New intro/guide to Gospel Topics, now Topics and Questions

[Calm]

Just an fyi…

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics?lang=eng

https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2023/12/16/24004224/guiding-principles-to-help-answer-gospel-questions-topics

Quote

Resources found in the updated Topics and Questions in the Gospel Library app and in the Gospel Library on the Church’s website are designed to help answer an individual’s gospel questions and to help others find answers to theirs.

Finding answers to gospel questions using reliable sources can lead to increased faith in Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His Church. The Prophet Joseph Smith had questions that led him to the divine restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. For Joseph, seeking answers was a lifelong pursuit.

Quote

For those who have questions, President Russell M. Nelson has counseled, ‘Seek guidance from voices you can trust’ and ‘Take your questions to the Lord and to other faithful sources,’” Elder Renlund said. “We owe it to our members and seekers of truth to provide reliable, trusted, and faithful sources. Topics and Questions is a wonderful place to start. The associated guiding principles are like a ‘user’s manual’ for approaching the material in Topics and Questions.”  

The five guiding principles for those seeking answers to their own questions are:

1. Center your life on Jesus Christ.
2. Be patient with yourself and others.
3. Recognize revelation is a process.
4. Consult reliable sources.
5. Work to understand the past.

Applying these principles can help individuals live the gospel while also seeking answers to questions and strengthening their testimony. The process of obtaining and strengthening a testimony looks different for each individual and requires a different amount of time for each person.  

Five years ago, Gospel Topics was launched to help both members and friends of the Church find answers to questions. Gospel Topics and Questions with the guiding principles is an update of that material.  

When they first started the Gospel Topics section (or at least when they started with the GT Essays) they talked about it becoming an essential part of gospel study, as in I assumed in-depth articles about more topics than the essays.  They haven’t gotten there yet imo, it still approaches most topics on a basic level (as in how we would learn about it in Primary and YM/YW probably).

It may be an impossible dream of mine to imagine scholars writing the drafts for each topic that then get trimmed down, but not too much to informative and thought provoking discussions such as I believe happened with the plural marriage accounts, so perhaps for Noah there might be discussions on the various ways a believing Saint could think about him and the stories or for “Scriptures” a discussion of how each scripture was actually created, the different voices and the implications of those (for example, there may be contradictions because each is writing with limited understanding, especially when it’s been interpreted and edited by scribes/translators, such as in the combination of creation stories making Genesis an attempt at harmonizing rather than an account that was fully revealed in one event).  But even if that is unlikely as likely to result in adding too much speculation, hopefully there is continuing movement towards a more informative commentary and one that encourages further study and exploration of ideas.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

They do need to work on formatting on at least the main page (the sidebar table of contents looks like fine) to better distinguish between topics they go more in-depth on and the basic info ones.  For example, you get Aaronic Priesthood in larger font with its overview and gospel study guide in the same size font as the other topics and there is no difference between the topics and subheadings’ separation lines and spacing.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics?lang=eng

So work in progress…interested to see what comes next.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

This is new, isn’t it?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/church-finances-commercial-businesses?lang=eng#p9

and others?  I need to look at the wayback machine to check***
 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/diversity-and-unity?lang=eng#title1

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/environmental-stewardship-and-conservation?lang=eng#p20

sections on single parents and adults, transgender, unwed pregnancy

***Not brand new…topics may be the same so far, will need to look at actual content to see how that has changed

https://web.archive.org/web/20230116034813/https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics?lang=eng

Wayback got annoyed with me asking too many questions, so that is enough research for tonight, getting late even for me too. snapshots of this page only go back to 2019, so need to find the older title to explore changes over the last ten years…if my interest holds this week.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Calm

[Tacenda]

I'm glad you are working on this Calm, who better? Or bringing it up, hope you get the answers. 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Tacenda

[Kenngo1969]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

 ... Wayback got annoyed with me asking too many questions, so that is enough research for tonight, getting late even for me too.  ...

If you can annoy a non-sentient, inanimate machine, you're even more talented than I thought you were ... and I always knew that you're a woman of uncommon talents!  

[Calm]

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/guiding-principles-to-help-answer-gospel-questions

[Tacenda]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/guiding-principles-to-help-answer-gospel-questions

Where's the list? Or I'm slow....

[Calm]

I am too today.  What list are you referring to?  One I was thinking of making of changes?  Not happened yet.  My brain is in stall mode.

[Tacenda]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

I am too today.  What list are you referring to?  One I was thinking of making of changes?  Not happened yet.  My brain is in stall mode.

