Answers To Common Questions - New Era, March '15

[canard78]

The magazine targeting the rising LDS generation (New Era) decides to tackle some challenging issues but:

a) Gives shallow answers which includes misleading information

b) Misses the easy step of linking to the essays and other approved sources

https://www.lds.org/new-era/2015/03/be-a-missionary-now/answers-to-common-questions?lang=eng

Questions include (amongst others):

- Mormon men have lots of wives, right?

- Why are Mormons against gay people?*

- Are you really Christians or more like a cult?

- Doesn’t scientific evidence prove that the Book of Mormon couldn’t possibly be true?

- Do you all just blindly obey whatever you’re told?

*They link to mormonsandgays.org after the answer to this one, which is a good start. Shame they missed the opportunity to do the same with the Book of Mormon science essay and the polygamy essays.

[canard78]

I'm putting this in as a placeholder. I'm going to post notes here of where I think the answers were shallow/misleading.

 

---------------------------

 

OK, back from work, kids in bed... time to reply.

 

So, is the word "misleading" fair? Misleading: "to cause (someone) to have a wrong idea or impression."

 

Was there anything in the answers that could have given the youth the wrong impression? Could linking to additional reading and resources have offered less chance of an incorrect idea or impression? I think so. I think the wording could have left some uninformed readers with the wrong idea.

 

The polygamy answer is woefully light and a missed opportunity (especially without a further reading link).

 

This is not correct:

 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stopped practicing plural marriage in 1890, and anyone practicing or advocating it today cannot belong to the Church.

 

 

The church did not stop practicing plural marriage in 1890. Plenty of pre-1890 plural marriages continued after this date and scores more were performed after this date. 

 

From one of the essays:

 

Believing that the covenants they made with God and their spouses had to be honored above all else, many husbands, including Church leaders, continued to cohabit with their plural wives and fathered children with them well into the 20th century... 

Ever since the opening of colonies in Mexico and Canada, Church leaders had performed plural marriages in those countries, and after October 1890, plural marriages continued to be quietly performed there... Under exceptional circumstances, a smaller number of new plural marriages were performed in the United States between 1890 and 1904 

 

 

In addition, plural marriage remains a principle of the church - particularly for temple sealings. One of my relatives is sealed to two living women. His first wife, who is still sealed to, but legally divorced, and his second wife to whom he is both legally married and sealed.

 

On the answer about attitudes to gay people it says: "...people are free to choose how they live their lives, but that doesn’t change God’s plan..." This is technically accurate, but I prefer the greater clarity of the statement on mormonsandgays.org (linked after the answer) that: "... individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them."  

 

On the Book of Mormon:

 

Science is learning more and more about the ancient Americas, and that process will continue. But we shouldn’t assume that any of that research will give conclusive evidence for or against the Book of Mormon. The ultimate proof of its truth comes through sincere study and prayer and by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 

No academic/scientific research will give conclusive evidence for or against the Book of Mormon? Really?

Edited February 26, 2015 by canard78

[Scott Lloyd]

The magazine targeting the rising LDS generation (New Era) decides to tackle some challenging issues but:

a) Gives shallow answers which includes misleading information

b) Misses the easy step of linking to the essays and other approved sources

https://www.lds.org/new-era/2015/03/be-a-missionary-now/answers-to-common-questions?lang=eng

Questions include (amongst others):

- Mormon men have lots of wives, right?

- Why are Mormons against gay people?*

- Are you really Christians or more like a cult?

- Doesn’t scientific evidence prove that the Book of Mormon couldn’t possibly be true?

- Do you all just blindly obey whatever you’re told?

*They link to mormonsandgays.org after the answer to this one, which is a good start. Shame they missed the opportunity to do the same with the Book of Mormon science essay and the polygamy essays.

I agree with you on point B, but disagree on point A.

 

Yes, it would have been good to link to or cite the Church's essays and to otherwise facilitate the option of further exploration or enrichment.

 

But I don't see anything here that could fairly be characterized as misleading (though I acknowledge that, according to your Post #2, you intend to come back later and substantiate that claim; as of this writing you have not yet done so).

 

And we have to remember that teenage Church members are the target audience here. For the most part they not apt to be engaging in extremely deep or academically rigorous discussions with friends or acquaintances on these things. What they need is a ready vocabulary for expressing what they already believe when confronted with challenges but may not yet feel very confident or competent in putting into words. This article help can them do that. Were I a teenager, I think I would find it very useful. Furthermore, I don't see the implied reader here as being one who is going through a faith crisis, if that's what you are thinking. Many active Church members -- including youth -- are fervent and assured believers; they just need the tools to help them express that belief in interactions with others.

 

As for the responses being shallow, that's a bad rap. Yes, the thoughts expressed here could be developed more thoroughly; that's the case with most discousrse. But the messages expressed here would be just as true in any case.

