Patrick Mason at FairMormon

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

You point out something that I think is important to emphasize, the human characteristic that we all have of seeing the things that we already agree with and emphasizing those elements.  This is what I did when I read the summary of Mason's talk, and this is what more conservative thinkers do when they listened to these talks as well.  Are we willing to actually adjust our paradigm when presented with new information?  If we are willing to adjust our thinking its only in small or gradual steps, and only on rare occasions.  Most of the time when we're presented with information, we will find the things we agree with and ignore the rest.  This is human nature.  

I'm grateful for talks like this because they sound different than what I hear from church leadership, and I think that its important for us to make progress and not be stuck in the past.  How much progress we can actually make when you take into account our human tendencies, is the question.  

bold mine...

I remember a church leader back a few years ago mention how the biggest worry they have is secularism. Funny how that is mentioned as not the bogeyman in Patrick's talk. C/P below a portion of his talk....

I believe we need to summon the courage to make secularism an ally rather than a bogeyman. Secularism is here to stay as one of the principal conditions of late modern society. Furthermore, we of all people should be grateful for it, because without secularism, with its bequest of disestablishment and religious freedom, there would be no Mormonism. Secularism is not the enemy—it is the very air we breathe, and the foundation for our modern democratic, scientific, and human rights regimes that we all value and which have led to such a dramatic increase in human flourishing. To be sure, secularization can also include an aggressive campaign toward the privatization of religion, in which it is banned mostly or entirely from the public square. And in their most hostile forms, secularization theorists and champions have predicted the inevitable decline of religion, celebrated any movement in that direction, resisted any indicators to the contrary, and portrayed the stubborn persistence of religion as not only backward but genuinely dangerous. But before dismissing secularists as bigoted cranks, let’s have the courage to listen to their real grievances and fears about what centuries of state-sponsored religious majoritarianism and moral establishments did to atheists and religious minorities—including, let’s not forget, Mormons. Despite the cries of the merchants of fear on both sides, my personal feeling, and scholarly analysis, is that at least in America, thanks to the First Amendment, secularism is still mostly benign and generally beneficial to the flourishing of voluntary religious commitments and communities, including ours.

I don't think it will go well at all with church leaders but give kudos to FairMormon and it's members for allowing free thought to happen. I almost applaud, okay, I do applaud FairMormon for it!

Edited August 17, 2016 by Tacenda

[Mystery Meat]

20 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

The reason the essay does not disclaim the ban itself is because there was no unanimity on that point. Apparently there was unanimity on disclaiming the "ideologies."  I'll grant that a revelation would likely lead to unanimity for disclaiming the ban. But unanimity could also be obtained if the hold-outs died or changed their minds. So a revelation is only one path. There are others.

CFR for bolded portion.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Mystery Meat

[Buckeye]

3 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

CFR for bolded portion.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of instances in which the brethren teach that they act officially only when in unanimous agreement. You can easily find those sources yourself. Applying that principle to the racial ban essay, I conclude that the brethren were not unified in either (a) disclaiming the ban itself or (b) re-affirming the ban itself, because neither of those actions were presented in the essay. It's that simple. Whether the ban was of God is a critically important thing. The brethren would not have remained silent on that point if they were in unanimous agreement one way or the other.

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

bold mine...

I remember a church leader back a few years ago mention how the biggest worry they have is secularism. Funny how that is mentioned as a good thing in Patrick's talk. 

I don't think it will go well at all but give kudos to FairMormon and it's members for allowing free thought to happen. I almost applaud, okay, I do applaud FairMormon for it!

I'm sad I missed the conference this year.  Sounds like there were tons of great highlights. 

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, DBMormon said:

 

One of the key tasks before us is developing a better, more sophisticated, and frankly more Christian theology of prophets and prophethood.

 

 

I think this is a great example of what everyone is talking about. I personally don't interpret Mason's quote to be saying we need to redefine prophets. He's definitely not stating such. 

