John Dehlin didn't make it. His court of love has sentenced him to spiritual death. He's been amputated from the body of Christ. He's finished. An apostate. Illegitimate.
If only he had doubted his doubts harder. He succumbed to the wiles of the Devil. He became prideful. He waved his dick in God's face and got fucked. Sorry, John, but because of you so many of us now have full faith in everything again.
God is great, Jesus saves, Mary was a chosen vessel, Joseph was a chosen instrument, Tommy's got the direct connection, in the holy name of Unctuous Josh, amen!
Conference is a wonderful time of contradictions, like this one.
Easy, Dieter! You might want to review major Church headlines from the past six months. I'm pretty sure I can direct you to a few kinds of testimonies the LDS Church apparently doesn't have room for. And it's not hard to think of others.
So what are you talking about? Are you trying to tell Russy B. something?
Maybe what you mean is that the Church doesn't care as much about members' testimonies as member behavior. "Believe what you want, brothers and sisters, but keep it to yourself if We don't like it."
The other half of "Closed-mindedness" takes the form of "stereotyping those who are opposed to
the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid". This sounds a lot like the top 5 myths that circulate when someone leaves the LDS Church.
All of the standard assumptions about why someone would leave Mormonism denigrate the doubter's character. Being easily offended shows weakness of character. Desiring to sin means you're evil, or weak when faced with temptation. Accusing someone of never having a real testimony is like calling him a tenderfoot or a faker. Calling someone lazy is just another way of calling them weak. Pinning everything on anti-Mormon arguments suggests the person who decided to listen to those arguments was being stupid and succumbing to those arguments is evidence of one's powerlessness when it comes to controlling his or her thoughts. The general approach within Mormonism tends towards belittling the doubter. Thank goodness John Dehlin and people like him have been making extensive efforts to dispel these styrotypes.
A kind and well-intentioned couple, Terry and Fiona Givens, both scholars and both active, believing members of the LDS Church, has written a book for me. It comes several years too late, but I'm still a little bit interested. Mormonism is so completely shattered, in my opinion, that when I hear a claim that I can once again fit all the pieces together again my morbid curiosity is piqued. Additionally I've heard enough positive things about the Givens that I felt it only polite to listen to their 3 hour and 15 minute sales pitch.
Unfortunately I couldn't buy the Givens' arguments and won't be buying the book, which was the result of a recent fireside tour, which was the result of reasonable success from a previous book they had written.
After having listened to the entire Mormon Stories interview my main questions are:
1. If prophets are just like the rest of us then why should we look to them for answers concerning God's will? (I love how they insist on ignoring John Dehlin's question about whether or not it's okay to criticize our upper management.)
2. How do we have any trust in the Gospel text as being valid Jesus material? If we're going to undermine the spoken and written words of imperfect prophets what are we to do with the teachings of Mr. Perfect? Do we take them with a grain of salt because they were written by a bunch of assholes and corrupted over time? Do we only accept the teachings and events described by at least two of the Gospel writers (you know, that whole "by the mouth of two or three witnesses" thing)?
3. In all Fiona's admonishing against hero worship she fails to mention even once our worship of a heroic character named Jesus. How is she so sure that we haven't overblown the case for Jesus the same way we have for our various prophets, especially in light of the fact that our basis for turning Jesus into a mighty hero worthy of our worship are the less than reliable words of prophets, who are pretty much just like us?
5. Terryl Givens bases his entire argument on some kind of bizarre dichotomy between "the heart" and "the intellect". How is anyone supposed to take that seriously? We are not divided up between this mysterious heart and a non-mysterious, logical brain. "The heart" works for Terry the same way the sky worked for early belief in God. It's the only place to hide (as long as you continue to ignore science).
So the book comes out soon. Maybe it has answers to all of these questions, but admittedly I have my doubts.
Sorry, John and Kate, but we will not tolerate your evil liberal ways. We hope you have fun getting shit on by your family and community from here on out because you now wear the sign of the Beast on your brow. Or maybe try repenting or something. Show us how sorry you are. We love that shit!
