The Great Apostacy

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Heber13
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by Heber13 »

Good explanation, Brian.

I will take another stab, just from my point of view.

I would think many people in stage 4 reject an Apostasy happened because it would anger them that a God would do that to so many of his children for so many centuries and allow such evils to be done in his name. They just cant believe in a God that would do that!!! That line of thinking could then take them to doubting any "truth" ever was established ... So you can't have a falling away if there was nothing to fall away from. Stage 4 would see stage 3 claims of restoration as just another attempt to build a story to control people, but they reject the story is believable and put up fences around themselves to protect themselves from the perceived attempts to "control" them. They won't let that happen to them again!

Stage 5 might empathize with the stage 4 person, but sees the good the restoration is doing for stage 3 folks. But the stage 5 person no longer wants the walls built up around themselves, so they tear them down and reengage with others. They see the problems with the apostasy/restoration story as a beautiful thing that holds value in their experience going through life, with different stages in their personal journey. The paradox may be that God never stopped loving his children nor stopped guiding them, including working through the many churches and councils and individual prophets and teachers, but the church authority to perform ordinances had fallen away, and later restored through angelic visits as a reminder that He still does intervene, that spiritual development through earthly practices are helpful to us and we should be engaged to something and be about our father's business...not because we are right and no other church mattered between the death of the apostles and Joseph Smith, but because whatever we choose to be involved in that draws us closer to His Love is whatever we need individually....and therefore religion is a great thing to be involved in...but for a deeper level of metaphorical reasons and less literalness to the story.

I'm not sure I quite got stage 5 right on the apostasy...because I'm not sure I understand how someone in stage 5 views necessity for authority, other than a necessary administrative thing...but less important than the meaning behind ordinance work.
Luke: "Why didn't you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father."
Obi-Wan: "Your father... was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."
Luke: "A certain point of view?"
Obi-Wan: "Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to...depend greatly on our point of view."
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cwald
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by cwald »

Not really dealing with the Great apostasy - but this comment caught my eye.
Nathan wrote:If I may, I would share with you that from the vantage point of my professional experience, where couples are divided by Fowler's stages, it is most often as you described: men venture from stage three before their wives.
I think this is true general speaking. I have been fortunate. After a decade of stage 4, I finally got the guts to talk to my wife about it. She has been very understanding --- and recently as I have gotten braver and told her more and more, it appears that she is not the TBM I had thought she was --- she says she went through a stage 4 period in college before we met, and she feels she has a pretty good foothold in stage 5 now, which is probably why it doesn't bother her really that i don't believe the LDS church is the "one true church on the face of the earth." She doesn't really care what I believe. :shock: Probably should have talked about it years ago - but we were both thinking the other was TBM and "didn't want to rock the boat" - our 17 years of marriage have been good, why do anything to mess it up?
  Jesus gave us the gospel, but Satan invented church. It takes serious evil to formalize faith into something tedious and then pile guilt on anyone who doesn't participate enthusiastically. - Robert Kirby
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by Old-Timer »

we were both thinking the other was TBM and "didn't want to rock the boat" - our 17 years of marriage have been good, why do anything to mess it up?


I think that could be said of SO many members with other members. I wish we could be more open in group settings, but it really isn't appropriate / helpful in so many situations that it's much easier simply to go with the flow and find individuals now and then over the course of time.
I see through my glass, darkly - as I play my saxophone in harmony with the other instruments in God's orchestra. (h/t Elder Joseph Wirthlin)

Even if people view many things differently, the core Gospel principles (LOVE; belief in the unseen but hoped; self-reflective change; symbolic cleansing; striving to recognize the will of the divine; never giving up) are universal.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
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Nathan
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by Nathan »

Yet another reason this forum is so valuable.
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Tom Haws
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by Tom Haws »

Brian Johnston wrote:Stage 5-ers are probably not going to lead the charge to burn the "others" at the stake for heresy based on this explanation of other faiths :-)
I love it! You spin a great yarn, Brian.
Tom (aka Justin Martyr/Justin Morning/Jacob Marley/Kupord Maizzed)
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Gilbert, Arizona
----
Sure, any religion would do. But I'm LDS.
"There are no academic issues. Everything is emotional to somebody." Ray Degraw at www.StayLDS.com
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cwald
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by cwald »

Had a "surprise" inspection from the SP and councilors today at church. In priesthood meeting, we went over the gospel principles manual lesson about Priesthood. I wish I could tell you that it went well but --- I was able to just keep my mouth shut for most of the lesson, until the SP made the comment that "the purpose of the priesthood is to gather 1. gather Israel, and 2. serve our fellow man --- and it doesn't matter how well intentioned our non LDS neighbors are, their works will amount to nothing in the end unless they accept the restored gospel/priesthood."

