A Prophet's Reward and Apostasy of the Church

[Scott Lloyd]

17 hours ago, kiwi57 said:

So do you seriously contemplate a possible future in which the US government is so seriously tyrannical as to initiate another anti-Mormon pogrom solely in order to force the Church to solemnize immoral relationships under the guise of marriages?

Granted that, at the behest of the New Privileged Class, the US can no longer usefully describe itself as a (let alone "the") land of the free; but so far all of the heavy-handed state interventions against religious freedom have been to prohibit some practice the state has decided it can't tolerate. Are there any precedents you are aware of in which the state has intervened to impose a practice to which a church has a principled objection?

 

It's already doing that with individuals. Maybe doing it with churches isn't too far off into the future.

[Scott Lloyd]

20 minutes ago, kiwi57 said:

If all the members were to demand same sex "marriage," that would be apostasy of the Church.

(Thank you for bringing us back to to topic at hand.)

Fortunately, it will never be all the members. It will only ever be those members who have chosen to take up residence in the Great and Spacious Building.

John the Baptist told Joseph and Oliver that the priesthood keys would never again be taken from the earth. I take that to mean apostate members of the Church will never again exercise such influence that the Lord God sees it necessary to remove the priesthood from the earth, though there may be a substantial number of them who apostatize individually.

[Scott Lloyd]

15 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

History has shown that the Church is great about resisting external pressures to change, for decades and more if needed.

It has also shown that the Church is not so great about resisting internal pressures.  (The garments and temple are great examples of this).

If we reach a point where let's say 75% of members (random number) think the Church should ordain women to the priesthood and routinely say so you mark my words, it'll happen.
Estimates put SSM approval among members upwards of 25%.  The so called "November policy" has shaken many, many members who are in that category.

But the bottom line is where the members all go, the Church follows.  The leaders would never allow mass membership reduction.
But I agree - it will never be all the members.  It wasn't all the members that stopped living plural marriage either.

The leaders will never follow the members into apostasy either. The examples you cite are not apostasy. Same-sex marriage is.

[JLHPROF]

5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The leaders will never follow the members into apostasy either. The examples you cite are not apostasy. Same-sex marriage is.

I agree.  I actually don't think the Church will ever be permitted by God to reach that point.  I think if it looks like members are heading that way something will change to stop it.

But my belief still stands that the Church changes when the majority of members seek for a change.  And I DO think the Church will ordain women to the priesthood at some point.

[Gray]

On 11/2/2017 at 6:44 PM, Hamba Tuhan said:

You just reminded me of an experience from my mission in America. One morning my companion and I met a woman on the street who was a priest in a mainline Protestant church. In the course of the conversation, she boasted that she prepared three different sermons for three different worship services each Sunday. The morning service, she explained, was attended by mostly conservative members, and she still preached from the Bible. A midday service attracted moderates, and she preached a blend of inoffensive Christian ethics mixed with progressive politics. The last service  -- her favourite -- was primarily attended by progressive members, and she just preached 'social justice' and other left-wing political causes. She was very proud of her ability to give her parishioners exactly what they wanted, though she made it clear that she found preparing and delivering her morning sermon a bit of a chore.

I just checked the stats from this church. Between 2005 and 2015, they experienced a 26 per cent drop in attendance, and last year they closed 46 parishes.

Yes, the conservative congregants obviously had itching ears for the fundamentalist message.

I say that tongue in cheek because in Christian forums everyone is always accusing people who disagree of having "itching ears". It's an easy accusation to make, because all it really means is that people want to hear a message that they agree with. That's pretty universal.