Bushman comments on LDS narrative of its history

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, CountryBoy said:

u huh

Yea dude.  Uhhhhhhh huhhhhhh. 

[Five Solas]

Supposing the LDS narrative of its history (dominant, orthodox--take your pick) is sufficiently incomplete and/or inaccurate that it must be viewed as false (or as Bushman put it, "not true").  Can you decouple the doctrines & practices of the LDS Church from its historical narrative?  Can you preserve the former at the expense of the latter?  It seems to me you can't--because history is the source of authority for those doctrines & practices.   

Undermine the history means you undermine the authority.  That's why I think Bushman's words matter--a lot. 

Does that make sense to anyone besides me?

--Erik

 

[Tacenda]

I found it interesting when a gal asked about the "follow the prophet" (song) mantra starting at age 3 for members.  And Sis. Bushman said, "they must be from Utah". What do you think she meant? We aren't suppose to follow the prophet? I'd like to know if the church has many lessons on getting our own personal revelation. Or I'll go to LDS.org and search. ETA: Oh, I found this...https://www.lds.org/topics/revelation?lang=eng We are to get revelation through the prophet and only upon our faithfulness, get our own.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Tacenda

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, Teancum said:

Bur isn't what you say in your last sentence the essence of most LDS testimonies about the LDS truth claims?

 

 

Uh no

I have never heard "The narrative we teach is not true." in a testimony meeting

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Five Solas said:

Supposing the LDS narrative of its history (dominant, orthodox--take your pick) is sufficiently incomplete and/or inaccurate that it must be viewed as false (or as Bushman put it, "not true").  Can you decouple the doctrines & practices of the LDS Church from its historical narrative?  Can you preserve the former at the expense of the latter?  It seems to me you can't--because history is the source of authority for those doctrines & practices.   

Undermine the history means you undermine the authority.  That's why I think Bushman's words matter--a lot. 

Does that make sense to anyone besides me?

--Erik

 

Apply that same logic to the bible.

People rising from the dead, sins forgiven, talking animals, all the creatures of the earth in one boat, including dinosaurs, etc  God popping the world out in 6 days for no reason, Adam messing everything up so we still suffer from one man's sin, and now we are all damned to hell unless we believe this wild story and think one person "reversed the coils" by dying on a cross 2000 years ago, supposedly.  Deus ex machina, pretty literally.

Can you decouple Christianity from its historical narrative?

Heck yeah, people have been doing it for 2000 years!

[James Tunney]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Uh no

I have never heard "The narrative we teach is not true." in a testimony meeting

 

Come on, testimony meeting is not a time for doubt. So, it doesn't matter that you have never heard "the narrative we teach is not true."  Bushman just admitted it. So deal with it. It doesn't mean that mormonism doesn't have good attributes. It's just finding it's way and the believing people are still wonderful.

 

 

[Guest]

On July 16, 2016 at 4:30 PM, Duncan said:

I am no expert on Bushman but I see him saying that the narrative the church has been saying has to change and that change will be hardest for the more entrenched members, not him saying he isn't a believer anymore

He is a believer, one who has asked the tough questions, found the though answers and wrote the tough book, "Rough Stone Rolling". Every Church, every Faith is built around the history, be it oral tradition of the OT, the Books of the NT, and the struggles that the early leaders faced. If the narrative is flawed (something that cannot be avoided) then by extension some feel that there is no truth "anywhere" within the narrative. We have a newly formed faith centered within all our scripture and around the lives of men and women who lived not long ago. We know more about our early Apostles and Prophets, than can ever be known about those from Genesis to Revelation, because all we know comes from that very narrative. Everyday we are learning more about of leaders and faith outside the narrative of the Standard Works. As such we must evolve as we learn how to cling to truth and let go of error. 

[Tacenda]

http://www.mormonstories.org/  "safe place to get answers" spoken by Elder Snow. That explains everything, everything. 

The short blip in full, from his talk:

“Woven into the story, the history will be some of the issues that sometimes rise associated with church history and our doctrine. We try to cover those with some essays which are linked to lds.org under Gospel Topics. The Brethren two years ago gave us twelve questions to answer. They included “Race and the Priesthood”, “Polygamy”, “The translation of the Book of Mormon”, on and on. Nine of those have now been answered and three questions remain to be answered and we are still working on those. We should conclude our work by the end of this year. If you haven’t had a chance to look at those essays, we’d encurage you to do so and share them with your friends. We are in the process of letting leaders, stake presidents and bishops know about them so they can be a resource in the event that some of their members are having questions or challenges about those issues. “Book of Abraham” essay was just released in July, that’s the most recent of the nine essays that have been published on-line.