I found it, sorry about that. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng

Just needed to arrow over from the beginning: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/essays?lang=eng

Edited December 22, 2023 by Tacenda

[Calm]

On 12/21/2023 at 8:33 PM, Tacenda said:

found it, sorry about that.

No problem.    Christmas is my yearly deadline to get ‘home improvement’ projects done for some reason, so my mind and energy has been invested in that rather than doing any prolonged research right now.  If there is something you are curious about I have forgotten or neglected (like checking the new topics against the old to see the when and what of the changes here like I talked about), let me know and after New Year’s my curiosity drive might kick in enough to get back into them.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Calm

[MrShorty]

I'm glad the church is publishing resources like this. I hope people will find it helpful (most of the time, anyway).

Speaking from this faith crisis/deconstruction/reconstruction space, I've had trouble understanding why this update feels "ho hum" to me. As I've thought about it, the thing that feels "incomplete" about the update is an underlying implication that anyone who leaves the church or reduces their participation level has failed in some way to follow the correct "formula" (for lack of a better word). Someone who leaves the church must not have "centered their life on Jesus Christ" or "exercised enough patience" or "did not understand and follow the correct process for receiving revelation" or "consulted the wrong sources" or "misunderstood the past." There seems to me to be an underlying implication that someone who follows the guiding principles given will inevitable stay "all-in" in the church. In this space, I see many people who attend to those guiding principles and still end up leaving the church or reducing their participation.

To be fair, this could be an implication that I have just been programmed to see, and it really isn't there.

Thoughts?

[LoudmouthMormon]

On 12/17/2023 at 2:42 AM, Calm said:

Resources found in the updated Topics and Questions in the Gospel Library app and in the Gospel Library on the Church’s website are designed to help answer an individual’s gospel questions and to help others find answers to theirs.

Cool!

I mean, not as cool as https://ldsbot.com/, but still pretty cool.

 

[Calm]

Ben Spackman (always interesting tidbits) has entries on the new version of Gosoel Topics and plans on making a series on it as he has time:

”The question for this series, then, is this: how has the Church’s embrace of these two different paradigms shifted over time? How has it portrayed tradition and prophetic/scriptural knowledge on the one hand, and human knowledge on the other?”

https://benspackman.com/2024/01/the-new-answering-gospel-questions-part-1-introduction/

“These ten points represent a significant and very positive historical shift, one I’m going to spend several posts on. I plan to write some historical 20th century context and trajectories, talk about Elder Ballard’s subtle but radical reformation, how these materials fit in, and the trajectory (trajectories?) they point to.  As noted on the Newsroom, “additional study guides will be published shortly,” so keep an eye out.

My perspective here is, of course, shaped by my training, my dissertation topic, and my research in various archives.  My examples are thus drawn somewhat narrowly, and so it’s quite possible someone who’s seen more sources than I has some broader contextual examples, additions, or correctives.”

https://benspackman.com/2024/01/the-new-answering-gospel-questions-part-2-historical-background/?

“One paradigm is the “infection model,” which presupposes that a hard boundary exists between divinely  revealed (and therefore perfect)1 knowledge on the one hand, and partial human imperfect knowledge on the other. (I have argued that while revelation is real, by nature it cannot avoid having human aspects; all revelation is composite, both human and divine.) But given such a premise, one must zealously protect the one from the incursion of the other;  human aspects can only pollute or infect pure divine revelation. I drew the term “infection” from President J. Reuben Clark, who used it on occasion to describe this kind of thing.”

“The second paradigm is the “quest model,” expressed by Brigham Young multiple times, e.g.:

“It is our duty and calling… to gather every item of truth and reject every error. Whether a truth be found with professed infidels, or with the Universalists, or the Church of Rome, or the Methodists, the Church of England, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Quakers, the Shakers, or any other of the various and numerous different sects and parties, all of whom have more or less truth, it is the business of… this Church… to gather up all the truths in the world pertaining to life and salvation, to the Gospel we preach, to mechanism of every kind, to the sciences, and to philosophy, wherever it may be found in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people and bring it to Zion.”

The “quest model” gives more value to things outside the LDS tradition; truth and goodness are “out there” among our fellow humans, and it is our job to seek it out, evaluate critically, and accept and integrate whatever we find that is true, virtuous, lovely, or of good report. In short, per 1Th 5:21, “test everything, retain what is good.”(This is a quick-and-dirty summary that doesn’t really do justice to either model; for those interested, I provide quotations and more detailed, nuanced analysis in my paper.)”

Needless to say I suspect, I fall fully in the side of quester….

Edited January 13, 2024 by Calm