Unlike worldly fear that creates alarm and anxiety, godly fear is a source of peace, assurance, and confidence.
Which is why Julie Rowe is able to get people to cash in their 401k’s over the slightest inkling of the “end of the world”? No, you don’t get to claim that a religion built on the idea that the “end of days is nigh, even at the very doors” gives peace and relaxes anxiety. Prophetic calls that “Albany will be burned by fire and Boston sunk into the sea”, that everyone should plant a garden to be self-sustaining, that SLC will run red with blood are not anti-anxiety remedies.
One day while playing with my friends, I accidentally broke a window in a store near our home. As the glass shattered and the security alarm blared, a paralyzing fear filled my heart and mind. I realized immediately I was doomed to spend the remainder of my life in prison.
Here is a fascinating phenomenons in LDS talks. I want you to answer quietly to yourself if you think he broke the window playing baseball. Now, re-read the paragraph above (or the talk). Nope, no baseball, just “playing with friends”. They could have been playing “Take the jeweled necklace from the store”. He might have actually been committing a crime. We are left to infer that his activities were harmless, and hence it is a joke that he was afraid of jail time. However, without the authoritative position of “apostle” this story might make one think the miscreant had jail-time coming to them.
The end of all activity in the Church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home, sealed for eternity
Unless you’re gay, barren, doubt Joseph Smith’s claims, refuse to accept conditions before hearing the terms of the agreement, or dared to think that everyone should be saved and not sent to eternal torment. Then the plan becomes one of Misery.
For the homosexual, it means a celibate life, but even more so than for the celibate straight person, as one cannot even kiss, or dream of a love after this one. It is truly a plan of misery.
For those who doubt, it means a life of torturous thoughts, bland meetings in which you are told over and over again to “have faith” and it’ll all be fine. It means watching your children growing up believing things you would never want them to believe, and silent anguish as they accept things you know are not based in truth, while you struggle to not rock the boat.
If you wisely refuse conditions before hearing the terms of the agreement, you’ll leave the temple before every going through the endowment.
If you thought that eternal damnation was too high a price for any amount of finite anguish caused, you never even came to Earth, instead damned to never have a body because you wanted everyone saved.
The 2015 Sustaining of Church Officers was one that was significantly different from other years. That is, three individuals in the conference center, and five total who were worthy ordinary members dared to stand and be counted to be opposed to current leadership.
This prompted other ordinary members to threaten individuals who dare to state their opposition, to passive aggressively oppose those of any opposed, and to generally disapprove of the action because of technicalities. Perhaps the individuals were too loud, or too visible, or used an irreverent tone
And yet, it was the right place, at the right time. The leadership actually invited individuals to illustrate their opposition.
Now, members should really think about the guts it takes to stand up when tens of thousands around you would get angry enough to consider violence for one’s stance. LDS individuals who do this anywhere else against any other group, whether it be teenagers refusing to perform as they agreed to (This was a popular story in my seminary class), or standing up to atheist professors this is an acceptable behavior that receives praise.
Which makes one think that the problem here wasn’t the action itself, but that the LDS membership cannot tolerate anyone standing up to their beliefs or leaders.
I’m going to quote one such leader and belief:
“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.”
– Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 10, p. 110
Now one can say that “He was a product of his time” or “He was just speaking as a man”, but yet for that to be made known DURING his time, it would take conscientious objectors like those at Any Opposed who stood up in Conference.
Indeed, the LDS system has a format for correcting “Doctrines of men” being “Mingled with scripture” but that only functions if someone opposes.
So why were so many members angry or afraid of 3 standing against tens of thousands? I think any believing member should ask themselves if their doctrine and leaders are so fragile that if a child points out that the emperor has no clothes they should be careful of emotional reactions over-coming logic.
Because beating down those who dare to question guarantees that incorrect beliefs that are a product of our time or “Speaking as a man” will occur and go uncorrected.
A family built on the marriage of a man and woman supplies the best setting for God’s plan to thrive.
This is an interesting claim right off, and ya know what, it’s verifiable. We can look at numbers. Now, the idea of “Best setting” puts us into a grey area, because who knows what that means, but the basic idea he is using weasel words to get at, is that the standard family is “better” for children, and we can evaluate that with a lot of metrics.
