The Next Level?

[mfbukowski]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:11 AM, The Nehor said:

Great song and led to one of the Muppet’s best choreographed videos.

 

Amazingly well done, but still VEGAN PROPAGANDA !!!😡

At least eating our burgers we don't have to think about blood, lives, and guts. 😇

[The Nehor]

27 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Amazingly well done, but still VEGAN PROPAGANDA !!!😡

At least eating our burgers we don't have to think about blood, lives, and guts. 😇

Enjoy this brutal livestock raid to reassure you the Muppets show a diversity of viewpoints.

 

[Peacefully]

14 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

 

My wife minored in Japanese and landed a 6 month internship working for a small manufacturer in the Japanese countryside near Nagoya. I (on a spousal visa) worked as an illegal immigrant laborer in the factory. The company president was a flamboyant and friendly guy and he invited us to a photoshoot with the mayor at a meditation session. They really swing that stick, not gonna lie. 

I’m sure it was memorable:) 

[Peacefully]

10 hours ago, MrShorty said:

I'm not sure I'm seeing this on an individual member basis. I'm more seeing this at the scale of the church as a whole. On an individual scale, I think "progressive" members might have an easier time with this hypothetical future change, but they also might get bogged down in the changes they think should happen that they fail to accept the actual changes the God might try to bring to the church. "Progressive" members will have an easier time if they also have the humility to accept the changes God imposes on the church without getting hung up on changes they think God should impose on the church.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

[Navidad]

18 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

The Church of Jesus Christ is based on personal revelation.

I am not sure I understand this statement. Perhaps you would clarify? Perhaps for me, the best way to clarify would be to provide examples? The term "based on" is what confuses me a bit. Would you please provide real life examples of the following:

When you were a bishop, what kind of changes in the ward-wide structure, policies, practices, doctrine, or culture did you make as a result of direct personal revelation from God? A different kind of direct personal revelation than that a Mennonite bishop receives?

In first twenty-two years of the twenty-first century there have been three presidents/prophets. What have been the changes in structure, policies, practices, doctrine, or culture any of them made in the Church of Jesus Christ by direct personal revelation from God, identified as such?

In the entire twentieth century there were ten different prophets/presidents. What were the changes in structure, policies, practices, doctrine, or culture any of them made in the Church of Jesus Christ by direct personal revelation from God, identified as such?

I am trying to be pragmatic! I am not challenging you. It just seems to me for a church to be "based" on something there must be dozens, or scores of examples of revelations that changed the church over those 122 years. For example in 1890, President Woodruff referring to plural marriage was quoted as saying: "The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. . . . "

Alma 8:24 seems to speak to this, but only in the most generic manner:  "And behold, I have been called to preach the word of God among all this people, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy . . ." I never met a preacher, pastor, or bishop in any church who wouldn't say the exact same thing. Elder Hales quoted this passage once when affirming new officials in the church - "I offer them my love and support and testify that they are called of God by a living prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, “according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy.”" He quoted Alma. How is that different from what any ordination council would say in any contemporary Christian church when calling new leaders?

When I preached three times a week I pored over scripture and sought guidance from the Spirit for the words I would say. I often received the same. Folks would say "That was a powerful sermon you preached, pastor." Well, its power wasn't from me, but from an answer to my prayer, supplication, and seeking. So, I am trying to figure out what is different, unique, or idiosyncratic about the "personal revelation" that you are talking about the church being based on, especially in producing change in doctrine, dogma, practice, or polity? I think concrete examples would help, especially those from my lifetime that impacted the entire church and were somehow different from what the Archbishop of Canterbury would say for changes he was recommending in the Anglican church, or the Metropolitan in an Eastern Orthodox community would say? Thanks for your reply. I invite it.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Navidad said:

When I preached three times a week I pored over scripture and sought guidance from the Spirit for the words I would say. I often received the same. Folks would say "That was a powerful sermon you preached, pastor." Well, its power wasn't from me, but from an answer to my prayer, supplication, and seeking.

This.

I wasn't talking about administration. I was talking about everything above.

Administrators get it too.

Joseph wasn't doing anything more than you or me, he just had a different mission.

It isn't Doctrine or dogma. That's the whole point.

"New" means new.

Can't predict the direction 

Like it?

You follow.

Don't?

You don't.  Now THAT is Pragmatism 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by mfbukowski

[manol]

On 2/10/2023 at 12:25 AM, Pyreaux said:

Lifting of the Great Condemnation that has blocked new books from being added would be nice...

I'm not familiar with the term "the Great Condemnation".   What does it mean?

[Pyreaux]

2 hours ago, manol said:

I'm not familiar with the term "the Great Condemnation".   What does it mean?

We were promised additional records if we were faithful towards what we received, specifically the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon coined it a "condemnation": 

• 9 And when they shall have received this, which is expedient that they should have first to try their faith and if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them. 10 And if it so be that they will not believe these things, then shall the greater things be withheld from them, unto their condemnation. (3 Nephi 26:9-10) 

The whole Church is under condemnation for not believing/following the Book of Mormon: No more books or translations, maybe even other issues with LDS prophets after the Seer Joseph Smith died can be chalked up to this. It's not an Apostacy, and they are still Prophets, but not all Prophets are Seers. Seers are greater than Prophets, and a Seer is what is needed to translate (I am inferring the current Prophets are not Seers, that is usually when I get backlash since they were ordained the titles of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" of the Church, but I say, Seer is as Seers does).

• 54 And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received. 55 Which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation. 56 And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all. 57 And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written-(D&C 84 1832) 

Even after all that time, President Ezra Taft Benson said the Church was still under that condemnation and he had ambitions of lifting it. He did a "flood the earth with the Book of Mormon" campaign. We eventually stopped, we don't liberally hand them away like that anymore, people don't value it: 

• "We have felt that scourge and judgment! We must first cleanse the inner vessel by awaking and arising, being morally clean, using the Book of Mormon in a manner so that God will lift the condemnation" (Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, May, 1986, p. 4)

As far as we know, the condemnation is still ongoing. Hardy mentioned after President Benson.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Pyreaux

[manol]

@Pyreaux, thank you very much.   I read the verses surrounding the passages in 3rd Nephi and Section 84. 

Wow.  I see what you mean. 

Edited February 21, 2023 by manol