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Callings given to imperfect human beings


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On 9/3/2019 at 11:27 AM, Scott Lloyd said:

I’m of the opinion that only those personally and materially involved in a misdeed bear accountability for it, although those who come later can express disapproval of it. 

This happened several years ago when the Illinois General Assembly passed a resolution expressing regret for the oppression of the Latter-day Saints in that state in the 1840s. There is no way anyone now living bears culpability for said oppression. But it was a nice gesture. 

It also happened when Church leaders some years ago expressed regret for the errant actions of Church members who perpetrated the Mountain Meadows Massacre. No one now living is culpable for the massacre, and the Church as an institution is not, because the perpetrators acted without authorization from the Church. But a formal expression of regret (not an apology or an acceptance of blame) was appropriate under the circumstances.

 

Yesterday I came back from a short vaca in St. George with some friends. They mentioned one thing on the list to do might be to visit MMM monument. And I told them I heard that Glen M. Leonard who co authored the book about it with Richard L. Turley, was speaking last night in St. George. I don't think they made it, but think it would have been very interesting. I bet he was presenting because it was around the anniversary of the MMM happening. I guess our friend's relative participated in it. :( Also, I listened to this podcast on Gospel Tangents about who bears the responsibility with Barbara Jones Brown. She said Brigham Young wouldn't be directly to blame for it, but lit the fire that possibly started it. 

https://gospeltangents.com/2019/03/who-bears-responsibility-for-mmm/

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6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Yesterday I came back from a short vaca in St. George with some friends. They mentioned one thing on the list to do might be to visit MMM monument. And I told them I heard that Glen M. Leonard who co authored the book about it with Richard L. Turley, was speaking last night in St. George. I don't think they made it, but think it would have been very interesting. I bet he was presenting because it was around the anniversary of the MMM happening. I guess our friend's relative participated in it. :( Also, I listened to this podcast on Gospel Tangents about who bears the responsibility with Barbara Jones Brown. She said Brigham Young wouldn't be directly to blame for it, but lit the fire that possibly started it. 

https://gospeltangents.com/2019/03/who-bears-responsibility-for-mmm/

Why don’t you just read the book that Leonard, Turley and Ron Walker wrote?

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12 hours ago, Tacenda said:

She said Brigham Young wouldn't be directly to blame for it, but lit the fire that possibly started it.

All religions and causes have the potential to produce zealots.  It has no bearing on the correctness of the cause or religion.

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40 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Something continually bothers here. Why is the church not the progressive church, but instead a regressive one. Why are we last in change? Blacks in the PH, Gays and SSM, polygamy?

If God speaks to our leaders why are we last to know?

Actually the world in general is the last to know what God really wants and what God really thinks.  It's not as if our Lord's church is supposed to keep up and conform to the standards generally accepted by everyone in the world, as if the world always has the correct view.

The black skin thing never was a bad thing.  It was meant as a sign to show they had rejected the Lord and his correct teachings as taught by prophets of God through the ages.  When they started to return to him, after the restoration of the priesthood in this last dispensation,  then the Lord saw fit to authorize their ordinations to offices in the priesthood.  It just took a little while longer for that to happen than it did for some other people.

The "gay" thing is bad, though, and it always has been and always will be bad.  It's good for people to love others of their same sex but there should be no same sex sexual relations whether the laws of the land consider them to be "married" or not.

Edited by Ahab
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5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Something continually bothers here. Why is the church not the progressive church, but instead a regressive one. Why are we last in change? Blacks in the PH, Gays and SSM, polygamy?

If God speaks to our leaders why are we last to know?

Are we?

In some ways we are very progressive (if defining progressive in terms of social movements)...see history of welfare for example.  Also educational programs.

What do you mean last to know?  Who else is being told before membership about revelations?

Edited by Calm
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We've been discussing polygamy, and I wanted to bring up something Joseph Smith did wrong. So a very imperfect thing to do. He didn't follow the revealed doctrine in the Doctrine and Covenants section 132:61. So how in the world was he able to get away with it. I'm thinking, not sure, it's because the 132 section was later added when Joseph was dead? Also, note that Brigham Young did live polyandry with section 132 in place, I'm thinking. So he did imperfect things as well. Well, I think he did a lot of imperfect things. ETA: It appears that they've left the verse out of the seminary lesson. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-and-church-history-seminary-teacher-manual-2014/section-6/lesson-140-doctrine-and-covenants-132-1-2-34-66?lang=eng&fbclid=IwAR3O5SDR2QIoCwRg-B1yCfyo-gONBMIVhVRy0Hwf7vnT0U9CbQ_SwqDO9dI

61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse aanother, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

 

Edited by Tacenda
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Sunday School President

The organ player in Sacrament meetings

Young Men's President

Elder's Quorum President

Bishop

We got rid of the high priest group leader so that is one less calling to give to imperfect human beings, but there are still a lot of other callings to give.

