Church Catalog releases John Taylor's 1886 Revelation

[teddyaware]

36 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Me too.  And anytime we speak of the Savior we are engaging in "testimony strengthening dialogue". That happens here a lot, and it seems like a perfect place for it to be happening.   

My point was simply to educate a naive and apparently surprised  board newcomer to the fact that not every participant here is a faithful member of the church who seeks to inspire faith and strengthen testimonies — nothing more, nothing less.
 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, teddyaware said:

My point was simply to educate a naive and apparently surprised  board newcomer to the fact that not every participant here is a faithful member of the church who seeks to inspire faith and strengthen testimonies — nothing more, nothing less.
 

stelf is not a newcomer, he’s been a member of the board longer than you have (2010).  Nor is he naive and I would be surprised if he was all that surprised.  

 He has probably lost some posts when threads were culled in the past, but his earliest post currently available is from 2012. 
 

 

[longview]

On 6/26/2025 at 2:00 AM, ZealouslyStriving said:

One man's "hair-brained" weird "scheme" (ie... actually fight to win a war) is another man's common sense.

I thought Elder Benson's statements to be reasonably level-headed and wise. For the LBJ administration to use citizen soldiers to "maintain" a "no-win war" was deeply cynical. Our boys are NOT cannon-fodder.

Elder Benson served wonderfully and graciously as secretary of agriculture in the Eisenhower administration even while he was in the Quorum of the Twelve.

[OGHoosier]

I'd say this board has weakened my belief in some things, but also exposed me to arguments that I had not considered in others. I've benefited a lot from being able to learn from people like Robert F. Smith, Stanford Carmack, Benjamin McGuire, and Kevin Christensen in something close to real time. 

[Calm]

On 6/27/2025 at 1:54 PM, OGHoosier said:

I'd say this board has weakened my belief in some things

I would say it gave me information about things I had concerns about before based on what I know of human behavior. I was pretty sure there were significant mistakes, even sin and wickedness among our leaders since they are all human, but I was only vaguely aware of a few cases (even current ones, we were frugal and never bought newspapers or magazines and I wasn’t interested in watching news either or making the effort to go to the library to keep up), especially once we left Utah in the mid80s.  My efforts went into checking out scholarship on the Bible and that was limited to what I could get in local libraries as I was too frugal to put out too much money, though I picked up a few texts on BYU Bookstore clearance sales, and too shy to seek help from others in my studies, even librarians who might have suggested ordering texts.

I had not known much of abuse cases before I seriously hit the internet in 2001, but had expected them.  I knew there were issues at times with leaders not protecting victims of financial and other types of predators because of rumors and because my parents had been victim once and had learned afterwards that leadership knew of the fraudulent behavior of these supposedly upright members beforehand because of other members getting suckered (they weren’t full out con artists, it was a family who took advantage of others’ generosity), but details were lacking then that became available online.  I had wondered about the Priesthood ban.  Learning how it started and responses over the years helped firm up what I believed about how prophets operated (for some reason I never idealized leaders and it was more an exception to really like a prophet rather than be neutral in the emotional about him…as in would I like to interact with him as a friend or family member, even though I have always had great respect for what prophets have been able to accomplish).

I think everything I have learned has fit relatively smoothly into the rather basic, perhaps even rough belief system I had from my youth, though learning has definitely made my beliefs become more detailed and complicated.  I think experiences with people and with the Spirit has eased the worry I used to have about the process, but even if I still sorrow over what I see as often unnecessary suffering because of the way we humans mess up even glorious things, I just feel more certain God knows what he is doing and feel more at peace because of confidence in his love.

