Iron Rod Saints and Liahona Saints

[SteveO]

http://www.zionsbest.com/people.html

Here is the article I'm referencing.

I hope he doesn't mind, but I've been thinking lately on some of the posts from California Boy.  I keep thinking how sincere he comes across in feeling at peace with his decision to stay on the outside of the church, and what a tragedy for the church to not have him actively participating.

And so I came across this article titled What the Church Means to People Like Me.  There's a ton of stuff in it and I encourage everyone to read it.  He speaks about two different groups in the church, Iron Rod Saints and Liahona Saints.  The Iron Rod Saint does not look for questions, but for answers, and in the Gospel--as he understands it--he finds or is confident that he can find the answer to every important question. The Liahona Saint, on the other hand, is preoccupied with questions and skeptical of answers; he finds in the Gospel--as he understands it--answers to enough important questions so that he can function purposefully without answers to the rest.

A few highlights that stood out to me:

"A point to underscore in terms of our objective of "unity of the faith" is that Iron Rods and Liahonas have great difficulty understanding each other--not at the level of intellectual acceptance of the right to peaceful co-existence, but at the level of personal communion, of empathy. To the Iron Rod a questioning attitude suggests an imperfect faith; to the Liahona an unquestioning spirit betokens a closed mind. Neither frequent association nor even prior personal involvement with the other group guarantees empathy. Indeed, the person who has crossed the line is likely to be least sympathetic and tolerant toward his erstwhile kindred spirits"

 

"As for the authority of the Latter-day prophets, the Liahona Saint finds consensus among them on Gospel fundamentals but far-ranging diversity on many important issues. The record shty on many important issues. The record shows error, as in Brigham Young's statements about the continuation of slavery, and it shows change of counsel, as in the matter of gathering to Zion. It shows differences of opinion--Heber J. Grant and Reed Smoot on the League of Nations, and David O. McKay and Joseph Fielding Smith on the process of creation. To the Liahonas, the "living oracles" are God's special witnesses of the Gospel of Christ and His agents in directing the affairs of the Church, but like the scriptures, they leave many important questions unanswered, or uncertainly answered."

"The Iron Rod proposition that the Spirit will supply what the prophets have not gives difficulty on both philosophical and experimental grounds. Claims that prayer is an infallible, almost contractual, link between God and man through the Holy Spirit find Liahona Mormons perplexed by the nature of the evidence. As a method of confirming truth, the witness of the Spirit demonstrably has not produced uniformity of Gospel interpretation even among Iron Rod Saints, and it is allegedly by the witness of that same Spirit--by the burning within--that many apostates pronounce the whole Church in error. As a method of influencing the course of events, it seems unpredictable and some of the miracles claimed for it seem almost whimsical. By the prayer of faith one man recovers his lost eyeglasses; in spite of such prayer, another man goes blind of such prayer, another man goes blind."

"Both kinds of Latter-day Saints serve the Church. They talk differently and apparently think and feel differently about the Gospel, but as long as they avoid the extremes just mentioned, they share a love for and commitment to the Church. They cannot therefore be distinguished on the basis of attendance at meetings, or participation on welfare projects, or contributions, or faithfulness in the performance of callings. They may or may not be hundred percenters, but the degree of their activity is not a function of type, insofar as I have been able to observe."

I think depending on the topic, I find myself in both camps.  I don't question church leadership or criticize them.  I think it is a dangerous road to go down.  But I am starting to think more and more that members need different things, and that a rough "customization" is possible.  I really do not like church.  I will straight up skip elder's quorum most Sundays.  I just get emotionally exhausted dealing with fellow members.  I do the church's service projects that I see as valuable, and absolutely refuse to help people when they move.  I struggle with prayers, but love scripture study.  Stuff that I've felt guilty over, but I think I shouldn't have to.

So what are your opinions?  Where do you fall?  Is there a way to "customize" the gospel to fit specific needs?  Does any of this sound familiar to our interactions on this board?Thoughts?  

 

PS:  And for goodness sake DO NOT turn this into a thread on the church's stance on homosexuality!!!  Please and thank you  

 

 

 

[Duncan]

Sometimes the Liahona only works according to your "faith and diligence"-an aside the term Liahona is first mentioned in Alma, not 1st Nephi. Joseph Smith taught that "for nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God. " Some people have the iron Rod up their oonka toonkas that the straight and narrow way becomes the straight and narrow minded. I think a balance is needed for the two. I had a great Brigham Young quotation on this, i'll see if I can dig it out

Edited July 23, 2017 by Duncan

[cdowis]

I think you should make mention of Richard Poll who coined the phrase

http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2014/06/richard-poll-iron-rodders-and-liahonas/

[Robert F. Smith]

58 minutes ago, SteveO said:

............................................ The record shows error, as in Brigham Young's statements about the continuation of slavery, .......................................................................

