2015 Worlds Without End article, relevant to "not hiding anything from anybody": Thoughts?

[BriansThoughtMirror]

I am just joining the discussion about Ballard and Oaks' Face to Face program, in which Ballard claims that church leaders have never attempted to hide anything from anybody, and that they are being "as transparent as they know how to be". I agree that this isn't literally true (and I share many of the same grievances about church history as most of us here), but I'm trying to understand the kind of mindset that would make Ballard feel justified in saying it. I wonder if he really believes it.

I think this 2015 article on the subject is still relevant:

History vs Heritage: Maybe We Should Stop Saying That We’ve Been Lied to by the Church
Posted on October 21, 2015 by Brian Whitney
http://www.withoutend.org/stop-weve-lied-to-church/

I really like this article, and I think it could explain why Ballard sees things the way he does. From the article:
"I tend to think that past church leaders believed that they were being honest and responsible about the history of the church, but that they were insulated and got much of it wrong."

Now, at this point, I don't think leaders have much excuse for getting things drastically incorrect. They may still be doing it, though. So, I'm trying to understand what might be going through their heads. I don't think they are really intentionally lying, at least from their own point of view. I think they believe they are being honest. I'd like to understand why they might feel that way.

Hypothetically, could this be Ballard's perspective:

• Maybe he has simply accepted the traditional narrative uncritically, much like Joseph Fielding Smith did. He's telling what he believes to be the truth.

• He views negative historical events as anomalies ("flecks", perhaps), and don't accurately represent the real bigger picture. The way he sees it, to focus attention on these negative events is misleading. He sees focusing on the few aberrant negative events as creating a false, deceptive context for the rest of the restoration. Leaving them out, or at least minimizing them, leads a person more effectively to an accurate view of truth. Therefore, leaving them out of our narrative is more "truthful" than leaving them in.

• People would misunderstand some of this negative historical info if we just gave it to them. In fact, we see that now as people leave the church over historical issues. Leading someone to a misunderstanding is dishonest. We need to be very careful about that.

• This historical information is out there anyway. No one stopped anyone from getting it if they were interested. (Note- I think this statement is highly problematic.) Why should the church publish things that don't promote faith? Leave that to scholars, apostates, and other enemies of the church. The church is not a scholarly historical institution, anyway.

• Maybe he actually doesn't know of any damning information hidden in the vaults. It's possible. I think there is legitimate reason for the church historians to want to examine all of those docs before release to protect sensitive personal info (though this is also used as an excuse to redact some non-faith-promoting info). There is likely a lot that NO ONE has read yet.

• He thinks the church IS transparent. They have published info on seer stones, accounts of the First Vision, and even Mountain Meadows Massacre. Just because it took a while doesn't mean they were hiding information. It took a lot of work to get to the point of publishing these. It likely took a lot of work to contextualize some problematic "flecks" in a faithful way, and it took a while to do it. They weren't "lying", just delaying until they could make sense of things (Note- or, until they couldn't delay any longer).

Assuming he sees himself and the church as fundamentally honest, what else might be affecting Ballard's point of view? I have to believe that he sees himself as an honest man. To me, I see major problems with all of the above ideas, but I want to understand the point of view in which it all seems OK. How else might a person in Ballard's position see the church as honest, or at least rationalize it as such?

I don't really want to get into why this perspective is wrong in this thread, even though I think it is wrong. I agree that it's caused all sorts of damage. There are already a couple of other great threads already going on about that.

[Corsair]

It like the famous George Constanza quote:

Just remember. Its not a lie ... if you believe it.

Let me offer a counterpoint with this with a quote that seems determined to remain anonymous:

When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest.

This problem stems from another issue that the LDS church continues to grapple without appreciable progress. The church needs a comprehensive doctrine of prophets. We have two prophets, seers, and revelators sitting here talking like they were just a lawyer and used car salesman. This is not supposed to be the setup of a joke, but the church barged right into it. At no point is there even compassion for people who were bothered or confused by these issues. Instead, we get only mocking admonishment of anyone who came to a different conclusion than the prevailing tone of their local priesthood roulette.

