Elder Oaks Settles The Matter Of The History Presented

[gtaggart]

They all are. It is right in front of their faces and they cannot deal with it. The point is so completely obvious that the continued ridiculous denials simply destroy the credibility of those who deny.

Edit: But to Elder Oaks' credit, he did not deny, but stated the obvious.

He said smugly without bothering to engage their arguements.

Strikingly, you just engaged in a bit of it yourself.

Edit:

Unclear referent.

[e=mc2]

Dan Peterson:

If FAIR doesn't have any on order, I would be happy -- if they want me to -- to carry some copies up on either Thursday or Friday.

But somebody will have to tell me soon.

CRIMANY YES BRING SOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You *know* they will sell...................

[mms]

I just caught this. To repeat: You don't get it. Nobody on this board disagrees with Elder Oaks. They--certainly I--disagree with your interpretation of what Elder Oaks meant. Can you not understand that we are discussing differing interpretations of what he said, that your interpretation is only one of a least two, and that any disagreement is between thee and we rather than between us and Elder Oaks? To put it another way: you are not Elder Oaks. I am not Elder Oaks. Therefore, we can only talk about what we think Elder Oaks meant. We disagree with each other. Unless he's a major time waster, Elder Oaks doesn't have a clue what we're talking about.

(If you were thinking you were Elder Oaks, I'm sorry if I just created some cognitive dissonance for you. Maybe if you shift your paradigm?)

Okay, Taggart, let's try this:

Elder Oaks said the following:

"Itâ??s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. Thatâ??s an old problem in Mormonism â?? a feeling of members that they shouldnâ??t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they shouldâ??ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.

There are several different elements of that. One element is that weâ??re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesnâ??t deal with anything thatâ??s unfavorable, and weâ??re coming into a period of â??warts and allâ? kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things â?? there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.

On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You donâ??t want to be getting into and creating doubts that didnâ??t exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and thatâ??s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members havenâ??t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives â??Brother Jonesâ? his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. Itâ??s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that weâ??re moving with the times, weâ??re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldnâ??t."

I ask:

1) Who here agrees that we are "emerging" from an "adoring" presentation of history that, at least, chose not to deal regularly with matters "unfavorable" to the Church (there, I took out the "anything" for you)?

2) Who here agrees with Elder Oaks that one of the reasons the Church did not present certain parts of history and focused on an "adoring" history was to avoid "getting into and creating doubts"?

3) Who here agrees with Elder Oaks that "perhaps" the Church's writing of history was "lagging behind the times."?

4) Who thinks that the "adoring" history presented by the church was not as "forthright" as it should be in the future? (See Oaks' comment above, "weâ??re getting more and more forthright.")

If you disagree with any of the above, you disagree with Oaks, can we agree on that?

[mms]

Okay, Taggart, let's try this:

Elder Oaks said the following:

"Itâ??s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. Thatâ??s an old problem in Mormonism â?? a feeling of members that they shouldnâ??t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they shouldâ??ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.

There are several different elements of that. One element is that weâ??re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesnâ??t deal with anything thatâ??s unfavorable, and weâ??re coming into a period of â??warts and allâ? kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things â?? there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.

On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You donâ??t want to be getting into and creating doubts that didnâ??t exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and thatâ??s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members havenâ??t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives â??Brother Jonesâ? his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. Itâ??s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that weâ??re moving with the times, weâ??re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldnâ??t."

I ask:

1) Who here agrees that we are "emerging" from an "adoring" presentation of history that, at least, chose not to deal regularly with matters "unfavorable" to the Church (there, I took out the "anything" for you)?

2) Who here agrees with Elder Oaks that one of the reasons the Church did not present certain parts of history and focused on an "adoring" history was to avoid "getting into and creating doubts"?

3) Who here agrees with Elder Oaks that "perhaps" the Church's writing of history was "lagging behind the times."?

4) Who thinks that the "adoring" history presented by the church was not as "forthright" as it should be in the future? (See Oaks' comment above, "weâ??re getting more and more forthright.")