I think it’d be helpful to know how we chose to roll those out. It was a soft roll out. There wasn’t an announcement saying “You can go to this website to learn everything weird about the Mormon church you ever wanted to learn”. (Laughter from the audience) But yet we had a lot of people struggling with some of these issues. We were loosing young people particularly. And we felt we owed a safe place for people to go to get these answered. So they were deliberately kind of placed in an existing database, so they wouldn’t …. You know, 90% of the church probably couldn’t care less, they don’t worry about such things. But we do have some folks who are on-line and we felt like they needed a safe place to go to get answers if they had questions. So I don’t think you are gonna see a well publicised campaign to tell you to go to these sites. But we just, you know, the people that are interested seem to kind of pass the word amongst themselves. And the only other thing is that leaders now will have access to them. And I think the long- probably the greatest long-term benefit will be: These are answers that have been vetted by the, reviewed by the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency and they have signed off on these answers. And now curriculum and seminaries and institute can safely weave these essays into a future curriculum to in a sense “inoculate” is a word I use quite a bit for the rising generation. So, they can learn a little bit about these things without being totally shocked when they hear them for the first time. Does that make sense? (“yeah” from someone in the audience) Yeah, OK.

So, don’t expect a big campaign. I think there’s been a lot of interest within maybe a small percentage of church members but my view is most of the church really is not troubled, members are not troubled by these.”

Me: Share them with my friends? Share them with my friends? Are you kidding me? It's not safe remember!?!.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Tacenda

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, USU78 said:

That's what I did. What we have here,  I think, is Bushman using a phrase in a general sense, "change the narrative, " while the boobirds and bigots use it in a specific sense. They simply heard what they wanted to hear and jumped to in supportable conclusions 

Yeah, I agree.  I was quite concerned about the fundamentalism and literalism in the church when I first joined now almost 40 years ago, when there were so many other ways of presenting the gospel available.   It had to change to keep up with a more sophisticated notion of religious truth or it could have been lost yet again to mankind- now I think we actually have a chance of becoming the "stone cut without hands".

If we could communicate with a more secular audience which is now more sophisticated in these matters than church theology is, there is no end to what the church could become.   We have it all- we just need to, as Bushman says, "change the narrative", not eliminating anything, but presenting it all in a new way, more coherently, in tune with contemporary theology.

[UtahTexan]

1 hour ago, James Tunney said:

Come on, testimony meeting is not a time for doubt. So, it doesn't matter that you have never heard "the narrative we teach is not true."  Bushman just admitted it. So deal with it. It doesn't mean that mormonism doesn't have good attributes. It's just finding it's way and the believing people are still wonderful.

 

 

Bushman never admitted that....I would explain, again, what he said and meant....but you would simply ignore it...again....due to your agenda

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Uh no

I have never heard "The narrative we teach is not true." in a testimony meeting

 

I think you misunderstood me or more likely I was not clear.  No matter.   Not worth pursuing.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, James Tunney said:

Come on, testimony meeting is not a time for doubt. So, it doesn't matter that you have never heard "the narrative we teach is not true."  Bushman just admitted it. So deal with it. It doesn't mean that mormonism doesn't have good attributes. It's just finding it's way and the believing people are still wonderful.

 

 

Read the context.  You got that post totally backwards.  I am not concerned about anything.  I don't need Bushman to tell what is or is not true, I have been saying what he is saying for 40 years.

[salgare]

I gather Elder Dallin H Oaks is not a Givens fan https://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/02/balancing-truth-and-tolerance.p21?lang=eng

I wonder if for the same Reasons Richard noted Elder Packer protected the Grandmothers?

 

[Scott Lloyd]

4 minutes ago, salgare said:

I gather Elder Dallin H Oaks is not a Givens fan https://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/02/balancing-truth-and-tolerance.p21?lang=eng

I wonder if for the same Reasons Richard noted Elder Packer protected the Grandmothers?

 

I've read this post half a dozen times, clicked on the link, read the highlighted content, and still I can't make sense of this post.

[salgare]

2 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I've read this post half a dozen times, clicked on the link, read the highlighted content, and still I can't make sense of this post.

Its about objective true with a condemnation of relativism

 

search for philosophy

Edited July 18, 2016 by salgare

[Scott Lloyd]

17 minutes ago, salgare said:

Its about objective true with a condemnation of relativism

 

search for philosophy

Well, thanks for clearing that up.