Based on a re-evaluation of the data, it concludes there are minimal differences in outcome for children raised by same-sex parents and married opposite-sex parents
If we separate out same-sex marriages (Arguably what D. Todd Christofferson is arguing against, given the timing and the Supreme Court’s decisions that would follow) it turns out they do as well, or better than traditional families. And this is the default position we should hold
Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents
But let’s start with his talks points:
Bonhoeffer became a vocal critic of the Nazi dictatorship and its treatment of Jews and others. He was imprisoned for his active opposition and finally executed in a concentration camp.
Ah yes, Nazi’s. Gonna be a good talk if you start with Nazi opposers. This Nazi opposer says that marriage comes from God. Checkmate homosexuals!
Marriage is more than your love for each other. … In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. … So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God.”2
If we remove the concept that “God hates Gay Marraige” then these words could still be true for Gay Marriage as well.
If, then in the course of our mortal experience, we chose to “do all things whatsoever the Lord [our] God [should] command [us],” we would have kept our “second estate.” This means that by our choices we would demonstrate to God (and to ourselves) our commitment and capacity to live His celestial law while outside His presence and in a physical body with all its powers, appetites, and passions.
I want to be very clear about what he is saying in the subtext here. If you go against “traditional marriage”, you are damned. You have to demonstrate to God your commitment to His celestial law.
Turns out we can prove the LDS church is apostate via this same idea. you see “Celestial Law” was, in fact, defined as obeying polygamy prior to correlation.
Like many other unique doctrines brought about by the LDS Church, celestial marriage has gone through its share of redefining and development. Today, celestial marriage merely means to be married for time and eternity in an LDS temple. To the 19th century Mormon, celestial marriage was synonymous with plural marriage. Mormon historians concede that celestial and plural marriage were at one time inseparable. According to David John Buerger, “Celestial marriage was applied to and equated with plural marriage until the late nineteenth century” (The Mysteries of Godliness, p. 59).
” Some people have supposed that the doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity, or non-essential to the salvation or exaltation of mankind. In other words, some of the Saints have said, and believe, that a man with one wife, sealed to him by the authority of the Priesthood for time and eternity, will receive an exaltation as great and glorious, if he is faithful, as he possibly could with more than one. I want here to enter my solemn protest against this idea, for I know it is false…The marriage of one woman to a man for time and eternity by the sealing power, according to the law of God, is a fulfillment of the celestial law of marriage in part… But this is only the beginning of the law, not the whole of it. Therefore, whoever has imagined that he could obtain the fulness of the blessings pertaining to this celestial law, by complying with only a portion of its conditions, has deceived himself. He cannot do it. – Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 20, p. 28
If a person is not “Celestial married” he is not obeying “Celestial Law” and ergo, he will not keep his second estate. you can’t get polygamous marriages in the LDS church, ergo, it cannot get you to heaven!
OMG!
Let’s turn instead to whether homosexuals have any purpose in nature. What can we observe:
Why does the God of Nature make homosexuals so useful if they are so bad for his plan?
Conclusion
Perhaps his talk should have been “Why Straight-Only Marriage” and it could have been shortened to “Religious reasons!”, which is fine for anyone to believe and have as their own religion, but when individuals and organizations try to force their moral view into law for everyone, that’s a problem.
Imagine instead there was a minister in a mega-church who started saying “Celestial Marriage is no Marriage!”. He cites scripture to prove that polygamy is evil (including Nephi 2! showing that the LDS church was wrong from the outset). He attacks temples with scripture. Then he puts millions of dollars into lobbying and propositions in states across the nation to remove temple marriage. He states that “Traditional marriage is the best setting” pointing out that traditional marriage for hundreds of years required no temple. Even Joseph Smith did not marry Emma in the temple! He quotes Christ that there is no marriage in heaven and demands that no marriage licenses be given to Mormons.
This would be obvious religious persecution to members as well as enforcing a small group’s beliefs on everyone. It is clearly morally wrong. Why is it so hard for D. Todd to figure out what he is doing, is no different?
[EDIT: 9/4/2015 2:01 p.m. MST] Update, within 24 hours of this blog reporting on the LDS Philanthropies video (and the author posting to Reddit), it was taken down by the user:
We did it! A little attention and a really bad philosophy has been removed. Of course, rather than let it simply vanish we have re-uploaded their video and relinked so that one could still understand the context that was once posted.