I think one of the few things I have been shocked about was how Elder McConkie and more recently learned Elder Joseph Fielding Smith were so willing to go against counsel from their leaders because of their confidence they were right (for example, BRM labeling his book Mormon Doctrine and publishing it and JFS’ approach to evolution as well his one interpretation/plain reading of scripture with no need for scholarship to help with understanding even when his interpretations contradicted others of the Brethern, including those with greater support from the First Presidency).  I had been under the impression the First Presidency was the final word for all upper leadership…that such would be the natural result of moving up the ladder and spending decades in the service of the Church…or so I once thought.  Humans are more stubborn and unreasonable than I once believed. It was actually a relief to me to learn there was at times significant conflict in ideas at the top levels*** rather than a greater consensus behind the anti evolution, etc position that soaked into our culture and that originally the First Presidency of the time went out of their ways to increase the influence of the scientific mindset among leadership (by calling Elder Talmage, Widtsoe, and one other whose name I always forget as apostles as well as directing leaders to seek counsel from a BYU professor of science as well as other scholars).  

***https://benspackman.com/2023/08/the-power-of-good-historiography-or-how-joseph-fielding-smith-unwittingly-undermined-joseph-fielding-smith/

I should mention that I throughly applaud Elder McConkie and Pres Smith’s efforts towards getting Saints to be invested in the scriptures and church doctrine and to study them in depth.  They did a lot of good there.  I see them both as good men doing their best for the kingdom.  I only wish they had been more open to other ideas of the Brethren, part and present, not to accept those ideas personally as Truth, but to accept the possibility that perhaps they themselves might be less correct than others, so they could have allowed more breathing room to other perspectives and not as much locked down the culture so much for so long.  Given they were willing to seek Truth anywhere apparently (why else would they go outside church leaders’ writings), even outside the Church and apparently thought they found much of it among the conservative Evangelical and others’ ideas, it seems odd to me they weren’t as open to others searching in different paths as well.

Highly recommend this well written blog by Joseph Spencer:

https://www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/on-bruce-r-mcconkie

Edited June 30, 2025 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

2 hours ago, longview said:

I thought Elder Benson's statements to be reasonably level-headed and wise. For the LBJ administration to use citizen soldiers to "maintain" a "no-win war" was deeply cynical. Our boys are NOT cannon-fodder.

Elder Benson served wonderfully and graciously as secretary of agriculture in the Eisenhower administration even while he was in the Quorum of the Twelve.

That was my point. 🫶🏻

[Tacenda]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

stelf is not a newcomer, he’s been a member of the board longer than you have (2010).  Nor is he naive and I would be surprised if he was all that surprised.  

 He has probably lost some posts when threads were culled in the past, but his earliest post currently available is from 2012. 
 

 

I knew it, I remember stelf from way back when. Maybe he remembers me too? Hey stelf.

[OGHoosier]

On 6/27/2025 at 5:39 PM, Calm said:

(by calling Elder Talmage, Widtsoe, and one other whose name I always forget as apostles as well as directing leaders to seek counsel from a BYU professor of science as well as other scholars).  

Joseph B. Merrill? 

I've changed my mind on a few things but frankly it's for the good, as I can move at more ease through the world. I was a missionary when we went to an exhibit of artifacts from King Tutankhamen's tomb on a P-day, and there was a sign with the ages of the Pyramids, and I had a shocker as I realized that my rough timeline of world history that I put together as a curious and zealous youth would mean they were standing during Noah's Flood. Well obviously this couldn't be so, and I went round and around in circles, and now I generally don't find anything to bother me. I suppose it helps that I'm not the type to experience moral indignation all that often so as a rule I'm less alienated. I tend to be pretty suspicious of "righteous indignation" actually. 

I've shed some Primary-era theological understandings and picked up others, all of which I am confident are quite compatible with Latter-day Saint thought and doctrine, such as it is. It works. 

[Teancum]

On 6/25/2025 at 10:07 PM, bluebell said:

President Kimball seemed to by the type of leader that allowed people to work in their stewardship without a lot of oversight, even when he personally didn't agree with their message.  Which is probably ironic given the nature of the topic and some of the charges leveled in the thread about prophets and apostles trying to keep everyone on a short leash.   