 

In short, you are misapprehending conciseness for shallowness.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[ksfisher]

My 12 year old daughter who is in 6th grade is a New Era reader. The kinds of questions listed in the OP are above the level of those she is asking at the moment. She's really not looking for any kind of information that requires an essay to answer.

As for misleading information being presented, I would hope that the OP would back up this claim.

Edited February 26, 2015 by ksfisher

[bluebell]

I'm with you ksfisher.  My son is almost 13 (less than a month) and the essays would be too much for him right now.  Not because they are so difficult to understand but because he just doesn't care about this stuff yet.  Even knowing some of the issues understanding the how's and why's is not even on his radar at this point.  That's too much like school.    

 

I'm sure he'll get there and probably not too far in the future. 

 

I certainly think they could have included mentioned of the essays and informed people how to find them, though i think the essays are best read for the first time with some direction available as well-like what would hopefully occur in seminary for example, or even a sunday school class maybe.

[ERayR]

My 12 year old daughter who is in 6th grade is a New Era reader. The kinds of questions listed in the OP are above the level of those she is asking at the moment. She's really not looking for any kind of information that requires an essay to answer.

As for misleading information being presented, I would hope that the OP would back up this claim.

 

That may be so but this is what the critics have been lobbying for.  They should should be elated.

[ERayR]

I'm with you ksfisher.  My son is almost 13 (less than a month) and the essays would be too much for him right now.  Not because they are so difficult to understand but because he just doesn't care about this stuff yet.  Even knowing some of the issues understanding the how's and why's is not even on his radar at this point.  That's too much like school.  

 

I'm sure he'll get there and probably not too far in the future. 

 

I certainly think they could have included mentioned of the essays and informed people how to find them, though i think the essays are best read for the first time with some direction available as well-like what would hopefully occur in seminary for example, or even a sunday school class maybe.

 

Again there are those who post here who claim their faith crisis were precipitated because this information wasn't provided to them as they grew up.

[The Nehor]

Again there are those who post here who claim their faith crisis were precipitated because this information wasn't provided to them as they grew up.

And it is available now. That excuse will make little sense in another decade. I expect the excuse will live on anyways.

[bluebell]

Again there are those who post here who claim their faith crisis were precipitated because this information wasn't provided to them as they grew up.

 

I understand that, and i specifically said that this information should be available to the youth and should be presented in official venues.  I just don't see that it was misleading that the church didn't provide the essays in this article.  

[ksfisher]

That may be so but this is what the critics have been lobbying for. They should should be elated.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. What have critics been lobbying for?

[MormonFreeThinker]

I'm putting this in as a placeholder. I'm going to post notes here of where I think the answers were shallow/misleading.

 

Do you complain about critics too? Most of their arguments I seen are very misleading. 

Edited February 26, 2015 by MormonFreeThinker

[canard78]

But I don't see anything here that could fairly be characterized as misleading (though I acknowledge that, according to your Post #2, you intend to come back later and substantiate that claim; as of this writing you have not yet done so).

 

Done... FWIW...

[canard78]

Do you complain about critics too? Most of their arguments I seen are very misleading. 

 

I absolutely do.

 

Just the other day I called up someone who quoted Brigham Young's dodgy quote about Henry Jacobs that is poorly sourced.

 

I was recently asked my opinion of the CES letter and I replied: 

 

Personally I'm not a fan of the letter. I see it as a "Gish Gallop" approach to Mormon history/doctrine issues. Lots of the problems he proposes often have a much more detailed and nuanced reality. Many of them have been individually and effectively answered too.

 

[JLHPROF]

The polygamy answer is woefully light and a missed opportunity (especially without a further reading link).

The church did not stop practicing plural marriage in 1890. Plenty of pre-1890 plural marriages continued after this date and scores more were performed after this date. 

 

In addition, plural marriage remains a principle of the church - particularly for temple sealings. One of my relatives is sealed to two living women. His first wife, who is still sealed to, but legally divorced, and his second wife to whom he is both legally married and sealed.

 

True, but not misleading.  Just dumbed down.

 

 

 

On the Book of Mormon:

No academic/scientific research will give conclusive evidence for or against the Book of Mormon? Really?

 

Really.  Mankind cannot prove or disprove the Book of Mormon.  People have been trying for 200 years.

Eventually God will provide the proof.

[canard78]

True, but not misleading. Just dumbed down.

Did plural marriage continue after 1890?

Really. Mankind cannot prove or disprove the Book of Mormon. People have been trying for 200 years.

Eventually God will provide the proof.

That's not got any basis in anything testable today.

