Embrace the living Prophets (context repentance, chastity, do your best)

[provoman]

I apologize in advance, delete if not allowed.  I cannot source the original video as the full video is set to private.  An Area Seventy was speaking to youth, the 5 minute segment is about repentance, addresses "chewed gum" and "nail hole in wood".
 

 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

11 minutes ago, provoman said:

I apologize in advance, delete if not allowed.  I cannot source the original video as the full video is set to private.  An Area Seventy was speaking to youth, the 5 minute segment is about repentance, addresses "chewed gum" and "nail hole in wood".
 

 

Love the concept, but does that fit with “And now, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, will not lay any sin to your charge; go your ways and sin no more; but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God (D&C 82:7).”

[Robert F. Smith]

Yep.  He's right.  Perfectionism is a huge enemy of righteousness.  We are all flawed, but there is an atonement, and repentance is always available.  Every day.  That is the true "good news" (Gospel) of Jesus Christ.  We need to learn to roll with the punches.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Love the concept, but does that fit with “And now, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, will not lay any sin to your charge; go your ways and sin no more; but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God (D&C 82:7).”

We need to understand all Scripture in proper context.  Proof texts are typically taken out of context and end up denying the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  What the Scripture you cite here refers to is the deliberate repentance and absolution so typical of some religions, fully expecting to repeat the sin, only to get another absolution.  A very cynical and mercenary use of repentance.  Those who are sincere in their intent will do just fine.  Those who are just playing a game of serial confessions and absolution will be caught short.

[MrShorty]

The big thing that struck me was his recommendation to toss out The Miracle of Forgiveness while talking about embracing living prophets. For years, many of the circles I run in have been calling for Church members to stop using TMoF, so this Area Authority 70 is in agreement with many other voices I have heard. Does anyone have a good source for Pres. Kimball's regrets regarding that book?

[pogi]

It is amazing how much harm  incorrect principles taught by prophets can cause on an entire generation.  The Miracle of Forgiveness was the "go to" for every bishop out there.  To see an area seventy rip it apart (metaphorically) is amazing to see.  I remember my bishop asking me to read it as part of my repentance process in my teenage years when I first confessed about my addiction.   The shame and damage that book caused on a church-wide scale is unimaginable, and on a personal level it negatively impacted my recovery greatly by reinforcing the core issue and source of my addiction - toxic shame, and created new unnecessary anxiety wondering if I am going to "get the gay" for doing what 99% of young men do.   The tone in the book was one of President Bensons regrets, and yet the book still gets glowing reviews in Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Forgiveness-Spencer-W-Kimball/dp/0884944441/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=miracle+of+forgiveness&qid=1630003095&sr=8-1 

That is concerning to me that these harmful principles are still in favor and in use today.  Granted, there are still good principles in the book, but that should not cause us to excuse the bad. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by pogi

[pogi]

44 minutes ago, Fred said:

In this case I think he was talking about not using the best terminology to explain correct principles, which is more an issue of saying something which someone else might not interpret correctly. 

There were a lot of incorrect principles he taught that have been abandoned by the church today. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by pogi

[pogi]

1 hour ago, MrShorty said:

Does anyone have a good source for Pres. Kimball's regrets regarding that book?

Quote

Even the late Mormon prophet had second thoughts about the book, based on his many years counseling LDS youths.

"The book's tone, tougher than Spencer's in-person counseling, reflected his belief that people rationalize sin too quickly and consider repentance easy," writes the Mormon leader's son, Edward L. Kimball's in a popular 2005 biography of his father, "Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball."

Indeed, writes the son, "Miracle" was a book "more on sin and repentance than on forgiveness."

Kimball "later seemed to wish he had adopted a gentler tone," Edward Kimball writes.

In 1977, the Mormon leader said to Lyle Ward, his neighbor, "Sometimes I think I might have been a little too strong about some of the things I wrote in that book."

Some members wrote to say the book's "stiff medicine was rightly prescribed" and brought them "to their senses," Edward Kimball writes, but when others "became discouraged by a standard that seemed to them unattainable, he wished he had communicated more understanding and encouragement."

"Miracle" grew "out of his experience of the 1940s, '50s and '60s, and, in its time, it didn't seem out of place," Jordan Kimball says, "but it was used beyond its due date. Even the church has moved on."

Some members of the late prophet's family, Jordan Kimball says, wished the now-anachronistic book could have been "allowed to sunset."

