Context for Talk

[Bob Crockett]

What is wrong with making subjective determinations?

A New Age view of Jesus Christ's unconditional love is contrary to Biblical principles.

Sure, Jesus loves his children, but he also corrects them, lectures them and declares them evil if need be.

[WalkerW]

A New Age view of Jesus Christ's unconditional love is contrary to Biblical principles.

Sure, Jesus loves his children, but he also corrects them, lectures them and declares them evil if need be.

Is this not a "subjective determination"?

No one said anything about New Age views.

[Senator]

So what? They're human. My inlaws were in their home ward when Elder Haight came for a visit. The organist was sitting at the organ, her husband on the stand, and their 8 young children a little unruly. Elder Haight interrupted the meeting to demand that the parents of these children control them.

Really?

I believe I would be of mind to leave the stand or the organ, respectively, gather up my 8 little darlings and march right on out door to tend to my kids at home.

Or perhaps, (hopefully) E. Haight didn't actually speak in such a way as you present it.

[WalkerW]

Really?

I believe I would be of mind to leave the stand or the organ, respectively, gather up my 8 little darlings and march right on out door to tend to my kids at home.

Or perhaps, (hopefully) E. Haight didn't actually speak in such a way as you present it.

Joseph Smith would have said (about the children), "Let them stay!" He did so during his own sermons when other brethren tried to usher them out.

[mercyngrace]

In this case, however, there is nothing to indicate that Elder McConkie was in error except your own subjective determination as to what is being Christ-like and what is not. I guess you don't want to acknowledge my points above about the story being told from soup to nuts in this instance, culminating in the release of Pres. Pace. Again, it is too easy to whip up poor Elder McConkie over the incident, but I thought at the time that Pres. Pace was kind of loony.

Actually, if you'll read back up through the thread, you will see where I pointed to the temple drama as evidence that Elder McConkie was in error. I could be wrong but since we're discussing doctrine, the endowment strikes me as authoritative.

"Loony" is subjective. "Whip up" is subjective. "Poor" is subjective.

rcrocket, are you really suggesting that the temple drama and the scriptures (I cited Moses 1:39) are not authoritative in a discussion of LDS doctrine?

[mercyngrace]

A New Age view of Jesus Christ's unconditional love is contrary to Biblical principles.

Sure, Jesus loves his children, but he also corrects them, lectures them and declares them evil if need be.

Isn't the "condition" coming unto Christ?

[consiglieri]

So what? They're human.

Of course they are human, but that is no excuse for an apostle of God to behave abominably to anyone, much less to one of the church he purports to lead.

Bruce R. McConkie was a bully, plain and simple.

Although this is my "subjective determination," Elder McConkie was jealous of the attention Pace was getting and felt threatened.

That is why he lashed out at Pace publicly the way he did with no warning beforehand. He perceived Pace as an enemy to himself, and therefore an enemy to the entire church.

It is interesting that the issue was whether we worship (and have a relationship with) a lesser being in the Godhead that the Father.

Ironically, Elder McConkie's adamant stance (contrary to the Book of Mormon) that we are to have no spiritual relationship with anybody less than the top dog was reflected in the fact he did not want other church members to have a spiritual relationship with anybody less than the duly constituted general authorities of the Church.

Just my thoughts.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Senator]

Bruce R. McConkie was a bully, plain and simple.

Although this is my "subjective determination," Elder McConkie was jealous of the attention Pace was getting and felt threatened.

That is why he lashed out at Pace publicly the way he did with no warning beforehand. He perceived Pace as an enemy to himself, and therefore an enemy to the entire church.

It is interesting that the issue was whether we worship (and have a relationship with) a lesser being in the Godhead that the Father.

Ironically, Elder McConkie's adamant stance (contrary to the Book of Mormon) that we are to have no spiritual relationship with anybody less than the top dog was reflected in the fact he did not want other church members to have a spiritual relationship with anybody less than the duly constituted general authorities of the Church.

Ok...

What gives Consig??

[WalkerW]

Ok...

What gives Consig??

He really doesn't like Bruce.

[consiglieri]

He really doesn't like Bruce.

I hope that didn't seem like it came out of the blue.

Some people hold apostles to a lower standard that other folks.

Call me crazy, but I feel they should be held to a higher standard.

This incident, more than any other of which I am aware, painted Elder McConkie in his true colors.

He was a smart feller never fitted for the apostleship but got there anyway through the machinations of his father-in-law.

Can you say "nepotism"?

Would I have felt differently if he had apologized? Absolutely. But . . . he . . . never . . . did.

Either publicly (which is what he should have done--just as public as his unjustified denouncement) or privately.

(Cue the BRMA saying I can't know if he ever apologized privately.)

Elder McConkie got a lot of mileage out of his knowledge of the scriptures.