LDS people who gave your inheritance to the church rather than to your children, know that the church WILL NOT support this action (As it is questionably legal) [/Edit]
Original Post follows:
Our story tonight opens with a historical tale of one Rachel Ivins. Rachel was the daughter of a wealthy family of Quakers, but like many people who actually ‘got music in their souls’ she was too rambunctious for her family and, in a move they would blame on her sinful needing to sing hymns, she left the religion to join another. Like a caged canary flying out of its cage into a slightly bigger cage and tweeting its freedom to followers everywhere, Rachel joined the Mormon church.
A move, the would cause her family to disinherit her. She left her home with almost nothing and was taken in to the Mormon church a pauper. There she befriended Sally Kimball, one of Joseph Smith’s multiple wives and when she found out the leader of the religion was thinking of adding her to his harem, she left the faith and returned home.
Mormon church manuals have several stories talking about the hard work ethic of this woman, as she, a single mother, would sew until her feet were too tired to work the sewing machine night after night so that she would not have to become a polygamous wife again, or return to her family leaving the faith she loved.
She is heralded as a righteous woman who sacrificed everything for what she believed. And she’s not alone. The stories of families disinheriting people who joined the Mormon Church in the 1800’s are many, and Mormon leaders share them often.
And I don’t care what faith you are, if you can’t handle your children believing something different than you so that you try to manipulate them with money, that is a “dick move”.
Which is why it is a bit surprising to find the Mormon Church, today, encourages members to do exactly that:
If they are worthy of their priesthood, they can then handle the inheritance and continue to do good. If they exercise their agency contrary to my beliefs then the option is that the entire inheritance will go to the church.”
Now we all agreed that it was a “Dick move” to try and manipulate kids with money, I mean, Rachel Ivins could have been living well, not deciding between becoming a 7th wife and wearing her fingers out on curtains for the 6th wife of a wealthy Mormon if her family had not disinherited her; but to then have the Church, itself, say “Give that money to us” is even worse.
Because even though this company encouraging this is called “LDS Philanthropies” it’s actually part of the Mormon Corporate Empire using the same logo, letterhead, and being part of the corporate structure.
And while they claim “One hundred percent of all donations are used to help the needy; overhead for administering aid is paid from the general funds of the LDS Church”, if you look for “LDS Philanthropies Statistics” all you find is a donation box for Statistics majors at BYU. It’s true, Google it. Google it.
You see the church has hidden all of its cash donations since 2010 when it was widely reported by a website, “Mormonthink” that they had only giving about $9 of aide per member per year to actual humanitarian aide; so now only total hours contributed are mentioned. And hours of service are good, but they aren’t a metric that would get you a grade on CharityWatch.org, a company that actually investigates claims about how much money goes to administration and other costs.
Further, as we stated before, donations to BYU are processed through LDS Philanthropies, so it’s very hard to believe that your check you made out thinking you were giving water to children dying of thirst in Africa, isn’t actually subsidizing a general authority of the church’s kid’s failing Econ 101 for the 4th time.
“I know Kearl is hard Tommy, but you have to actually go to the labs. That’s the secret, Tommy, the labs!”
Because, you see, families of church leaders get 100% paid tuition scholarships and that money would end up in the same giant cash-bucked as life-preserving water donations in the corporate structure.
Further, though, encouraging individuals to give their inheritance to your religion over their own family, is actually illegal in several areas under the term “undue influence”. It’s a law that was written to prevent con-men or psychics, or mistresses from stealing a families wealthy by slipping in at the end of someone’s life and making off with the family fortune through a few well placed hand jobs. Or, mind —-ery, that too. Whichever
In fact, one lawyer said on the subject when they learned about this video
I’ve drafted hundreds of wills and I’ve only once agreed to draft an estate that disinherited a child and the reasons were not punishment, but protection of the disinherited. In all other instances I’ve declined to assist in any kind of contingencies based on religious, marital, mission, criminal record tests/criteria. People rarely realize how disinheriting someone can create bad blood for generations. It is usually ruinous to a family. I have low regard for lawyers who assist with this ugly behavior, including the whores at LDS philanthropies.
So here is the thing, Mormon Church; you can either teach in your manuals that people who disinherit family members over belief are dicks who should be mocked mercilessly through the generations in classrooms of your church members, or you pilfer the dollars of dying believers from family members through advertising campaigns like this one; but you can’t have it both ways.