...................................................

I recall reading Jerald Tanner's harsh condemnation of Brigham for saying that the Emancipation Proclamation would not end slavery.  Yet today historians and Black civil rights activists alike openly agree with Brigham.  What with Jim Crow, the KKK, and extensive lynchings, it took nearly another century after the Emancipation Proclamation before slavery truly ended.  Much that Brigham said on race was plainly wrong, but that does not mean that everything he said was wrong.  Yet even well-educated people often make precipitate statements about him which are false.  We need to make better balanced appraisals.  And presentism doesn't help in that endeavor.

[Calm]

58 minutes ago, cdowis said:

I think you should make mention of Richard Poll who coined the phrase

http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2014/06/richard-poll-iron-rodders-and-liahonas/

The article linked to is the original one by Richard Poll.  Besides authorship, is there anything else you think we should know for those of us who don't listen to podcasts?

Edited July 23, 2017 by Calm

[strappinglad]

For some weird reason, this thread triggered the memory of this dialogue from the movie " Men in Black "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqR6CBFyelw

Of course 'K' makes some factual errors but the gist is OK.

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by strappinglad

[Glenn101]

I really detest such labels. I have found a few, a really very few who might be considered to fall into one or the other of those labels, but then, not all of the time. All too often, it seems to me, that a person will label himself or herself and then apply another, less positive, label to those who do not agree with them.Chapel Mormons vs. Internet Mormons....... Now Iron Rod vs. Liahona Mormons.

Anyone who does not agree with me are labelephobes. 

Glenn

[Five Solas]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I recall reading Jerald Tanner's harsh condemnation of Brigham for saying that the Emancipation Proclamation would not end slavery.  Yet today historians and Black civil rights activists alike openly agree with Brigham.  What with Jim Crow, the KKK, and extensive lynchings, it took nearly another century after the Emancipation Proclamation before slavery truly ended.  Much that Brigham said on race was plainly wrong, but that does not mean that everything he said was wrong.  Yet even well-educated people often make precipitate statements about him which are false.  We need to make better balanced appraisals.  And presentism doesn't help in that endeavor.

CFR that post-1865 one man could sell another man (or women or child) as property in an open market (a.k.a., legal slavery). 

Yeah, that was rhetorical.  I suggest you give President Lincoln his due, Robert F. Smith.  And acknowledge that Brigham Young was wrong.  Because Young very much was.  To pretend otherwise is a serious disservice to our nation's history. 

--Erik 

[SteveO]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

I really detest such labels. I have found a few, a really very few who might be considered to fall into one or the other of those labels, but then, not all of the time. All too often, it seems to me, that a person will label himself or herself and then apply another, less positive, label to those who do not agree with them.Chapel Mormons vs. Internet Mormons....... Now Iron Rod vs. Liahona Mormons.

Anyone who does not agree with me are labelephobes. 

Glenn

Like I said, I think it'd be hard for anyone to fall completely into either group.  What I found interesting was the approach each had towards the gospel--particularly with the way he seemed to be suggesting that the gospel is malleable enough to meet the needs of individuals.  Which is just strange because I would normally say that the gospel standards are uniform for all members no matter.  In other words, I agree with both...

I'm just at a strange place right now--not a faith crisis, but my outlook on all things spiritual is just expanding and I'm trying to make all the pieces fit together.

Edited July 23, 2017 by SteveO

[Maidservant]

14 hours ago, SteveO said:

a questioning attitude suggests an imperfect faith;. . . . an unquestioning spirit betokens a closed mind.

For me I would repeat this: "an unquestioning spirit betokens an imperfect faith".

I am absolutely a questioner.  And I deeply believe that the kind of questions we ask determine the kind of answers that are possible.  That GOD produces answers according to the questions asked.  (GOD for me being something much more total and endless than 'Heavenly Father', who is a man exalted, and ahead of us on the path, and a partaker of GOD.)

I don't consider myself a skeptic, because I am absolutely a believer.  I believe and believe and believe.  Heck, I believe in unicorns.

