Mormondiscussionpodcast On Repercussions Of Priesthood Essay

[canard78]

Always exciting when Kevin joins the conversation. He always makes so much darned sense.

DB, surely those three quotes simply illustrate that even General Authorities can spend their whole life living in the early stages of the Perry Scheme.

(That last quote was Elder McConkie in a letter to Eugene England. An irritable exchange of one man trying to put another in his place. An interesting reflection of Elder McConkie's paradigm, but by no means the position of the church.

http://www.eugeneengland.org/a-professor-and-apostle-correspond-eugene-england-and-bruce-r-mcconkie-on-the-nature-of-god

[Kevin Christensen]

Kevin, What do you make of these quotes in reconciling them.  And as a backdrop before I post them, I see part of the problem is the effort our institution makes to make itself come off as mistake free.  We rarely acknowledge mistakes and certainly even more rarely are specific about them.  I agree that D&C one makes a much more flexible paradigm for us to live in but I don't feel like leaders really want us to see the Church in that light.

 

Quote number one - The scripture you share -

 

Compare that with these

 

 

 

 

 

There are others and yes I don't see this as apples to apples in most cases.  But sometimes to really get down to making errors known as D&C 1 implies we have to be critical of the opinions and who said them of the past.  How do we get to a living by D&C 1 when the Church would rather us stay silent on the matter.  I for one can never again be an echo chamber.

 

I value your thoughts Kevin and look forward to them.

I think it's a matter of context.  Who is speaking?  What are the inputs into the voice and role that makes the outputs?  And think about the number of layers involved in that question.  Does even an apostle have only one role or identity under which every other aspect of life is subsumned.  Or can an apostle also be a son, a father, child of the Great Depression, or a Baby Boomer, a bureaucrat, a lawyer, a scholar (good or bad or indifferent), a manager, or whatever.  As Shakespeare has Jaques say in As You Like It, each of us plays many parts.  What happens if you interact with a person who has many layers of their personality, and many roles within their life?  It's not all apostle all the time. 

 

When Elder McConkie was writing a personal letter to Eugene England, was he writing as an Apostle of the Lord, or as an ENTJ, or in what measure of both, or more?

 

http://www.typelogic.com/entj.html

 

When Elder McConkie was speaking in conference and telling everyone to ignore everything he had said prior to the 1978 revelation, referring to what has been said as subject to limited knowledge, is he speaking as an ENTJ or as a Apostle? 

 

Can you see a difference in the voice and in the role, and in a very real sense, in the identify of the speaker?  Is pride a more visible presence in on communication than in another?  Is pride only a problem when I see it in someone else, or does it ever creep into my own voice?  Is pride a prerequisite to revelation according to D&C 1:28?  Or anywhere? 

 

And as far as criticism goes in a relationship, some time back Boyd Peterson wrote an essay mentioning a study on relationships, in which a psychologist found that the single most impressive predictor on whether a marriage would succeed or fail was in the way criticism was applied.  In healthy relationships, praise to criticism is about five to one.  I don't think our leaders deserve constant carping criticism.  I don't enjoy it when it is directed my way.  I find it very difficult to even function.  In my view "sustaining" my leaders also means "enduring", "suffering", and "allowing".   When it has been appropriate, both in terms of forum, context, and personal relationship, I've been able to express my own opinions and feelings to a Stake President.  But I did so after having first demonstrated my willingness to obey counsel.  And rather than carping about everything, even personally, I restricted my comments to two or three simple questions, and observations, not accusations.  My criticisms, far from alientating me from the man, I think actually led to me being called to a position.

 

Eugene England submitted to Elder McConkie's rebuke, though later considered that there may be a difference between "following the brethren" and "following the brother."  Which opinions count?

 

I think that much of the anxiety here is based on a desire for absolute certainty. Long ago, I decided to settle for the open-ended alternative position of having sufficiently promising "cause to believe." 

 

And there is the complexity of the LDS gathering itself.  The gospel net gathers all kinds, as Brigham Young says.  People of different personalities, different levels of cognitive and ethical growth, who may, for developmental reasons, may need leadership from a kind of thinking and voice that they understand and can respond to from where they are.

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

Edited February 22, 2014 by Kevin Christensen

[Calm]

DB, surely those three quotes simply illustrate that even General Authorities can spend their whole life living in the early stages of the Perry Scheme.

While I do not doubt that there are some who approach their beliefs and perceptions in a monolithic fashion, my experience is more along the lines that people have a wide range of responses, and it is not only dependent on the topic but their current state for how they will react. Someone may give two different explanations of how they view something given that at one time they are in a secure, relaxed state where discussion is for informative purposes while the next time the topic comes up, if they are struggling due to a loss of a job or loved one, a medical crisis or something else...one may find they giving a dramatically different answer.

Perhaps they also have thought, been exposed to a number of new ideas about a particular topic, had some experiences reflecting it in their lives and processed through all that new info for that particular topic, but have not done so for whatever reasons with another one. That individual may be quite flexible in their thinking on the first topic, but rigid on the second. Or perhaps experience has led a usually flexible thinker to perceive that in certain areas rigidity is more effective for addressing or coping with certain problems in his life and thus he chooses to push out of his comfort zone which generally allows for a wide range of approach and in this case insist on only one or just a few appropriate response.

Then there is the difference between how someone verbalises their belief and how they put their beliefs into practice. In practice someone who appears to be a rigid thinker might be the one who opens their home without limits and takes in the one in need no matter how that might challenge their alleged rigid worldview while the supposed open minded, flexible thinker is actually very intolerant of others and is unwilling to engage with those who think or act differently than he does.

I think it is ill advised to assume because one person appears to be at 'one Perry stage' that one will be able to predict all other areas of belief or to choose to interpret all their comments through the Perry paradigm for that one stage as they may be at a completely different stage when it comes to another topic.

Edited February 22, 2014 by calmoriah

[canard78]

While I do not doubt that there are some who approach their beliefs and perceptions in a monolithic fashion, my experience is more along the lines that people have a wide range of responses, and it is not only dependent on the topic but their current state for how they will react. Someone may give two different explanations of how they view something given that at one time they are in a secure, relaxed state where discussion is for informative purposes while the next time the topic comes up, if they are struggling due to a loss of a job or loved one, a medical crisis or something else...one may find they giving a dramatically different answer.

Perhaps they also have thought, been exposed to a number of new ideas about a particular topic, had some experiences reflecting it in their lives and processed through all that new info for that particular topic, but have not done so for whatever reasons with another one. That individual may be quite flexible in their thinking on the first topic, but rigid on the second. Or perhaps experience has led a usually flexible thinker to perceive that in certain areas rigidity is more effective for addressing or coping with certain problems in his life and thus he chooses to push out of his comfort zone which generally allows for a wide range of approach and in this case insist on only one or just a few appropriate response.

Then there is the difference between how someone verbalises their belief and how they put their beliefs into practice. In practice someone who appears to be a rigid thinker might be the one who opens their home without limits and takes in the one in need no matter how that might challenge their alleged rigid worldview while the supposed open minded, flexible thinker is actually very intolerant of others and is unwilling to engage with those who think or act differently than he does.

I think it is ill advised to assume because one person appears to be at 'one Perry stage' that one will be able to predict all other areas of belief or to choose to interpret all their comments through the Perry paradigm for that one stage as they may be at a completely different stage when it comes to another topic.

Good points