He believes that's what his grandfather would have wanted.

https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2762815&itype=CMSID

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by pogi

[bluebell]

56 minutes ago, pogi said:

It is amazing how much harm  incorrect principles taught by prophets can cause on an entire generation.  The Miracle of Forgiveness was the "go to" for every bishop out there.  To see an area seventy rip it apart (metaphorically) is amazing to see.  I remember my bishop asking me to read it as part of my repentance process in my teenage years when I first confessed about my addiction.   The shame and damage that book caused on a church-wide scale is unimaginable, and on a personal level it negatively impacted my recovery greatly by reinforcing the core issue and source of my addiction - toxic shame, and created new unnecessary anxiety wondering if I am going to "get the gay" for doing what 99% of young men do.   The tone in the book was one of President Bensons regrets, and yet the book still gets glowing reviews in Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Forgiveness-Spencer-W-Kimball/dp/0884944441/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=miracle+of+forgiveness&qid=1630003095&sr=8-1 

That is concerning to me that these harmful principles are still in favor and in use today.  Granted, there are still good principles in the book, but that should not cause us to excuse the bad. 

I think the book can be good for certain kinds of people.  I have a friend who's husband was asked to read it after infidelity and it helped him immensely, because it was what he needed to hear.  I do think that it is used to much though, and way to often for those kinds of sins like you describe. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, MrShorty said:

The big thing that struck me was his recommendation to toss out The Miracle of Forgiveness while talking about embracing living prophets. For years, many of the circles I run in have been calling for Church members to stop using TMoF, so this Area Authority 70 is in agreement with many other voices I have heard. Does anyone have a good source for Pres. Kimball's regrets regarding that book?

Here:

Quote

LDS classic 'Miracle of Forgiveness' fading away, and some Mormons say it's time

Religion • Some of the book's statements no longer match church policy; even the author said he regretted its tough tone.

The late LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball's "The Miracle of Forgiveness," a classic but controversial book that shaped Mormon sexual assumptions for generations, is quietly disappearing.

The much-circulated 1969 treatise on guilt, wrongdoing and repentance by then-apostle Kimball, who died in 1985, presented masturbation "as too often [leading] to ... homosexuality," gay sex as a "crime against nature" that sometimes leads to sex with animals, and premarital sex as "the sin next to murder."

...

Even the late Mormon prophet had second thoughts about the book, based on his many years counseling LDS youths.

"The book's tone, tougher than Spencer's in-person counseling, reflected his belief that people rationalize sin too quickly and consider repentance easy," writes the Mormon leader's son,

Edward L. Kimball's in a popular 2005 biography of his father, "Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball."

Indeed, writes the son, "Miracle" was a book "more on sin and repentance than on forgiveness."

Kimball "later seemed to wish he had adopted a gentler tone," Edward Kimball writes.

In 1977, the Mormon leader said to Lyle Ward, his neighbor, "Sometimes I think I might have been a little too strong about some of the things I wrote in that book."

The whole article is worth a read.

Thanks,

-Smac

[pogi]

52 minutes ago, Fred said:

I do not concede to your accusation.

I don't need you to.

Quote

 

“Also far-reaching is the effect of the loss of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in a forced contact such as rape or incest, the injured one is greatly outraged. If she has not cooperated and contributed to the foul deed, she is of course in a more favorable position. There is no condemnation where there is no voluntary participation. It is better to die in defending one’s virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.”

Even his own grandson, Chris Kimball, states this about that passage:

Quote

"...this language is unavoidably damaging to victims.

By reading in context and assigning Elder Kimball the best intentions, I can explain and rationalize and in so doing show that there is something good in these statements. However, the words are harsh, punishing, misleading, and dangerous. There is no amount of good intentions or rational interpretation that can solve that problem. These statements from The Miracle of Forgiveness simply must be disavowed."

Quote

 

Presently, the LDS Church recognizes same gender orientation and identity as a real human condition, contending that it is neither a choice nor a disease.  The Miracle of Forgiveness teaches the opposite: that homosexuality is a chosen and therefore changeable condition.

Mormonsandgays.org states that “individuals do not choose to have such attractions [and] attraction to those of the same sex, however, should not be viewed as a disease or illness.”

The Miracle of Forgiveness uses language such as initiate, beliefs, acts, practice, curable, comeback, change, treatments, and recovery (pages 80-89), which teaches that being gay is a choice and a disease/illness. By stating homosexuality is “curable” and can be “totally abandoned” or “overcome,” The Miracle of Forgiveness directly contradicts the new views expressed on the Church’s website.

Additionally, although Mormonsandgays.org does not mention self-gratification, it does teach that no one knows the cause of homosexuality, whereas The Miracle of Forgiveness asserts a cause of homosexuality is self-gratification.

-Mormonsandgays.org:  “No one fully knows the root causes of same-sex attraction.” 

-The Miracle of Forgiveness: “[Masturbation] too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality [and] thence into total homosexuality,” (page 78).

Mormonsandgays.org states, “Though we don’t know everything we know enough to be able to say that same-sex attraction in and of itself is not a sin.”

The Miracle of Forgiveness takes the opposite approach when describing our LGBT brothers and sisters. Defamatory words like the following are used twenty-five times from pages 78 to 88: perversion, ugly, sin, repugnant, deviate, abominable, deviation, evil, shameful, vile, low, degenerate, (un)clean, pervert, weaklings, not normal, reprobate, offender, and weakness. The book attaches homosexuality with illegal practices and falsely states that bestiality is an extension of homosexuality (78). Additionally, it uses the testimony of someone who was arrested without saying what the man was arrested for, giving the illusion that homosexuality is an illegal behavior (83).

