How Do LDS Men Rise In Church Hierarchy?

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I was more focused on the “castle” that Pope Benedict lives in. I knew historically it was occupied by various nuns but didn’t realize the Memores Domini were secular, interesting.
 
OKComputer said:
LDS hide their history from converts
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Oh wow - it’s hard to get more wrong about an aspect of my church than this. I just have to giggle whenever I hear this criticism. Yeah, we hide our history, with stuff like this: The Joseph Smith Papers: A comprehensive digital collection of the papers of Joseph Smith
The Joseph Smith Papers Project is an effort to gather together all extant Joseph Smith documents and to publish complete and accurate transcripts of those documents with both textual and contextual annotation.
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Because nothing says “we are hiding our history” like taking every single existing discoverable scrap of it, and publishing it online, for free, for the world to see, right OKComputer?

Fun fact - we are so good at hiding our history, that our professional document scanners and historical record preserving people have been a big part of Vatican efforts to digitize and publish their records over recent decades. Check it out - here’s one of the websites at Brigham Young University: https://cpart.mi.byu.edu/home/vs/

Well, OKComputer and I have detracted from the thread enough. Perhaps he’d be willing to start a new thread if he wants to discuss further how Mormons hide our history.
 
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When missionaries start telling converts about Joesph Smith marrying 14 year olds (he did, and it wasn’t common back than at all) the DNA problems with the Book of Mormon (no DNA evidence exists to back up the Book of Mormon narrative), the book of Abraham being a total fraud (It’s “translation” is nothing like Joesph said) the mistakes in the KJV somehow making it to the Book of Mormon (Big time problem there) the witness supposedly seeing the Book of Mormon with “spiritual” eyes instead of natural eyes then I’ll believe you when you say the church is more “open”.

There is a reason only LDS believe this and 99% of the worlds population sees it differently.

I could go on for pages, but you are right. It’s for another thread, and I apologize to you and the the OP for derailing it.
 
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NeuroTypical said:
Oh wow - it’s hard to get more wrong about an aspect of my church than this. I just have to giggle whenever I hear this criticism.
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NT, on the contrary, it is you who is wrong about this aspect of the LDS church. The church has most definitely made intentional efforts over the decades to suppress the more controversial parts of its history. And this has been done from the top down. The evidence of this is overwhelming. One needs only to do some basic research to see it.

Boyd K. Packer is particularly infamous for instructing church historians to avoid writing about historical issues that are not faith promoting. Ever hear of Correlation? That is the church program to rewrite all manuals and teaching materials to make certain everything tells the same whitewashed story, avoiding the problematic historical problems in the process. This was done partly in response to historians finding out about troubling historical problems on their own and publishing them.

Did you know people have been excommunicated or disfellowhipped for writing about historical controversies, which the church then denied but now admits are true? And they only admit some of these things now because the wide proliferation of this information on the internet has caused thousands of members to question the whitewashed history they’ve always been taught. Many thousands are leaving over these issues, feeling they’ve been lied to by the church their whole lives.

And do you think the missionaries teach an honest version of basic church history to converts? I’m pretty sure converts don’t hear about Joseph’s many wives, some young teens and some already married to other men. Or they certainly won’t hear how Joseph really translated the Book of Mormon by sticking his head into his hat to read the words from a magical seer stone that he also coincidentally used to pretend to find buried treasure for gullible clients. Or they won’t hear how most of the early church leadership, and even Joseph’s own wife Emma, left the church. No, instead they get a rosy, whitewashed version that attempts to paint Joseph Smith in the best possible light. But it’s not the truth.

These are just a few examples. There are many more. It is therefore incredibly ignorant to claim the church has been open about its history, Joseph Smith Papers or not. The truth is exactly the opposite. Here is an article that gives a good summary of just how the church has been so dishonest about its history:

 
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The Joseph Smith papers are just a baby step in introducing the rank-and-file to real Church history. They know that if they told the whole truth all at once, there would be a mutiny. Give them a little bit of truth, let them digest it and in a few more years, give them a little bit more. Avoid a meltdown. It’s the best they can do with a horrible situation. The leadership knows the truth. You can see it in their faces. It’s a sinking ship. They don’t even read the statistics in general conference anymore. Membership numbers are down. Missionary service (for young elders and sisters) is down. If it weren’t for senior missionaries, they would be really in trouble. Temple construction is down. People are leaving the church in growing numbers.
 
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Lemuel said:
t’s a sinking ship. They don’t even read the statistics in general conference anymore. Membership numbers are down.
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I don’t know enough to say whether its a “sinking ship” or not, and even if is, it might take centuries to sink.