But I do consider myself a materialist/experientialist.  I also consider the greatest faith to be the one that says "The emperor has no clothes on" rather than the faith of "what a wonderful outfit the emperor has on".  So I find myself of the former--for better or worse, and I won't congratulate myself or assume it's for the better.

I am also a completely off the path kind of person--again, for better or worse.  I absolutely have no use for 'a path'.  What for?  That's the place where everybody else has been already!!! I want to go climb a tree, run through a meadow, find out where the creek is.  Yes, I might meet a bear--but bears find the path, too.

I once had a conversation with God/Heavenly Father/whoever was listening/just myself.  I was in a sealing room of the temple for a relative's wedding.  There was a time set for it to begin (of course).  The time for the beginning was a very important rule.  The order of the temple depends on it.  Also, if you are a respectful/good person, you would think that you could manage to respect the temple's timetable, it just can't be that hard.

However, in this instance, almost everyone was seated and ready in the sealing room.  But there was one sibling and spouse that were trying to park their car and was simply not going to make the time.  They closed the door and the Sealer began to give the counsel.  At the end of the counsel, they opened the door in this case and let the waiting couple into the room, so that they too were able to witness the actual sealing ceremony.

Well, when this was happening, I was very sad inside myself and anxious that the sibling be included.  And so this is why I began the conversation with God.  And I asked him, "Which rule should we keep?  Should we keep the rule of the sealing starting on time?  Or should we keep the rule where the sibling should be gathered with the family?  Which is the more godly rule?"  Well, when the door opened and the family member was gathered, I felt like Heavenly Father answered me.  Of course, it had started on time, also! Ha ha.

Up to that point, had you asked me, I would have been a "we should start on time" kind of Mormon.  But ever after that til today, I am always trying to find the deepest, most fundamental rule that should be kept in any situation ("let the family in"), and it is almost never the rule I first think, nor are the rules always compatible, even though they are both good (or both equally bad choices with fallout)--but to choose one, is to deny the other.  But I think that's the way it is supposed to be until we come to the Fulness of the Father!  (And started in the grand tradition of Eve.)

As far as scriptures/temple, they have levels upon levels upon levels forever [levels of closed through levels of open] . . . and what scriptures you read/get revealed to you are the ones you are ready for i.e. who you are at that point.

In the end, I have to know myself and I have to know God. And I have to be able to live with myself with integrity and peace. The prophets and the scriptures can be a guide, but in the end I have to be 'plugged in' myself otherwise the prophets and scriptures are nothing after all.  And if I make a huge mistake (because I'm relying on myself and attempting to channel the Spirit) and get it wrong (the wrong Spirit)--well, I'll just claw my way back.  It's all experience, so in the end, it can be my good.  I happen to know already (by experience), that God is coming after to me to find me no matter where I wander.

The 'church' of my childhood and the 'church' of my young adulthood (and the 'GOD' of my childhood and young adulthood) is completely gone for me.  I don't recognize that person any more and I can't be that person anymore, and that means I can't live in that church and engage with that God anymore.  It has been a very many bewildering and lonely years for me.  But I also feel like that it is GOD and possibly Heavenly Father who needed that old me, including that old church, and that God that WASN'T REALLY HIM, to get shattered.  I wasn't sure what to build in it's place and I only can admit I don't know GOD yet.  But I know more than I used to.  Now it's a God I find everywhere--in every church, in every song, in every person, in every destruction, in every resurrection.  And I'm not done yet, I know that.  I still don't know if my final peace is in the church or out of it.  I'd like to be in it--but I HAVE TO FOLLOW WHERE I THINK GOD IS TAKING ME, even if it's somewhere I could not have imagined ever being what was right before, in the way that I thought 'right' was.

I think one place where people get tripped up is with the IDOL OF RECONCILIATION.  They confuse 'GOD' or truth with 'it has to make sense and line up'.  NOT.  If we could be comfortably with 'THIS IS REALLY WEIRD AND MAKES NO SENSE WHATEVER BUT WHAT A RIDE!!'  For example, I have a big problem with Bible transmission.  Huge.  But I also absolutely know how I feel when I participate in a baptism (I'm often the piano player, so I get to attend a lot of baptisms) and how I feel when my older sons ordain their younger brothers into the priesthood.  I don't want to discard my EXPERIENCE even in the face of something I find completely not what I once thought it to be (i.e. the Bible).  I never want to be so 'right' about something historical, that I 'right' myself out of serving my sisters by the manner of visiting teaching.  I want to be humble enough to participate in visiting teaching.  I also have to acknowledge that I have been UPHELD massively in my life; I know I have been served from beyond the veil by those who love me, God or ancestors or Lord Ganesh or all, any, and more.  So I know whatever the paradigm shape the real universe turns out to be (we see through a glass darkly now), I know I. am. loved. and I have the opportunity to also learn to give that level of love.