Mormonsandgays.org states, “Love is not to say acceptance or endorsement, but it is to say inclusion and not ostracism. We want to be with you and work together.”  The Miracle of Forgiveness, as shown above, does not promote inclusion and instead ostracizes with cruel and dehumanizing labels. It is going to be difficult to “gather in the seeds” (54) of these labels.

Mormonsandgays.org recognizes there is a problem with families rejecting LGBT members and states, “But what is changing — and what needs to change — is to help Church members respond sensitively and thoughtfully when they encounter same-sex attraction in their own families, among other Church members, or elsewhere… Family members with same-sex attraction need our love and understanding.”

The Miracle of Forgiveness states, “Sometimes not heavenly but earthly parents get the blame” (85) implying that parents are to blame for producing homosexual children.  This may prompt parents to reject their LGBT child as a display of fidelity to the Church and to shun what they are taught is evil. Having an LGBT family member does not destroy the family. It’s the fearful reaction towards that member that destroys the family and communities.

From Miracle of Forgiveness:

Quote

It is normal for children to try. They fall and get up numerous times before they can be certain of their footing. But adults, who have gone through these learning periods, must determine what they will do, then proceed to do it. To “try” is weak. To “do the best I can” is not strong. We must always do better than we can. This is true in every walk of life.

This seems to contradict the scriptural principle that we are saved by grace "after all that we can do".  This book leads to toxic perfectionism.  We are never good enough.  These principles are toxically damaging to people struggling to overcome addiction where relapse is expected and normal part of healing.  This is shaming of addicts who are demeaned as children for trying again and again and doing the best they can.  Adults should simply determine what they will do and do it.  Period.  That is toxic and false doctrine. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by pogi

[Duncan]

In case anyone is wondering who this is it's Elder Richard Nietzel Holzapfel, he's been a BYU prof for years and written tons of books, great man!

[smac97]

25 minutes ago, pogi said:

There were a lot of incorrect principles he taught that have been abandoned by the church today. 

I think that's a fair statement, except that I'm not sure "a lot" is warranted.  

Consider, for example, this part of Gregory Smith's review of Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism by Taylor G. Petrey, which included a critique of Miracle of Forgiveness:

Quote

Spencer W. Kimball and The Miracle of Forgiveness

The misleading treatment of President Kimball demonstrated above recurs often. Tabernacles states:

by 1969 [Kimball] had published his pastoral magnum opus, The Miracle of Forgiveness. With all of its hopefulness about the possibility of repentance, Kimball represented same-sex [Page 238]relationships in the darkest terms — “revolting,” “detestable,” “ugly,” “repugnant,” and so on. While his earlier public statements had been harsh with a dose of pastoral empathy, Kimball’s rhetoric in this book was vitriolic (70–71).

Contextualization of Language

As argued earlier, one of the historian’s chief duties is contextualization. Tabernacles’s language and framing abrogate this duty and paint Kimball’s rhetoric regarding homosexual sin as uniquely severe and terrible.

This characterization could be true. But is it? To find out, the responsible historian would first set out to analyze Kimball’s other statements and rhetorical style. Tabernacles must demonstrate that such language is uniquely “vitriolic,” not merely assume it or leave the reader with that impression.

Examining Kimball’s rhetorical style, one finds that the language he applied to homosexual sin is not uniquely harsh at all — this is simply how he spoke about all sin.³⁹⁰ For example, sexual sin of any sort was described in one of his works as “the great demon of the day. Like an octopus, it fastens its tentacles upon one,” “leading … youths to these defilements.”³⁹¹

In The Miracle of Forgiveness itself, fornication is termed “an act of defilement,”³⁹² and the more minor acts of necking and petting “are pernicious and abominable.”³⁹³ Opposite sex sins against chastity are variably described as: “diabolical,” “aberrations,” “corruption,” “filth,” “filthy as hell’s cesspools,” “pernicious,” “disgraceful,” “reprehensible,” “heinous,” “awful,” and “horrible.”³⁹⁴ Homosexual sin gets no special severity.