Rather than you putting words in his mouth (words he never said) by claiming "we need to redefine prophets" is a statement Mason made, it would be more accurate to say something like "Mason implied we need to redefine prophets."  Or even something like "it seems that Mason was saying we need to redefine prophets."

That shows the reader that you are providing a summarization of your interpretation of his points rather than providing actual statements from him. 

Most, if not all, of the time when someone writes "so and so states that...." it is followed by an actual quote, not a summarization or interpretation of a quote. 

At least that is true of professional  academic writing.

 

[Mystery Meat]

Just now, Buckeye said:

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of instances in which the brethren teach that they act officially only when in unanimous agreement. You can easily find those sources yourself. Applying that principle to the racial ban essay, I conclude that the brethren were not unified in either (a) disclaiming the ban itself or (b) re-affirming the ban itself, because neither of those actions were presented in the essay. It's that simple. Whether the ban was of God is a critically important thing. The brethren would not have remained silent on that point if they were in unanimous agreement one way or the other.

I respect your opinion, but I think there are a lot of jumps and grasps there. That's okay, but I think you are straining just a bit, especially when you state it as if its already established fact.

[bluebell]

2 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of instances in which the brethren teach that they act officially only when in unanimous agreement. You can easily find those sources yourself. Applying that principle to the racial ban essay, I conclude that the brethren were not unified in either (a) disclaiming the ban itself or (b) re-affirming the ban itself, because neither of those actions were presented in the essay. It's that simple. Whether the ban was of God is a critically important thing. The brethren would not have remained silent on that point if they were in unanimous agreement one way or the other.

It would be better to say that you think that is the reason the ban has not been disclaimed then. 

You made a statement of fact that you can't actually prove other than to cite your opinion.

[Buckeye]

4 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

I respect your opinion, but I think there are a lot of jumps and grasps there. That's okay, but I think you are straining just a bit, especially when you state it as if its already established fact.

What's not an established fact? The principle of unanimity is established. The reality that the essay does not affirm or reject the ban itself is fact. Considering that the whole purpose of the essay is to address the ban, and the fact that the essay does disclaim the racial ideologies underlying the ban, I think it is very safe ground to conclude that the brethren discussed whether to comment on the ban itself and could not come to sufficient agreement to say anything. 

[Bernard Gui]

I have difficulty separating talks and discussions like this from the finger-pointers in the Great and Spacious Building. At what point do we let go of the rod and cross the gulf to join those in the GSB?

It appears to me that the point of this type of discussion is to try to avoid, dilute, or negate the prophecies in 1 Nephi 14 concerning the situation of the Church in the end times. We want the Church to be large, progressive, ecumenical, popular, influential, cordial, or in a word, hip. According to that scripture, the problems to be faced by the Church would be the result of the wickedness of the world, but here we are laying them at the feet of naïve, unsophisticated, and mendacious prophets.

For example, what criteria should we follow to redefine the role and position of the prophets and make them more "Christian"? What would a more "Christian" Mormon prophet look like? Better educated in theology and history, more or less spiritual, better groomed, more contrite, better spoken, more scientific, less controversial, less assertive, more democratic, nicer robes?

Nibley said the prophets' reward was rejection and death. 

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Bernard Gui

[Buckeye]

4 minutes ago, bluebell said:

It would be better to say that you think that is the reason the ban has not been disclaimed then. 

You made a statement of fact that you can't actually prove other than to cite your opinion.

Yes, it's my opinion. But if you're going to nit-pick, it would be better to offer some plausible alternative interpretations. Do you really think it plausible that the brethren would issue an essay addressing the priesthood/temple ban, disclaim in that essay all of the racist teachings underlying the ban, and never once discuss among themselves whether the ban itself was of God? I find that to be simply absurd. Of course they discussed it. 