That would make you hypocritical. And we are all hypocritical at times. That’s true. We understand that. But there is someone who had something to say about that:
You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
That’s right, Christ the Lord had a lot to say about Hypocrites, and I love the way that man reads it, so calm and soothing. I picture it more like “YE HYPOCRITES! ALL of you. ALL. So far from me, that I can look behind me to find you. Isaiah, man, he was right. You’re so out there!” Only in Arabic.
Mormon Church, I understand that you’ve a hard time being accepted as Christian; and Lord knows, people abuse that term for money all the time, by the way, have I mentioned I have a church too? You can donate to “Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption”, praise Jesus, and if you want to give us your inheritance, “sucks for your kids, don’t it”?
Mormon church, if you are rejecting the words you claim that Jesus said to Joseph Smith in the First Vision, meanwhile embracing Hypocrisy like this, I think it’s right to call you “not Christian”. You can’t reject the stone the foundation was meant to be built with by decrying individuals who disinherited their families, and then say give us your money; leave those little shits without a dime, oh and also:
Our family can be together forever, by the choices each family member makes (Song: Families can be together forever, sung by a child)
Instead, the slogan should be “Families can be together forever, unless you don’t do exactly what we tell you, then we’ll be Dicks, causing ruinous family relations for generations”.
She has forseen calamities. He knows that an earthquake is comming and troops will invade the U.S. soon.
However, I have been contacted by the Zarbleem; a Race of near-deity individuals from a planet 160.74 light years away. It is hidden from us by dark matter blocking the telescopes. They are granting me near god-like powers to deflect the calamities that Ms. Rowe saw.
As each date comes and the Calamity begins, I shall deflect them away with my God-like powers. When you are confused about how Ms. Rowe got her prophecies wrong, be comforted, she was not wrong, you simply need to thank the Zarbleem (Not myself, of course, I am but their humble tool, and you can be a tool too) for deflecting the near destruction of our way of life.
Look, on the surface, this is a good motivational talk. Encouraging people to push forward through trials, struggles, first world problems; it is to be commended. However, stealing a famous black man’s phrase and twisting its meaning to your white-dominated once extremely racist religion takes even the noble goal of “helping your fellow man” to asshat levels.
No, seriously, he begins by quoting Nelson Mandela:
Mandela frequently deflected accolades by saying, “I’m no saint—that is, unless you think a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.”2
This is again, a great quote. It is encouraging for anyone who is fallen. But Dale doesn’t just say “We are all sinners, we can all still be saints” which would be balm for souls those who try so hard but are still hard on themselves. He doesn’t say “It’s not the point you’re at, it’s the direction you’re headed” with gentle encouragement for those headed down dark paths of life to turn around; which would be spiritual guidance and empathy.
He ties it instantly to perfection:
The term “Saints” is commonly used to designate those who have achieved an elevated state of holiness or even perfection. And we know perfectly well that we are not perfect.
Who… who ties the term “Saints” to perfection? The Catholic church only makes saints after they are dead. Other religions see Saints as ideal in a single principle that Saint emulates. Let’s review a few saints:
St. Guinefort, as he is known among his devoted followers, was a 13th century French dog who was apparently really holy and has been associated with all sorts of miracles.
Basilica of St. Denis celebrates a man who taught the gosple for 6 miles after he was beheaded.
St. Drogo, patron Saint of unattractive people who, during a pilgrimage, was stricken with disease that caused gross deformities.
So exactly who thinks saints are perfected individuals? Mormons.
Our theology does teach us, though, that we may be perfected by repeatedly and iteratively “relying wholly upon” the doctrine of Christ: exercising faith in Him
This message takes the sinner, and puts their imperfection on them again. They, too, would be perfect if only they were better. It takes the glorious message of a man who was imprisoned for 27 years fighting apartheid, recognizing that we all have failings but that should not be cause to give up a struggle, and turns it into a white man’s victim blaming.
Let’s just apply Dale’s logic to the Organization as a whole. The reason that Brigham Young taught that Blacks were not allowed the priesthood must have been because he did not “repeatedly and iteratively relied wholy upon the doctrine of Christ, exercising faith in Him” or else his Doctrine would have been perfect. As such, Brigham was not a Saint, but could become so. You see that’s why the church kept black men from holding the priesthood, Brigham was not a Saint
oh. Hmm.
Conclusion
Maybe a religion that once had such racist claims should “repeatedly and iteratively”, acknowledge what it did, apologize for what it got wrong, try to make restitution to those it hurt, and confess its mistakes before God and the individuals impacted before abusing the quotes of a man who fought apartheid.
