble motive and fervent prayer.”” Feb 27, 07:40
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “Brother Green, I am not saying you or other members have not heard any prophecy, I am saying I have not. I am happy for you and others that feel God wanted the 2 hour block etc. Took Him a while as I have been hearing about that for 30 years. Now I am hearing about a 1 hour church…. There is a reason they have two titles. President and Prophet are not the same things. I am guessing most members think all of Nelson’s changes were from the prophet side, but I think they were on the president side. I dont need them all to be on the prophet side to be a believer in the gospel. I am following (mostly) the president and you are following the prophet. It works for both of us.” Feb 27, 06:18
- on New Program Fatigue in the Church: “Ron Yorgason: Good point. I guess it comes down to whether the Mormon corridor birth rate is more predictive of the eventual missionary cohort or the baby blessing cohort is. From where I am at least it still seems like the Mormon Corridor missionaries are still very much the core of the proselytizing force, but then of course Mormon corridor birth rate is probably also affected by there simply being fewer Latter-day Saints per capita, and maybe the Latter-day Saint, Mormon corridor birth rate didn’t collapse in 2008. To make it more concrete, I’m going to say that if we don’t start to see a consistent year-by-year decline by 2030 then yours is probably the more correct way to approach the numbers. Whatever the case, I hope you’re right!” Feb 27, 04:31
