Mormons: a Plea for Candid Truth Telling

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BartBurk

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townhall.com/Columnists/BobBurney/2007/12/19/mormons_a_plea_for_candid_truth_telling

I recommend the above article because we so often find the same thing here. Mormons are afraid to speak the truth about what they believe. And I am purposefully using the word afraid. Back in the days when I joined the church 35 years ago Mormons were bold about what they believed about God, Jesus, Satan and Christianity in general. I think they now know just how weird their teachings are and so they try to hide them. It’s hard to really reason with people who are afraid to tell you what they really believe.
 
BartBurk said:
townhall.com/Columnists/BobBurney/2007/12/19/mormons_a_plea_for_candid_truth_telling

I recommend the above article because we so often find the same thing here. Mormons are afraid to speak the truth about what they believe. And I am purposefully using the word afraid. Back in the days when I joined the church 35 years ago Mormons were bold about what they believed about God, Jesus, Satan and Christianity in general. I think they now know just how weird their teachings are and so they try to hide them. It’s hard to really reason with people who are afraid to tell you what they really believe.
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I thought I addressed that ages ago in my blog. Here is the link:

zerinus.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-jesus-brother-of-satan.html

zerinus
 
Hi

Can somebody, please, point out some LDS discussion forum?

Thanks
 
BartBurk said:
townhall.com/Columnists/BobBurney/2007/12/19/mormons_a_plea_for_candid_truth_telling

I recommend the above article because we so often find the same thing here. Mormons are afraid to speak the truth about what they believe. And I am purposefully using the word afraid. Back in the days when I joined the church 35 years ago Mormons were bold about what they believed about God, Jesus, Satan and Christianity in general. I think they now know just how weird their teachings are and so they try to hide them. It’s hard to really reason with people who are afraid to tell you what they really believe.
Click to expand...
It wasn’t just a media campaign that started in 2002. It was a purposeful change of what people were taught within the church itself, starting around 1980.

New converts to mormonism and those who were raised in mormonism, yet are under the age of 30 or so, were never taught the “doctrines” of mormonism that fall far outside of mainstream Christianity. They are in fact uneducated about their own religion and will deny that these doctrines were ever anything but someone’s opinion.

So, “newer” mormons aren’t really hiding anything, as they can’t hide what they don’t know. The church itself however, definately made a large swing towards an effort to look as mainstream Christian as possible. A lot of the stranger doctrines are encased in terms that seem Christian, yet if you dig deep enough you’ll find beliefs that are anything but Christian. A good example of this is the term “eternal progression”. On the surface, it is described as the Christian belief of Salvation. Under the hood is where you find the mormon doctrine that men become gods.

Re: Satan is the brother of Jesus. I was absolutely taught this as truth. (I was raised mormon, left at age 23.) It is just another example of what is no longer taught as doctrine, and it is obvious to mainstream Christianity the reasons behind this are because it is something that separates the mormon church from Christianity.

For the mormon church, time and patience are all they need. In a hundred years, these strange doctrines will be quaint ideas of a forgotten past.
 
“For the mormon church, time and patience are all they need. In a hundred years, these strange doctrines will be quaint ideas of a forgotten past.”

I would like to believe that 🤷 but I can’t. Sure they have changed, and changed significantly to the point that an observer (note I said observer not participant) can see that it is almost nothing like what JS started. From evolving theology (they were monotheistic to start and have become henotheistic), evolving hierarchy (no black priesthood) to evolving rites (changes to the temple ceremony in 1990) so much has changed. But because they have had the follow the brethren pounded into them so much (When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan—it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy" Ezra T. Benson Improvement Era, June 1945, p. 354) and a mentality that any truth is only anti-mormon propaganda I find it amazing (I thank God that some do hear his call yet still amazed) that any one ever leaves. Add in the sociological impact given the tightness of the community, it self perpetuates. If Pres. Hinckley were to come out and say well it looks like JS was a con man we should all go home here is the proof, the members would label him an apostate and move on to Monson (Pres. Hinkley’s most likely successor being the head of the 12) without batting much of an eye. So while it does change I don’t ever see it becoming more main stream from the top down, it would have to happen from within. Possible but unlikely in my life, though you did say in 100 years and unless since gets a whole lot better I won’t last that long.
 
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