[BriansThoughtMirror]

The Seinfeld quote is right on.

As for the other one, here's what I think Ballard might say to that- We are discovering new things about church history, and as we are able to make sense of them, we are releasing them, while prioritizing maintenance of faith. We are being transparent as we know how to be. Just look at the Gospel Topics essays! We are presenting the difficult info in a faithful context. That's how we have to do it. It's the Lord's way.

As for the doctrine of prophets- there never was such a doctrine. If there was, it would be a huge problem, because it would make claims to prophethood falsifiable! (Not wearing my Ballard had for this comment!)

[Rob4Hope]

The biggest problem I had is their stated claim to avoid those questions they didn't have answers to, stepping into it themselves, and not showing compassion or understanding/empathy for those questions. It was a stacked deck. The mocking attitude that came up about the 1970 article on the first vision was disturbing.

These guys claim to be "prophets, seers and revelators". What are they revealing, if they say there are things the Lord hasn't spoken on? What things HAS HE spoken on in the last years, or in the administration of these guys?

I hear them saying: "I am your leader. Do what I say. If you have questions, if I don't have answers for them, then you don't need to know the answers to them."

This sets up a disparity of power and influence. I think it's abusive. I'm not a 2 year old, and if I think there are lies being taught, then I think that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. But, like you say, its difficult to understand the mindset these guys have.

[BriansThoughtMirror]

(see above post)

I agree with you on all of this. I just think that somewhere deep inside, these guys really think they are doing the right thing. I think they really believe they are honest, even if they have made mistakes (but can never admit specific mistakes, because those mistakes might undermine God's purposes). I also think they are honestly trying to move toward transparency, as well as they can while maintaining what they believe to be the ultimate truth. I also think their efforts are not sufficient, but I'll save that discussion for later.

[wtfluff]

I might be just a tiny bit cynical, but I think Mr. Ballard was flat out lying, and he knows it. "Lying for the lord" is a long, well documented tradition of the LDS Corporation, and there is plenty of documentation to prove it. It was started by the founder of the "religion" and it continues today.

That statement was made to reinforce the confirmation bias of the believers who were listening. It doesn't matter what a bunch of filthy, apostate non-believers think or say. Lying is "justified" in Balard's mind if it keeps people in their believing bubble. That fact that those believers are paying his salary doesn't hurt too much either...

[Hermey]

I might be just a tiny bit cynical, but I think Mr. Ballard was flat out lying, and he knows it. "Lying for the lord" is a long, well documented tradition of the LDS Corporation, and there is plenty of documentation to prove it. It was started by the founder of the "religion" and it continues today.

That statement was made to reinforce the confirmation bias of the believers who were listening. It doesn't matter what a bunch of filthy, apostate non-believers think or say. Lying is "justified" in Balard's mind if it keeps people in their believing bubble. That fact that those believers are paying his salary doesn't hurt too much either...

Spot on.

[No Tof]

I might be just a tiny bit cynical, but I think Mr. Ballard was flat out lying, and he knows it. "Lying for the lord" is a long, well documented tradition of the LDS Corporation, and there is plenty of documentation to prove it. It was started by the founder of the "religion" and it continues today.

That statement was made to reinforce the confirmation bias of the believers who were listening. It doesn't matter what a bunch of filthy, apostate non-believers think or say. Lying is "justified" in Balard's mind if it keeps people in their believing bubble. That fact that those believers are paying his salary doesn't hurt too much either...

+1
Cannot say it any better.

[consiglieri]

I think Brian Whitney wrote his article primarily to respond to this article on Rational Faiths, to which Brian links in the opening of his article.

https://rationalfaiths.com/the-mormon-h ... onspiracy/

The author of that article and Brian go back and forth in the comments section of both the Rational Faiths article and the Worlds Without End article.

My take away is that they end up pretty much agreeing.

[Red Ryder]

Great discussion.

WTF is exactly right.

I've seen Ballard in person address these concerns after an unscripted question was asked by one of our own. His reaction speaks volumes. He was furious, nearly stepping over Rasband to grab the microphone in an attempt to answer the question. His body language, tone, and lack of calm demeanor spoke volumes. I believe he knows there are issues and there are no good answers that support the current narrative. So he says whatever he has to keep the people in.