Nor is such tough talk restricted to sexual sins. “Strapless evening gowns and body-revealing sweaters … are an abomination in the sight of the Lord”; men judging a young woman in a bathing suit is “Abominable!”³⁹⁵ [Page 239]Beauty contests are “a deplorable exploitation of young women.”³⁹⁶ Even “early dating” is called “a vicious, destructive, social pattern.”³⁹⁷

These examples have been about sexuality or modesty and the like. Perhaps Kimball reserved his ire for those types of sins? No, “cheating, the first little dishonest act” is termed an “abominable practice.”³⁹⁸ Traitors to “a friend, a church, a nation, or a cause” are likewise condemned: “What could be more despicable?”³⁹⁹ “Unless they repent,” those who engage in “criticism of [Church] authorities and leaders” will “shrivel in the destructive element they have themselves prepared, poison themselves with mixtures of their own concocting.”⁴⁰⁰ Those who make purchases on the Sabbath “are rebellious as the children of Israel, the dire consequences of whose transgressions against this and other commandments should be a permanent warning to us all.”⁴⁰¹ “Murder … adultery … theft … [and] other[s]” are “heinous crimes.”⁴⁰² A family “feud … [over] property … worth only a few thousand dollars” was “disgraceful.”⁴⁰³

Four Scare Words

In fact, of Tabernacles’s four vitriolic scare words referring to homosexual sin, two are used in The Miracle of Forgiveness to refer to other sins, and Kimball uses the others elsewhere.⁴⁰⁴ I will briefly share examples of each.

The first — revolting — is not used elsewhere in The Miracle of Forgiveness, but Kimball was willing to label a large number of sins revolting. Only four years earlier he included violence and vandalism among them:

These are turbulent times. The newspapers give front page to ever-increasing acts of violence, and magazines devote pages [Page 240]to the growing menace. Such stories are revolting in their worldliness and debauchery. …

Insubordination reigns. Students rebel against restraints and limitations, demanding so-called freedoms in sex and social life. Youth, seemingly unafraid of law-enforcement officers, public opinion, or punishment, run wild. There seems to be an ever-increasing upsurge of rebellion in adults and youth. Vandalism continues in open defiance of officers with ever-increasing acts of violence.⁴⁰⁵

For Kimball, the sacrifice of Isaac was “revolting,” the Book of Mormon’s Enos “revolted” at his sins; the Lord was likewise “revolted” by Israel’s “filthiness.”⁴⁰⁶ “Abortion … [is] one of the most revolting practices,”⁴⁰⁷ and Christ found the “world’s ills” “revolting.”⁴⁰⁸

As for the second word, detestable, The Miracle of Forgiveness regards immodesty of dress as a “detestable expression,” that “no one but a depraved person could approve of … or grant its acceptance.”⁴⁰⁹

Immodesty merits the use of Tabernacles’s third scare word: “this ugly displaying of one’s private body.”⁴¹⁰ Pornography is decried for its “ugly, vicious, sexy magazines, books and pictures.”⁴¹¹ The sins of “pride, jealousy, peevishness, lack of understanding, and anger” likewise have an “ugliness,”⁴¹² as do “fornication … and abortions.”⁴¹³ Child abuse is likewise “vicious and ugly.”⁴¹⁴ Elsewhere, Kimball used ugly to refer to the sin of racial “intolerance.”⁴¹⁵

The fourth word — repugnant — is the same used by Kimball at the US Bicentennial to describe the state of the nation:

[Page 241]We are, on the whole, an idolatrous people — a condition most repugnant to the Lord.

We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel — ships, planes, missiles, fortifications — and depend on them for protection and deliverance.⁴¹⁶

Just below Murder

Such rhetoric may seem over-wrought to the present-day reader — but the historian’s task is to help readers see beyond their immediate experience and expectations in order to truly understand. Tabernacles consistently fails to do so.

At times, the results seem deliberate. The reader is told that The Miracle of Forgiveness “[r]eferr[ed] to the ‘crime against nature’ and ’sin of the ages’” (71). As I have already shown, naming sodomy the “crime against nature” was hardly unique or new in Latter-day Saint (or non-Latter-day Saint) discourse.⁴¹⁷ The phrase was included in Webster’s 1828 dictionary.⁴¹⁸ Even one of the few nineteenth-century talks cited by Tabernacles used the term.⁴¹⁹ Both nineteenth- and twentieth-century Church leaders (and non-Latter-day Saint writers such as Edward Gibbon) had long attributed such sin to fallen Greece and Rome.⁴²⁰ If Tabernacles were less wedded to its thesis of relative lenience giving way to harsh disapproval, it might not entice the reader into seeing innovative severity in this rhetoric where there is only continuity.

The misrepresentation continues when Tabernacles claims “[Kimball] placed same-sex intimacy just below murder in the hierarchy of sins” (71). Tabernacles’s evidence is The Miracle of Forgiveness, pages 77–85 (71n95). This is misleading — these pages contain the entire chapter on homosexual acts, [Page 242]and Kimball says nothing therein about placing them “just below murder in the hierarchy of sins.” Tabernacles could lead the reader inexperienced in Latter-day Saint theology to think that such extreme condemnation of homosexual sin was both unprecedented and terribly severe.

