This is for encouragement, ideas, and support for people going through a faith transition no matter where you hope to end up. This is also the place to laugh, cry, and love together.
I feel like people share a certain other pdf that will go unnamed in an effort to convince their loved one their faith transition is valid. The problem is that other PDF looks critical and feels unsafe. I have spent several months with lots of help from others (thank you to those who helped ) in creating a document that feels faithful. Creates trust, and explores the issues from a believer perspective. Something one in a transition could share and no one could point to it as anti. I wanted something that gently nudges you to see just how messy this gets but does it with the feeling of a loved one with their arm around you loving you into listening.
We live in an information age. Much of the history of our faith which was once obscure, is now coming into our cultural awareness. Some of this information appears to be challenging to our faith. Many websites and online articles today are written to impose a critical view of the Church and to diminish faith. What is needed is a fair and balanced article designed to show the critical perspective, then to go one step further in surrounding that perspective with faithful views. The Mormon Primer attempts to do this, offering what we believe is objectivity and historical context. A clear explanation of the material supplemented with Footnotes and Resources to allow the reader to learn on their own. This is what we believe we have done with the Mormon Primer.
Last edited by dbmormon on Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Good job, Bill. This is a great source of information and is far more friendly to our believing family and friends than a lot of sites. I think this was part of the vision of MormonThink, although I don't believe they ultimately wanted to be as even handed as you are.
I appreciate what you are trying to do, and I admire your tenacity in hanging on to the positive in the church. Your line that reads: Something one in a transition could share and no one could point to it as anti. is a laudable target to aim for, but for some, your publication will still be seen as "anti" because it doesn't follow the sanitized, traditional narrative. For them, not sanitized=satanized . Best of luck on it though.
Nice to see sections such as "Science" and "Historical Jesus" included in something like this. Most efforts I've seen that discuss the problems of Mormonism, whether critical or apologetic, focus on the problems specific to Mormonism. That's understandable, I guess, but I can't help but think that with all the discussion of who said what about Joseph Smith, etc., some of the more fundamental questions are being ignored.
This does look great. I originally thought MormonThink was filling this niche, but I think it's become too critical to comfortably share.
I have one suggestion. In the "Resources for Personal Research" section, it would be helpful to make the links titles of articles or webpages instead of urls. Looking at a big list of urls is confusing and intimidating when there is nothing to show what you are clicking on.
) in creating a document that feels faithful. Creates trust, and explores the issues from a believer perspective. Something one in a transition could share and no one could point to it as anti. I wanted something that gently nudges you to see just how messy this gets but does it with the feeling of a loved one with their arm around you loving you into listening.
. Best of luck on it though.