Not to take this post in a different direction, but let's step back and ask ourselves another easy litmus test. Has he seen and spoken to Jesus? Does his actions over the years and response to that simple question mirror the same responses we're getting about hiding stuff? Yes. Carefully worded denials, vague excuses, and feel good stories continue from their mouths.

Ballard, have you really seen Jesus?

He can't honestly say "we haven't hid anything" anymore than he can say he's seen Jesus!

Yet in his mind he clearly believes both which makes him delusional.

[alas]

I disagree that Ballard knows he is lying. People are capable of rationalizing their behavior, no matter how evil, into something good. I used to be a facilatator in a therapist led support group for men who had sexually abused their daughters. When they were new to the group they would explain why by saying they were teaching their eight year old about sex, or that they were showing their daughter how a loving man should treat his wife. All for her own good. Normally us therapists didn't have to call them on their bullshit because a member of the group who had been around for longer would.

Just like each of us thinks that we are basically decent human beings, and we would never knowingly lie, or belong to a corrupt organization, I think Ballard thinks of himself as a basically honest human being who would never belong to and support a corrupt organization. So, he rationalizes the things that the church leaders have done. The church did not HIDE information, but it did excommunicate those who had the information published. They are only trying to protect people's faith from faith damaging information. And those people who got excommunicated did not publish the information in a faith promoting way. The church didn't hide nformation, they just wanted it presented in a faith promoting way.

But just how do you say Joseph Smith had sex with a 14 year old girl in a "faith promoting way?"

And the mental gymnastics that they have to go through to still believe JS was a good man instead of a Judge Roy Moore, are just like the stanch republicans in Alabama are going through. As a victim of child sex abuse myself, I cannot go through those gymnastics.

But while a person can go through the proper gymnastics in their own head, when you put it in black and white print, it still sounds horrible. So, since it sounds horrible, the person who published it gets excommunicated for the way their publication sounds.

But see, that isn't hiding the information. Just terrorizing historians for telling the whole truth (in a non faith promoting way)

As one of my psychology professors used to say, people tell themselves a bunch of crap, then have the audacity to believe it.

So, I don't think Ballard knows he is lying because he believes the crap he tells himself.

[Reuben]

I'm with alas on this: I'm almost certain he believes what he says.

Think of it this way: how much did your faith crisis hurt? I didn't even feel betrayed by the church, at first. I knew a lot of the real history already, having been inoculated by a friend. (He resigned Nov. 2015, FWIW.) My catalyst was the hidden God problem getting real, and my FC still hurt like hell.

Why was that? A big part of my identity died. The first day was like being taken to the morgue to identify my own body. There I was, Mormon Reuben, dead.

IMO, there's very little of Russell Ballard that isn't Mormon Russell Ballard. His identity is the church. You know how it's nearly impossible to critically examine any aspect of yourself that's tightly integrated with your identity? How what you believe about who you are almost always overrides the facts? That's what it's like for Mormon Russell Ballard. He can't believe he/the church has hidden things because he/the church just wouldn't do something like that.

[Red Ryder]

I understand what you're saying alas and Reuben, but he still hasn't seen Jesus face to face. So how does he believe/convince himself that he has? Or does he hear Jesus voices in his head?

That's some heavy cog dis to truly believe you're an apostle of Jesus Christ but still haven't seen him.

[alas]

I understand what you're saying alas and Reuben, but he still hasn't seen Jesus face to face. So how does he believe/convince himself that he has? Or does he hear Jesus voices in his head?

That's some heavy cog dis to truly believe you're an apostle of Jesus Christ but still haven't seen him.

Is this something he has said, or is it just something members assume and he lets them?

See, if he has said it and it isn't true, then it is a lie. If members assume it, and he doesn't bother to correct them, then it is... Well, it is just not correcting you if you want to believe that. He wouldn't want to disillusion you now, would he. And besides, maybe he believes he is the only one who hasn't seen Jesus, and feels it is just a measure of his own lack of faith, and he wouldn't want to disillusion you over his personal lack of faith, now would he?