But the inexperienced reader would be wrong. Kimball does place opposite-sex sin as next to murder in the preceding chapter. (In fact, the entire chapter is titled “The Sin Next to Murder.”⁴²¹) And, in the chapter referenced by Tabernacles, Kimball does put homosexual sin in the same category as heterosexual ones:

Because of the seriousness of this sin it carries a heavy penalty for the unrepentant. The offender may realize that disfellowshipment or excommunication is the penalty for heavy petting, adultery, fornication and comparable sins if there is not adequate repentance, yet he often supposes that because his acts have not been committed with the opposite sex he is not in sin. Let it therefore be clearly stated that the seriousness of the sin of homosexuality is equal to or greater than that of fornication or adultery; and that the Lord’s Church will as readily take action to disfellowship or excommunicate the unrepentant practicing homosexual as it will the unrepentant fornicator or adulterer.⁴²²

“Equal to or greater” does place homosexual sin next to murder — but the context of the entire chapter would reveal that homosexual sin was being treated the same as all sexual sin. Clarity in this matter would destroy any implication that homosexual acts were being treated with unique and unprecedented harshness.

For those still with me at this point, the fact that homosexual sin was the equivalent of heterosexual sin should be unsurprising. More than a quarter century earlier, the First Presidency had said in an official statement:

From Sodom and Gomorrah until now, sex immorality, with its attendant evils of drink and corruption, has brought low the mightiest of nations. …

By the laws of Moses, adulterers were stoned to death. (Deut. 22:24.) God said to Israel: “There shall be no whore of the [Page 243]daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.” (Deut. 23:17)

The doctrine of this Church is that sexual sin — the illicit sexual relations of men and women — stands, in its enormity, next to murder.

The Lord has drawn no essential distinctions between fornication, adultery, and harlotry or prostitution. Each has fallen under His solemn and awful condemnation.⁴²³

Kimball’s placement of homosexual sin in the same category as other unchastity was not in the least a revolutionary development, nor was the language or rhetoric significantly different from before.

For example, Heber J. Grant could confidently claim that “thousands … who have been reared in this Church” had heard such teaching.⁴²⁴ Prominent general leaders and more obscure local leaders could all appeal to the idea and trust their audiences to understand. (Examples of Church authors’ placement of sexual sin next to murder are legion; many are collected in Appendix IV.)

And this part about whether (and/or how much) the Church taught that heterosexual marriage would cure same-sex inclinations:

Quote

Marriage as a Cure?

Tabernacles makes much of efforts to encourage heterosexual marriage as part of the “cure” (96). This is an important point, and harm was done by the approach taken by some. As Tabernacles notes, as early as [Page 231]1987, President Hinckley warned that “Marriage should not be viewed as a therapeutic step to solve problems such as homosexual inclinations or practices” (96).³⁶⁸ It seems that some did not get the message, since reportedly at least a few “LDS bishops and counselors reportedly encouraged homosexual men to marry women well into the early decades of the twenty-first century” (96).

Even here, though, it is important to be clear about precisely what Kimball and others taught. Tabernacles says, “In the 1960s and 1970s, Spencer W. Kimball had taught that marriage was the ultimate goal of the repentance process and rehabilitation. Homosexuality could be completely overcome, and once a young man felt ready, then he should marry” (96).

Note that the young man needed to believe himself “ready,” though Tabernacles’s source for this idea is not clear — the concept is not mentioned in either of the footnoted works. In the first document cited, Kimball wrote: “let this individual repent of his perversion, force himself to return to normal pursuits and interests and actions and friendships with the opposite sex, and this normal pattern can become natural again.”³⁶⁹ It is important to note that he said it can develop this way; he did not say that it must or will or should in order for forgiveness and repentance to be complete.

The only other source cited by Tabernacles for this claim says:

If they will close the door to the intimate associations with their own sex and open it wide to that of the other sex, of course in total propriety, and then be patient and determined, gradually they can move their romantic interests where they belong. Marriage and normal life can follow.³⁷⁰

Here again, progress toward heterosexual “romantic interests” can occur and marriage can follow. There is no intimation that it must happen or that it necessarily will — patience is needed.³⁷¹

[Page 232]The 1973 Welfare Services Packet 1 does not mention marriage, and only mentions reluctance to date as a sign of a youth possibly at risk of later homosexual behavior:

It is necessary to instruct and help these few young people [i.e., those with homosexual tendencies] in their responsibilities to prepare for marriage. Healthy group associations with members of the opposite sex that provide the necessary maturing experiences should be encouraged. Resistance may be a sign of the need for help. Priesthood leaders can counsel young people, through their parents, to lead an active, healthy social life.³⁷²

Advice to bishops in 1981 likewise does not push marriage:

The individual can more easily eliminate all overt homosexual behavior, friends, and places by replacing them with more appropriate friends and activities. …

Encourage the member to be in appropriate situations with members of the opposite sex, even if he has to force himself. If he is single, he might attend activities for singles with increasing frequency, and in other ways surround himself with good LDS people.