[Scott Lloyd]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

Last time I checked he hadn't visited the board since he posted that, so perhaps he wanted to acknowledge the effort and didn't have time to do more...but the first impression I got from it was he was counting down the addressing of the CFR issue he thought you were calling for (mystery to me how you suggesting using Mason's words rather than his own as the basis of the discussion gets turned into a CFR) with the posts you and stem? church? put up showing what Mason really said (can't remember who else posted) were dealing with for him in much the same way he had been saying "can we now move on" for other things...as in '3 done, only 7 more for you guys to do; once these are all put up, can we then move on?'.  But if so, it would appear that he could care less now about what Mason actually said and wants instead to focus on his own 10 points in the opening post...since obviously they were not Mason's.

Hopefully once he has time, we will get a more substantive commentary that is actually based on Mason's work and not using him as some figurehead for DB's own ideas (though if DB wants to start a thread using his 10 points as his own points, I don't think there is anything wrong with that, he just needs to stop pushing the labeling as Mason's).

What I get from it is he somehow thinks he is being vindicated by the juxtaposition of Mason's actual words with his laundry list items and he is crowing over his victory.

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, Buckeye said:

What's not an established fact? The principle of unanimity is established. The reality that the essay does not affirm or reject the ban itself is fact. Considering that the whole purpose of the essay is to address the ban, and the fact that the essay does disclaim the racial ideologies underlying the ban, I think it is very safe ground to conclude that the brethren discussed whether to comment on the ban itself and could not come to sufficient agreement to say anything. 

I wonder what the essay was when it came to the brethren for such consideration.  Maybe it wasn't mentioned before it came because the anonymous authors and contributors agreed either the brethren wouldn't want that, or they knew the brethren would be uncomfortable with any notion that the ban itself was either good nor bad.  Either way the essay leaves plenty of room for any of us readers to conclude the ban was man made, not revelatory and was not from God.  Which is good. 

[DBMormon]

28 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I think it's been that way for years.  Probably why so many of our traditional teachings and practices our outdated--can't change because someone in the upper echelon won't have such change. 

i was being sarcastic.

[DBMormon]

13 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think this is a great example of what everyone is talking about. I personally don't interpret Mason's quote to be saying we need to redefine prophets. He's definitely not stating such. 

Rather than you putting words in his mouth (words he never said) by claiming "we need to redefine prophets" is a statement Mason made, it would be more accurate to say something like "Mason implied we need to redefine prophets."  Or even something like "it seems that Mason was saying we need to redefine prophets."

That shows the reader that you are providing a summarization of your interpretation of his points rather than providing actual statements from him. 

Most, if not all, of the time when someone writes "so and so states that...." it is followed by an actual quote, not a summarization or interpretation of a quote. 

At least that is true of professional  academic writing.

 

I am not a true academic writer and this is a discussion board on the internet.  my point still stands he has in different words implied the same point.

[Buckeye]

2 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

I have difficulty separating talks and discussions like this from the finger-pointers in the Great and Spacious Building. At what point do we let go of the rod and cross the gulf to join those in the GSB?

It appears to me that the point of this type of discussion is to try to avoid, dilute, or negate the prophecies in 1 Nephi 14 concerning the situation of the Church in the end times. We want the Church to be large, progressive, ecumenical, popular, influential, cordial, or in a word, hip. According to that scripture, the problems to be faced by the Church would be the result of the wickedness of the world, but here we are laying them at the feet of naïve, unsophisticated, and mendacious prophets.

For example, what criteria should we follow to redefine the role and position of the prophets and make it more "Christian"? What would a more "Christian" Mormon prophet look like? Better educated in theology and history, more or less spiritual, better groomed, more contrite, better spoken, more scientific, less controversial, less assertive, more democratic, nicer robes?

Nibley said the prophets' reward was rejection and death. 

 

One crosses the line when they stop focusing their eyes and pointing-fingers on the tree, and instead move their focus to the GSB. One of Mason's strongest points is that, far too often, church members and church leaders are focused on the GSB rather than the tree.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, DBMormon said:

The question is whether Mormonism will feel so threatened that it entrenches in this kind or mormonism or if Mormonism has the vulnerability to shift to this more open more inclusive faith.

