Recent Leak: Was Church Spokesperson Being Honent?

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, JulieM said:

I don't know that he was "told" to go, but I think it was planned to address issues that Rowe was causing maybe.

It's interesting that when I posted this yesterday (on the other thread):

"It's also a bit revealing that 3 men are named (one virtually unknown from what I've read), but no women are named.  Why didn't Kate Kelly or Julie Rowe have a bubble (but Robert Norman did?).

They name these women's causes or organizations.  But not their names?  I wonder why that was done or how it was decided."

The responses I got were that Rowe wasn't as big a threat anymore since the church held the special conference in Idaho to have Oaks address the problem.

This is off topic but it has been interesting to see how Rowe has seemed to fall from favor so much in the last year.  I live in Northern Utah and we had stakes up here where people were literally moving into campers and wall tents in their back yards to prepare for the "calling out" and now, you never even hear her or her books being brought up.  

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

I guess my point is that there is no evidence that anyone has lied so it seems wrong to me to assume that someone has lied.

Lie, fib.  I'm not sure there's a difference.  obviously Elder Oaks went and responded to the Snuffer issue.  So, it is apparent when the spokesman denied that he went in response to the issue, he fibbed, at the very least.  That's why 2News published that back in 2015.  Oaks obviously addressed the issue, so when addressed by the spokesman it was funny that he said Oaks didn't go to address it, when the result was he addressed the issue.  I guess it's possible the spokesman is trying to imply that Oaks just got in a car on that weekend and let the spirit direct and then the spirit directed him to address the issue that he otherwise didn't know about.  But that seems unlikely, no? 

[rongo]

19 minutes ago, bluebell said:

This is off topic but it has been interesting to see how Rowe has seemed to fall from favor so much in the last year.  I live in Northern Utah and we had stakes up here where people were literally moving into campers and wall tents in their back yards to prepare for the "calling out" and now, you never even hear her or her books being brought up.  

She got to be too crazy even for her followers. She kept going radio-silent and then breaking her radio silence on her web site, over and over. And she got more unhinged. She and her family vanished at one point for a period of weeks (they live in Tucson). 

Maybe the Tucson West Stake is having them prepare for their next trek . . .  

I'm kidding. She is obviously mentally ill, and even her most devoted followers have figured that out. The tent city people are more tied to Roger K. Young now. 

[ERayR]

51 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Whats sad is that you disagree with my common sense and reason.  

Whats sad is what you think is common sense

[bluebell]

14 minutes ago, rongo said:

She got to be too crazy even for her followers. She kept going radio-silent and then breaking her radio silence on her web site, over and over. And she got more unhinged. She and her family vanished at one point for a period of weeks (they live in Tucson). 

Maybe the Tucson West Stake is having them prepare for their next trek . . .  

I'm kidding. She is obviously mentally ill, and even her most devoted followers have figured that out. The tent city people are more tied to Roger K. Young now. 

Does he have a following now?  I know nothing about RKY other than I read part of one of his books 'like a thief in the night' on my mission and swore i would never read anything from him again.

[rongo]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

Does he have a following now?  I know nothing about RKY other than I read part of one of his books 'like a thief in the night' on my mission and swore i would never read anything from him again.

He has a closed discussion board behind a pay wall. The hard core tent city people come from him, and Rowe-mania fed into that. I'm really surprised that he hasn't been excommunicated. 

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

As has been explained above and in the article cited in the OP, the apostles have weekends when they work, but this work is at their discretion and not by assignment.  It was Elder Oaks choice to go to Boise.

"These guys" [apostles]  are doing the work that they love.  It is voluntary.  They are doing it because they love to serve the Lord and they love those whom they serve.  What better way to spend ones life. 

You're saying that all Apostles have the entire weekend as personal time?  What about conferences on Saturdays and Sundays? 

Can you explain how the call to Apostleship is voluntary?  I doubt that any of them think of it as voluntary, I think they feel compelled to accept the calling because they've been conditioned to believe these callings are from God directly, I can't imagine anyone declining the calling.  I commend them for their earnest intentions, and that's why I think its sad.  

I would love to see an automatic emeritus status at 70 yrs old for all church leaders. 