Encourage him (if single) to begin dating and gradually increase its frequency. …

[Page 233]Help him recognize and retain those social skills, attitudes, feelings, and characteristics that are appropriate and uniquely his. …

Encourage the development and use of his talents, interests, and skills to bless others.³⁷³

There is no mention of marriage. Even dating is “encouraged,” not required. The contemporaneous guide for therapists suggests using guided imagery of temple marriage, but cautions, “Be sensitive to the client’s feelings and use only images with which he is comfortable.”³⁷⁴ Clients might “list the physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and personality characteristics of a woman he would consider marrying. … Through discussion, you can help him correct errors in his perception and gradually envision in his mind what women are really like and how he might appropriately increase his interaction with them.”³⁷⁵ Again, might is the key word.

One should also remember that many of those with whom Kimball worked were married, with wives and children. It is understandable that he would expect them to honor their covenant duties and return to family life as part of any repentance.³⁷⁶

There can be no doubt that some were given poor or premature advice on this front (President Hinckley’s caution would not have been needed otherwise). But to understand exactly what the documents say, it is important to be careful with the details. Tabernacles is not.

And this section about Pres. Kimball's assessment of the seriousness of same-sex behavior:

Quote

Homosexuality Worthy of Death?

Tabernacles seems to go out of its way to paint the acts and statements of leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ in dark undertones. For example: “Kimball noted that homosexuality and bestiality both were deserving of the death penalty and that ‘regrettably,’ ‘the law is less severe now,’ as was the community’s attitude” (71).

This makes it sound as if Kimball believed it regrettable that there was no capital punishment for homosexual sin. But, when his words are read in [Page 234]their proper order, a quite different meaning emerges: “The law is less severe now, and so regrettably is the community’s attitude to these grave sins.”³⁷⁷

Rather than cite the sentence as it is written, Tabernacles quotes a single word, then another phrase, and does not even indicate that the phrase “community’s attitude” is Kimball’s, treating it almost as an afterthought.³⁷⁸ It also reverses the order of “regrettably” and “the law is less severe,” leaving the impression that what Kimball regrets is the absence of the death penalty, when it is the lax societal attitude that he decries. This is clear in the paragraph that follows:

But let us emphasize that right and wrong, righteousness and sin, are not dependent upon man’s interpretations, conventions and attitudes. Social acceptance does not change the status of an act, making wrong into right. If all the people in the world were to accept homosexuality, as it seems to have been accepted in Sodom and Gomorrah, the practice would still be deep, dark sin.³⁷⁹

It is hard to see this clumsy, convoluted approach to citation — when a single phrase could have been cited with more clarity — as accidental.³⁸⁰

Nor does Kimball say that homosexuality or bestiality were “deserving of the death penalty,” as Tabernacles claims. He says only, “All such deviations … are not merely unnatural but wrong in the sight of God. Like adultery, incest, and bestiality they carried the death penalty under the Mosaic law.”³⁸¹ So, even Tabernacles’s decision to highlight homosexuality and bestiality is deceptive — Kimball includes [Page 235]adultery and incest as well. Again, all sexual sins are condemned; he is not singling out homosexual acts as worthy of death.

Kimball used the same type of argument when he referred to the death sentence in Israel for violating the Sabbath day: “Although Israel’s swift and severe punishment for infractions [of the Sabbath] is not exacted today, this does not lessen the seriousness of the offense to the Lord for violating his day.”³⁸² Ought the reader believe that Kimball longed for the death sentence for Sunday shoppers? Hardly. He presents the old law’s severity simply to demonstrate that the Lord regards these acts as sins.

Kimball is not the only one falsely portrayed as longing for a return to the death penalty for homosexuals. Tabernacles likewise attributes this view to Bruce R. McConkie, while simultaneously and paradoxically trying to use McConkie as evidence that the Church said little publicly about homosexuality in the 1950s. To defend the latter point, Tabernacles writes:

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie’s encyclopedic 1958 Mormon Doctrine also offered little discussion of the topic. Both the entries on “homosexuality” and “sodomy” pointed to the more general entry on “sex immorality.” In that brief entry, same-sex sexual relationships remained a primarily legal concern — he lamented the lack of capital punishment for sexual crimes as evidence of society’s “apostasy” (63–64).

Tabernacles’s gloss makes it sound as if McConkie says nothing specifically about homosexual sins by referring to a “more general entry.” This is misleading, since that entry mentions homosexual sins specifically, and repeatedly, in a non-legal context:

Every degree and type of lewdness, lasciviousness, and licentiousness; of concupiscence, prostitution, and whoredoms; of sodomy, onanism, and homosexuality … of adultery, fornication, and uncleanness — all these things, as well as many others, are condemned by divine edict. … Fine distinctions between them are of no particular moment and are not necessary to observance of the divine laws involved. Counsel in the field of chastity is simply: Be Chaste!³⁸³

[Page 236]McConkie’s entry demonstrates that homosexuality and sodomy were regarded in precisely the same class as other sexual sins, including fornication and adultery. He groups them because “fine distinctions between them are of no particular moment” — further evidence against Tabernacles’s dubious claim that homosexual sins were considered less serious.³⁸⁴