Anyway, I don't know if THIS all made sense (maybe it helped ME to write it)--but I'm choosing to hang on to what Bro. Uchtdorf said--that I should stay as long and as much as I can, and be who I can be WITHIN the church; rather than leaving.  So I am taking that at face value at this point, until and unless I feel my integrity is violated by doing so.  But I do understand people who get to that point.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Maidservant

[Maidservant]

6 hours ago, SteveO said:

 

By the prayer of faith one man recovers his lost eyeglasses; in spite of such prayer, another man goes blind

I call this the Candy Machine God--you push a button (prayer), and out come goodies at the other end (candy, like found eyeglasses).

OF COURSE, this is not how the universe/God works!  We all have to get past that whether within religion engaging with God or just engaging with the bigness of life.  Sometimes you can make some order out of your life by lining up your choices--and other times there's just a tsunami and it doesn't matter what you did.

A prayer of faith is to pray that we will understand God's will and be able to bear it.

But we've all had our foxholes where all we can manage to do is: "Please ! Help me ! Save me ! Give me !"  We all understand that.

And sometimes we get that request. It happens.

And sometimes we're stuck in Liberty Jail for what seems like eternity.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Maidservant

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Five Solas said:

CFR that post-1865 one man could sell another man (or women or child) as property in an open market (a.k.a., legal slavery). 

Yeah, that was rhetorical.  I suggest you give President Lincoln his due, Robert F. Smith.  And acknowledge that Brigham Young was wrong.  Because Young very much was.  To pretend otherwise is a serious disservice to our nation's history. 

--Erik 

Sorry, Erik, but great as the Great Emancipator was, he did not in fact end slavery.  Nor did the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (1965). You define slavery as the legal sale of one human to another on the open market.  Modern civil rights leaders have given us a more realistic definition based on de facto slavery or serfdom.  You may not think that Jim Crow, the KKK, and constant lynchings were an important sign that nothing had changed, but Black people themselves knew better.  One result was the Great Migration of the 1930s and 40s, in which millions of Black Southerners went North and West to find better lives, well away from their Jim Crow masters.  Maybe you'd like to tell Emmet Till that he only imagined that he was considered a de facto slave.

The entire matter of slavery is a huge blot on the false claim of American exceptionalism, not to mention that our wonderful country never honored any of the treaties made with American Indians, and even exterminated many of them (whole tribes, including women & children).  Persecution of minorities has long been a major American sport.  With the full, official cooperation of white Protestant Christians.

Quote

. . . many African Americans started a tradition of celebrating the actual day slavery ended on June 19 (also known as Juneteenth). But for some, their cheers were short-lived. Thanks to the South's lucrative prison labor system and a deceptive practice called debt peonage, a kind of neo-slavery continued for some blacks long into the 1940s. The question then arises: When did African Americans really claim their freedom?

Chattel slavery in the classic sense ended with the Civil War's close and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Reconstruction followed, creating new opportunities for African Americans who owned and profited from their own land and dug into local politics.

* * * *

"Put yourself in that place," [Douglas] Blackmon says. "You're enslaved, then liberated for 30 years, and then all of a sudden, a certain group of people begin a campaign to force you back into slavery."

Across the South, laws were instituted that stripped African Americans of their rights, making celebrations like Juneteenth a distant memory. A prison-labor paradigm developed. Jail owners profited from the hard labor of their black inmates who were incarcerated for petty crimes like vagrancy, which carried long sentences.

Prisons sold their workforce to nearby industrial companies to work as coal miners, for example, for as much as 9 dollars a month, and inmates were often worked to death. Elsewhere, whites fabricated debt owed by blacks, forcing them into peonage and trading years of free work for their freedom, a practice that spread across the Bible Belt.  http://www.theroot.com/when-were-blacks-truly-freed-from-slavery-1790891953 .

 

Quote

The ending of slavery in 1865 did not improve the lot of most Black Americans and whites developed new forms of discrimination, such as segregation, over the following 100 years. The civil rights movements, led by such figures as Martin Luther King, eventually achieved success in establishing legal equality. However, despite the undoubted achievement of individual Blacks, most Americans of colour still face economic and social discrimination and disadvantage.  http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/americas/abolition_americas.aspx .