"That kind" of Mormonism will die out- it is inevitable.

"This kind" is already here.  10 or 15 years ago there would not have been enough members on this board to support this KIND of discussion- now it is all you see on this board.

EVERY topic essentially talks about how Mormonism is changing.   I know we are not the brightest bulbs, but those who post here are a kind of "avant garde" that shows the direction the church is headed, at least by "gut" if not fully thought- through positions

Fundamentalism cannot stand in today's world- we WILL learn that- or put differently, the survivor generations of today's Mormonism WILL have accepted those views.

It is evolution.  The environment changes (in this case the intellectual environment) and what survives, survives.  It is not so much that the old views will "die" it is just that they will disappear and no one will be left who believes that way anymore.

There are no real flat-earther's left and no one worships Zeus.   It is not as if one day the worship of Zeus "died"- it just became irrelevant under different conditions.

THAT is the inevitable future of Mormonism, I am sure

20 years ago you yourself would not believe what you believe today and that is true of all of us.

[DBMormon]

4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

What I get from it is he somehow thinks he is being vindicated by the juxtaposition of Mason's actual words with his laundry list items and he is crowing over his victory.

anything else? cough cough

[mfbukowski]

56 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I see no sacrifices required, and Bushman and Mason are not doing anything new at all.  We saw the same with B. H. Roberts, Leonard Arrington, Hugh Nibley, Truman Madsen, Gene England, and other LDS scholars.  It is simply that ordinary members of the faith are unfamiliar with these issues, and the Gospel does not require them to be concerned with such matters.  Trouble is that they hear rumors and read ill-informed comments here and there, jump to conclusions, and have a panic attack or something.  This will not be the first time that Mormons have gone through crises, and it won't be the last.  However, I think they will do just fine.  Meantime, I hope that this board will feature some substantive discussion, rather than ineffectual handwringing.

THIS!!  Great post Bob!!

[BHodges]

It's been interesting to scan over the discussion here, to see the strong feelings and the back and forth. There are a few different interpretations of Patrick's talk and each of them highlight particular aspects of the piece. I think what Juliann is getting at is that DBMormon's original synopsis was selective, and in its selection it made Patrick's address appear more pointed than it came across when delivered at the FairMormon conference. It reminded me of an excerpt from Patrick's book Planted where he talks about perspective. Everyone's looking at the same talk (now that the transcript is available), but we're seeing somewhat different things. This is because each of us brings a whole lifetime of experiences into our interpretation of the address. We can choose to see in Patrick's address different interpretations depending on what we focus on:

(Parenthetically, if I had this to edit over again I might suggest Patrick use a different example. The "gnarled old hag" stuff is a bit ageist and sexist, albeit inadvertently.)

Anyway, the principle itself is useful in helping me think about how I can better appreciate the interpretations other people offer. I think the original depiction of the presentation made it seem much more controversial than Patrick intended, and some of the coverage elsewhere skipped over some of the more "hard sayings" of the presentation. If we can find a way to make both interpretations make sense in tandem we'll be closer to Patrick's intent, I think.  

Edited August 17, 2016 by BHodges

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, DBMormon said:

My last few comments are towards Scott who said I was inaccurate in my post.  To everyone else.... please, lets discuss.  

 

 

 

I think what I said was that you were sensationalistic in your post.

Edited to add:

Apparently, Blair Hodges, publicist for the Maxwell Institute, which published Patrick Mason's book, agrees with me (see the post just before this one).

Edited August 17, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Mystery Meat]

13 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

What's not an established fact? The principle of unanimity is established. The reality that the essay does not affirm or reject the ban itself is fact. Considering that the whole purpose of the essay is to address the ban, and the fact that the essay does disclaim the racial ideologies underlying the ban, I think it is very safe ground to conclude that the brethren discussed whether to comment on the ban itself and could not come to sufficient agreement to say anything. 