[cinepro]

My 10th grade daughter has been keeping us up-to-date on a boy in her Seminary class who has becoming more and more disenchanted with the Church this year.  Then about three weeks ago, he stopped attending, and told my daughter that he now does not believe in God (or, obviously the LDS Church) at all.  He gave her some of his reasons, including The Book of Abraham translation problems, but the way my daughter paraphrased what he said was filled with some pretty bad misinformation (I don't know if it's what he told her, or just her misstating it when she relayed it to me). 

 

So I tried to explain to her what the boy had gotten wrong (based on what she had said), while also acknowledging that there are a lot of things we don't know about the BoA, the BoM, 19th century polygamy, the Priesthood ban etc. and that unless this kid wants to believe, there's no point in trying to go "head-to-head" with him.  Because in the end, there are a lot of really good reasons to doubt the Church's claims and defenses on these subjects.

 

The whole situation surprised me, because while I certainly knew teenagers who fell away from the Church when I was a teenager, never in a million years would they bring up The Book of Abraham!  So these issues that for years I had been looking at as "adult" problems are hitting a lot younger.

 

From that perspective, I can understand the impetus for the article in The New Era.  And it's tough, because you've got kids age 11-19 reading it.  So I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

That being said, I think there's a strong tendency to write an article like this and have the questions and answers be "Here's what we wished people were asking..." and "Here's what we wished the answer was..."

[cinepro]

I find this statement from the article odd:

 

At the same time, we believe that sexual relations (whether heterosexual or homosexual) outside of marriage is sin and that God has ordained marriage to be only between a man and a woman.

 

Any teenager with half a brain is going to see the problem with that.  Even though the Church believes that "God has ordained marriage to be only between a man and a woman", marriage is a civil matter.  If two men are married together and it's legally binding, then they're married, regardless of what Mormons think God does or doesn't want.

 

The answer needs to say this:

 

At the same time, we believe that sexual relations (whether heterosexual or homosexual) outside of marriage is sin and that sexual relations between members of the same gender are always a sin, even if they are legally married.  We also believe that God has ordained marriage to be only between a man and a woman.

[CV75]

OK, back from work, kids in bed... time to reply.

What do they think of the article?

[bluebell]

I find this statement from the article odd:

 

 

 

 

Any teenager with half a brain is going to see the problem with that.  Even though the Church believes that "God has ordained marriage to be only between a man and a woman", marriage is a civil matter.  If two men are married together and it's legally binding, then they're married, regardless of what Mormons think God does or doesn't want.

 

The answer needs to say this:

 

I agree.

[ERayR]

Did plural marriage continue after 1890?

 

 

Yes it still goes on today.

[bluebell]

Did plural marriage continue after 1890?

 

 

Not institutionally, and that seems to be specifically what they are talking about.

 

Also, when someone asks whether or not mormons practice polygamy or have more than one wife, they are asking about the typical definition of polygamy, which is a man living with two or more living wives as a married couple.  So I don't think it's misleading to answer the question as it was meant.

[JLHPROF]

Not institutionally, and that seems to be specifically what they are talking about.

 

That's shaky ground.  The quorum of the 12 definitely authorized and continued plural marriages.  Not Churchwide, but approved by the leadership.

[bluebell]

That's shaky ground.  The quorum of the 12 definitely authorized and continued plural marriages.  Not Churchwide, but approved by the leadership.

 

Yes, i know.  But institutionally the practiced stopped in 1890.  

 

It's kind of like saying that women aren't allowed to be sealed to more than one man unless the woman is dead.  That's technically true (as far as the institution of the church is concerned that is the doctrine) but there have been exceptions that have been approved by leadership where a living woman is sealed to more than one man.

[carbon dioxide]

Any teenager with half a brain is going to see the problem with that.  Even though the Church believes that "God has ordained marriage to be only between a man and a woman", marriage is a civil matter.  If two men are married together and it's legally binding, then they're married, regardless of what Mormons think God does or doesn't want.

 

 

We all would answer this issue differently and each views marriage differently  How I would answer it is for me marriage is mainly a religious matter.  For the Church, marriage is defined not by the government but by God.  Jesus defined marriage as what God has joined together, not what the government has joined together.  So yes, the government may recognize gay marriage but that does not mean the Church needs to recognize it.  The government legalizes a lot of things that is against the standards of God.  The government can legalize marriage between humans and animals and they would be legal marriages but that does not mean the marriages are right.

[carbon dioxide]

Not institutionally, and that seems to be specifically what they are talking about.

 

Also, when someone asks whether or not mormons practice polygamy or have more than one wife, they are asking about the typical definition of polygamy, which is a man living with two or more living wives as a married couple.  So I don't think it's misleading to answer the question as it was meant.

Which would be the way the world looks at it.  People don't care about the concept of a man being married or sealed to two or more women for eternity.  The vast majority don't even believe in that so its of no concern to them.