 

[Five Solas]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sorry, Erik, but great as the Great Emancipator was, he did not in fact end slavery.  Nor did the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (1965). You define slavery as the legal sale of one human to another on the open market.  Modern civil rights leaders have given us a more realistic definition based on de facto slavery or serfdom.  You may not think that Jim Crow, the KKK, and constant lynchings were an important sign that nothing had changed, but Black people themselves knew better.  One result was the Great Migration of the 1930s and 40s, in which millions of Black Southerners went North and West to find better lives, well away from their Jim Crow masters.  Maybe you'd like to tell Emmet Till that he only imagined that he was considered a de facto slave.

The entire matter of slavery is a huge blot on the false claim of American exceptionalism, not to mention that our wonderful country never honored any of the treaties made with American Indians, and even exterminated many of them (whole tribes, including women & children).  Persecution of minorities has long been a major American sport.  With the full, official cooperation of white Protestant Christians.

 

 

To be sure, unfairness, cruelty and slave-like conditions persisted after the American Civil War.  The penal system used against African Americans in the South was horrific by any standard. And no one is suggesting the struggle for civil rights and human dignity is over.  But let's please not use that to diminish Lincoln's massive accomplishment and/or pretend that the ensuing struggle for civil rights somehow proves Brigham Young was right all along.

That's my point here, Robert F. Smith.  You're now returned to your regularly scheduled thread.

--Erik

[Gray]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sorry, Erik, but great as the Great Emancipator was, he did not in fact end slavery.  Nor did the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (1965). You define slavery as the legal sale of one human to another on the open market.  Modern civil rights leaders have given us a more realistic definition based on de facto slavery or serfdom.  You may not think that Jim Crow, the KKK, and constant lynchings were an important sign that nothing had changed, but Black people themselves knew better.  One result was the Great Migration of the 1930s and 40s, in which millions of Black Southerners went North and West to find better lives, well away from their Jim Crow masters.  Maybe you'd like to tell Emmet Till that he only imagined that he was considered a de facto slave.

The entire matter of slavery is a huge blot on the false claim of American exceptionalism, not to mention that our wonderful country never honored any of the treaties made with American Indians, and even exterminated many of them (whole tribes, including women & children).  Persecution of minorities has long been a major American sport.  With the full, official cooperation of white Protestant Christians.

 

 

A back door kind of slavery was wrongful imprisonment, followed by years of forced labor. This went on for decades after the end of formalized slavery

 

[Five Solas]

10 minutes ago, Gray said:

A back door kind of slavery was wrongful imprisonment, followed by years of forced labor. This went on for decades after the end of formalized slavery

 

And to this very day we have instances of wrongful imprisonment, in privately-run prisons with labor programs for the incarcerated.  Confronted by the evidence, I now admit I was wrong.  Brigham Young was a real prophet with a real gift of prophecy after all.  We should erect a statue, alongside the Lincoln Memorial.  And a little higher too, so he might cast his shadow on that other fellow, the one who left such a big mess. 

;0)

--Erik 

[Guest]

14 hours ago, SteveO said:

http://www.zionsbest.com/people.html

Here is the article I'm referencing.

I hope he doesn't mind, but I've been thinking lately on some of the posts from California Boy.  I keep thinking how sincere he comes across in feeling at peace with his decision to stay on the outside of the church, and what a tragedy for the church to not have him actively participating.

And so I came across this article titled What the Church Means to People Like Me.  There's a ton of stuff in it and I encourage everyone to read it.  He speaks about two different groups in the church, Iron Rod Saints and Liahona Saints.  The Iron Rod Saint does not look for questions, but for answers, and in the Gospel--as he understands it--he finds or is confident that he can find the answer to every important question. The Liahona Saint, on the other hand, is preoccupied with questions and skeptical of answers; he finds in the Gospel--as he understands it--answers to enough important questions so that he can function purposefully without answers to the rest.

A few highlights that stood out to me:

 

 

 

If I may, let me address it in my own words. I love the perspective of CA, brings. It is a perspective that is one often not encountered by others who approach the subject of Gay Marriage, and other issues related to our Faith. Even more impressive is that while so many others are rushing to the "Altar" to marry, some time back he told me, and others that dispite being in a stable relationship, he has not done so because the Church does not condone the practice. This single comment puts him in a class apart from so many, even the active or inactive within the Church. As the article points out, both the iron rod, and the Liahona Saints practice great Faith. But I do not see them in different in "lights", as both are types (if they are different types) of members are members of great Faith and commitment. As both are moving forward in Faith, seeking the same goal, questions and answers. These "questions and answers" are two sides of the same coin, just as "faith and works" are two sides of the same coin. So if their is a price to be paid to enter into "Eternal Rest", it will be these two coins. No matter the issue, it is heartbreaking to all who love their children or other family members who suffer as a result of bing denied blessings within the Church, due to commandments they can't, or do not follow. But these things are not random, they are commandments that based upon timeless laws and commandments, found within scripture. 