(Here's the quote that supports your assertion about his feelings on this talk--“Spencer [Kimball] felt concern about the talk, wanting to protect the Church against being misunderstood as espousing ultraconservative politics or an unthinking ‘follow the leader’ mentality.” He probably had some of the same concerns with the talk that you have)

Yes that is a fair summary. But I wonder what damage or misunderstanding may have been avoided had President Kimball said something, The Benson talk is often used to drive home a point that Prophets and Apostles better be followed and one chooses not to follow them at their own peril. Same for McConkie and his book Mormon Doctrine. President McKay did not like the book but let it remain (after revisions) and for decades members viewed it as a fifth standard work.  

[Teancum]

On 6/24/2025 at 9:15 PM, OGHoosier said:

This is a fantastic point that I think has been sublimated by the ways we talk about the prophets and apostles, and have since the 1950s. The presiding high priest (the title given to the President of the Church in D&C 107:65-66) is to the church as the bishop is to the ward, and is no more or less human, but it seems like the expectations for the two offices are very different. 

 Matthew Bowman wrote a fantastic piece for Wayfare on the conjunction of the roles of prophet and priest and the consequences of our weighting the "prophet" side over the "priest" side: https://www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/the-prophet-and-the-priest?utm_source=publication-search

But isn't this due to the leadership and what they teach?  

[Teancum]

On 6/26/2025 at 12:56 AM, teddyaware said:

You must be new to this discussion board. There are a fair number of participants here who are bitter former believers who’ve left the church but find themselves unable to make a clean break by walking away and kindly leaving their former spiritual home and family alone. Paradoxically, these same former believers often find that they need to come here to nourish their unbelief by engaging in a steady diet of attacks on the restored gospel, attacks which amount to a twisted inversion of the process by which true believers nourish and strengthen their faith in the restored gospel by bearing faithful witness to its truthfulness. As a consequence, this is not exactly the best place to engage in testimony strengthening dialogue. But on the positive side, it’s at least a place where one can experience firsthand the principle of opposition in all things in action.

 

What a horrible view you have of your fellow humans beings. So self assured, self righteous and smug.

[Teancum]

On 6/27/2025 at 12:24 PM, teddyaware said:

My point was simply to educate a naive and apparently surprised  board newcomer to the fact that not every participant here is a faithful member of the church who seeks to inspire faith and strengthen testimonies — nothing more, nothing less.
 

Nothing more or nothing less?  Try reading what you wrote. You essentially disparaged and trashed former believers like me and portrayed us in a very ugly way. Your testimony really must be shakey for you to view those who no longer accept the claims of Mormonism in such a vile way.

[Teancum]

On 6/27/2025 at 3:54 PM, OGHoosier said:

I'd say this board has weakened my belief in some things, but also exposed me to arguments that I had not considered in others. I've benefited a lot from being able to learn from people like Robert F. Smith, Stanford Carmack, Benjamin McGuire, and Kevin Christensen in something close to real time. 

All of those you list have challenged my belief, or lack thereof. You as well. I appreciate your posts.

[Notatbm]

On 6/25/2025 at 6:18 PM, bluebell said:

Besides all that, you seem to feel comfortable telling the GA leadership that their revelations are fake.  It would be weird to hold it against them for doing the same thing.

The fact they vote as to whether or not a revelation will be followed tells us all they don’t even take themselves seriously. If they really think that is the way to go then what do we need them for? After all they are on record being wrong a number of times so yea they are kinda useless. Not to mention other times they have lied to the membership. Who knows what to trust with these guys. 

Edited June 30, 2025 by Notatbm

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, Notatbm said:

The fact they vote as to whether or not a revelation will be followed tells us all they don’t even take themselves seriously. If they really think that is the way to go then what do we need them for? After all they are on record being wrong a number of times so yea they are kinda useless. Not to mention other times they have lied to the membership. Who knows what to trust with these guys. 