Now, I have heard of apostles being asked point blank have they seen Jesus and not saying that they have not, but saying that it is too sacred to talk about. Or some such b s. Now, they are kind of implying that they have, but it is too sacred to say so, or maybe too sacred to admit they have not? This is for sure less than honest. So, I suppose they feel about it like you feel about telling your 5 year old the hard truth about Santa. You don't feel the kid is old enough to disillusion. It might disillusion you, so they say something that is a non answer and let you keep believing. They rationalize this as being for your own good.

They rationalize their less than honest answer as being for your own good, so just like when you lie to your wife and say that no the dress does not make her look fat, when really it does make her hips look wide.



I guess, I never thought that any of them have seen Jesus, so since I never believed it, it doesn't personally bother me that they let people believe that.

An example, once our home teacher read something out of theEnsign that he interpreted as "the apostles walk and talk with Jesus in the temple every Thrursday." See, it says so right here. That article said no such thing. But he wanted to believe it so bad, that he invented it out of something they did say. He assumed what he wanted to believe. I was not about to point out that the article said nothing of the kind. Did I lie to him by letting him believe what he wanted to believe?

[wtfluff]

I'm sorry, but Mr. Ballard has signed off on, and promoted an "essay" which states:

"who was sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday"

When he says they haven't hidden anything, he's lying. He/they were completely incapable of stating a simple fact: 14 years old.

[Charlotte]

We have two prophets, seers, and revelators sitting here talking like they were just a lawyer and used car salesman. This is not supposed to be the setup of a joke, but the church barged right into it.

At the beginning of my faith crisis I was in the temple looking at how actually ordinary all the furniture was. How the chairs in our temple’s upper chapel looked like the ones in my grandma’s kitchen; I pictured them on a catalog page.

Maybe we can all get used to the humanness of prophets as we’ll define them going forward.

But,

At no point is there even compassion for people who were bothered or confused by these issues. Instead, we get only mocking admonishment of anyone who came to a different conclusion than the prevailing tone of their local priesthood roulette.

[RubinHighlander]

While the church is, without question, paying the price for promoting an overly-simplified “heritage” approach to history, I don’t think the motive was based in intentional deception; rather, I think the disinclinations towards academic approaches to history were based in sincere love for the church and a desire to protect it.

It can be hard to judge the hearts and intents of the self proclaimed prophets, apostles, historians, apologists and instructors of the LDS Church, whether some or all of them intentionally lie and cover up inconvenient truths about history or policies, etc. Some or all may have learned the truths over time as they climbed the leadership ranks, later to find they had painted themselves into a corner (if they have the epiphany it's all BS). Most of them probably just drink the koolaid and justify it with mental gymnastics, no matter how many facts they uncover.

I'll never forget how stressed out and bewildered Monson looked at that press conference when he took the reigns from Hinckley, like he had just found out about the seer stone and a dozen other things in the secret vault. I can imagine Joseph F. had the same look on his face when he discovered the first version of the FV and cut it out of the book.

Regardless of intent, regardless of whether it was intentionally hidden or not IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE IT'S ALL BS! At the end of the day it's simply BS and there's no need to pay 10% to a corporation built on BS or subject yourself to the fear and guilt that it runs on. However, these guys get a crap load of money from earnest TBMs; as leaders of the corporation, they should be held accountable by their members, no matter how inconvenient the truths.

[BriansThoughtMirror]

I disagree that Ballard knows he is lying. People are capable of rationalizing their behavior, no matter how evil, into something good.
...Just like each of us thinks that we are basically decent human beings, and we would never knowingly lie, or belong to a corrupt organization, I think Ballard thinks of himself as a basically honest human being who would never belong to and support a corrupt organization. So, he rationalizes the things that the church leaders have done. The church did not HIDE information, but it did excommunicate those who had the information published. They are only trying to protect people's faith from faith damaging information. And those people who got excommunicated did not publish the information in a faith promoting way. The church didn't hide nformation, they just wanted it presented in a faith promoting way.
...But while a person can go through the proper gymnastics in their own head, when you put it in black and white print, it still sounds horrible. So, since it sounds horrible, the person who published it gets excommunicated for the way their publication sounds.
...As one of my psychology professors used to say, people tell themselves a bunch of crap, then have the audacity to believe it.