Let’s just focus on that “All are lost” and the hope that no matter how bad we’ve been, if we course-correct, there is an idea that it is worth still calling that person a “Saint”.
After all, though we can choose our religious affiliation, none of us can ultimately choose what we truly believe or don’t believe.
As such I would challenge any believing member of church to suddenly stop believing. Even for a minute, throw it all away. Or perhaps, even more universal, try believing in Santa Clause. Not a half-held belief that he might be somewhere, but as real as children believe on Christmas Morning. Or try this, try to believe there is a Duck on your head. Not just imagine it, but believe it so hard that you would fight people who claim there is not . That you would start arguments with friends on facebook and post about the glorious benefits of the head-duck.
Do you see how belief is not a choice? One may be able to alter it with time and effort, but it’s not just like choosing what you’ll eat for breakfast.
Now, to really emphasize it, imagine that you believe that your uncle is a good man. Picture your uncle. Now imagine you sit down at his computer just to do some web surfing, and you find his browser history. Not only does he log in to AshleyMadison.com daily, but he visits a variety of Porn sites. Trying not to judge you go to close the browser history and click on a chat log where he discussing bargening the price on disposing of your aunts body with an individual. Pictures of the gruesome death are posted and your aunt has been missing for a month.
Belief can be altered by external forces. Discovering the evidence of your Uncle’s misdoings alters your belief in a way that is not controllable. One cannot simply believe that the uncle is a good person again. Similarly, imagine that your aunt walks in a few seconds after. The death is not real; she explains that this was all part of a game; and she knew about the AshleyMadison.com profiles. She even points out how she was the “other woman” he was flirting with by logging in to both profiles.
Would you choose to believe in this situation? No, again the outside forces have swayed your belief without your free will even being asked.
So what does that mean for church members?
The implications go from simple understanding to staggering. First, please understand that this entire talk, pointed to someone who doesn’t believe is simlar to finding a parapelegic after a car accident and telling them to walk. Just as they did not control the Mack Truck that crushed their car, members who find historical documents or personal stories have their faith impacted in ways beyond their control. I hope understanding this breeds empathy for those who do not believe.
For the Exmormon trying to convince a loved one that the church is a fraud, it is similar. Just as the exmormon could not simply opt to believe that Joseph Smith Jr. was a good man, they should not expect the believer to see him as a person who committed fraud.
For the Member, they should realize that “But for the grace of God, there go I”. The line between belief and non-belief is thin, and can be shattered by outside influence. Being proud you believe is a false sense of confidence. Many of those who no longer believe once said “I would never stop believing”. It’s beyond one’s control. Science supports that.
And that’s where the world shattering understanding starts. God made us so that our beliefs were more heavily defined by our parents, our peers or our geographical location than our own internal decision making ability. A God who exists as described by scripture understands that external forces convince individuals and He would perfectly know how to impact those individuals to join. If one believes God is omniscient, then individuals joining or leaving the church must be part of His plan, as He could convince people, and made them so that He could.
Further, one must then understand that this talk, while well intentioned, is harmful to relationships and cannot either convince the non-believer, or prevent the believer from falling away. Instead it drives wedges between family; and reduces understanding of the realities of the world.
This talk, given by a general authority, over the pulpit, at General Conference, is not inspired. God allows harmful, wrong ideas to come from his leaders.
Either that, or all of our understanding of science and psychology is wrong; as well as your experiences with my examples above, and we should all just start claiming there are ducks on our heads, because belief is a choice.
So darin’ darlin’ stand… by the tree. Oh baby now, stand, by the tree. ….Just as long, as you stand- stand by the Tree
Shortly before President Heber J. Grant passed away, one of the Brethren visited his home. Before he left, President Grant prayed, “O God, bless me that I shall not lose my testimony and keep faithful to the end!”1
This is a fascinating view into a prophet. Here is a man who dedicated his life to the church, he was Born into it, expected to be an apostle from the moment of his baby blessing. His father died when he was 9 days old, he was more or less forced into polygamy taking two additional wives only when John Taylor threatened to remove any brother not participating in polygamy from their position. Here is a man who served as an Apostle or Prophet through World War I and World War II, and on his deathbed, he is scared he might doubt.
Although Kevin W. Pearson sees this as faith promoting, it should cause any member a moment of ponderance and doubt. Did Heber J. Grant not see Christ when he was called as an apostle? What could cause even the prophet of God to doubt as he was dying?