Are you talking about common consent?  You're posting style--which seems to be to throw every negative thing you can think of that might be kind of relevant into a reply hoping some will stick--can be hard follow sometimes.

[bluebell]

7 hours ago, Teancum said:

Yes that is a fair summary. But I wonder what damage or misunderstanding may have been avoided had President Kimball said something, The Benson talk is often used to drive home a point that Prophets and Apostles better be followed and one chooses not to follow them at their own peril. Same for McConkie and his book Mormon Doctrine. President McKay did not like the book but let it remain (after revisions) and for decades members viewed it as a fifth standard work.  

Sometimes I wish they would more forcefully voice their feelings about this kind of stuff too.

[Notatbm]

52 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Are you talking about common consent?

 

 You're posting style--which seems to be to throw every negative thing you can think of that might be kind of relevant into a reply hoping some will stick--can be hard follow sometimes.

Common consent- yes. Just because the leaders don’t have the membership give their gratuitous vote in the affirmative, doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t tell the prophet to do it. 
 

why post the positive echo chamber stuff? Makes for boring convo if everyone agrees. Makes discussion pointless. Go look at the lds or latterdaysaints sub reddits. They only allow pretty much echo chamber stuff and they are dead convos. At least here you can post negative or contrary info. I know I’m not real fond of the church leadership at most times, but I’m not a real fan of gas lighting, lying, favoritism and mental gymnastics. I do try to post the truth though. Lots of people to include my own TBM family hate any truth that doesn’t support the party line. They are more in line with Boyd k packers concept of not sharing negative info if it isn’t faith promoting- even if it is true. 

Edited July 1, 2025 by Notatbm

[bluebell]

14 hours ago, Notatbm said:

Common consent- yes. Just because the leaders don’t have the membership give their gratuitous vote in the affirmative, doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t tell the prophet to do it. 
 

why post the positive echo chamber stuff? Makes for boring convo if everyone agrees. Makes discussion pointless. Go look at the lds or latterdaysaints sub reddits. They only allow pretty much echo chamber stuff and they are dead convos. At least here you can post negative or contrary info. I know I’m not real fond of the church leadership at most times, but I’m not a real fan of gas lighting, lying, favoritism and mental gymnastics. I do try to post the truth though. Lots of people to include my own TBM family hate any truth that doesn’t support the party line. They are more in line with Boyd k packers concept of not sharing negative info if it isn’t faith promoting- even if it is true. 

No one who was interested in an echo chamber would be happy for long posting on this board.  That's one of the reasons I like it.  Echo chambers are dangerous.  No one should always be in the company of those who agree with them regardless of what they say.

But that's a different subject than what I alluded to.  Criticisms have their place, but hopefully they are based in evidence and reason, well thought out and are also relevant to the topic.  Hyperbole (the church always, the church never, the church only cares about this evil or bad thing so we can dismiss it without even using our brains to figure out why) isn't helpful or interesting.  It's just our biases puking out onto the board.  We all have biases, but they don't point out truth; they mostly get in the way of recognizing it.

I'm glad you're here and your perspective could be beneficial.  But if you only ever having negative things to say, then that perspective becomes easy to dismiss.  The same would go for someone who only ever had positive things to say about every topic concerning the church.  Both of those angles feel contrived after a while.

[Notatbm]

23 minutes ago, bluebell said:

No one who was interested in an echo chamber would be happy for long posting on this board.  That's one of the reasons I like it.  Echo chambers are dangerous.  No one should always be in the company of those who agree with them regardless of what they say.

But that's a different subject than what I alluded to.  Criticisms have their place, but hopefully they are based in evidence and reason, well thought out and are also relevant to the topic.  Hyperbole (the church always, the church never, the church only cares about this evil or bad thing so we can dismiss it without even using our brains to figure out why) isn't helpful or interesting.  It's just our biases puking out onto the board.  We all have biases, but they don't point out truth; they mostly get in the way of recognizing it.