It is not established fact that the brethren could not agree if the ban itself was sourced in revelation, Brigham Young's racism, or something else. It is your opinion that that is why the essay did not comment on the ban itself. While I think your opinion sounds somewhat reasonable, I disagree with your conclusion. I think the brethren have shown in the past that they are hesitant to make changes or act to undue a prior teaching without a revelation. While the ban is uncomfortable by today's standards, so too is throwing past leaders and teachings under the bus without some form of revelation, at least in the Mormon sphere it is.

[Wiki Wonka]

The video of Patrick Mason's talk has now been posted on the FairMormon blog:

The Courage of Our Convictions: Embracing Mormonism in a Secular Age

[Buckeye]

3 minutes ago, BHodges said:

It's been interesting to scan over the discussion here, to see the strong feelings and the back and forth. There are a few different interpretations of Patrick's talk and each of them highlight particular aspects of the piece. I think what Juliann is getting at is that DBMormon's original synopsis was selective, and in its selection it made Patrick's address appear more pointed than it came across when delivered at the FairMormon conference. It reminded me of an excerpt from Patrick's book Planted where he talks about perspective. Everyone's looking at the same talk (now that the transcript is available), but we're seeing somewhat different things. This is because each of us brings a whole lifetime of experiences into our interpretation of the address. We can choose to see in Patrick's address different interpretations depending on what we focus on:

(Parenthetically, if I had this to edit over again  I might suggest Patrick use a different example. The "gnarled old hag" thing is a bit ageist and sexist, albeit inadvertently.)

Anyway, the principle itself is useful in helping me think about how I can better appreciate the interpretations other people offer. I think the original depiction of the presentation made it seem much more controversial than Patrick intended, and some of the coverage elsewhere skipped over some of the more "hard sayings" of the presentation. If we can find a way to make both interpretations make sense in tandem we'll be closer to Patrick's intent, I think.  

 

I'd recommend the duck-rabbit.

 

[TheSkepticChristian]

48 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Our free agency should be our prime motivating factor.  It puts the responsibility on us, not God.

Of course, you are not expected to go beyond reasonable efforts, and only you can be the judge of whether you have worked at it hard enough.  My question would be, what is everything?  That conjures up a lot.  Part of my advice for anyone with your wide array of interests would be to feed those interests.  For a genuine skeptic, that might mean serious college and university course-work delving into the very issues which are of most concern in dealing with reality -- philosophy and science.

If that secular direction doesn't appeal to you, take it in the other direction and try yogic or Buddhist (Zen) meditation or a similar Eastern religious discipline.  Train your mind to deal with your inner thoughts and to systematically probe them.

1. Again I am talking about doctrine and policies. 

2. I did take three different philosophy courses at the University, including the study of religious philosophy, it was an easy "A" 

3. Please answer my question,  I want to know how we can detect the Holy Ghost? How can we know it is not the result of patternicity, hallucination(minor brain stroke), the Improbability Principle, false memory? 

[Mystery Meat]

15 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

Yes, it's my opinion. But if you're going to nit-pick, it would be better to offer some plausible alternative interpretations. Do you really think it plausible that the brethren would issue an essay addressing the priesthood/temple ban, disclaim in that essay all of the racist teachings underlying the ban, and never once discuss among themselves whether the ban itself was of God? I find that to be simply absurd. Of course they discussed it. 

I think the fact that they can't identify a source and are therefore reluctant to call it not a revelation or to call it a revelation is the most plausible as that is, more or less, the reason they gave in the essay itself. To some degree we have to extrapolate from their own words. Additionally, and while this explanation doesn't really do much for me, I think there is also a plausible PR explanation. If they made a strong statement either way, it is going to have PR fallout with one group or the other. It is a lose-lose on a "doctrine" that in the grand scheme of things, at least in today's Mormonism, doesn't really matter.

I agree that the source of the ban was likely discussed, but it seems hasty to me to assume the reasons for not repudiating the ban itself or reaffirming as a revelation were because of lack of unanimity, especially when the essay gives a reason for the lack of a strong statement one way or the other.