If you disagree with any of the above, you disagree with Oaks, can we agree on that?

Oh yeah, I should say that I agree with him on all of those points. Anyone else?

[jerryp48]

Given the spirit of this thread I just had to quote my favorite DCP line from a former thread. Sorry for not having anything original.

This is for mms but more so for Yme in response to his suggestion that missionaries disclose more information.

Here is a possible rewrite of an early Christian missionary approach, providing a more full account of the controversies surrounding the apostolic witness:

"Hi folks. My name is Peter. I am an eyewitness of the resurrection of Jesus. I saw him alive, after I had seen him killed. However, as mandated by the rules of full disclosure and in accordance with best historiographical practices, I need to point out that my credibility as a witness has been questioned. I may be entirely insane. (Who am I to say?) Worse, I have serious character issues. I assaulted a young temple servant in the Garden of Gethsemane, for instance, intending to kill him with my sword. I lied about knowing Jesus in order to protect myself from possible harm. (Even friendly sources admit these things.) I was really, really upset by the death of Jesus and the disappointment of our messianic hopes -- we had given up our lucrative fish business in Capernaum and devoted three full years to following Jesus around as vagrant religious fanatics without productive jobs (Jesus promised me and my brothers a rich pay-off if we did, so you shouldn't forget the self-interest angle here), and you can imagine the psychic shock we experienced when he was suddenly killed -- so it's possible that I merely imagined Jesus' postmortem appearances. Wish-fulfillment, and all that. (I've read my Freud!) And, to cap it all, I'm a primitive ancient person, absolutely awash in pre-scientific superstitions, from a provincial backwater town in a provincial backwater country, with virtually no education. Would you buy a used car from me? Anyway, though, as I was saying: I'm an eyewitness. I saw, or claim I saw, or think I saw, Jesus, in some form, alive, in some sense, after he was possibly dead. (What am I? A doctor? [You and my Jewish mother!] You think we maybe had electroencephalographs or even scientifically rigorous definitions of death in 33 AD?) If you believe what I'm telling you, the Roman authorities aren't gonna like it. Well, that's all for now, folks. It's hard to talk, upside down on a cross like this. Fortunately, some rabbinic anti-Christian tracts have fallen out of my pockets. Feel free to read them. And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask them: I've probably only got an hour or two of consciousness left."

[LifeOnaPlate]

Given the spirit of this thread I just had to quote my favorite DCP line from a former thread. Sorry for not having anything original.

This is for mms but more so for Yme in response to his suggestion that missionaries disclose more information.

Brilliant.

[karl61]

I think one of the issues I have would be if Elder Oaks is using adoring like look at my adoring grandmother.

one thought goes to the pictures that were in the old blue BOM with the angel Moroni on the cover. There are two pictures that I remember: 1) where Mormon has his arm stretched out and Moroni is kneeling next to him; the other is long silver haired Moroni praying with the plates and this huge sword next to him. He kind of looks like Mitt Romney. If you look at the arms of these guys they put bodybuilders to shame. Say instead they painted a picture of a man who looked like a old shaved, heavyset, long-haired Brigham Young burying the plates. It's not the same. The paintings are really hollywood style. These guys look like kings of Germania. Now sweet abindi looks old and frail, suppose you were to put abinidi in the place of the good looking Moroni.

another thought is people talking about focusing on weakness of the past and taking a snapshot and then saying this is how things are....I don't like that. But the thing I know from being a social worker is that it's important for normal growth if people that someone looks up to says/admitts they made mistakes. I encourage parents to let their children hear that they made a mistake, even to the point of creating a situation where the whole point is so the child will hear the parent say, I was wrong and made a mistake. The more they hear that from the parent the more likely the parent will get the truth when the child does something wrong. It's just important as any other part of parenting. why? because the likelyhood of a child and later an adult admitting a mistake is very low if they have never seen it.

