{"id":45018,"date":"2023-06-14T09:12:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T16:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=45018"},"modified":"2025-05-28T08:17:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T14:17:41","slug":"from-these-stones-god-is-able-to-raise-up-pioneer-stock-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2023\/06\/from-these-stones-god-is-able-to-raise-up-pioneer-stock-members\/","title":{"rendered":"From These Stones God is Able to Raise Up Pioneer Stock Members"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are two rhetorical practices used by ex-members and reform-minded cultural Mormons that I\u2019ve noticed being used more recently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Latter-day Saint culture places a high premium on deference to authority. If you want to shut down a discussion with the orthodox who \u201cpay the tithing and do the believing;\u201d who are the primary fuel line for the Church, just communicate that the brethren are fundamentally wrongheaded. Some people do this, of course, but I get the sense they\u2019re generally speaking among themselves. (You can tell when a movement to change the Church is more concerned with martyrdom than actually trying to change things based on their approach in this regard).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The more sophisticated and strategic will try to play within the ideological space that is more palatable to the rank and file for the Church. They will, for example, quote Church leaders as authorities when it\u2019s highly doubtful that they personally hold the same deference to the very authority that they are hinging their argument on, or they will try to heavily prooftext the Proclamation as if it is anything besides a heavily heteronormative document that espouses traditional gender roles.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a matter of strategy I get it, but the disingenuousness of it all makes me roll my eyes, and while some of this is more transparent than others (I once saw an openly pro-pornography apologist invoking General Conference talks to make his point). I think most people can see through what they\u2019re doing, but for some people that are a little more lacking in discernment using Church content to make an argument that is clearly counter to the Church\u2019s position can be confusing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, non-believers pointing out theological inconsistencies, or non-believers invoking inside baseball values and references to make a point, isn\u2019t always patronizing (for the most part I thought the Hillary Clinton campaign\u2019s appeal to Church members<\/a> was a good example of how to do this right),\u00a0<\/span>but it\u2019s another thing to imply that they’re on the same team, as it were, when theologically they’re really not. In these cases the invocation of in-group language acts as a kind of shibboleth, as if to say \u201cI am one of you, so you can trust me,\u201d and as I\u2019ve noted before<\/a>, in those cases critiquing people\u2019s private beliefs or sincerity is fair game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the same note of in-group identification, I am surprised at how often ex-members or reform-minded members begin their narrative with \u201cas an 8th generation, pioneer stock Latter-day Saint\u2026,\u201d or references to their Eagle Scout\/Young Women\u2019s award, or their Church leader lineage, seemingly oblivious to how closely they\u2019re quoting the pharisees,\u00a0 as if the Savior didn\u2019t warn about this all the time (e.g. “the first shall be last”). By invoking their multigenerational or blue blood status they seem to be implying \u201cI\u2019m a real member with the authentic Mormon experience, unlike those converts in Timbuktu.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The converts in Timbuktu who have no idea who Wilford Woodruff is but who sacrifice to do their ministering are the Kingdom in ways that the BYU faculty whose affiliation with the church stems mostly from nostalgia or sociocultural or professional inertia will never be. And when speaking from the spirit the Timbuktu ploughboys and ploughgirls \u201cknow more of the [gospel]\u201d than the blue bloods with the complete Dialogue\/BYU Studies set on their bookshelf.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are two rhetorical practices used by ex-members and reform-minded cultural Mormons that I\u2019ve noticed being used more recently.\u00a0 Latter-day Saint culture places a high premium on deference to authority. If you want to shut down a discussion with the orthodox who \u201cpay the tithing and do the believing;\u201d who are the primary fuel line for the Church, just communicate that the brethren are fundamentally wrongheaded. Some people do this, of course, but I get the sense they\u2019re generally speaking among themselves. (You can tell when a movement to change the Church is more concerned with martyrdom than actually trying to change things based on their approach in this regard).\u00a0 The more sophisticated and strategic will try to play within the ideological space that is more palatable to the rank and file for the Church. They will, for example, quote Church leaders as authorities when it\u2019s highly doubtful that they personally hold the same deference to the very authority that they are hinging their argument on, or they will try to heavily prooftext the Proclamation as if it is anything besides a heavily heteronormative document that espouses traditional gender roles. As a matter of strategy I get it, but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45018"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50204,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45018\/revisions\/50204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}