Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

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Not Buying It
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Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Not Buying It » Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:37 am

See this link:

https://mormonhub.com/blog/life/latter- ... -changing/

So much change! My head is spinning! They dropped the number of missionary key indicators from 9 to 4. So much change, my heart can hardly take it. They ditched Home teaching and replaced it with an identical program called Ministering. Feel the change! Old men and young men now meet together for an hour every Sunday instead of separate. Wow, that is change, real, honest to goodness change. Now I’ll grant you, leaving the Scouting program is a pretty big change, no joking there.

You know what hasn’t changed? Women are still second class members of the Church. Gays are still considered extremely wicked unless they remain forever celibate. The Brethren still don’t want to talk about how many women Joseph Smith had sex with and why that is or isn’t a problem. There are still all kinds of historical issues we aren’t able to talk about openly. Those who leave the Church are still labeled as wicked apostates, regardless of their reasons for doing so. The Brethren are still trying to maintain the illusion they are getting direct communication fro God without ever bringing the goods to back it up.

I could go on all day, but none of the things that need to change are. This article is ridiculous.
"The truth is elegantly simple. The lie needs complex apologia. 4 simple words: Joe made it up. It answers everything with the perfect simplicity of Occam's Razor. Every convoluted excuse withers." - Some guy on Reddit called disposazelph

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jfro18
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by jfro18 » Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:41 am

IHOP just changed their name to IHOB (temporarily, I'm sure), but it will still forever be IHOP.

The church can make all the cosmetic changes they want, but at the end of the day they still have the same lies at the foundation of their church no matter what they do. There's no fixing that with marketing or 'revelation' sleight of hand.

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Hagoth
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Hagoth » Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:46 am

An opportunity to purify our hearts, intentions, and schedules in order to act more how Christ would have acted. A metaphorical transition from a slightly Law-of-Moses-esque paradigm to a gospel-of-Jesus-Christ paradigm.
So, we're finally becoming Christians? And all we had to do was pull out of the golden-calf-worshiping Boy Scouts and change the reporting methods for visiting each other?
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

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RubinHighlander
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by RubinHighlander » Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:12 am

Poor TBMs need something to help them do the gymnastics and stay feeling super special in the world. The COB narrative seems to be working, watering down the former miraculous, making the mundane and uneventful special. Years ago I remember hearing a heartfelt and tearful testimony from a women in FATM of her praying to get the crayon stains out of a special dress and her prayer worked! It wasn't the power of Tide it was the power of prayer! Expect more of that in the future, if you still attend.

I would also expect more Julie Rowe type of BS to occasionally come out of the cracks in the lower ranks as TBMs take it upon themselves to create a more spectacular narrative because they are not getting it from the COB. For some TBMs, just the military structure of the church makes it special, for others they need to feel like it's part of the big last days drama.
Fighting for a kingdom, and the world is our foe;
Happy are we! Happy are we!
Glad to join the army, we will sing as we go;
We shall gain the vict'ry by and by.
Dangers may gather—why should we fear?
Jesus, our Leader, ever is near.
He will protect us, comfort, and cheer.
We're joyfully, joyfully marching to our home.
The irony hear is if you are prepared you shall not fear, but fear is key driver. These are the quandaries the COB dogma puts TBMs in:
- Prophets can never lead you astray but can talk as men and make mistakes
- After all you can do you are still an unworthy creatures, but Jesus fills the gap
- Power of the priesthood but faith not to be healed
- If it's good it's a blessing if it's bad it's a test or you did or did not do something right
How many other awkward rocks and hard places can the COB create for the TBMs to keep them feeling uneasy enough to submit to pretend authority, pay 10%, use up significant chunks of their mortality plugged the matrix and raise the next generation to do the same?