If the church is going to give an adoring history to it's members remember that it's likely that the members are going to give an adoring history back to the church. Half of my friends that I grew up in the church should have been/or should be excommunicated or disfellowshiped after their mission but they gave an adorable history back to the church, one where they had not made mistakes and in a way it comes back and bites the church in the rear as those guys, who cherry picked their bishop and the time of their confession, now sit next to people in the temple, hold callings of the church.

These are my thoughts.

[jwhitlock]

I too, have to go.

I'll make you a bet, jwhitlock. By this time tomorrow night, we still won't have a satisfactory answer from mms.

What kind of cream pie do you like? Those are my stakes (to be delivered at the Conference on Friday).

No way. You need to bet me something that I have a reasonable chance of winning.

However, boston cream is good.

[jwhitlock]

You guys are hilarious. Accuse me of calling names and then use sound effects. Seriously classic.

Backed into a corner? Please. It is clear that DHO's statements have caused you and others a significant increase in blood pressure. The FAIR Conference should be just the thing to return it to normal and re-arm you for your tireless battle against the evil trolls (e.g., active questioning High Priests) on this board. Maybe those at the conference can explain what DHO "really meant to say."

Actually, it was selek (not me) who used the sound effects. And he did get dinged by the mods, despite your whining that he gets special status. But then, your comments haven't given us any confidence that you can accurately portray what others write - including Dallin Oaks' comments.

You appear to be backed into a corner because you continue to refuse to reply with specifics to what I have written. And you have done a fair amount of name calling (I believe you inferred that I was the opposite of humble in a previous post, for instance). You continue to fantasize about what our reaction is to Dallin Oaks' comments - gtaggert has done a good job of correcting you, but you seem to be having trouble dealing with that, too. Hard to get specific, is it?

I do find it interesting (and a little strange) that you keep feeling the need to assert yourself as a high priest, assistant to the mission president, served in Church leadership positions, etc. in order to give some impression of authority or justification to your comments. I don't see anyone else in this thread doing that; do you have some particular insecurity about the weakness of the position you're taking? You have seemed rather tightly strung in some of your later posts to me.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Using credentials rather than reason to establish ethos. Sounds like Nibley's "fatal shift" from leaders to managers all over again.

[Pahoran]

If that's the case on what Oaks was trying to say then Oaks would be wrong. Honestly its because of the church's correlation of their curriculum to be so faith-promoting that I was in the dark on so many things. During the "two best years of my life" I was purposely kept well-correlated into just using the scriptures, discussions, missionary guide, mission handbook church magazines and standard missionary library (i.e. two Talmadge books, Truth Restored by GBH, Richards' MW&W). Why? Because that's what we were counseled to do. Had I not been taught to avoid other books and to avoid getting into things deeply then I probably would've adequately informed myself. But alas I was ill-informed on the real difficult issues.

Is anyone here suggesting that Oaks is blaming the members, and not the curriculum and counsels to not study church history in-depth, for the members not being adequately informed about their church history?

Alex,

you seem not to realise this, so I shall help you out.

During what you sneeringly describe as your "best two years" you were not a regular member. The requirements placed upon you were quite similar to those I experienced on my mission, and are entirely different from those that I as a regular member have coped with through the subsequent twenty-eight years. I experienced a moment of "cognitive dissonance" when I read your exposition above, wondering if I somehow missed some instruction to the effect that my missionary reading list, compiled for a specific purpose because I was serving for a specific purpose, was supposed to suffice for the rest of my life. I resolved said "cog.diss." by reviewing the counsel given to members at large and discovering no such restriction. Indeed, I modestly venture to suggest that if you wish others to see you as someone competent to discourse on the subject of LDS life and teaching, then you would do well to avoid such egregious blunders. Every single one of the mission rules--the requirement to stay with your companion, the rule against dating, the rule against going to movies or swimming, the daily schedule, and oh yes, the missionary reading list--ceased to apply to you the moment you were released.

Just like they ceased to apply to every other released missionary as well.

So now you know.

Regards,

Pahoran

[LifeOnaPlate]

I read about a hundred books not on the "approved" list, my President and I had talked about it. It was a cool experience. I even read the Koran.

Ask and ye shall receive.