Too bad all that book learning never translated into mere Christianity.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

P.S. Sorry for the rant, but like WalkerW said, I really don't like Bruce.

[WalkerW]

I hope that didn't seem like it came out of the blue.

It didn't for me. I remember sharing your thoughts on Bruce long ago with my parents. Posters on a particular thread were trying to justify something Elder McConkie had said. You simply called him a "pompous windbag" (or something like that) and moved on. It made me laugh.

I have a love/hate relationship with Elder McConkie. I'm often blown away by him, both in good ways and bad ways. To be fair, I think this is true of just about anyone. However, McConkie achieved more spotlight (largely of his own doing) than many others. Therefore, I have more to go on.

[Duncan]

As long as we are sharing brethren stories, my bro-in law told me about a time when Elder Ashton visited his mission and someone told the organist to play something that everyone would know and then the missionaries would just join in and so when the time came he started playing the Flintstones theme! Everyone knows that song!

[mercyngrace]

Consig,

If it makes you feel any better, my dad was present during a conversation where a man was raving about Mormon Doctrine and Elder McConkie said he wished he'd never written the book.

Even apostles repent.

MnG

[consiglieri]

It didn't for me. I remember sharing your thoughts on Bruce long ago with my parents. Posters on a particular thread were trying to justify something Elder McConkie had said. You simply called him a "pompous windbag" (or something like that) and moved on. It made me laugh.

I have a love/hate relationship with Elder McConkie. I'm often blown away by him, both in good ways and bad ways. To be fair, I think this is true of just about anyone. However, McConkie achieved more spotlight (largely of his own doing) than many others. Therefore, I have more to go on.

I'm glad I didn't offend you, WW. I'm not sure what annoys me most--the way BRM acted sometimes or the way people try to justify his bad behavior.

But then, I also have to take into the mix that one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I ever had was sitting in a chapel in Austin, Texas, watching him give his final testimony in April 1985 General Conference.

It was then I understood what it meant to feel the Spirit like a mighty, rushing wind.

But he was still a boor.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[consiglieri]

Consig,

If it makes you feel any better, my dad was present during a conversation where a man was raving about Mormon Doctrine and Elder McConkie said he wished he'd never written the book.

Even apostles repent.

MnG

Did he wish it strong enough to stop having it republished?

[mercyngrace]

Did he wish it strong enough to stop having it republished?

+1

[Bikeemikey]

BRM was more Scriptorian than scholar.

When presented with principles or arguments he did not like he tended to smear the person and ignore the arguments themselves. Even in the talk we are discussing he never really mounts a powerful argument, rather he pokes fun at and undermines the people who are the messengers of the arguments he doesn't like.

I think one of the negative legacies of the BRM era is that it seems to create an ethos where memorizing the scriptures is more important than understanding what they. It inspires a vicious literalism in which the first tenant is to shame those to wish to inquire to much or ask to many questions.

It might be possible that BRM's biggest limitation lay in his lack of creativity regarding which questions to ask. Mormon Doctrine takes the innovation, inspiration and meat of Joseph Smiths restored theology and replaces the bulk of it with conservative principles and doctrine you could find in almost any bible belt church gathering (for the most part).

I don't have any personal views on BRM I was to young to really hear him speak. I know his final testimony was powerful and moving. I am also sure that he was a great leader in the church. Mormon Doctrine is however a staggeringly boring book with little creative insight or true theological illumination. For the church that brought the world Joseph Smith and the restored gospel to have such a large group a saints that still hold to Mormon Doctrine as the pillar and standard of our theology is frankly embarrassing. That such a huge measure of our educational curriculum is devoted to BRM quotes from Mormon Doctrine illustrates how little we really appreciate what we have in the doctrine and covenants and Book of Mormon.

To top it all off it appears to BRM inspired and anti-intellectualism that allowed him to publish a book that is quite objectively poor scholarship.

I am happy that the church culture is moving back in a direction where Scholarship is now of greater value than it was to BRM.

[consiglieri]

I don't have any personal views on BRM I was to young to really hear him speak. I know his final testimony was powerful and moving. I am also sure that he was a great leader in the church. Mormon Doctrine is however a staggeringly boring book with little creative insight or true theological illumination. For the church that brought the world Joseph Smith and the restored gospel to have such a large group a saints that still hold to Mormon Doctrine as the pillar and standard of our theology is frankly embarrassing. That such a huge measure of our educational curriculum is devoted to BRM quotes from Mormon Doctrine illustrates how little we really appreciate what we have in the doctrine and covenants and Book of Mormon.

And though Mormon Doctrine has been taken off the shelves, it continues to abide in an anonymous and even more authoritative incarnation as the Bible Dictionary.

Sort of like Banquo's Ghost . . .

All the Best!

--Consiglieri