Last Sunday DW and I got up around 9am, had breakfast together (fresh brewed coffee, eggs and toast), walked the dogs then spent a few hours in one of the many canyons along the Wasatch mountains. It's simply glorious hiking through the trees along the streams up there, a huge recharge before heading into the work week. On the way home we passed our old ward house, parking lot full of cars; I told her one of my big regrets was not having more Sundays with her like the one we were having vs. all those many hours each week waisted in that buiding in mind numbing meanlingless meetings.
“Sir,' I said to the universe, 'I exist.' 'That,' said the universe, 'creates no sense of obligation in me whatsoever.”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzmYP3PbfXE

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oliver_denom
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by oliver_denom » Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:51 am

Not Buying It wrote:
Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:37 am
They ditched Home teaching and replaced it with an identical program called Ministering. Feel the change! Old men and young men now meet together for an hour every Sunday instead of separate. Wow, that is change, real, honest to goodness change. Now I’ll grant you, leaving the Scouting program is a pretty big change, no joking there.
For some reason I'm still on the HC e-mail list and got a copy of their ministering power point. The very first slide has the bullet point in large bolded letters: MINISTERING = HOME TEACHING.

Even the faithful know it's just re-branding. The primary difference seems to be what their calling "increased accountability". They are leveraging the entire ward in order to pressure people to "minister", and are using that power in a more targeted manner. In that respect, it's smart. They're using Mormonism's greatest talent, using the crowd to pressure people into conformity, and more directly applying it to the HT/VT program. However, considering that there are always more people who would rather NOT, than those who are full on gung-ho, this program is destined for the trash heap. Since it's not sufficiently different than the program it's "replacing", it's destined to degenerate to the existing status quo. Just give it a couple of quarters.
“You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.” - Vonnegut

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Mormorrisey
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Mormorrisey » Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:03 am

Yeah, this is why, in my need to balance out my views, I avoid mormonhub, ldsliving and anything related to Deseret Books like the plague. It just annoys the hell out of me. Great overview of the problem.

Hey, re-branding works for most corporations, the LDS church is just trying it. Will it be successful? In the internet age, with savvy youth and millennials? I really have my doubts. But then, I don't doubt my doubts, like Dieter did. Try saying that three times fast.
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Corsair
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Corsair » Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:16 am

RubinHighlander wrote:
Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:12 am
The irony hear is if you are prepared you shall not fear, but fear is key driver. These are the quandaries the COB dogma puts TBMs in:
- Prophets can never lead you astray but can talk as men and make mistakes
- After all you can do you are still an unworthy creatures, but Jesus fills the gap
- Power of the priesthood but faith not to be healed
- If it's good it's a blessing if it's bad it's a test or you did or did not do something right
Each of these items conveniently stops short of addressing any rhetorical response:

- Prophets can never lead you astray but can talk as men and make mistakes
...leaving out any real way to discern if a prophet is talking as a man

- After all you can do you are still an unworthy creatures, but Jesus fills the gap
...ignoring grace in favor of guilt

- Power of the priesthood but faith not to be healed
...and not mentioning that every atheist on the planet is already an expert in having faith not to be healed

- If it's good it's a blessing if it's bad it's a test or you did or did not do something right
...which is the gaslighting, religious version of "heads I win, tails you lose."

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Palerider
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Palerider » Mon Jun 11, 2018 9:21 am

"We’re seeing a trend of policy and procedural changes that are renewing our focus on the gospel basics, in their purest form."

I did this about 10 years ago and I didn't need a false prophet to tell me to do it. Sorry, but Mormonism didn't make the cut....too complicated and phony.

During the Vietnam War era one of the smarter people in government who could see the handwriting on the wall regarding the outcome of the war, made this statement about the politics of pretending you're winning:

"When they cannot count what IS important, they will make important what can be counted."

Thus the military leaders stopped counting actual territory being conquered and began making estimates of how many Viet Cong had been killed in order to make themselves look good. A number easily fudged.

The church is addicted to statistics. But counting visits tells you nothing about how effective you are or how committed the membership is. It's a false indicator.

This is what has happened in Missionary work and home teaching for decades. I see no reason or indication it will change simply because they have changed the name.
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light."

George Washington

Arcturus
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Arcturus » Mon Jun 11, 2018 9:37 am

Not Buying It wrote:
Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:37 am
Those who leave the Church are still labeled as wicked apostates, regardless of their reasons for doing so.
In listening to Dehlin's interview with Hassan on MormonStories, it was fascinating to see the consistency Mormonism has with destructive cults in its treatment of those who leave. No legitimate reason for doing so, likely under the influence of Satan...
“How valuable is a faith that is dependent on the maintenance of ignorance? If faith can only thrive in the absence of the knowledge of its origins, history, and competing theological concepts, then what is it we really have to hold on to?”
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alas
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by alas » Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:02 pm

jfro18 wrote:
Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:41 am
IHOP just changed their name to IHOB (temporarily, I'm sure), but it will still forever be IHOP.