[ksfisher]

2 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

You're saying that all Apostles have the entire weekend as personal time?  What about conferences on Saturdays and Sundays? 

 

Where did I say that?

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

One person's common sense and reason is another person's foolishness.  I have no doubt that I spend my time sometimes in ways that people consider sad, and I have no doubt that you spend your time sometimes in ways that people consider sad.  Such is life.  

All depends on your perspective. Ask yourself this question.  Would you want your 80+ yr old grandparent to have the amount of work that the Apostles have?  Just think about it from an hours/time perspective, mentally step away from your religious convictions about the calling and ask yourself if you really think its healthy and fair, and whether or not you'd want your own family member to take on this kind of a commitment, just from a time perspective.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

As has been explained above and in the article cited in the OP, the apostles have weekends when they work, but this work is at their discretion and not by assignment.  It was Elder Oaks choice to go to Boise.

Isn't this where you're saying that the Apostles don't have to work on weekends?  "But this work is at their discretion and not by assignment."  Or are you saying that some weekends they have free and others they don't?  Its wasn't clear to me.  

[ksfisher]

3 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

 

Can you explain how the call to Apostleship is voluntary?  I doubt that any of them think of it as voluntary,

Every calling I've ever had in the church, both on a ward and stake level, has been voluntary.  Are callings above the stake level made by compulsion?

How would you know if they think the calling is voluntary or not?  Are you claiming some special knowledge into the workings of apostles minds?

[ksfisher]

1 minute ago, hope_for_things said:

Isn't this where you're saying that the Apostles don't have to work on weekends?  "But this work is at their discretion and not by assignment."  Or are you saying that some weekends they have free and others they don't?  Its wasn't clear to me.  

I'm saying that they work they doing on those weekends is at their discretion and not by assignment.  The context of our discussion is the weekends where the apostles are not given a specific assignment. 

[bluebell]

39 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

All depends on your perspective. Ask yourself this question.  Would you want your 80+ yr old grandparent to have the amount of work that the Apostles have?  Just think about it from an hours/time perspective, mentally step away from your religious convictions about the calling and ask yourself if you really think its healthy and fair, and whether or not you'd want your own family member to take on this kind of a commitment, just from a time perspective.  

If the calling is from God, then i'd be fine with it.  I do know though that if my grandfather believed that he was doing what God wanted him to do, and then someone told him that he shouldn't be doing it and that it was in fact 'sad' how he was spending his life, they would get an ear full.  

[Calm]

1 hour ago, JulieM said:

I don't know that he was "told" to go, but I think it was planned to address issues that Rowe was causing maybe.

It's interesting that when I posted this yesterday (on the other thread):

"It's also a bit revealing that 3 men are named (one virtually unknown from what I've read), but no women are named.  Why didn't Kate Kelly or Julie Rowe have a bubble (but Robert Norman did?)."

The responses I got were that Rowe wasn't as big a threat anymore since the church held the special conference in Idaho to have Oaks address the problem.

Rowe hasnt been excommunicated from the Church or claimed Priesthood authority for herself.  She is not trying to separate people from the Church as the others are doing.  Plus there is a group of end days prophets of which she is one.  Those who believe her tend to cluster around the others as well...fitting them all under "false prophets" seems appropriate and does not isolate a still active member in an inappropriate way while still having an appropriate talking point.

Kate Kelly is not much in the picture anymore.  She has distanced herself from Ordain Women by refusing to help with the book because she couldn't have editorial control over it.  She doesn't play well with others so I see it as unlikely she will ever get another movement behind her.

Edited March 2, 2017 by Calm

[Calm]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

This is off topic but it has been interesting to see how Rowe has seemed to fall from favor so much in the last year.  I live in Northern Utah and we had stakes up here where people were literally moving into campers and wall tents in their back yards to prepare for the "calling out" and now, you never even hear her or her books being brought up.  

Between her failed prophecies and her work being classified by the Church as "spurious materials" she must have taken a hit.  She is not leader material (hides away when confronted, erasing her comments, etc.), there are others who are better at creating a mystique imo.

[Johnnie Cake]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I thought you went skiing.

I did...just got back

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

Every calling I've ever had in the church, both on a ward and stake level, has been voluntary.  Are callings above the stake level made by compulsion?