But I think modern technology is not their friend. All of the secret , confidential ceremonies of Mormonism have had the veil ripped from them. No need to join, just to find out what’s up- just check it out on You Tube.
 
This is a short YouTube video on how honest they are and how honest they are taught to be. Dodge the questions. Dodge 'em. Don’t answer. Don’t. The truth is not useful. Don’t tell the truth. Whatever you do.

 
So many good points in that blog.

I remember when I left the church, one of my family members gave me a book about how to navigate through a faith crisis. I told them that I didn’t have a faith crisis. The Church has a truth crisis. I saw the same thing in that article.
 
Chris-Wa1 said:
Is it just me or does it seem like almost all the upper leadership of the LDS church are wealthy career-type men? Businessmen, lawyers, doctors, dentists, etc? This is what you might expect of politicians, but it seems strange that this would be the case for a church. I mean, is it just a coincidence or does the amount of tithing one pays somehow translate into church leadership advancement opportunities? Even down to stake presents and bishops–they all tend to be of the same mold.
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It’s all volunteer work, even up to the Stake level. There is no financial payoff for getting their leadership positions.
 
Chris-Wa1 said:
Yes but that doesn’t really address the stated issue.
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It’s factual context to your questions.

For an opinion on your issue, maybe it can be explained by the parable of the talents.

I think they are selecting competent people for these positions, one’s that require significant time commitments. These aren’t like how a big money bundler get’s rewarded by the party with the Ambassador job in Rome or Paris.
 
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I have a good friend who is a Seventy in the LDS church. He’s in the 5th quorum, so technically not a general authority, but above a Stake President. He does not get paid for his service, although the Church picks up all his travel expenses and occasional meals. I have another good friend who is a mission president and he does get paid. I’m not sure what or where the cutoff is.

Neither of these two are particularly wealthy. One is a civil engineer and the other is a printer. I think the main path to hierarchy is how dye-in-the-wool you are and if you can look the other way or deflect difficult questions when they come up. Being a good speaker, story teller, being able to move people with the “Spirit” always helps. Being knowledgeable about the scriptures or Church history can be a liability. And there are LOTS and LOTS of wealthy Mormons who hold temple recommends but never get more than a few rungs up the ladder.
 
I’ll add that it’s not hard to become wealthy if you generally work hard and live an austere and conservative life without addiction issues. Building wealth and tithing are not incompatible.
 
It has been reported that GA’s get a substantial sum from the church at the beginning of their tenure.

But my main point is that those in the very high leadership positions of the LDS church tend to be white-collar professionals. You seldom see another type of person get promoted to high positions in the church. You don’t hear about so-and-so the plumber or electrician or carpenter or whatever. They for the most part all seem to come from the same mold. I find that curious because what I would expect to see would be men from every possible background, financial status, etc. that were chosen based mostly on their spiritual gifts, which would seem more important than any other criteria. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. Strange.

And when you watch conference it seems like these guys all speak the same way, like they all went to the same class on how to give a briefing at a business meeting. It’s almost robotic, Stepford Wives-like.
 
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Chris-Wa1 said:
I find that curious because what I would expect to see would be men from every possible background, financial status, etc. that were chosen based mostly on their spiritual gifts, which would seem more important than any other criteria. But it doesn’t work that way. Strange.
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I recognize your question as valid observation, but I haven’t seen evidence they promoted people who lacked spiritual gifts, or just rephrased as the ability to provide leadership.

The skills that help you succeed in white collar work do overlap well with the skills to be an organizational leader in a Church. The spiritually strong plumber may still be a Ward leader, boy scout leader, or lead their bible study. They put everyone to work.
 
Chris-Wa1 said:
They for the most part all seem to come from the same mold. I find that curious because what I would expect to see would be men from every possible background, financial status, etc.
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I would not expect that. The Church is a corporation and it’s run like a corporation. I would expect to see white-collar leadership. It’s not about Christianity. It’s about business.
 
Post-secondary education seems and have been said to be encouraged by Mormons so that may play a role. Anecdotal but all of the Mormons I know personally and I know many despite it being a very small religious minority have gone to university. And by Mormons I mean those who are active in their religion.
It definitely increases the probability of such individuals rising to the top of their hierarchy.
 
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Exactly. And that’s the point–the church is run by professional business men because at its root today it is primarily a business. That’s what the membership doesn’t see. They all go gaga over these men they call prophets, but they don’t see it all for what it really is.
 
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