omni

Just checked on exmormon reddit, and even they’re very skeptical of Denson’s claims.

While it’s still uncertain what exactly happened, at this point it appears Denson is a troubled soul crying out for help.

1 hour ago, alter idem said:

I think there may be some truth in the suggestion that our leaders are 'giving us more rope to hang ourselves with if we choose'.  And, I'm certain that some members will take it as license to spend a small fortune to throw the huge social wedding, with the dresses that won't 'work' with garments and champagne for their non-member guests etc, but that is their choice.  Personally, I think this is just another example of how short the time is.  I really like the direction that we are going as a church, with more responsibility on ourselves and more opportunity to exercise agency and choose for ourselves.  We know that eventually the 'wheat' and 'tares' need to separate, and it will be by their own choices.

I’m having trouble understanding your logic here.  

Why would the couple serve champagne at their wedding?  Isn’t that usually done at the reception, which are already being performed?

Why would the bride choose a dress she couldn’t wear a couple of hours later during the sealing?

Why would money be an issue, given the frugality of most LDS weddings, wouldn’t most of them be at the local church or another inexpensive venue?

I’m really struggling to see how this isn’t anything but great news.

8 hours ago, USU78 said:

 

The press is nobody's friend. The press is not a friend of accuracy. The press is not the friend of people. The press is only interested in subscriptions and clicks and market share. The press is a moral and ethical cesspool.

Perhaps you should alert the brethren as the Church owns multiple press outlets.

1 hour ago, ALarson said:

But who changed them, man or God?

From my perspective, man.  However, from a believing perspective I think you could easily make a valid case for God.

Try reading the Old Testament, then the New Testament, then the D&C, then attend a modern day church service and then tell me doctrine doesn’t change.

33 minutes ago, juliann said:

That they are wrongly referred to as "the church essays?" Said no one ever. He isn't being treated any differently than the church essays are so all that comparison does is support that it is all right to refer to his the same way. 

This wasn’t the point I was making.  Referring to these essays as “Dehlin’s essays” is equivalent to referring to the church essays as “President Monson’s essays”.

Anyways, this really isn’t important to the OP. 

13 minutes ago, juliann said:

Who runs and controls MSE and is making all of the statements? Really, this is just getting silly and is looking like a way to avoid discussing the content. 

Once again, the same criticism could be applied to the Church essays.  IMO, it's not a big deal either way,  I just feel it's more accurate to refer to them as "Mormon Stories Essays" as Dehlin has stated from the beginning they were not authored by him, but rather an "amateur historian".  

That being said, as John receives feedback on potential inaccuracies in the essays, it then becomes his responsibility to update accordingly.

2 hours ago, juliann said:

If it was used as a formal reference or something, of course. Otherwise I think it is unreasonable to expect to see essays that were announced by Dehlin as something he solicited, and put on his website called anything but his essays. I recall he was proud of his sources, none of which were academically sound.

Even when authors were identified on FM, it was consistently referred to as FM’s product even when a disclaimer was posted. 

Has Dehlin posted any disclaimer that the essay is the work of the author and may or may not reflect his views?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to refer to it as the "Mormon Stories Essays"?

After all, we don't refer to the Church essays as "Monson's Essays" even though he likely commissioned and approved them.

It should be noted that the Mormon Stories website has this to say regarding the essays:

Quote

While the framework of the core essays is largely complete, various editors remain actively engaged in the early stages of an ongoing work in progress; many updates and improvements will be made. We value your feedback on tone, content, length, sources, etc. as each topic develops.

Also, when John first introduced the essays on his podcast, he reiterated this point by mentioning they were drafted by an amateur historian and were essentially a work in progress and therefore needed the help of his listeners for feedback on tone, content, and sources.

John has now apparently received some feedback, lets see what he does with it.

I wonder how many believing LDS here are disappointed with the Church’s response?

While I understand that many are unhappy with the phrase “get your own planet”, it seems like this would have been an excellent opportunity for the Church to clarify the doctrine.  

In my experience, the belief that we can become gods and create worlds without number is widely held among the general membership and has been taught by Church leaders from the beginning.   Unfortunatley, I think your average reader would come to the opposite conclusion based on the Newsroom response. 

30 minutes ago, pogi said:

My current Bishop was just called a few months ago.  He is 34 years old.  This is the first time I have ever been older than my bishop.  Makes me feel old! 