McConkie apparently felt no need to justify the Church’s supposed sudden increase in severity toward such sins (as Same-Sex Dynamics’s and Tabernacles’s thesis regarding the nineteenth century’s supposed laxity would require). Nor does he resort to catastrophizing about uniquely terrible homosexual acts as Tabernacles’s characterization of the post-war years would lead one to expect.³⁸⁵

Tabernacles claims the entry is “brief,” though the cited one is three and a half columns and contains no mention of anything like “legal concerns.” The intended reference may instead be a one-column entry on “Capital Punishment” that it does not cite but which does include legal matters. That entry quotes the apostle Paul, saying that “those who commit certain sexual perversions ‘are worthy of death’ (Rom. 1:26–32).”³⁸⁶ McConkie comments:

Anciently the death penalty was invoked for adultery and for many other offenses against God and man (Lev. 20:10) [This verse reads: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”] Modern governments do not take the life of the adulterer, and some of them have done away with the supreme penalty where murder is involved — all of which is further evidence of the direful apostasy that prevails among the peoples who call themselves Christians.³⁸⁷

[Page 237]Tabernacles cannot have it both ways. There is no specific mention of homosexuality at all in these lines or the scripture cited. Tabernacles claims McConkie believes that “the lack of capital punishment for sexual crimes,” evinced apostasy. This is, strictly speaking, true — for the sexual crime of adultery. As used, however, Tabernacles makes it appear as if McConkie shared Kimball’s purported nostalgia for the death penalty against homosexuality.

Instead, McConkie specifies the absence of the death penalty for adultery and murder — not homosexuality — as evidence of apostasy. If, on the other hand, Tabernacles concedes that McConkie sees homosexual behavior as included within “adultery,” and Paul’s “sexual perversions” then the point is proven — adultery and homosexuality were treated in essentially equivalent ways, and “same-sex sexual relationships” were therefore not being singled out (as Tabernacles makes it sound) for the death sentence.

Even this distorts McConkie’s point. A review of other entries makes it clear that he believed that the death penalty for anything but murder was not desired or anticipated, save when the apostasy had ended during the Millennial reign of Christ.³⁸⁸

Tabernacles’s treatment is substandard.³⁸⁹ It does not cite the page nor article that supports its claim. It misrepresents the contents of the article that it does cite, and even when the other material to which it alludes is located, one finds distortion. It also ignores additional entries which undermine its reading.

The whole article is worth a read.

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

7 minutes ago, pogi said:

I don't need you to.

Even his own grandson, Chris Kimball, states this about that passage:

From Miracle of Forgiveness:

This seems to contradict the scriptural principle that we are saved by grace "after all that we can do".  This book leads to toxic perfectionism.  We are never good enough.  These principles are toxically damaging to people struggling to overcome addiction where relapse is expected and normal part of healing.  This is shaming of addicts who are demeaned as children for trying again and again and doing the best they can.  Adults should simply determine what they will do and do it.  Period.  That is toxic and false doctrine. 

 I remember talking about the 'better to die' paragraph with friends when we were teenagers.  What it said to us was that it was better to kill yourself than to be raped.  And that if you were raped instead of letting someone kill you by resisting then that was a sin.

[Duncan]

I think it was in the MOF he said that masturbation leads to homosexuality, if that were even true..................

[Peacefully]

49 minutes ago, bluebell said:

 I remember talking about the 'better to die' paragraph with friends when we were teenagers.  What it said to us was that it was better to kill yourself than to be raped.  And that if you were raped instead of letting someone kill you by resisting then that was a sin.

Yep, same for my daughter. One of the many reasons she is no longer active. 

[pogi]

35 minutes ago, Fred said:

I believe I can see how you and others can reasonably misinterpret and misunderstand some of what President Kimball wrote in his book, and I believe I can forgive those who do misinterpret and misunderstand him even when harsh in their criticism.

Have I personally offended you in some way?  Why would I need your forgiveness? 

Fred, even those who were his closes allies and perhaps most generous in their interpretation - his own family, children and grandchildren - recognize that some principles in this book were false and that the tone was unjustifiably harsh and punishing.  As his own flesh and blood, Chris Kimball, well said, "there is no amount of good intentions or rational interpretation that can solve that problem. These statements from The Miracle of Forgiveness simply must be disavowed."

Perhaps if you would listen to the generations and multitudes of experience and voices in relation to the hurt and toxic shame and perfectionism caused by this book, you might better appreciate the harsh criticism of the principles taught therein and find it much harder to dismiss such extent of hurt as a simple "misunderstanding".     It will take generations of healing before we get past the cultural damage it perpetuated.  I will acknowledge that President Kimball was simply a product of the larger toxic culture of the time, and I don't want to single him out or demean his good name - but he was human and the culture he perpetuated caused real harm.  We need to acknowledge that before we can heal from it.  To excuse such principles and tone as simple "misunderstanding"  is to perpetuate the wounds generationally and cause further harm by perpetuating the damaging infallibility myth of prophets.  Why is it so hard to accept that prophets are fallible and can be influenced by their culture, and even cause harm?  