[salgare]

Bushman somewhat explained, along with his comment that the needed change would mostly affect the older members, that Packer was protecting the Grandmothers from being hurt/upset about there grandchildren ... I assume the change referred to is the same one that is going to be hard on the older members.

I maintain it's all about NuOrder Mormonism.  I've recently been listening to several college level debates between atheist and the likes of William Craig.  It seems that all of Christian Apologetics has/is rapidly moving to relativism, that same I see with the Given's movement and the more liberal Mormon apologists that have come out of Claremont.

 

It does seem that around these parts, you have been left out of, or chosen to stay out of this underground.  I assume you are an Orthodox Mormon.

 

Edited July 18, 2016 by salgare

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, salgare said:

So why did dan have to "come to his rescue"?

For the same reason that I had to set you straight on who Bushman really is.  You have been reading too many Marvel comics, salgare.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, salgare said:

Bushman somewhat explained, along with his comment that the needed change would mostly affect the older members, that Packer was protecting the Grandmothers from being hurt/upset about there grandchildren ... I assume the change referred to is the same one that is going to be hard on the older members.

I maintain it's all about NuOrder Mormonism.  I've recently been listening to several college level debates between atheist and the likes of William Craig.  It seems that all of Christian Apologetics has/is rapidly moving to relativism, that same I see with the Given's movement and the more liberal Mormon apologists that have come out of Claremont.

 

It does seem that around these parts, you have been left out of, or chosen to stay out of this underground.  I assume you are an Orthodox Mormon.

 

As your so-called "NuOrder Mormonism" (tm) is not relevant enough to Mormonism proper to merit my notice, I'm not going to shed any tears about having been "left out of ... this underground."

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, Tacenda said:

My mother also came from Sanpete County, Fayette to be exact!   

I remember a comment during the video from a woman that sounds a lot like your mom. She liked the interesting, true history of the church, she read Fawn Brodie, Bushman and many other church history books. The only thing that gives her concern, is how the church expects conformity. She may have gone into detail about it. Maybe I'll find it on the video and give the time.

Yeh, I recall that part of the video as well.

However, I do not believe that the LDS faith requires conformity at all.  Indeed, to be a good Mormon requires full expression of one's individuality.  God is not well served by robots in lockstep.

By the way, my Mom came from Fairview, and that is where we buried her body -- at her request -- to be reunited with her spirit in the morning of the first resurrection, to come forth in glory.  Meantime, I'm certain that she is giving love and comfort to the spirits in prison, assuring them that they will be reunited with their loved ones soon.

[salgare]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

As your so-called "NuOrder Mormonism" (tm) is not relevant enough to Mormonism proper to merit my notice, I'm not going to shed any tears about having been "left out of ... this underground."

I tried to pickup the trade mark, but the Givens beat me to it

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yeh, I recall that part of the video as well.

However, I do not believe that the LDS faith requires conformity at all.  Indeed, to be a good Mormon requires full expression of one's individuality.  God is not well served by robots in lockstep.

By the way, my Mom came from Fairview, and that is where we buried her body -- at her request -- to be reunited with her spirit in the morning of the first resurrection, to come forth in glory.  Meantime, I'm certain that she is giving love and comfort to the spirits in prison, assuring them that they will be reunited with their loved ones soon.

My mother has passed on and it has been an incredibly tough day of missing her and my dad today.  They didn't have much money but figured out a way to put an older manufactured home and old motor home on a few acres in Fairview and made a nice getaway for their family. We weren't far from the corner gas station at the beginning of the town coming from the north, sitting up on a hill. 

 

[rockpond]

I'm grateful to see a respected LDS historian explaining the need to reconstruct the narrative.

I think that we've seen the Brethren start that process, most notably with the Elder Maynes devotional addressing the different First Vision accounts and Elder Ballard's call for CES teachers to "inoculate" our youth.

I think that hearing Bushman also clarify the need to reconstruct our narrative will further advance that effort.

[TheSkepticChristian]

On 7/17/2016 at 2:43 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

 Mormonism is a humanistic and universalist religion, even though most people don't realize it.

Mormonism to you, most LDS don't agree with you, especially the missionaries. Most LDS missionaries believe that all the other religions teach apostasy. 

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

As your so-called "NuOrder Mormonism" (tm) is not relevant enough to Mormonism proper to merit my notice, I'm not going to shed any tears about having been "left out of ... this underground."

The underground I think you speak of is New Order Mormons. You should be glad they exist, they aren't anti per say, like the exmormonreddit usually. They may even be closer to Staylds.com. One day we may be glad so many try to make the church work for them.