I can see good arguments for young bishops and older bishops.  One good reason to call younger bishops - if we want general authorities with a good history of leadership experience, we have to call them young.  If you think our leadership is old now, just imagine if we didn't start calling bishops until their mid-40's!  There would be an incredibly high turn over in the upper leadership.  Our prophets have all been serving in leadership positions form most of their life.  If I remember right, Monson was called as a bishop in his young twenties, and was called as an apostle in his mid 30's!  Even at that he barely lived long enough to serve as President at full capacity.

So, I agree, on a local level mid 40's-50's is probably the ideal age for a bishop for the reasons you mentioned, but on the church-wide level, we need to prepare our future leaders starting at a young age.  

I thought of this as well, but the idea that apostles and prophets need decades of church leadership experience seems to be a modern notion.  

I realize we live in a different world, however throughout the scriptures and even the modern church we see examples of apostles and prophets who were called without decades of leadership experience.

I have a good friend who was called as a bishop a couple of years ago in a well established Utah ward.  This friend is very devout and would do anything for the church, however he recently confided in me that when called, he was so upset he initially tried to turn it down, but ultimately accepted after some convincing from the SP.  

Both him and his wife were experiencing significant health issues, dealing with the recent and unexpected death of a parent, a struggling business they owned, and raising four small children.  After recounting a number of horror stories, I expected him to say that after a rough beginning he now loves his calling and couldn’t imagine doing anything else, but instead while things have improved, he still feels like he’s treading water and wonders if he’ll make it.

I’m left wondering, is it worth the toll taken on these men and their families when there are often so many other older men that could truly dedicate their time and experience to the calling?

We recently attended my in-law’s ward in Orem, Utah and I noticed the bishop was in his mid-thirties with four small children.  This isn’t too unusual, however approximately 80% of the ward consisted of retirees with the remaining 20% comprised of newlyweds and a few families.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s all of my bishops were in the 45-55 year old range, however since then they have all been in the 35-45 year old range (except for the student wards I attended).

It seems that when possible, a retired priesthood holder (or at a minimum one with grown children) would make the ideal bishop.  It would allow the bishop to have the time needed to dedicate to the calling, decades of additional church service  experience, while not being a burden for those families with young children.

I realize my experience is anecdotal, however have any of you noticed bishops getting called at a younger age over the last couple of decades?

Is there any scriptural support or have the brethren ever stated why bishops are called at a reletively young age?

Yes, the Trib covered the story yesterday (I believe they were the first, but don’t hold me to that).

I agree, this was done in poor taste and he would likely never pull a similar stunt if the predominant religion were Judiasm or Islam.

Disappointing, especially since he was so great on Arrested Development. 

On 7/4/2018 at 3:41 AM, Scott Lloyd said:

A ward I was previously in tried a “linger longer” after the meeting block. Bad idea! Kids were running around unsupervised. Pandemonium. Extremely irreverent and unseemly. It lasted one week. 

Come on Scott, linger lingers are great!  

This is literally the first time I’ve heard someone complain about them.  

It’s like complaining about puppies or chocolate...or chocolate puppies?

5 hours ago, juliann said:

And this is not just a Mormon problem, we do have the advantage of not officially segregating congregations so we don't have the bigger the problem of a white church on one side of the street and a black on the other. 

To be fair, it’s pretty easy to not segregate your church into black and white congregations when it would have been imposssible to do so (prior to the ban).

I’m not familiar with the site, but at the top of the page it states the site is satirical.  Also, the disclaimer at the bottom states that everything is made up.

2 hours ago, rongo said:

Even today, with all of our generations of converts, if you ask people in a class to raise their hand if they have polygamy in their heritage, an overwhelming majority raise their hands. Even today. Even  first generation converts often find that they had polygamist Mormons several generations back. 

This argument seems to get brought up a lot, but I don’t find it persuasive.  Through generations of intermarriage, you would expect to find a high proportion of members (especially those living in the West) to have some  polygamy in their heritage, even if it were just two out of their 10 possible ancestors.

What If a greater number of people in your classroom scenario raised their hands if they had an ancestoral line that never practiced polygamy (assuming both lines traced back to early Mormonism)?  Would that be evidence that monogamous marriages produced more righteous offspring?

15 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I have also noticed that the online posters to SLTrib stories seem to be overly negative.  They are usually much more negative that the original article.  IMO, I think the Trib does a good job of reporting.  They are not going to give the church a free pass, but they also don't intentionally take jabs at it either. 

