Yet another LDS fireside on doubts and faith crisis on 2/17 - This is really incredible to watch in real time

[Corsair]

I have heard rumors of a few stakes that have had special Sunday School classes on the essays. But it usually seems to be kept small because I think they end up with new faith crises and transitions.

[Palerider]

I have heard rumors of a few stakes that have had special Sunday School classes on the essays. But it usually seems to be kept small because I think they end up with new faith crises and transitions.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. They've painted themselves into this corner and their only way out is a chainsaw if they had one.

Ugly...

[2bizE]

I suppose it is better than endless porn shaming talks.

[MerrieMiss]

I have heard rumors of a few stakes that have had special Sunday School classes on the essays. But it usually seems to be kept small because I think they end up with new faith crises and transitions.

Our stake did this but they were taught in Priesthood/RS. I made sure I went to RS so I could sit in on them, but I only ever saw two taught - polygamy and Heavenly Mother. Maybe I somehow missed the other ones, or the ward I was in never got around to it. I recorded both, but only typed up one of the lessons and posted it: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=870&hilit=polygamy+essay

[Red Ryder]

I’m going to coin a new term for these fireside gatherings on doubts.

The Mormon Fyreside - where apostles promise answers but deliver hurrican tents, soaked mattresses, and cheese sandwiches!

[blazerb]

I think the story of Steven is a change to the narrative. In the other presentations on doubt, the doubter was always satisfied with the answers and came back. Correct me if I'm wrong. Steven, though, had all his questions answered and still left. I think the Q15 wants to create the impression that answers don't help people resolve doubts. In the same way that we were always told that seeing an angel would not help us be good, see Laman and Lemuel, getting answers to questions won't help us either. Thus, the leadership is off the hook for actually answering questions because it won't make a difference. Of course, it's crap. Real answers would make a difference just like seeing an actual angel would. We don't get answers for the same reason we don't see angels. I'll just leave it at that.

[jfro18]

I think the story of Steven is a change to the narrative. In the other presentations on doubt, the doubter was always satisfied with the answers and came back. Correct me if I'm wrong. Steven, though, had all his questions answered and still left. I think the Q15 wants to create the impression that answers don't help people resolve doubts. In the same way that we were always told that seeing an angel would not help us be good, see Laman and Lemuel, getting answers to questions won't help us either. Thus, the leadership is off the hook for actually answering questions because it won't make a difference. Of course, it's crap. Real answers would make a difference just like seeing an actual angel would. We don't get answers for the same reason we don't see angels. I'll just leave it at that.

Yep - this is spot on. They know there are no answers and they know people are leaving because of that, so instead of trying to give the same stale, unconvincing answers they used to give, they are now attacking the questions before they're even asked.

And you're absolutely right- the same church that preaches "personal revelation" has a group of old white dudes with a direct line to God and yet can't seem to get answers to any of them. It's pretty obvious why that is, but you can't see it until that shelf finally breaks.

[slavereeno]

I just watched some bits of Sister and Elder Renlund's talk, Maybe its just me but they come off as so damn smug, condescending and rude. As someone who has "doubted" how is this supposed to make me feel?

[jfro18]

I just watched some bits of Sister and Elder Renlund's talk, Maybe its just me but they come off as so damn smug, condescending and rude. As someone who has "doubted" how is this supposed to make me feel?

Yeah actually watching it was really bad - you have this primary aged animation playing as they're basically scolding you for even thinking about the truth claims of the church. And when they chastise Steven it just comes off so condescending and it makes me wonder how effective it is to anyone who is on the fence about the church right now.

I haven't had a chance to listen for more than 15 minutes of it yet but Bill Reel and RFM just put out part one of their podcast on it. But in the first 15 minutes they really illustrate just what a shift this is in church narrative, which is one thing that kind of slipped by me when I listened.

[consiglieri]

His resume looks like a history of writing bad sacrament meeting talks.

And is it normal to list your wife and children on your CV? Wtf?

https://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/ ... rsoncv.pdf

PUBLICATIONS
“Hate and Hermeneutics: Interpretive Authority in Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies,” in Selected Proceedings of the Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies 2014 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference (Chicago: The Newberry Library, 2014).

“The Rejection and Rehabilitation of Worship in the Old Testament,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 2013), 185–203.

“Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision as Apocalyptic Literature,” in The Things which My Father Saw: Approaches to Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision, ed. Daniel L. Belnap, Gaye Strathearn, and Stanley A. Johnson (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 2011), 53–69.

“Writing in the Margins: Canonization and the Ordering of Charisma,” Glossolalia 4, no. 1 (Fall 2011).

“Of Soils and Souls: The Parable of the Sower,” The Religious Educator 9, no. 3 (2008): 31–47.

“The Problem of Pride: A Book of Mormon Perspective,” in Selections from the Religious Education Student Symposium (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center, 2004), 1–14.

When I saw the list of publications, I just had to peek.

How funny he cites an article written by RFM in the footnotes of one of his papers.

[moksha]

I wonder what it costs to rent out these stadiums. They just did this in Seattle too.

I attended a conference at the University of Washington years ago, where we woke up every morning to the repeated chant of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo coming from the stadium. It was rather en-chant-ing.

[oliblish]

I wonder what it costs to rent out these stadiums. They just did this in Seattle too.