 

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, pogi said:

It is amazing how much harm  incorrect principles taught by prophets can cause on an entire generation.  The Miracle of Forgiveness was the "go to" for every bishop out there.  To see an area seventy rip it apart (metaphorically) is amazing to see.  I remember my bishop asking me to read it as part of my repentance process in my teenage years when I first confessed about my addiction.   The shame and damage that book caused on a church-wide scale is unimaginable, and on a personal level it negatively impacted my recovery greatly by reinforcing the core issue and source of my addiction - toxic shame, and created new unnecessary anxiety wondering if I am going to "get the gay" for doing what 99% of young men do.   The tone in the book was one of President Bensons regrets, and yet the book still gets glowing reviews in Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Forgiveness-Spencer-W-Kimball/dp/0884944441/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=miracle+of+forgiveness&qid=1630003095&sr=8-1 

That is concerning to me that these harmful principles are still in favor and in use today.  Granted, there are still good principles in the book, but that should not cause us to excuse the bad. 

I agree, and it's like finding a cockroach in your banana split. When my son received a book from his bishop, I believe they handed them out to all of the young men, or actually I was given it to give to him, and I threw it away.

[pogi]

40 minutes ago, Fred said:

And I still do not condone your accusations against President Kimball.  I do not agree with some of your assessments of what he said or meant and I do not fault him for others misunderstanding and misinterpreting what he said.  You and I do not agree on this.

So you believe that homosexuality is a "choice", and a condition that we should try to "cure", despite what the church teaches now?

Do you also believe that masturbation makes people gay?

 

 

 

[Duncan]

9 minutes ago, Fred said:

Please put your questions in the context of what you think President Kimball said in regards to your questions.  Otherwise why are you asking me those questions?  Just curious to know what I think?

Pres. Kimball wrote in his book the MOF that masturbation leads to homosexuality

"While we should not regard this weakness as the heinous sin which some other sexual practices are, it is of itself bad enough to require sincere repentance. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation—practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality."

[pogi]

13 minutes ago, Fred said:

Please put your questions in the context of what you think President Kimball said in regards to your questions.  Otherwise why are you asking me those questions?  Just curious to know what I think?

That is what I think he said.  What do you think he said in that regard?

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, MrShorty said:

The big thing that struck me was his recommendation to toss out The Miracle of Forgiveness while talking about embracing living prophets. For years, many of the circles I run in have been calling for Church members to stop using TMoF, so this Area Authority 70 is in agreement with many other voices I have heard. Does anyone have a good source for Pres. Kimball's regrets regarding that book?

Interesting to find an Area 70 (lately from BYU Religious Instructioin) refuting the words of a Church President.  Reminds me of The Miracle of Forgetness (Aspen, 1997), by a guy with my name, but no relation to me.

[The Nehor]

46 minutes ago, Fred said:

I don't believe it is hard to accept that.  I agree that prophets [men not speaking as prophets who sometimes do speak as prophets) are fallible and can be influenced by their culture, and even cause harm.

The hard part, for some, is knowing when a man is speaking as a prophet and when that man is not speaking as a prophet, especially when that man is the same man regardless of what he is saying.

And the cycle continues.

 

[Duncan]

2 minutes ago, Fred said:

I accept that he said that is a possible outcome, as one one sin can often lead to a more grievous sin, even if sometimes it doesn't, which is probably why he used the word often instead of always.  He was talking about how one sin often leads to greater sins.

Do you see how what he said is different than if he had said masturbation leads to homosexuality as if he meant masturbation always leads to homosexuality, which he didn't say?  Sometimes it doesn't, often it does.  Masturbation is a same sex act, the sex of one's self.

"often leads" is much more than a possibility, in his mind at least, it's a strong possibility. I personally don't agree that it's a same sex act but we aren't bound by what I , you or what Pres. Kimball says

[The Nehor]

11 minutes ago, Fred said:

I accept that he said that is a possible outcome, as one one sin can often lead to a more grievous sin, even if sometimes it doesn't, which is probably why he used the word often instead of always.  He was talking about how one sin often leads to greater sins.

Do you see how what he said is different than if he had said masturbation leads to homosexuality as if he meant masturbation always leads to homosexuality, which he didn't say?  Sometimes it doesn't, often it does.  Masturbation is a same sex act, the sex of one's self.

He was parroting the anti-gay polemics of the time. 

From a member of the Presiding Bishpric in the 70’s:

Quote

It should go without saying that many of these problems would be alleviated if parents would spend more time teaching and rearing their children. Related to the story that I gave at the beginning of my talk is evidence of a clinical researcher who, after studying 850 individual cases, stated: “Homosexuality would not occur where there is a normal, loving father-and-son relationship.” Any of our people living in righteousness would normally avoid being involved in these problems.

A statement almost calculated to tear apart any relationship.

A potent reminder of the danger of teaching the philosophies of men as if they are revealed truth.