It hurt. I made a few comments - that I probably shouldn't have made, and pulled out my ensign and read some of Packer's talk --- but I'm afraid I probably said more than I should have. I doubt that anyone in the room didn't know that I was "upset" by the comments being said and that I am really not pulling the company line on this issue. Oh well - I guess I'll just have to see how the chips fall.
  Jesus gave us the gospel, but Satan invented church. It takes serious evil to formalize faith into something tedious and then pile guilt on anyone who doesn't participate enthusiastically. - Robert Kirby
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mormonheretic
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by mormonheretic »

I think there are many different perspectives of what Stage 4 can look like. I think Heber and Brian's explanations are valid, but I don't think either of them define me. I don't know much about psychology, so I feel a bit dangerous venturing into this territory. I've been called a TBMH (that's TBM Heretic) and an anti-Mormon on my blog. I like the concept of the Great Apostasy, and I think it is a good explanation for what happened with the early church. But I hold much less to the idea that "this is the only true church" idea. CWald has indicated that he believes that he and I don't share many common beliefs. What I get from that comment is that he views me as a mostly faithful apologist for the church. Yet my wife told me last week that she wanted someone who was a "spiritual leader" in the home.

I nearly fell off the chair when she said that. I told her that I read the scriptures more than she, I bear testimony in church more than she, and I literally talk about religion every single day. She responded that she knew I used the moniker "mormon heretic", and she said, "do you understand what a heretic is? It's someone against the church." I felt like a villian instantly.

I explained that Joseph Smith was a heretic. Martin Luther was a heretic, and Jesus was a heretic. She responded, "Oh, so you mean it in a good way???" Yes, but Jesus, Joseph, and Martin certainly upset the established order didn't they?

So, once again, this notion of apostasy can be so subjective. Joseph, Jesus, and Martin were all considered apostates, and restorationists. I think it is funny that some people view me as a pretty straight arrow when it comes to the church, but I often have to bite my tongue at church as Cwald did today. It feels so good to be able to open up a bit on websites such as this, where I can express my true heretical feelings. I find that apostasy can be in the eye of the beholder.
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Brian Johnston
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Re: The Great Apostacy

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cwald wrote:I made a few comments - that I probably shouldn't have made, and pulled out my ensign and read some of Packer's talk --- but I'm afraid I probably said more than I should have. I doubt that anyone in the room didn't know that I was "upset" by the comments being said and that I am really not pulling the company line on this issue. Oh well - I guess I'll just have to see how the chips fall.
I consider myself to be very disciplined when it comes to restraint about making comments like that. I've done that too though. It also happened to me about 6 months ago when the Stake Presidency was visiting and took over priesthood for a "presentation" on the blessings of the temple. The SP was going on and on about how we are slacking, temple attendance was low, we need to commit to spending more time going to the temple, etc., etc.

I raised my hand and said basically "I look around me and see brothers in the priesthood, and I see them spending a lot of their time serving the members of the ward and the community. They are also trying to support a family, and even spend a little time with them in between work and church callings. It sounds like an issue of time management, not that we are sitting around with nothing to do. So of all the other things the Church asks us to do, which should we decide NOT to do so we can make more time for this?"

Yeah ... there was an uncomfortable pause as they digested that ... But you know what? Looking back, I think that probably needed to be pointed out.

The world (and our church in particular) really does need a few "heretics." It's healthy.
"It's strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone." -John O'Donohue, Anam Cara, speaking of experiencing life.
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Nathan
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by Nathan »

cwald wrote:the SP made the comment that "the purpose of the priesthood is to gather 1. gather Israel, and 2. serve our fellow man --- and it doesn't matter how well intentioned our non LDS neighbors are, their works will amount to nothing in the end unless they accept the restored gospel/priesthood."