The church can make all the cosmetic changes they want, but at the end of the day they still have the same lies at the foundation of their church no matter what they do. There's no fixing that with marketing or 'revelation' sleight of hand.
Turns out with ihop it was just a publicity stunt. But it set a stage for them to announce they will now be serving hamburgers. But they will not be rebranding. Smart. Save a lot in replacing all the signs.

UTA wants to rebrand to pretend to be a real change. But the problem with rebranding is that it makes no difference unless things REALLY change, and where is the plan for real change. And why not just make the real changes and save the expense of rebranding in replacing all the signs, ads, and everything?

As for the church, they are rebranding with no real changes. What is different under "ministering" about the actual visit that is going to shirt it from a program where the visited would rather not be visited and the visitor would rather be home with their family? Oh, no real change? It is same old failure under a new name.

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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Just This Guy » Mon Jun 11, 2018 2:33 pm

IHOP is the perfect example how rebanding can backfire. They are "changing" their name to the 'International House of Burger' and adding burgers to their menu. However, they have already had burgers on their menu for years, I had them there before. They are okay, but nothing you can't get elsewhere. Maybe they are adding some new additional ones. SOmeone who is more familure with their menu will have to answer, I don't know. If so, they are really going out of their way to make themselves look foolish along the way. That being said, in marketing, any news is good news. So they can look foolish all they want if it helps sales. I will give them some credit, they seam to know this is an unusual marketing stratiegy and are not taking as seriously as they could be. Will it help the company, time will tell.

For the church, they are taking a similar approach. They are rebranding something that has been around for years,but not making any real changes to anything except signage. Leadership seams to think that this is the obvious thing that will make all the changes they want. However, upper leadership is surrounded by YES men and are completely cut off from the real impact of these changes. Then they wonder why it wasn't a remarkable success. It is always the fault of the members. Albert Einstein said it best: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." -- Douglas Adams

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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by nibbler » Tue Jun 12, 2018 4:31 am

I get the feeling ministering is what happened when the top leaders realized that home teaching wasn't working but they also felt like they couldn't simply cut out a program, they couldn't replace something with nothing.

In the end we got a compromise. A program where there's less reporting... but the reporting will be much more invasive and high pressure than it was before. You are also no longer required to visit in the home but we all know in practice it will work out similar to the policy on white shirts; you don't have to wear a white shirt, but if you were trying to be reverent, and if you knew the symbolism of wearing white, and what color shirt do the top leaders wear? In one breath we say white shirts aren't policy and in the other we pave the way for the cultural expectation to wear a white shirt. The same is happening with ministering. You don't have to do in home visits were you share a message... but if you wanted to be a good minister you would. Then let the cultural competition over perceived righteousness begin.
oliver_denom wrote:
Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:51 am
For some reason I'm still on the HC e-mail list and got a copy of their ministering power point. The very first slide has the bullet point in large bolded letters: MINISTERING = HOME TEACHING.
We didn't get slides but we received the same message. We screwed up with home teaching, no more screwing up. Ministering is the chance to get things right. Ministering will be home teaching with the volume turned up to 11.

My own take. The top leaders of the church announced that we were to seek revelation in how to make the program work. I took this to mean that we could make of the program what we wanted, right down to the individual. There was a lull where no one knew quite what to do, I want to say we were more concerned with doing something that would please the next leader up the church chain of command (or at the very least not do something that would upset them), and in the prolonged silence where the next leader up the church chain of command didn't hold people's hands we came up with ministering = home teaching, no mistakes this time!
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
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Just This Guy
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Just This Guy » Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:25 pm

nibbler wrote:
Tue Jun 12, 2018 4:31 am

We didn't get slides but we received the same message. We screwed up with home teaching, no more screwing up. Ministering is the chance to get things right. Ministering will be home teaching with the volume turned up to 11.
Damn you! Now I will have this to watch "This is Spinal Tap" again.
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." -- Douglas Adams

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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by nibbler » Tue Jun 12, 2018 6:10 pm

