AnchoredinChrist

I forgot to add that overall I think it was very well formatted and is a genuine work of theological theory.

So, I just finished reading them both, and these were my thoughts in no particular order: — I like that you decided to put this together and try to think of things in an outside-of-the-box way. — It doesn't bother me that you gave recommendation to BYU faculty in it. I don't ascribe to the "only publicly preach what church leaders say you're allowed to" rule, so I don't extend that to the BYU schools either. But stating that recommendation specifically only to BYU faculty does of course really narrow the target audience. — Brigham Young taught that the scriptures are not as important as God's "living" word of the church leaders, so that conflicts with the words you give of Joseph F. Smith (I think Brigham Young to be 100% wrong on that, and that such should be self-evident, but you might end up having someone else argue with you on that point.) — The idea that our spirit bodies weren't "birthed" by a Heavenly Mother womb is also put forward by Monogamy as Divine Design. — I don't think us not being "birthed" by a Heavenly Mother from Heavenly Father God-sperm means that we are not their spirit children. If they gave our individual intelligences the self-awareness needed for us to have conscious choice (moral agency), gave us our preparatory understanding to come to earth, love us greater than any earthly parent could, then I would consider it to still be accurate to say that every person on the earth is a child of God, with or without any covenant, with or without there being a Christ. Maybe you were getting at something else though and I just didn't read it closely enough.

This meme will forever be my favorite illustration of Adam-God Doctrine:

Thank you, I don't really know that I have anything specifically profound that I could expound on it, but I find living a life anchored in Christ to be the best general rule to live by ✝️

I know that early this year, the definition of apostacy in the General Handbook has been changed from 'anyone who publicly teaches contrary to the Church's doctrines' to 'anyone who publicly teaches contrary to the Church's doctrines or policies'. That's not the exact wording, but the point is that it used to be solely doctrine, and now it's both doctrines and policies that are forbidden from being publicly shared, even though policies can change by the decade and even the year -- and there can be ambiguity between what is "doctrine" of the Church and what is "just policy" and even what is "church culture" or "personal opinion". Some local church leaders are of course more fastidious or nit-picky than others, and some bishops were already extending themselves too far past their proper jurisdiction even before this change in the Handbook. I've experienced leader overextension of jurisdiction first-hand myself (I've left one ward solely to get away from that bishop. I stuck it out for six months but I should have left sooner, he was not a good fit for someone like me, which was too bad because I liked everyone else there.) I know of one pregnant woman, a mother of multiple children already, whose bishop brought her in to be "counseled" (more than once) on why she should not have a home birth. He even told her husband that he should be using his role as the "priesthood holder of the home" to "forbid" her from having the home birth (even though the husband was okay with it himself and they had only decided to have a home birth after she'd received special spiritual manifestation that she should have one. For her next pregnancy, she gave birth during Covid, so it could have been that her previous home birth helped her prepare for being pregnant and giving birth during a pandemic.) Some leaders make themselves overinvolved, and you don't really know what kind of leader you have until after they have already made themselves overinvolved with you. And the internet is pretty immortal, meaning that if you have a laidback bishop/stake president right now, you might not have one later, and the later one may take issue with things you've put on the internet previous to them being called to be your leader. I've had six bishops in the past ten years, and I think three stake presidents. There are a whole lot of reasons why a member of the Church might want to be anonymous with any Church-related stuff that they write about online.

The article you posted was excellent and had some great information from her that I hadn't read before, so thank you for that.

Joseph Smith Sr portrait Joseph Smith Sr sketch Lucy Mack Smith portrait Sophronia Smith sketch Katherine Smith Salisbury photograph

This is significant to me, because it shows that his issue is with LDS church doctrine/policy, not with the direct words or divinity of Christ. I suppose it's possible that he has unbelief in anything to do with Christ as well and you just didn't mention that, but if he's open to talking about Christian spirituality separate of LDS traditions then that is a lot to go on. I remember hearing a story from Gabor Mate, he was Jewish by birth but his father wasn't really religious. He remembers as a boy going to the synagogue with his father on a rare occasion and his father gave him a blessing there in the midst of the congregation (I don't know what it was for, maybe his bar mitzvah or something?) He knew his father to be embarrassed giving him the blessing, and he felt embarrassed receiving it, neither one of them perhaps believing it to have very much spiritual significance as a practice, but he realized telling this story as an adult that such a memory was in fact a blessing to him, because it was testament of his father's love for him. So I say that even if your son doesn't believe in Christ, if you offer him a blessing then it can still be a show of your love for him, and him feeling love from you is all the more critically important for him if he doesn't feel any of Christ's love for himself.

I was upset to hear of her passing. I know that she was hoping to see certain changes in the church within her lifetime that didn't end up happening.