It hurt. I made a few comments - that I probably shouldn't have made, and pulled out my ensign and read some of Packer's talk --- but I'm afraid I probably said more than I should have. I doubt that anyone in the room didn't know that I was "upset" by the comments being said and that I am really not pulling the company line on this issue. Oh well - I guess I'll just have to see how the chips fall.
See? This is exactly the type of precious vulnerability that a forum such as this facilitates. Thank you brothers cwald and heretic for your personal and transcendent stories.

Two comments, if I may. First, cwald’s Stake President has the responsibility to perform boundary maintenance. He benefits from a particularly narrow view of the Great Apostasy. Of course, to a degree, what his Stake President said accurately reflects LDS teaching. Didn't the Prophet say something like baptizing without the proper authority is as efficacious as baptizing a bag of sand? Then again, there is a sense in which this Stake President misspoke or exaggerated his point. Using the same source, the Prophet Joseph Smith also taught that that righteous men and women of many faiths will remain through the scourge of the last days and witness the millennial reign of the Savior: a terrestrial kingdom. Who knows what final judgment will look like, or if there will even be one. Let's just say it resembles the teaching that each of the Savior's roles--Creator, Redeemer, and Judge--have and will involve members of the Priesthood: that those earthly judges in Israel will participate in a similar event in the world to come. I suspect cwald's Stake President will be relieved to discover that God's mercy won't hold him to his rigid understanding of God's justice.

In such situations as cwald’s, I believe each of us needs to have the discipline and composure to sit still and be quiet. And yet, we also need to have the discipline and composure to stand up and respectfully challenge narrow-minded teaching. Like any recovering addict can tell you from the Serenity Prayer, they key is having the wisdom to know the difference: to know when speaking up will hurt more than it will help. Of course, none of us can know for sure. But my gut tells me that if we can keep our defensiveness in check, we honor God and our fellow men when we speak up in such instances. Chances are, your Stake President is speaking from his own personal frustrations with similar-minded folk outside the Church. Perhaps it’s helpful to imagine the following exchange for a future confrontation:

“President, when I hear you say this, I’m afraid some will misunderstand you as endorsing a sense of superiority over, or animosity against, our brothers and sisters of other traditions. Of course, I understand you are saying that the further light and knowledge we enjoy makes us all-the-more responsible for demonstrating patience, long suffering, kindness and love unfeigned. I just wanted to help clarify this. Of course, if I’m wrong, we could step outside and settle this like men.” (grin)

The second comment is to heretic: great exchange with your wife. Your choice to appropriate the term “heretic” is helpful. I have similarly found the word “Protestant” useful. We are called to protest injustice in the world. Of course terms such as “heretic”, “protestant”, or even “saint” conjure notions of separateness and distinctiveness. Your ability to function as a heretic from within demonstrates a maturity I too rarely encounter.

Speaking of maturity, Russ Hill is a friend of mine. He’s an Orthodox Priest and Chaplain here in Stuttgart with me. A while back I introduced myself and him to a Catholic Priest with these words, “This is Chaplain Hill; he’s Orthodox. I’m Chaplain Kline; I’m heterodox.” Chaplain Hill laughed so hard he blew snot from his nose. The Catholic priest has since come to appreciate my humor too. My point, if we take seriously the Lord and his gospel, we’ll know better than to take ourselves too seriously.
Last edited by Nathan on 12 Jul 2010, 07:03, edited 2 times in total.
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Nathan
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Re: The Great Apostacy

Post by Nathan »

Oh, one final story in defence of those Stake Presidents out there not representative of the incidents relayed above:

Last month, my temple recommend interview concluded with a refreshing conversation about how the German saints were overly cynical and American saints were inexcusably naive. The Stake President is an engineer, and very rigid in his thinking--but not so rigid he doesn't see that most rules and policies have exceptions. While a missionary in the early 80s he struggled with organic evolution and a few items of Church history. He told me, "I eventually realized I was restricting how God works for us." I told him that it is human to want to put God in a box. He had never before heard the metaphor, and laughed.
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