Just This Guy wrote:
Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:25 pm
Damn you! Now I will have this to watch "This is Spinal Tap" again.
I'll take that damnation over, "Damn you! Now I'll have to attend a 3 hour block again."
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
– Anais Nin

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Archimedes
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Archimedes » Mon Jun 18, 2018 3:15 pm

Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

glub

glub

glub

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BlackMormon
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by BlackMormon » Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:32 pm

Not Buying It wrote:
Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:37 am


You know what hasn’t changed? Women are still second class members of the Church. Gays are still considered extremely wicked unless they remain forever celibate. The Brethren still don’t want to talk about how many women Joseph Smith had sex with and why that is or isn’t a problem. There are still all kinds of historical issues we aren’t able to talk about openly. Those who leave the Church are still labeled as wicked apostates, regardless of their reasons for doing so. The Brethren are still trying to maintain the illusion they are getting direct communication fro God without ever bringing the goods to back it up.

I could go on all day, but none of the things that need to change are. This article is ridiculous.
I understand that there are some people out there that want to see the Mormon church change to accept gays and give women priesthood authority. I get that. They would probably do it if it weren't for the majority of members and leaders that would be opposed to such changes. I am not against gays or women having the priesthood if that were the order of Heaven.

But, I am not seeing a day where you'd have a group of BYU students (hetero) congregating together with LGBT in the same room. Lions lying with the lambs kind of thing. That's wishful thinking. Or two women as counselors to the Prophet. That's a whole new church and a whole new D&C with new doctrines in it. Plus, a whole new Book of Mormon and Bible to boot. Just the Bible alone would pose challenges for this "equality ideal". The day we have a female Pope, we might have the changes that so many people want. But you have to ask yourself whether it is even feasible to go to a family ward where you have gays, lesbians, transgenders and hetero people all sitting together like in a High School or College, all getting along as if everything was hanky dory and everyone was considered normal. In order for that to happen, the church would also have to have gay leaders, lesbians in the relief society, etc. You see, that's a whole NEW CHURCH and changing the current one into something like that would require new revelations and all people to accept one another as they are. Chances of this happening in our life time: SLIM TO NONE.

You'd need a whole new bible, book of mormon, D&C for that. My thinking is, it's best to simply join another church where you can be yourself instead of hoping THIS Church becomes an all-welcome church. Even Jesus didn't call ONE single woman to be a disciple or an Eunuch for that matter. So, history would have to be re-written. Not to mention that God is supposedly a male. Many members would consider these drastic changes "perverting the ways of the Lord" because from the beginning the church was NOT organized to be LGBT friendly and neither were the gospels and doctrines favorable of women holding positions of power and authority within the churches. That is something many people want today, whether it is right or wrong is not up to me to judge. That would require divine intervention and revelation.

To be fair though, if one wants the church to be all accepting of people, then people ought to be free to exercise their marriage preferences as well, be it monogamy, bigamy, polygamy, polyandry, open-marriages, gay marriages, etc. You cannot be fair by just getting what YOU want and not making room for what other people WANT too.
I just think it would be a whole lot easier to create a new Mormon Church, like , The Church Of Jesus Christ (Yeshua would be better) of All People. That way you can have everything you want in one package. Basically, a new Prophet and new doctrines. LGBT friendly and women in charge. Instead of changing and repairing an old car, just buy a new one with all the features you want. Same thing.

As for JS having sex with many women, I don't care about that. Mentally many people have had sex with many women or men. Cast the first stone there. If we are to be open minded, then we have to be open-minded about polygamy as well and other forms of marriage. IF a man can marry a man and woman marry a woman and it's all cool, then a man with several women should be just as acceptable or we would be hypocrites.

I could bet money that the Brethren get nothing from above other than they pray and get feelings about this and that, after consulting with the attorneys, accountants, managers, leaders, marketing and business advisers. If they really had their act together, they would stop calling Jesus, er, Jesus, because that was never his name in the first place. No one in Israel knows Jesus. That's a made up name by Greek/Latin translators. So is Christ. When the Messiah walked in Israel, no one there was calling him Jesus. So, the changes needed are so broad in scope that they would warrant a whole new church!! Errors and wrong information have perpetuated for centuries!