His example is a striking reminder that no one, at any age, is immune from Satan’s influence. Two of Satan’s most powerful tools are distraction and deception.
If enduring to the end is essential to eternal life, why do we struggle to be faithful? We struggle when we are caught between competing priorities. Casual obedience and lukewarm commitment weaken faith.
To be absolutely clear, Kevin is advocating zealotry here. It isn’t deceptive business practices such as showing images of translation via using the plates while knowing a rock-in-a-hat-with-the-plates-up-a-staircase is the reality that cause people to shy away from service. It isn’t that the organization fires janitors and turns “service” into non-paid labor that could cause a person to question. It isn’t general authorities renovating their personal houses with church funds, no it’s all about misplaced priorities. One’s priorities should be serving him and the other leaders… oops, we mean Christ, because Christ wants a clean toilette and he doesn’t want to pay for it!
Kevin’s solutions:
Don’t Forget to Pray – It’s a great thought and I’m glad he at least mentions direct connection to God and not relying on middle-men for answers. The implication that one needs to do more “What more would You have me do?” rather that implying that God would help the person suffering alone in a dark place is fascinating. Definitely implies that he believes in keeping people too busy to notice the problems
Come unto Christ –
We can fill our lives with accomplishment and well-doing, but in the end, if we do not enter into sacred covenants to follow Christ and faithfully keep them, we will have utterly and completely missed the mark.
Given his previous concept that individuals should pray “What more would you have me do?” this seems in conflict. Now if one doesn’t believe in God; both of these seem pretty worthless bits of advice, but if one believes in Christ, this idea that Christ will send you to do more as an answer to help is almost offensive.
Press Forward with Faith
There is a path that leads to the tree of life, to Christ. It is strait and narrow, strict and exact. God’s commandments are strict but not restrictive. They protect us from spiritual and physical danger and prevent us from getting lost.
This is truly telling, it all comes down, in his mind to Obedience, and yet; in Lehi’s dream “Obedience” is not mentioned at all. Simply finding the Gospel is implied to be the course one needs, but in Mr. Pearson’s mind the Gospel isn’t the goal, but obedience to the leaders current dictates is the true goal.
That is cult mentality.
Service isn’t enough; you need to be a zealot. God isn’t enough, god will make you do more for the organization. Faith isn’t enough, obey the leaders. If you doubt, it’s your fault. The boogie-man can get you if you step away even for a minute.
It seems almost that Mr. Pearson read the BITE model of identifying a cult before being assigned this talk, and then began writing based on it.
The Book of Mormon is Key to Survival – See how we’ve moved from “Faithful” or “Enduring” to “Survival”. Deeper into the cult mindset we go!
When adversity comes, don’t let something you don’t fully understand unravel everything you do know. Be patient, cling to truth; understanding will come.
Compare this to secular wisdom:
Instead of clinging to “Truth” which we may or may not know; put your knowledge to the test. Kevin’s suggestions are how we get “Faith promoting rumor” that spreads like wildfire throughout the church. Many times when I point out a flaw in the church people say “Oh that’s the culture, not the church”; talks like this one is what promotes and creates that culture
Don’t be Distracted and Deceived
Heeding those who do not believe in Christ will not help you find Him. Searching #spaciousbuilding for knowledge will not lead you to truth. It’s not posted there.
And here you have anti-intellectualism. Philosophy, thinking about our motivations, or epistemology all are distractions and deceptions to Kevin. Only he and his buddies can tell you about Christ.
Everything else is just words.
May I humbly suggest that this philosophy of a man, mingled with scripture is also “Just words” but words are never “just words”. They cause people to take action. They can hurt individuals. People with OCD, trying to keep every commandment can break when they are told the problem is with them and they need to work harder. People with depression can be crushed under such advice.
Further, calling the other side’s arguments “just words” really isn’t a strong argument.
Conclusion
Talks like this that encourage cult-like devotion to leadership and blame the doubter for their problems and questions; or shift it all to the boogyman under the bed are harmful and individuals who give them should be held accountable for turning a nice religion that helps people along their journey into a cult that could be easily twisted by leadership.
We encourage members and non-members to push for accountability to LDS leadership for when they speak that they must 1) be honest and 2) be accepting of those who are trying and 3) not be harmful to family relationships where someone leaves the organization. This is not expecting too much, I think, from men who control billions of dollars and the devotion of millions of people.