Agreed, I think the Tribune does a good job for the most part on taking a balanced approach to reporting stories about the church.

The comment section on the other hand is generally a cesspool, view at your own risk...

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

It's not a matter of attitude.  And the calling of apostles is not a matter of race-based nose-counting.

Thanks,

-Smac

Why does it have to be a “matter of race-based nose counting” or political correctness?  Why can’t it be a matter of statistical improbility?

Think about it, in the 175 year history of the church every single apostle and prophet has been a white male.  Even taking into account the church’s predominantly white demographics, statistically speaking one would expect at least some non-white apostles over its history.

Now if one accepts that race may have played a role when when choosing these leaders (either via God or the Q15), well then that would solve our statistical conundrum.

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I still want facts, not assertions.  That means reviewing actual records, not rumormongering.  If Asay was an idiot in this matter, then we need to know it based on facts.  At that point, it is appropriate to drag his name through the mud.  This applies to all others potentially involved.  In a social media world, people no longer care about facts.  They prefer assumptions.  They prefer to tar and feather someone immediately.  Guilty till proven innocent.

Wasn't this before Catholic Church and BSA scandals?  

It's my understanding that a lot of the controls we see in place today (e.g. A bishop must call the hotline after any confession / reporting of abuse) were a result of systemic abuse coverups that we're exposed in the 90s and 2000s.

Perhaps Asay was involved in a coverup  or more likely it could have been that he simply didn't believe the woman (just like the two singles ward bishops).

In other words, the Church appears to have been handling abuse just like most other large institutions were at the time.

Of course, if you're claiming to be God's one true church, then I'm not sure the hey-everybody-else-was-doing-it excuse really works.

1 hour ago, Calm said:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/crime/article/Former-Mormon-mission-president-accused-of-sexual-12771646.php

"Greg Bishop said there was no sexual assault and that the woman exposed her breasts to his father, unsolicited, during the encounter in the office in 1984. He said his father was apologizing in the recorded conversation for anything he did to make her feel like she could do that."

It's a Christmas miracle, his memory returned!

Surprise, surprise, it turns out he was really the victim after all of these years.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Kids if they have any feeling at all aren't going to publicly announce their parent has dementia unless they have to  if the parent is still capable of reading or watching news.  I hope my mother dies before she knows I think she has dementia.  I insist when she gets troubled by her confusion, it is simply the same as everyone else.  Dementia patients have enough to deal with already, they don't need to have their nose rubbed into the fact they are slowly losing their mind.

I think every family handles these delicate situations differently.  My MIL recently passed away after a long battle with dementia.  When she did or said things as a result of the dementia, family members would politely explain the situation to help others understand what was occurring.

 If the "confessions" were simply a result of his dementia, I would think the family would want to get that out as soon as possible to reduce tarnishing his legacy.

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Bro. Bishop was prompted to given an apology to someone to someone who said he had assaulted her.  He does not recall the incident, but apologizes anyway.  

I think his apology was intended principally as an attempt to mollify her.  To seek reconciliation.  An apology as an admission of guilt seems odd, since he does not recall what he is being accused of (and even significantly misremembers it).

Thanks,

-Smac

So why does he repeatedly apologize for such a serious accusation?  

I realize he may not remember the alleged rape attempt, but it appears he feels he was capable of such actions based on other sexual indiscretions he's committed.

In fact he admits as much when the interviewer asks him if this sounds like something he was capable of doing and he responds affirmatively (I forget the exact wording and don't have the transcript in front of me).   

33 minutes ago, smac97 said:

An apology is sometimes more about attempts at reconciliation than about allocation of fault.

Thanks,

-Smac

You're comparing an apology given to relieve the awkwardness or offense in a social interaction (something we have all done) to an apology given after an accusation of rape (probably something none of us have done).

Not sure you want to stick with that analogy.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

A person stating he knew him said the dementia had been going on for several years.  Another person agreed elsewhere.  I can't confirm that, but it is the language ('I don't remember, but I'm sorry' among other things) that sounds too familiar to me and made me jump pretty much instantly to that conclusion.

He didn't deny the allegations, but if he didn't remember them, how can he confirm them?

How do you think the interviewer was able to describe some of Bishop's sexual proclivities involving his wife, the hot tub experience, the molestation of the sister missionary, and the room the alleged assault occurred in?

While this doesn't prove the assault occurred, I think these details are evidence that at a minimum something inappropriate happened.