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blazerb
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by blazerb » Tue Jun 19, 2018 7:31 am

This article was written before we found out we are getting a whole new hymn book: newmusic.lds.org! Now we will have the same hymnbook everywhere in the world, because it's chaos when people sing different hymns in different languages in different countries. (That is sarcasm, by the way.)

I just wanted to add that another thing that won't change is a church focused on top-down communication, obsessed with correlating everyone's experiences so that they can tell all of us what we should know and what we should do. As has been mentioned with ministering and white shirts, the church pays lip service to flexibility but it has none. When I see a problem, there is no way for me to discuss it with anyone who has real authority.

Relative to the new hymn book, the FAQ says that they will accept music that represents various cultures, but I find that hard to believe. The music put out by the church recently has not been diverse. It all sounds the same. There was an article in Dialogue several years back (https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/ ... 04_103.pdf)that discussed the softening of lds music. The author calls it "feminization." I don't like that he stereotypes "feminine" music. However, I do think there is a homogenization that makes our music boring. I can hope that will change, but I don't expect it.

This same problem occurs in other areas. The church wants everything the same everywhere. Going to church becomes a bland experience. The changes are not even cosmetic, they are just semantic.

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BlackMormon
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by BlackMormon » Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:36 pm

IMO, The hidden purpose of the new Hymn Book is to have songs that are more pentecostal, more mainstream christian and to slowly but surely get rid of hymns that make the church seem controversial or too different from other Christian churches. Like I have said before, they are trying to become a Christian Church like Joel osteen's and others. They have seen the numbers. All this is happening right under peoples' noses and they seem aloof. New generations won't know anything about past church history.

We thank thee o God for a Prophet and its lyrics.
Praise to The Man
Now sisters, list to what I say
with trials this world is rife,
you can't expect to miss them all
Help husband get a wife!

Now this advice I freely give,
if exalted you would be,
Remember that your husband must
Be blessed with more than thee.

Then,O, let us say,
God bless the wife that strives
and aides her husband all she can
T' obtain a dozen wives. (1880s)

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IT_Veteran
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by IT_Veteran » Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:46 pm

BlackMormon wrote:
Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:36 pm
IMO, The hidden purpose of the new Hymn Book is to have songs that are more pentecostal, more mainstream christian and to slowly but surely get rid of hymns that make the church seem controversial or too different from other Christian churches. Like I have said before, they are trying to become a Christian Church like Joel osteen's and others. They have seen the numbers. All this is happening right under peoples' noses and they seem aloof. New generations won't know anything about past church history.

We thank thee o God for a Prophet and its lyrics.
Praise to The Man
Now sisters, list to what I say
with trials this world is rife,
you can't expect to miss them all
Help husband get a wife!

Now this advice I freely give,
if exalted you would be,
Remember that your husband must
Be blessed with more than thee.

Then,O, let us say,
God bless the wife that strives
and aides her husband all she can
T' obtain a dozen wives. (1880s)
Personally, I think they’re going the other way. Peculiar people and all that.

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Not Buying It
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Re: Things are rapidly changing in the LDS Church!!!

Post by Not Buying It » Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:44 am

BlackMormon wrote:
Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:32 pm

As for JS having sex with many women, I don't care about that. Mentally many people have had sex with many women or men. Cast the first stone there. If we are to be open minded, then we have to be open-minded about polygamy as well and other forms of marriage. IF a man can marry a man and woman marry a woman and it's all cool, then a man with several women should be just as acceptable or we would be hypocrites.
Well I care a lot about that - any organization that has the audacity to shame men who just look at pictures of people having sex but honors a founder who sexually exploited his female followers - yeah, I'll cast the first stone on that one. What Joseph Smith did was not consensual sex on a level playing field - it was the exploitation of vulnerable women, some of whom were his foster daughters, some of whom were orphans, some of whom were his housemaids, some of whom were mere teenagers, and all of whom believed he spoke for God. I consider myself a fairly open-minded person, but if open-mindedness means accepting sexual exploitation of vulnerable females, sorry, I will never be open-minded like that.

Not to be contentious, but you have misrepresented what Joseph Smith's polygamy was like. It was definitely not "all cool".
"The truth is elegantly simple. The lie needs complex apologia. 4 simple words: Joe made it up. It answers everything with the perfect simplicity of Occam's Razor. Every convoluted excuse withers." - Some guy on Reddit called disposazelph

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