I attended a conference at the University of Washington years ago, where we woke up every morning to the repeated chant of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo coming from the stadium. It was rather en-chant-ing.

Hearing those words almost make me ill. I remember encountering groups of Soka Gakkai in Japan on my mission and their chanting was extremely creepy...

[RubinHighlander]

I just watched some bits of Sister and Elder Renlund's talk, Maybe its just me but they come off as so damn smug, condescending and rude. As someone who has "doubted" how is this supposed to make me feel?

I think Renlund is a total Dbag! I'll never forget how pompous he sounded when he got put in the 15, touting his pioneer ancestry.

[redjay]

I’m going to coin a new term for these fireside gatherings on doubts.

The Mormon Fyreside - where apostles promise answers but deliver hurrican tents, soaked mattresses, and cheese sandwiches!

Watched the Fyre documentary on Netflix. Was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

[Red Ryder]

I’m going to coin a new term for these fireside gatherings on doubts.

The Mormon Fyreside - where apostles promise answers but deliver hurrican tents, soaked mattresses, and cheese sandwiches!

Watched the Fyre documentary on Netflix. Was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Glad you picked up on the reference.

Watching the Fyre doc was interesting from a Mormonism standpoint. Billy was the charismatic Joseph Smith and the festival was his Gospel Restoration.

People are sold a dream version of something and often reality doesn't compare.

[Just This Guy]

I just watched some bits of Sister and Elder Renlund's talk, Maybe its just me but they come off as so damn smug, condescending and rude. As someone who has "doubted" how is this supposed to make me feel?

I have listened to parts of it via what RFM has in his podcast, and even then, I struggled to listen to the recordings they used. Mr. Renlund has is nose as high in the air as possible, but Mrs. Renlund is the worst for me. She is just soo... both condescending and shallow at the same time. Think Clueless level valley girl speak mixed with a mom talking to a infant, with a HUGE dose of sucking up to her husband.

How common is this talking (tone and cadence) in Mormonism and Mormon women? IOT parodies it in their Infant General Conference shows. I guess I never see it outside Mormonism.

[Hagoth]

I would like to see what it would look like for a "doubter" to confront the Renlunds face-to-face regarding all of the names they call people who have been through the hell of faith crisis, and the way they write them off as horrible untouchables. Then I would like to hear that person sit them down and explain to them in detail exactly how sincerely and painfully they came to their current situation. I would like to see if the Renlunds would stand by their accusations or if they would be able to dig up some shred of empathy. I mean the genuine kind of empathy, not the bogus "we love sinner but not the sin" kind or the "we love you for what you could be if you were fixed" kind.

I'm sure in their righteous indignation and chronic tunnel vision they haven't a clue about how much they come across as bigoted a-holes. I say bigoted because this kind of disrespectful attitude and wholesale dismissal of any other group of people would be slapped down as narrow-minded prejudice. "I got nothin' against those effin' doubters, some of my best friends are effin' doubters, or at least they would be if I ever got to know one." It goes beyond victim blaming to metaphorical victim lynching.

Yeah, I know, that's a bit strong but it's how I feel after listening to this particular piece of nasty propaganda that is intentionally designed to turn people against their friends and family.

[Hagoth]

And another thing. I'm already sick and tired of all of the "covenant path" talk. They want to make sure that everything they say paints questioners as covenant breakers, which sounds particularly distasteful and willfully defiant; you are not merely in conflict with an organization that can't keep its story straight, you are willfully spitting in God's face.

[slavereeno]

Yeah, I know, that's a bit strong but it's how I feel after listening to this particular piece of nasty propaganda that is intentionally designed to turn people against their friends and family.

+1 to your entire post

[Reuben]

I'm sure in their righteous indignation and chronic tunnel vision they haven't a clue about how much they come across as bigoted a-holes. I say bigoted because this kind of disrespectful attitude and wholesale dismissal of any other group of people would be slapped down as narrow-minded prejudice. "I got nothin' against those effin' doubters, some of my best friends are effin' doubters, or at least they would be if I ever got to know one." It goes beyond victim blaming to metaphorical victim lynching.

The best analogy I've found to describe how the church treats so-called doubters and ex-members is symbolic racism. Comparing the false beliefs of symbolic racism with those the church teaches:

1. Blacks no longer face much prejudice or discrimination. [For Mormons, the equivalent idea is that we don't face systematic prejudice and discrimination, and never have.]

2. The failure of blacks to progress results from their unwillingness to work hard enough. [This one is crazy straightforward to compare, but also add various flavors of defectiveness as reasons.]

3. Blacks are demanding too much too fast. [I've heard similar sentiments about LGBT issues. It's mostly absent in common discourse because the idea that the church should even listen to demands is pretty alien. Some progressive members might explicitly believe this.]

4. Blacks have gotten more than they deserve. [Compare "they'll never be satisfied" and other forms of responsibility evasion, as well as the feeling that we deserve far less than believing members.]

So Mormonism teaches a worse attitude than symbolic racism, but for a lot of us its negative influence is less invasive. I call it just about even.

About a week after the Renlund devotional, I told my wife that it's like I'm a black man who married into an family of non-militant white supremacists. No, that wasn't fair, and I recommend against saying things like it. But I'm comfortable adjusting the severity downward to "symbolic racists" and calling the statement truthful.