Sunday School Gospel Doctrine Teacher

First Counselor in a ward bishopric

Second Counselor in a ward bishopric

Executive Secretary to the ward bishop

Ward Membership Clerk

Ward Finance Clerk

Relief Society President

And a lot of other callings, I'm sure, that I'm not thinking of at this moment.

 

 

Edited by Ahab
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  • 3 months later...

Listened to a podcast called "Gospel Tangents" and it's host, Rick Bennett interviews Don Bradley about Fanny Alger. The first time I heard that she was pregnant with Joseph's baby before she was sent away. And later the baby died, but there isn't a reason stated as to how that baby died. Sounds very suspicious, to me anyway, why there isn't a reason it died. Does anyone know by chance what happened to the child? Here's the link if anyone would like to listen, very informative and even talks about the quote by Oliver Cowdery that it was a dirty, nasty, filthy affair. But Oliver's nephew is the one who wrote over the original word "scrape", and put "affair," trying to make it look better, because back in those days it didn't mean what it means now. An affair was just an occurrence, where a scrape was worse in a way. https://gospeltangents.com/

 

Edited by Tacenda
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42 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

The first time I heard that she was pregnant with Joseph's baby before she was sent away. And later the baby died, but there isn't a reason stated as to how that baby died

Did Don state this was a fact or one of the rumors?  I am surprised with all your concern and references to Joseph's plural marriages/affairs, you missed this.

From the site: 

Quote

Was Fanny pregnant?  Don Bradley thinks it is a strong possibility.  Check out our conversation….

So not a statement of fact by Don.

Old threads:

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/60099-speculating-about-poor-fanny/?do=findComment&comment=1209226534

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/50479-dating-fanny-alger/

 

Edited by Calm
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2 hours ago, Calm said:

Did Don state this was a fact or one of the rumors?  I am surprised with all your concern and references to Joseph's plural marriages/affairs, you missed this.

From the site: 

So not a statement of fact by Don.

Old threads:

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/60099-speculating-about-poor-fanny/?do=findComment&comment=1209226534

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/50479-dating-fanny-alger/

 

Thanks for the links, it looks like this thread in 2013 was shut down pretty quick. Here's a c/p of what Don said. Not sure if it will help though. 

Don: So that’s a possibility that I’m raising. It was pointed out to me immediately after the presentation, actually by two Community of Christ apostles who were there, that for a woman at the time of her first pregnancy, she usually starts showing a little bit later. Fanny, the reports say, was visibly pregnant at the time Emma discovered the relationship. And so the chronology there might not work for the relationship to have begun after April 3, because Fanny would have had to have had the time to get pregnant and then start showing before Emma discovered the relationship according to some of the sources.

GT:  Wasn’t it discovered in the barn?

Don:  Yes. But she was also said to have been visibly pregnant and the people who are saying this are actually the people whose home that Fanny moved into when she was kicked out of the Smith home. So they would know. And so a likely sequence of events is Fanny is showing signs of pregnancy, maybe morning sickness. She is starting to show, right? And that makes Emma suspicious something is going on. And so she starts following Fanny’s movements more and finds Joseph and Fanny together in the barn.

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5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

it looks like this thread in 2013 was shut down pretty quick

It is possible.  Or it is possible there just weren't a lot of posts on that thread as there was an automatic locking of older threads up to a certain date.  Added:  looks like automatic locking stopped  sometime after Jan 2016 (iirc, threads were locked at 6 months old, which would mean the practice stopped in June 2016, but it could have been longer).  http://www.mormondialogue.org/forum/11-general-discussions/page/147/  Anything earlier then 2016 is locked.

Don is pretty positive about it and I wouldn't be surprised if he was right given I believe Alger's family believed she was married to Joseph Smith.  But as with many things historical, it is rightly presented as a possibility (appropriately imo strong possibility) by him imo as there is no evidence of a birth at that time and a miscarriage has to be assumed.  It would explain her quick marriage to Custer ( think that was his name) as well as Webb's comments.

Edited by Calm
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For those who don't like podcasts, this paper by Don may be useful from the collection of documents used for Hales' polygamy books:

http://mormonpolygamydocuments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/JS0519.doc

https://mormonpolygamydocuments.org/about/

Quote

A polygamous marital relationship between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger is better evidenced by the data than an extramarital affair, better fits the contemporaneous context, and holds greater explanatory power.  It is more voluminous, of more distinct types, from a greater range of persons, and less ambiguous.  The evidence demonstrates that the relationship between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger, when we know of it existing in spring-summer 1836, was carried out in a church into which polygamy had entered and in which non-legal marriages could be justified as divinely sanctioned.  

In such a case, where the evidence is thoroughly mixed, a key interpretive question is, “Which of these hypotheses best explains the evidence for the other?”  The polygamy interpretation of Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger’s relationship accounts for the rise of its opposite, and for a great deal of data the other cannot.