And for all you assholes out there who actually like what John and Kate have done, REPENT YE MOTHERFUCKERS, FOR THE CHURCH OF GOD IS PISSED! You have now been given a fair warning with the examples of John and Kate that love and compassion are not enough. The same goes for you followers of brother Waterman, too! (Sister Colvin, you might be next!) Mend your ways or you might be next! (Unless you don't have enough people listening to you, in that case let all your crazy out whenever you feel like it.)
In efforts to clarify the situation the Church has released an explanation of sorts. I just have a few questions about this press release. Did John and Kate really do this to themselves or isn't it really the Church doing the excommunicating? When can we expect our leaders to clarify John and Kate's false teachings? What exactly have they said that is so horribly incongruous with LDS doctrine? And is the "door" really and truly "always open" to people who are excommunicated? I thought there was policy that getting excommunicated twice locks that door for the rest of your mortal existence. Dieter, can you help us with any of these questions and doubts?
Truly this is God's work, I solemnly declare, in the name of Greasy J, amen.
Even as an endowed, sealed member of the LDS Church, there's a good chance you've not been informed on all the goings on of the temple. Growing up Mormon I remember hearing about meetings in the upper room of the Salt Lake temple that supposedly involved the Big JC sitting down at meetings, and I remember studying about Holy of Holies in the Israelite tabernacle and Solomon's temple. There was a lot of speculation with friends about what happens in the temple we went through, then there was more speculation about what also happens in the temple after we went through. Isn't it a little strange that we were still speculating even after we had received the secrets of the Kingdom? I had heard the James Talmage had written his magnus opus Jesus the Christ in the temple, but I couldn't imagine where. There must be private room I had never seenand had absolutely no idea how to access. I had also heard rumors about a special feet washing ceremony, or something awesome like that, for apostles, who were probably getting visitations from Jesus. The point is that even as an endowed member of the Church, the temple was still VERY MYSTERIOUS.
Fortunately a brave soul has come forth to share the insider of insiders information with all of us outsiders of insiders. Tom Phillips gave an interview to Mormon Stories' John Dehlin, but the potato was too hot and never made onto the Mormon Stories site. It's okay, though, because it's on various other sites in various forms. Here is one of two YouTube excerpts from the five-hour-long interview.
Part 2 is here. (Notice that Tom is still very careful about what he says and doesn't say.)
Tom and his wife were instructed to keep their experience on the down low. Call this sacred if you want - Tom speaks of it as a very touching and tearful experience - but it's also extremely secret. And disappointing. SPOILER ALERT: JC never showed.
On the plus side, Tom's "calling and election" were "made sure"! He had been given the most explicit guarantee of the Celestial Kingdom in all of Mormonism.
Think how many more converts the missionaries would have if they had this carrot to wave in front of investigators!
Learn to be white in a just a few years! It's easy!
As if the LDS Church's quest for spiritual and cultural domination over the earth weren't enough to make to make me doubt, finding out about the Indian Placement Program and electroshock conversion therapy use on homosexuals at BYU certainly brought to mind some fresh thoughts about what Christ-like love ought to look like. The justifications for keeping First Nations children physically distant from their families in order to culturally distance them from their traditions point nowhere near the love and acceptance one might expect from Jesus. Likewise the use of physical and psychological torture to reform homosexuals points nowhere near Christ-like behavior. These are two programs (the IPP admittedly much bigger than McBride's experiments) that have to cause members to scramble for answers. How can these sorts of things be inspired? How offensive is it that Mormons expect First Nations people to turn off
their identity? Why do Mormons think homosexuals can do it? How can they be justified in the name of a loving god? How is it that the LDS Church and BYU have not apologized for these damaging programs?
Turning off the gay was supposed to be as easy as hitting the lights!
UPDATE: A Mormon Stories episode on the Indian Placement Program has just been added (4/4/14). Listen to it here.
The Church institutionally excludes people simply because they're attracted to people of the same sex. That's messed up. These days we know that homosexuality is not a choice. We also know that homosexuals are not a cohesive, organized block with an agenda to corrupt and morally destroy our children. The Church's homophobia is misguided and wrong, but what's worse is the Church's political involvement in curbing the civil rights of homosexuals. These facts should make us all seriously doubt.
When did Jesus condemn homosexuals? When did Jesus try to influence local politics to stop people from making their own life choices?
Fortunately many Mormons who are close to homosexual individuals show a little more humanity and understanding.
Mormons are changing, will the Church keep up with them?