I'm glad you're here and your perspective could be beneficial.  But if you only ever having negative things to say, then that perspective becomes easy to dismiss.  The same would go for someone who only ever had positive things to say about every topic concerning the church.  Both of those angles feel contrived after a while.

Thanks for the input. While I will continue to respond to your comments at times please feel free to not read mine or respond to them if they don’t meet your standards.

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, Notatbm said:

Thanks for the input. While I will continue to respond to your comments at times please feel free to not read mine or respond to them if they don’t meet your standards.

You’re very welcome.  

[JLHPROF]

On 6/15/2025 at 3:24 PM, ZealouslyStriving said:

I find the spin that the revelation was referring to eternal marriage in general, and not to plural marriage... Interesting.

LDS Fair is posting this spin all  over social media.

It's so demonstrably incorrect.  @Calm I'm a little surprised they'd take that approach.  I believe you work with them correct?

I've always found their work better than that.  Reading the text of the revelation there is absolutely no way it refers to eternal marriage alone. Basic reading comprehension.  LDS Fair should update those misleading posts.

 

[The Nehor]

On 7/4/2025 at 2:55 PM, JLHPROF said:

LDS Fair is posting this spin all  over social media.

It's so demonstrably incorrect.  @Calm I'm a little surprised they'd take that approach.  I believe you work with them correct?

I've always found their work better than that.  Reading the text of the revelation there is absolutely no way it refers to eternal marriage alone. Basic reading comprehension.  LDS Fair should update those misleading posts.

 

It is a ridiculous take but it is pretty pervasive. We do the same thing with the first half of Section 132 which also doesn’t really work.

[The Nehor]

On 6/27/2025 at 2:29 PM, longview said:

I thought Elder Benson's statements to be reasonably level-headed and wise. For the LBJ administration to use citizen soldiers to "maintain" a "no-win war" was deeply cynical. Our boys are NOT cannon-fodder.

Elder Benson served wonderfully and graciously as secretary of agriculture in the Eisenhower administration even while he was in the Quorum of the Twelve.

It was an insane scheme because Chiang Kai-Shek wasn’t interested in serving as proxy soldiers in Vietnam. The actual offer was to cut off all aid to Vietnam from China by attacking China. This would have widened the conflict and Chiang Kai-Shek was delusional thinking there was a lot of support in China for his return. Virtually everyone in China hated him. The people in general didn’t side with the communists for ideological reasons. They did so because the old Chinese government and the local warlords operating within it were brutally oppressive to the point that Mao was (rightly) considered an improvement. 

It most likely would have gotten Taiwan’s military wiped out, China very involved in Vietnam, and the spectre of nuclear conflict would have been a real possibility. That is not level-headed. That is escalating the situation to no advantage. The situation didn’t need a genocidal warlord. They arguably already had enough of those.

[longview]

17 hours ago, The Nehor said:

It was an insane scheme because Chiang Kai-Shek wasn’t interested in serving as proxy soldiers in Vietnam.

I have no idea of what you are talking about. How about some background information and sourcing?

[ZealouslyStriving]

18 hours ago, The Nehor said:

It was an insane scheme because Chiang Kai-Shek wasn’t interested in serving as proxy soldiers in Vietnam. The actual offer was to cut off all aid to Vietnam from China by attacking China. This would have widened the conflict and Chiang Kai-Shek was delusional thinking there was a lot of support in China for his return. Virtually everyone in China hated him. The people in general didn’t side with the communists for ideological reasons. They did so because the old Chinese government and the local warlords operating within it were brutally oppressive to the point that Mao was (rightly) considered an improvement. 

It most likely would have gotten Taiwan’s military wiped out, China very involved in Vietnam, and the spectre of nuclear conflict would have been a real possibility. That is not level-headed. That is escalating the situation to no advantage. The situation didn’t need a genocidal warlord. They arguably already had enough of those.

You do realize the video says none of that, correct? Was ETB talking in code?