Having served as in a Branch Presidecy, as a Clerk, and in a Bisopric, the Church does all it can to to feed, subsidize rent, car payments and other needs to assist members, not only to care for their temporal needs, it also does so in the effort to allow them to pay their tithing. This so that they may enjoy both the Temporal and Spiritual blessings that come as a result of obeying this  commandment, which also includes the blessings of the Temple. For those suffering from addition it offers anonymous drug counseling, in an effort to heal and not condemn. To quote an old Southern saying, "I have a dog in this fight", I have a child who is Gay and married. While she has long since come "out of the closet", she was living within our Ward boundaries, attended Ward socials, was always received with love and compassion (she had spent her whole life within that Ward). There was no effort to seek her out for Church Courts and excommunication, none! I have known Gay members who have served in positions within the Church because they were living chaste lives, just as straight members who never married and living chaste lives. 

Anyway, not sure if my comments are welcome when it comes to matters concerning Gay Marraige. I only waded into the pool because of the comments about CA, whom I consider a friend, and because of my family experience. Also, I do not wish to ramble on and on about the subject. Either way, the "Balm of Gilead" is available to all who feel pain, just as is the love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven. My prayer is that all my seek it out, and find peace of mind and soul. 

[thesometimesaint]

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I recall reading Jerald Tanner's harsh condemnation of Brigham for saying that the Emancipation Proclamation would not end slavery.  Yet today historians and Black civil rights activists alike openly agree with Brigham.  What with Jim Crow, the KKK, and extensive lynchings, it took nearly another century after the Emancipation Proclamation before slavery truly ended.  Much that Brigham said on race was plainly wrong, but that does not mean that everything he said was wrong.  Yet even well-educated people often make precipitate statements about him which are false.  We need to make better balanced appraisals.  And presentism doesn't help in that endeavor.

Brother Brigham was right. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't end Slavery in the US. It only ended it in states that were in rebellion. The 13 Amendment is what ended legal slavery in the US except as punishment for crime.

[Tacenda]

11 hours ago, Maidservant said:

For me I would repeat this: "an unquestioning spirit betokens an imperfect faith".

I am absolutely a questioner.  And I deeply believe that the kind of questions we ask determine the kind of answers that are possible.  That GOD produces answers according to the questions asked.  (GOD for me being something much more total and endless than 'Heavenly Father', who is a man exalted, and ahead of us on the path, and a partaker of GOD.)

I don't consider myself a skeptic, because I am absolutely a believer.  I believe and believe and believe.  Heck, I believe in unicorns.

But I do consider myself a materialist/experientialist.  I also consider the greatest faith to be the one that says "The emperor has no clothes on" rather than the faith of "what a wonderful outfit the emperor has on".  So I find myself of the former--for better or worse, and I won't congratulate myself or assume it's for the better.

I am also a completely off the path kind of person--again, for better or worse.  I absolutely have no use for 'a path'.  What for?  That's the place where everybody else has been already!!! I want to go climb a tree, run through a meadow, find out where the creek is.  Yes, I might meet a bear--but bears find the path, too.

I once had a conversation with God/Heavenly Father/whoever was listening/just myself.  I was in a sealing room of the temple for a relative's wedding.  There was a time set for it to begin (of course).  The time for the beginning was a very important rule.  The order of the temple depends on it.  Also, if you are a respectful/good person, you would think that you could manage to respect the temple's timetable, it just can't be that hard.

However, in this instance, almost everyone was seated and ready in the sealing room.  But there was one sibling and spouse that were trying to park their car and was simply not going to make the time.  They closed the door and the Sealer began to give the counsel.  At the end of the counsel, they opened the door in this case and let the waiting couple into the room, so that they too were able to witness the actual sealing ceremony.

Well, when this was happening, I was very sad inside myself and anxious that the sibling be included.  And so this is why I began the conversation with God.  And I asked him, "Which rule should we keep?  Should we keep the rule of the sealing starting on time?  Or should we keep the rule where the sibling should be gathered with the family?  Which is the more godly rule?"  Well, when the door opened and the family member was gathered, I felt like Heavenly Father answered me.  Of course, it had started on time, also! Ha ha.

