Church Or Individual? Who Is Most Accountable For Lack Of Correct Understanding?

[JDave]

Thank you for staying with me on this. You see exactly what I mean. In the sexual harassment comparison, of course the hostile environment doesn't come from policies and regulations. There is no policy that says, "please sexual harass your female coworkers". The hostile environment in many cases is simply an unchecked natural culture and attitude. The corporation is responsible to make sure that culture is fixed.

I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure what exactly is/was to be 'fixed'. What age a person is when they find out any given 'fact' is not normally a question of 'blame'.

It is clear that the gospel teaches us to learn many things from good books.

It is clear that the Church never has had the mission/purpose to teach those many things. The gospel should be taught.

It might be beneficial for the Church to teach some of the historical facts, and that is a question for another thread. It is not a question of blame, however, if the Church doesn't teach all the historical facts that you determine are important. Everyone has a different opinion on what historical fact is interesting/important/questionable/necessary/ridiculous/etc/etc.

[mathonihah]

Read through the thread.

Why don't you provide a link? and why have you not replied to my other posts?

[robuchan]

We've spent the last few pages talking about what books I should have read without being specific. Let's be specific. So far, all I have is a 1985 book by Bushman and an article written by an LDS author which Nehor can't remember the name of. What else should have I read? Once we establish that, we can figure out why I might not have read it.

[Ahab]

We've spent the last few pages talking about what books I should have read without being specific. Let's be specific. So far, all I have is a 1985 book by Bushman and an article written by an LDS author which Nehor can't remember the name of. What else should have I read? Once we establish that, we can figure out why I might not have read it.

For what? What's the reason you're reading anything?

What do you really want to know, or better yet, what do you really NEED to know for... what?

[ERayR]

For what? What's the reason you're reading anything?

Its called a diversion. He wants to change the subject just enough to squirm out of the hole he is in.

What do you really want to know, or better yet, what do you really NEED to know for... what?

[CV75]

Thank you for staying with me on this. You see exactly what I mean. In the sexual harassment comparison, of course the hostile environment doesn't come from policies and regulations. There is no policy that says, "please sexual harass your female coworkers". The hostile environment in many cases is simply an unchecked natural culture and attitude. The corporation is responsible to make sure that culture is fixed.

Let me point of again that the hostile environment results from policies not being followed to the harassment/victimization of individuals within the organization. In your example, the policy needs to be, “no sexual harassment,” and the hostile environment for which the leadership is accountable results from members of the organization not abiding them. The leadership must have effective controls and enforcements in place to prevent and address infractions, and when they don’t, they are accountable for the deleterious results.

In the case of the Church, there was/is no policy to discourage people from studying outside sources of Church history. There was no policy to break that would create a hostile environment. Whatever culture you clashed with, it was outside the realm of policy and regulation.

When you start talking about “an unchecked natural culture and attitude,” you are not talking about anything like a corporate hostile environment. You are talking about your perceptions and experience with a corporate culture, which you have not demonstrated to involve an unchecked abuse of policy resulting in your victimization. So the Church has nothing to fix, as nothing from the policy and regulation standpoint in the case you are presenting was broken.

[CV75]

If you're not aware of the anti-Sunstone/anti-intellectual enviornment that existed in this time period, then you weren't paying attention. I was a good member. I did follow the brethren. I did stay up on all of these issues and did my best to stay in line with the brethren.

I am aware, and it wasn't a big deal to me (I felt free to study whatever I wanted to, and did). Most importantly, the environment -- however you took it -- was not in violation of any policy to the contrary and so cannot be taken as hostile to Church members.

This thread has run its course.

[CV75]

I only avoided material I was explicitly instructed to avoid.

That's what I mean: a scholar wouldn't do that. That's not an insult, but simply pointing out that, if you were a scholar/scientist, you would have had no spiritual concerns about studying any "outside material" and you could have used the right discipline to keep the spiritual and temporal in check. The counsel was to help keep people from confusing the facts with the truth, the short-term with the long-term, the oil with the water, the apples with the oranges, [come on everybody, join in!] the interesting with the essential, and the conclusions with the covenants.