How would you know if they think the calling is voluntary or not?  Are you claiming some special knowledge into the workings of apostles minds?

I'm not claiming any insider knowledge to the Apostles.  I don't know any of them personally.  I'm only thinking about what it might be like, based on my experience in the church and knowledge of the cultural expectations and religious convictions of people I've come into contact with.  Consider it a thought experiment.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

I'm saying that they work they doing on those weekends is at their discretion and not by assignment.  The context of our discussion is the weekends where the apostles are not given a specific assignment. 

And I'm just saying that we don't know how their "free time" vs. their assigned time works.  It would be interesting to have some insight on that element.  

[Johnnie Cake]

4 hours ago, bluebell said:

I'm not seeing it; can you elaborate, restate, or something?

I'm not sure how the spokesperson was lying, if it's true that Elder Oaks had a free weekend and decided--on his own--to use it to help a stake that was struggling.

I wasn't suggesting that he told a lie...but that he was less than candied in how he framed the purpose behind the meeting. Due to the leak we now know that these business weekends as the 12 call them...are purposely set aside to address various needs a member of the 12 may find within the church.  That's great and smart.  But what the church spokesman did was suggest that instead of this being a scheduled business weekend time he instead made it appear that Elder Oaks was using free unscheduled time for this meeting in Boise...and that it appears was not true

[rongo]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Does he have a following now?  I know nothing about RKY other than I read part of one of his books 'like a thief in the night' on my mission and swore i would never read anything from him again.

Oh, you don't think the president when the anti-Christ comes will be of Greek descent? Or that Chernobyl means "wormwood" in Ukrainian?  

Anyone here know Ukrainian? Google translate doesn't help (I drum into my German students' heads that "Google translate is no substitute for actually knowing a language"). I've always wanted to confirm with someone who knows Ukrainian, and put that to rest once and for all. And here we are talking about Richard K. Young today . . .  

What do we do if Chernobyl really does mean "wormwood?" Is that just a lucky bulls-eye for Young, like Joseph Smith's lucky hits on the facsimiles?  

 

[HappyJackWagon]

All this talk about church time versus personal time, assigned weekends, business weekends etc is kind of crazy.

The truth is none of us really know how it works. We don't know how many hours they work per week or where they are going, or in many cases what all of their specific stewardships are. We don't know how the church functions. We don't know how the GA's and Q15 (specifically) spend their time beyond some generalities, guesses and occasional press stories.

At some point the church is really going to need to embrace the new paradigm of organizational transparency. It is an expectation in today's world.

Even the PoTUS releases a daily schedule.

[Johnnie Cake]

3 hours ago, ksfisher said:

I don't get what the issue is.  The OP says that Elder Oaks had an unscheduled weekend and and he identified Boise as a place that he's concerned about and could benefit from his presence.  This seems to be what he did and what the church spokesperson reported him doing.  What is the issue?

The issue is that the church spokes person was less than honest...read the link and then factor in what we also know due to the leak

[hope_for_things]

58 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If the calling is from God, then i'd be fine with it.  I do know though that if my grandfather believed that he was doing what God wanted him to do, and then someone told him that he shouldn't be doing it and that it was in fact 'sad' how he was spending his life, they would get an ear full.  

If the church changed the policy about Apostles being in their calling until the end of their life, and created an emeritus status, just like they did for the 70s a few years back, would you sustain that change in practice as God commanded, or would you consider it sad that they weren't in their callings like the old precedent?

Its all a matter of perspective, and expectation.  

[Johnnie Cake]

2 hours ago, rongo said:

I think the issue is that the Church spokespeople tried to portray this has having nothing to do with Denver Snuffer, when it's pretty obvious that it was in reaction to that (especially given the nature of Elder Oaks's message). Elder Oaks may well have chosen to go on his own time or on his own to address it, but it was the PR goal of creating distance between reacting to Snuffer that comes across, well, spokespeople-like. 

Bingo...we have a winner

[rpn]

Maybe the spokesman never got the powerpoint?    Do we even know when the powerpoint was distributed and whether Elder Oaks studied it and decided to go because of it (or was inspired to go at the same time the powerpoint was being made?