Up to that point, had you asked me, I would have been a "we should start on time" kind of Mormon.  But ever after that til today, I am always trying to find the deepest, most fundamental rule that should be kept in any situation ("let the family in"), and it is almost never the rule I first think, nor are the rules always compatible, even though they are both good (or both equally bad choices with fallout)--but to choose one, is to deny the other.  But I think that's the way it is supposed to be until we come to the Fulness of the Father!  (And started in the grand tradition of Eve.)

As far as scriptures/temple, they have levels upon levels upon levels forever [levels of closed through levels of open] . . . and what scriptures you read/get revealed to you are the ones you are ready for i.e. who you are at that point.

In the end, I have to know myself and I have to know God. And I have to be able to live with myself with integrity and peace. The prophets and the scriptures can be a guide, but in the end I have to be 'plugged in' myself otherwise the prophets and scriptures are nothing after all.  And if I make a huge mistake (because I'm relying on myself and attempting to channel the Spirit) and get it wrong (the wrong Spirit)--well, I'll just claw my way back.  It's all experience, so in the end, it can be my good.  I happen to know already (by experience), that God is coming after to me to find me no matter where I wander.

The 'church' of my childhood and the 'church' of my young adulthood (and the 'GOD' of my childhood and young adulthood) is completely gone for me.  I don't recognize that person any more and I can't be that person anymore, and that means I can't live in that church and engage with that God anymore.  It has been a very many bewildering and lonely years for me.  But I also feel like that it is GOD and possibly Heavenly Father who needed that old me, including that old church, and that God that WASN'T REALLY HIM, to get shattered.  I wasn't sure what to build in it's place and I only can admit I don't know GOD yet.  But I know more than I used to.  Now it's a God I find everywhere--in every church, in every song, in every person, in every destruction, in every resurrection.  And I'm not done yet, I know that.  I still don't know if my final peace is in the church or out of it.  I'd like to be in it--but I HAVE TO FOLLOW WHERE I THINK GOD IS TAKING ME, even if it's somewhere I could not have imagined ever being what was right before, in the way that I thought 'right' was.

I think one place where people get tripped up is with the IDOL OF RECONCILIATION.  They confuse 'GOD' or truth with 'it has to make sense and line up'.  NOT.  If we could be comfortably with 'THIS IS REALLY WEIRD AND MAKES NO SENSE WHATEVER BUT WHAT A RIDE!!'  For example, I have a big problem with Bible transmission.  Huge.  But I also absolutely know how I feel when I participate in a baptism (I'm often the piano player, so I get to attend a lot of baptisms) and how I feel when my older sons ordain their younger brothers into the priesthood.  I don't want to discard my EXPERIENCE even in the face of something I find completely not what I once thought it to be (i.e. the Bible).  I never want to be so 'right' about something historical, that I 'right' myself out of serving my sisters by the manner of visiting teaching.  I want to be humble enough to participate in visiting teaching.  I also have to acknowledge that I have been UPHELD massively in my life; I know I have been served from beyond the veil by those who love me, God or ancestors or Lord Ganesh or all, any, and more.  So I know whatever the paradigm shape the real universe turns out to be (we see through a glass darkly now), I know I. am. loved. and I have the opportunity to also learn to give that level of love.

Anyway, I don't know if THIS all made sense (maybe it helped ME to write it)--but I'm choosing to hang on to what Bro. Uchtdorf said--that I should stay as long and as much as I can, and be who I can be WITHIN the church; rather than leaving.  So I am taking that at face value at this point, until and unless I feel my integrity is violated by doing so.  But I do understand people who get to that point.

This resonates with me completely!

And in regards to your questioning comment and the quote I bolded, I remember during an interview for a TR that the Stake President's Counselor replied that I should never question but wondering is okay, when I asked about Joseph Smith's polygamy. 

 

[thesometimesaint]

26 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

This resonates with me completely!

And in regards to your questioning comment and the quote I bolded, I remember during an interview for a TR that the Stake President's Counselor replied that I should never question but wondering is okay, when I asked about Joseph Smith's polygamy.

Way outside his authority, and counter statements by the Church.