So, I don't think Ballard knows he is lying because he believes the crap he tells himself.

I admit it's possible that he could be flat out lying, but I think that's unlikely. I think he's justified and rationalized everything in his own mind, so he feels honest. He knows, though, that his rationalizations wouldn't sound convincing to anyone but the most committed believer (even though he believes they are correct), so he doesn't want to state them publicly. He knows it would be damaging.
Also, in their minds, they didn't punish historians for telling the truth- they were punished for damaging faith. The told the truth the wrong way. It's OK to tell the truth, but it must be faith promoting. If it's not faith promoting, there must be something deceptive about it, whether it be incorrect facts, false context, or a failure to provide reasons to believe in spite of difficult facts. In any case, damaging faith is wrong, and those who do so must be stopped.

IMO, there's very little of Russell Ballard that isn't Mormon Russell Ballard. His identity is the church. You know how it's nearly impossible to critically examine any aspect of yourself that's tightly integrated with your identity? How what you believe about who you are almost always overrides the facts? That's what it's like for Mormon Russell Ballard. He can't believe he/the church has hidden things because he/the church just wouldn't do something like that.

Rueben, this description is great. I don't think he COULD really evaluate whether or not he is correct. He HAS to believe it all at this point, or be destroyed. How hard is it to question something that absolutely defines your whole life and identity, or even the lives and identity of generations of your family and loved ones? He has to believe it! And if the restoration is real, defending it MUST be the only honest thing to do.

[Rob4Hope]

I disagree that Ballard knows he is lying. People are capable of rationalizing their behavior, no matter how evil, into something good. I used to be a facilatator in a therapist led support group for men who had sexually abused their daughters. When they were new to the group they would explain why by saying they were teaching their eight year old about sex, or that they were showing their daughter how a loving man should treat his wife. All for her own good. Normally us therapists didn't have to call them on their bullshit because a member of the group who had been around for longer would.

Just like each of us thinks that we are basically decent human beings, and we would never knowingly lie, or belong to a corrupt organization, I think Ballard thinks of himself as a basically honest human being who would never belong to and support a corrupt organization. So, he rationalizes the things that the church leaders have done. The church did not HIDE information, but it did excommunicate those who had the information published. They are only trying to protect people's faith from faith damaging information. And those people who got excommunicated did not publish the information in a faith promoting way. The church didn't hide nformation, they just wanted it presented in a faith promoting way.

But just how do you say Joseph Smith had sex with a 14 year old girl in a "faith promoting way?"

And the mental gymnastics that they have to go through to still believe JS was a good man instead of a Judge Roy Moore, are just like the stanch republicans in Alabama are going through. As a victim of child sex abuse myself, I cannot go through those gymnastics.

But while a person can go through the proper gymnastics in their own head, when you put it in black and white print, it still sounds horrible. So, since it sounds horrible, the person who published it gets excommunicated for the way their publication sounds.

But see, that isn't hiding the information. Just terrorizing historians for telling the whole truth (in a non faith promoting way)

As one of my psychology professors used to say, people tell themselves a bunch of crap, then have the audacity to believe it.

So, I don't think Ballard knows he is lying because he believes the crap he tells himself.

I agree with alas on this one for Ballard. But, I have a different opinion on Oaks. I think Oaks is of the opinion he believes anything he can defend legally. I think he decides what he believes as "truth" by this process. I don't think facts matter at all--I think the guy is a pure legalistic apologist at the core.

[BriansThoughtMirror]

I agree with alas on this one for Ballard. But, I have a different opinion on Oaks. I think Oaks is of the opinion he believes anything he can defend legally. I think he decides what he believes as "truth" by this process. I don't think facts matter at all--I think the guy is a pure legalistic apologist at the core.

Yeah, maybe. I can't say for sure...