thick of my transition, now I really dont care for him I care for him even less after this interview. The transcript can be fouind here:
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865 ... usion.html
Here are some gems:
I think this is a really great question, and a hard one for anyone who is hardcore to answer directly.Terryl : I’ve often wondered “Why?” How did we get to the point that Joseph Smith becomes a centerpiece of our faith? Lutherans don’t have to believe in Luther or his story, right? Calvinists don’t have to believe in John Calvin. You don’t have to believe in Wesley’s conversion experience. But it strikes me that it goes back to that moment in Joseph’s own narrative when he says, “I realized that I could not settle the question by an appeal to the Bible.” I’ve read that a hundred times, but it was only when I read it fairly recently that I realized what that sentence represents is a repudiation of the whole Protestant project because all of Protestantism is founded on the notion of sola scriptura: all we need are the scriptures.
That was the moment when Joseph said, “No — look around. Obviously scriptures can’t resolve this problem.” So that’s the moment at which one has to find an alternative source of authority, and that source of authority becomes Joseph’s revelatory experiences through which he receives priesthood and keys. So as I see it, that would be one way of defending the proposition that, as Richard Bushman has said, “For Mormons, our history is our theology.”
On the other hand, as your own experiences so beautifully illustrate and as the Book of Mormon teaches, any sure foundation has to be built on Christ; it has to be built on an experience of the divine, not on a series of historical propositions...
...So where do we find the proper balance? What role should our history have in our spiritual formation and underpinnings to our testimonies?
So his answer was that there is no balance? If you accept someone, you accept their history. Full stop.Marlin: So when I look at this world, and I ask the question, “Where is Christ? Who has Him? Who is living like Him? Who is being taught His teachings? Where is it facilitated to do what He did?,” I’m led to our Church. That’s where I come: to this Church.
That fact, however it got there, to me, is that if someone looks at the New Testament and is trying to find the Christianity that was practiced there, taught there, and written about there in the book of Acts, he will eventually in a thoughtful way come to Mormonism. He will embrace the Christ of the Restoration and with that, takes those historical facts that brought that all to pass. That’s where I come out in my thinking on this.
They go on to talk about Christ and how Christ should be more of a centerpiece of your faith. I agree, but when church authorities talk about this it feels now like they are talking about it only because the last 200 years of prophet worship has not turned out very well, so our plan b should be to turn to Christ. This is probably my apostate sensitivity coming through, but thats how it feels to me.
Wait whaaaaat? Mormons devour their history? What are these guys smoking?Terryl Given: It’s a cerebral religion.
Elder Jensen: That’s true. It is a cerebral religion.
Terryl Given: This is one thing that Oxford University Press learned: “Mormons read books!” That’s one reason why there’s such a burgeoning of lines of Mormon studies and the presses. This is what one of the senior editors at Oxford told me: she said, “We discovered that Mormons devour their history.”
Oh Terryl. You are so cute. The problem is that each of those one-by-one points you were unwilling to engage on points to a church that has no unique authority to secure salvation for a person and his family. Why then would you subject yourself to the demands of and objectionable stuff that comes along with that church?Terryl: It reminds me of a conversation I had with a member of the Church in Stockholm who was struggling with his faith. While we were there — he was hosting us — he was trying to make the decision whether to stay or whether to leave. He had a whole list of grievances and complaints. I remember thinking, “You know, it’s not going to really do to just engage these one by one by one.” Finally I thought to just ask him this question: I said, “Do you believe that in the Restoration, as you experienced it, you have all of the spiritual resources necessary to secure salvation for you and your family?” He said, “Well, yes.” I said, “Well then what’s the problem?”
I think that’s a question that we need to ask ourselves more often. It’s like my son says: “The Church isn’t a Swiss Army knife.” It’s not supposed to have an aspect that fulfills every need in our lives, but it gives us those resources, the indispensable instruments to secure our reunion with the Father and the human society.
Good for you Marlin. You appear to be in the minority of church leadership in that view, and you dont wear the pants in any decision making relationship as it relates to church history. Case in point in the next quote:Marlin: I believe that. I believe the best antidote we have for anyone’s faith crisis is to tell the whole story and lay it out the way it happened or the way we think it happened to the best of our knowledge.
So, he even though he believes that the best way is to tell the whole story, it doesnt matter because the people in charge dont!Marlin: Nothing happens in this Church that the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve don’t approve of and, in a sense, lead. I was happily ensconced in the third tier of a three-tiered hierarchy. I felt very comfortable there. There was very little that we did during those years that we didn’t advocate up-line and receive approval for with complete knowledge. That’s actually a feeling of great security for a person who was in my circumstance.
Marlin agreed with him. I cannot believe that they do not understand that it is not the peep stone itself that is the issue. It is what the peep stone represents both in terms of history, trust, and credibility. I think this was the most disingenuous part of the whole conversation. It casts people who have problems as dumb and uninformed. Terryl really came down a few notches for me in this interview.Terryl: Other things, I still don’t quite get why they matter — like I’ve heard of people who have actually left the Church when they discovered that Joseph used a peep stone in a hat. Somehow I’m trying to understand why it’s more credible or respectable to imagine Joseph wearing a Nephite breastplate with a long arm through giant spectacles — but looking at a seer stone in a hat is somehow a degradation of that idea or something.
- Wndr.