SEE https://www.fairmormon.org/archive/publications/when-the-prophet-speaks-is-the-thinking-done

[Stargazer]

16 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I really detest such labels. I have found a few, a really very few who might be considered to fall into one or the other of those labels, but then, not all of the time. All too often, it seems to me, that a person will label himself or herself and then apply another, less positive, label to those who do not agree with them.Chapel Mormons vs. Internet Mormons....... Now Iron Rod vs. Liahona Mormons.

Anyone who does not agree with me are labelephobes. 

Glenn

When I first started reading the OP, in fact, just hearing the terms "iron rod Mormon" and "Liahona Mormon" immediately suggested two camps, both of which I feel I fall into.  Of course, SteveO himself said the same thing.

But I tend to agree with you that this pair of labels is problematic on a number of levels.  Not the least of which being it appears, as you say, to apply to nearly every member of the Church at one time or another -- and sometimes simultaneously.

[Maidservant]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

This resonates with me completely!

And in regards to your questioning comment and the quote I bolded, I remember during an interview for a TR that the Stake President's Counselor replied that I should never question but wondering is okay, when I asked about Joseph Smith's polygamy.

Well, I suppose he had defined those two things/words differently for himself.  I think for some people "to question" means "to distrust".  For me, to question is the greatest leap of trust of all.  It means I know I will land some where, where God and his answer(s) takes me.  I question precisely because I trust.  To question means I am initiating the revelation process--precisely because I trust the revelation process.  I also don't make the mistake of thinking there is a final, absolute answer.  There is only 'what you are ready for until you are ready to be shown more'.

 

**big hugs**

Edited July 23, 2017 by Maidservant

[Robert F. Smith]

9 hours ago, Five Solas said:

To be sure, unfairness, cruelty and slave-like conditions persisted after the American Civil War.  The penal system used against African Americans in the South was horrific by any standard. And no one is suggesting the struggle for civil rights and human dignity is over.  But let's please not use that to diminish Lincoln's massive accomplishment and/or pretend that the ensuing struggle for civil rights somehow proves Brigham Young was right all along.

That's my point here, Robert F. Smith.  You're now returned to your regularly scheduled thread.

--Erik

If Brother Brigham just has to be wrong, despite evidence to the contrary, I suppose that belief will overpower fact.  However, that does not diminish any accomplishment of Lincoln, except that there were forces at play much bigger than Lincoln -- and were not his fault.

[sunstoned]

23 hours ago, Five Solas said:

CFR that post-1865 one man could sell another man (or women or child) as property in an open market (a.k.a., legal slavery). 

Yeah, that was rhetorical.  I suggest you give President Lincoln his due, Robert F. Smith.  And acknowledge that Brigham Young was wrong.  Because Young very much was.  To pretend otherwise is a serious disservice to our nation's history. 

--Erik 

Agreed.  No one today "clearly agrees with Brigham Young" on issues of slavery.  For whatever reason, he was a racist.  He said and preached terrible racist things. IMO it is best for both leaders and latter day saints to just agree that teachings of the past were were wrong, we apologize and we are moving on.

[Gray]

23 hours ago, Five Solas said:

And to this very day we have instances of wrongful imprisonment, in privately-run prisons with labor programs for the incarcerated.  Confronted by the evidence, I now admit I was wrong.  Brigham Young was a real prophet with a real gift of prophecy after all.  We should erect a statue, alongside the Lincoln Memorial.  And a little higher too, so he might cast his shadow on that other fellow, the one who left such a big mess. 

;0)

--Erik 

I'm not claiming that Brigham Young was clairvoyant. I'm just saying the end of legal enslavement ended slavery in name only. It continued for many years afterwards in other forms.

Lincoln was of course a great man. But a great evil like human slavery does not just end overnight.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Gray

[Tacenda]

On 7/22/2017 at 10:02 PM, Five Solas said:

CFR that post-1865 one man could sell another man (or women or child) as property in an open market (a.k.a., legal slavery). 

Yeah, that was rhetorical.  I suggest you give President Lincoln his due, Robert F. Smith.  And acknowledge that Brigham Young was wrong.  Because Young very much was.  To pretend otherwise is a serious disservice to our nation's history. 

--Erik 

LDS membes owned slaves in Utah. I didn't know about this until fairly recently.  Not only LDS members, but the church, if what I read is accurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_slavery Once in Utah, Mormons continued to buy and sell slaves as property. Church members used their slaves to perform labor required for tithing, and sometimes donated them to the church as property.^[46][27]:34 Both Young and Heber C. Kimball used the slave labor that had been donated in tithing before granting freedom to the people.^[46][27]:52