Two discussion papers on “Jesus as our elder brother” and the doctrine of adoption

[AnchoredinChrist]

On 6/28/2026 at 6:13 PM, Calm said:

Why choose anonymity?

To be blunt, I am much less likely to read something anonymous and I suspect I am not the only one.  

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.

[AnchoredinChrist]

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

 

[AnchoredinChrist]

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.

[AnchoredinChrist]

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

[let’s roll]

On 7/13/2026 at 10:06 AM, manol said:

I think the search for truth is supposed to be a spiritual quest moreso than a logical application of a flow chart.  But I could be wrong! 

This.  If we lack wisdom we are invited to ask God.  We do well to accept that invitation.

[Calm]

6 hours ago, AnchoredinChrist said:

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.

Good point, but mentally I need context because when I read it’s a conversation with the author for me and with nonfiction it matters to me that I visualize the person semi accurately (unless it’s a textbook or something else that’s generic rather than original thought.  So I prefer to get some bio even though I recognize there are several valid reasons for anonymity (privacy and potential of threats and even action) and was anonymous myself in not sharing my name at the request of my daughter even if I shared location and lots of personal details (I did receive some hate mail as a mod on another board, including one suggesting I was going to die and go to hell in the near future which really disturbed me at the time as I met him in real life, but apparently he was leaving it up to God to exercise justice on his behalf).

It’s not even just church leaders.  There are crazies among members (my hate mail was from members) and nonmembers.  It can also affect jobs as I have read people saying they refuse to hire LDS.  My husband, a professor, lost a position he was to be appointed to because another professor who wanted the job told the assistant dean my husband wasn’t appropriate because he saw women as less being Mormon.  That professor was awful to the secretaries according to the secretaries who worked with my husband as they told me she would bully any one under her and kiss butt of those over her while my husband was their favorite boss as he was the only one who treated them with respect all the time, like equals (which has been my experience with him as well).  They even wrote a letter to the assistant dean in support of my husband for the job, but no go.

Edited Tuesday at 11:20 PM by Calm

[AnchoredinChrist]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Good point, but mentally I need context because when I read it’s a conversation with the author for me and with nonfiction it matters to me that I visualize the person semi accurately (unless it’s a textbook or something else that’s generic rather than original thought.  So I prefer to get some bio even though I recognize there are several valid reasons for anonymity (privacy and potential of threats and even action) and was anonymous myself in not sharing my name at the request of my daughter even if I shared location and lots of personal details (I did receive some hate mail as a mod on another board, including one suggesting I was going to die and go to hell in the near future which really disturbed me at the time as I met him in real life, but apparently he was leaving it up to God to exercise justice on his behalf).

It’s not even just church leaders.  There are crazies among members (my hate mail was from members) and nonmembers.  It can also affect jobs as I have read people saying they refuse to hire LDS.  My husband, a professor, lost a position he was to be appointed to because another professor who wanted the job told the assistant dean my husband wasn’t appropriate because he saw women as less being Mormon.  That professor was awful to the secretaries according to the secretaries who worked with my husband as they told me she would bully any one under her and kiss butt of those over her while my husband was their favorite boss as he was the only one who treated them with respect all the time, like equals (which has been my experience with him as well).  They even wrote a letter to the assistant dean in support of my husband for the job, but no go.

I'm sorry for the persecution you and your family have suffered, it seems that online death threats are a dime a dozen nowadays. 

[Calm]

9 hours ago, AnchoredinChrist said:

I'm sorry for the persecution you and your family have suffered, it seems that online death threats are a dime a dozen nowadays. 

I don’t view either as persecution, the death threats were one or two times expressions of anger from guys (my memory says three, but the third guy might have just labeled me an apostate, fifth columnist without the threat…has been too long and the details are blurring) who struggled in life with insecurity as far as I could tell and I was threatening to cut off one of the places that contributed to their sense of self because of their refusal to abide by that board’s rules.  They saw their defense of the church as justifying breaking the rules (that board worked hard to treat members and nonmembers alike due to the owners and original posters’ experiences of biases treatment on other websites).  I don’t think the threats would have been as disturbing if it happened now when such things are way more common and drastic.  The threats were pretty mild, not particularly graphic and iirc leaned more to telling me I was deserving of death without going into detail of how it would occur.  Mild stuff from what I have since read about.  At the time I couldn’t conceive as someone saying even that just as a way to vent. I saw them as deeply mentally disturbed and therefore unpredictable (because I knew so little of what they were thinking and nothing of real life behaviors).  Now I can unfortunately see that adults can indulge in such behavior without consideration for the other quite easily and without much dysfunction besides selfcenterness and lack of empathy. 
 

As far as my husband, it was basic office politics.  I have my doubts the other professor or the assistant dean even believed the accusation or at least cared about it as there was no request or follow through for an investigation (the female professor was a hypocrite if she thought it was a valid accusation since she obviously didn’t put effort into or concern herself with respecting the women around her from their accounts) knowing my husband even a little and were more likely just using it as an excuse to justify office skullduggery (the mini dean did some other underhanded stuff that looked good on paper and he got his promotion, moved out and left behind a somewhat decimated department), in the process killing my husband’s joy in his job.  Thankfully another university came calling shortly after and worked hard to get him to come there and that reinvigorated his love of teaching and his work (except for publishing osiers, he always disliked that part, though I think he found the actual research fun).  That was a very hard year for my husband.  He’s a very easygoing, likable, charitable guy who likes people himself.  Very non critical (a little too noncritical in fact).  Having someone attack him in that way really threw him (though he downplays it now, I remember his pain well).