Rumors and assertions that Smith and Alger committed adultery are readily explained under the polygamy interpretation if not everyone was in the know regarding the marital relationship or regarded it as legitimate.  In this case, the relationship would be assumed adulterous by default.  But the adultery interpretation does not similarly explain contemporaneous rumors, early accounts, family accounts, and numerous reminiscences of polygamy, which is decidedly not the default interpretation for an intimate relationship between a married person and someone besides their legal spouse.  

Though secret, atypical, and of uncertain officiator and date, Joseph Smith’s relationship with Fanny Alger merits identification as his earliest known polygamous marriage.  Polygamy appears to have gotten underway in Kirtland, which requires that scholars interpret the practice in the light of Kirtland theology, as well as that of Nauvoo, and that they interpret Kirtland theology in light of this unorthodox marital practice.  

 

Edited by Calm
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Chauncy Webb and Eliza Jane Churchill Webb, the husband and wife, Fanny Alger stayed with when she left the Smith home, each independently indicated she was pregnant at the time.

I've laid all this out in a conference presentation and will lay it out more fully in published form, when I get to it!

Don

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On 9/20/2019 at 11:30 AM, Ahab said:

Actually the world in general is the last to know what God really wants and what God really thinks.  It's not as if our Lord's church is supposed to keep up and conform to the standards generally accepted by everyone in the world, as if the world always has the correct view.

The black skin thing never was a bad thing.  It was meant as a sign to show they had rejected the Lord and his correct teachings as taught by prophets of God through the ages.  When they started to return to him, after the restoration of the priesthood in this last dispensation,  then the Lord saw fit to authorize their ordinations to offices in the priesthood.  It just took a little while longer for that to happen than it did for some other people.

The "gay" thing is bad, though, and it always has been and always will be bad.  It's good for people to love others of their same sex but there should be no same sex sexual relations whether the laws of the land consider them to be "married" or not.

Holy cow

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On 1/5/2020 at 10:52 PM, DonBradley said:

Chauncy Webb and Eliza Jane Churchill Webb, the husband and wife, Fanny Alger stayed with when she left the Smith home, each independently indicated she was pregnant at the time.

I've laid all this out in a conference presentation and will lay it out more fully in published form, when I get to it!

Don

@DonBradley or anyone that cares to answer, what do you say to people like Alan Rock Waterman, when they say Joseph Smith didn't live polygamy and it was all made up. I'm having a conversation elsewhere about it and he posted this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hK4GoiBUNAG3mn5ahyP_qugM5-tXVfs2/view?fbclid=IwAR0poZ4rYr6wHNXXl0UD0BCEQj0jIyIQW8JhS7Est97yPxPJZrN9z2HxH_o

Is there anything I can say, or is it a lost cause?

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On 9/20/2019 at 12:55 PM, Tacenda said:

Something continually bothers here. Why is the church not the progressive church, but instead a regressive one. Why are we last in change? Blacks in the PH, Gays and SSM, polygamy?

If God speaks to our leaders why are we last to know?

There is an incredibly loaded and assumed premise in that conclusion.

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On 9/20/2019 at 1:30 PM, Ahab said:

Actually the world in general is the last to know what God really wants and what God really thinks.  It's not as if our Lord's church is supposed to keep up and conform to the standards generally accepted by everyone in the world, as if the world always has the correct view.

The black skin thing never was a bad thing.  It was meant as a sign to show they had rejected the Lord and his correct teachings as taught by prophets of God through the ages.  When they started to return to him, after the restoration of the priesthood in this last dispensation,  then the Lord saw fit to authorize their ordinations to offices in the priesthood.  It just took a little while longer for that to happen than it did for some other people.

The "gay" thing is bad, though, and it always has been and always will be bad.  It's good for people to love others of their same sex but there should be no same sex sexual relations whether the laws of the land consider them to be "married" or not.

Yikes........

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Tacenda, in regards to Waterman's link....I was not impressed with Karren's research into his own family's complicated relationships (kept claiming documents proved things they didn't iirc), I find it unlikely his historical research is worthwhile to slog through given his methodology.

If someone is using his work as evidence, I would suggest doublechecking all his paraphrasing with the original source as well as full context of any quotes he uses.

Edited by Calm
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2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Tacenda, in regards to Waterman's link....I was not impressed with Karren's research into his own family's complicated relationships (kept claiming documents proved things they didn't iirc), I find it unlikely his historical research is worthwhile to slog through given his methodology.

If someone is using his work as evidence, I would suggest doublechecking all his paraphrasing with the original source as well as full context of any quotes he uses.

Thanks Calm, will look into it. This may take some time...time I'm not sure I want to give. Now I feel bad for making some of you counter what I say on here all these years..give you all so much credit!

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20 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Thanks Calm, will look into it. This may take some time...time I'm not sure I want to give. Now I feel bad for making some of you counter what I say on here all these years..give you all so much credit!

It being January, there is just no way I am going to struggle through his writing.  It might be fun at other times.

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