NOM

And in a win for white supremacists all throughout the Church, President Oaks attacks diversity, and the Church News amplifies his clueless white guy rhetoric:

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-a ... uth-221732

“There is worldly praise and pressure for divisions that draw us apart, for diversity that impairs our unity, for reliance on family descent instead of individual qualifications and we are influenced by a culture of opposition. I concluded that ‘as a Church and as a culture, we need to lead out in demonstrating inclusion.’”

That “inclusion” is not the same as surrendering commitments to truth and morality.

President Oaks’ definitions

Diversity: At a time when diversity is earnestly sought and greatly praised, the Restored Church opposes the popular definition of diversity in its organization and composition. We are all children of God and that is our most important characteristic. We need to unite in love.

So if you're a member working to support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts, President Oaks just backed the bus over you, with a nod and a wink to the #DezNat bullies who love that kind of liberal bashing. But hey, when you help lead a Church that didn't give blacks full membership until 1978 and refuses to apologize for it, you don't have much of a history of supporting diversity anyway.

But there's hope for you, non-white members, President Kimball said if you're righteous your skin gets whiter, so hey, maybe you can feel like a valued member of this religion someday too.

The inherent white superemacy is just one of the many reasons I hate this religion.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Tue Aug 10, 2021 10:44 am And in a win for white supremacists all throughout the Church, President Oaks attacks diversity, and the Church News amplifies his clueless white guy rhetoric:

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-a ... uth-221732

“There is worldly praise and pressure for divisions that draw us apart, for diversity that impairs our unity, for reliance on family descent instead of individual qualifications and we are influenced by a culture of opposition. I concluded that ‘as a Church and as a culture, we need to lead out in demonstrating inclusion.’”

That “inclusion” is not the same as surrendering commitments to truth and morality.

President Oaks’ definitions

Diversity: At a time when diversity is earnestly sought and greatly praised, the Restored Church opposes the popular definition of diversity in its organization and composition. We are all children of God and that is our most important characteristic. We need to unite in love.

The "definitions" aren't definitions, except maybe the first (divisions). The second, which you quoted, made me think there must be more context, so I clicked the link... nope.

It's hard to tell from the quote whether he's opposed to pushing for diversity in general or just "diversity that impairs our unity."

He refuses in the text and definitions to say what he means by diversity, so "reliance on family descent instead of individual qualifications" could imply he's against racial diversity as a goal (if he's still talking about diversity), or that he's against using/respecting class privilege (if he's not). Given that the talk he referenced is partly about how the Mormons treated the poor who came to the Salt Lake Valley, you could make a case that he's against either, or even both.

Implying that some forms of inclusion amount to "surrendering commitments to truth and morality" could mean that including openly LGBT members would be bad, and I'm sure most right-leaning members will take it that way. But left-leaning members can read "don't include racists and homophobes" into this.

What will happen is what normally happens when apostles are maddeningly (to us) vague: every believer who hears or reads them gets a warm, fuzzy glow that tells them they're already on the right track. And everyone who used to believe will be tempted to read the worst into what was said. In the long run, it feeds those relentless divisive forces he's so against.

The remaining two "definitions" are similarly oblique.

Descent: You don’t need to be descended from pioneers or notable leaders to be included in the choicest blessings of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Oh, it's using/respecting class privilege that's bad, then? President Oaks, please look hard at the composition of the Q15, and then tell us all about class privilege.

Wait, he said "choicest blessings," which I think refers to temple blessings. Was he actually talking about worthiness the whole time, or is this a particularly crappy dodge?

Opposition: We know that there must be opposition in all things, but we must resist being critical or pessimistic in these trying times. 

"Don't criticize us, especially when things are bad (which they always are)." Classic.

But is he also throwing shade on the left here? He relates that "culture of opposition" he's against to the scripture that talks about how sweet must be opposed by bitter and good must be opposed by evil. That was actually subtle. Bravo!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this.

A member of the board of directors of LD$-Inc. preaching about inclusion?

LD$-inc. excludes family members from attending "weddings" every day that a temple is open and performing "weddings" anywhere in the world.

Take a step back from the MORmON programming, and it's hard not to see that the much of what LD$-inc. does is actually built on exclusion.

Like you said Reuben: Even though Oaks claims to be talking about inclusion, the nebulous nature of the article actually makes it nothing more than a dog-whistle for "the church" and it's followers to continue pushing exclusion.

That was a confusing article.

Surface level he’s saying let’s love and unite for Jesus!

Between the lines he’s saying the church composition and organization will never change. No women holding the priesthood, no active participation and acceptance of LGBTQ+ members, and the Q15 will choose their replacements however they want.

Edited to add, Oaks seems to be speaking out of both sides of his ass.

Red Ryder wrote: ↑Tue Aug 10, 2021 1:18 pm That was a confusing article.

Yes, was he saying the Church needs to die on the cross of homophobia, or not? His adding that part about love made me think there could be an alternative interpretation to what has been said for the last two decades.

Well, part of what he is saying is the whole "let's be colorblind" argument that we shouldn't talk about race because it "divides" us - never mind that the lower income, lower personal wealth, lower rates of high ownership, and higher rates of poverty for Black Americans compared to White Americans tells us that they are still facing plenty of discrimination and oppression (and nobody had better start in on the kind of racist victim blaming I sometimes hear used to explain these differences). If you have the luxury of thinking our society is completely fair and free of racial discrimination, then like President Oaks you feel comfortable going on about how we need to stop talking about differences and we're all children of one God blah blah blah. But the cold, hard fact of the matter is that the pie is not distributed in our society in a colorblind fashion, and pretending it does only benefits the white people who currently hold bigger pieces of it. It is an argument that maintains the inequitable status quo.

That is what President Oaks is pushing with his statement. And white supremacists in the Church eat it up. They have already been taught they were superior before they were even born, however much the Church tries to pretend that was never taught. The Church is completely messed up when it comes to issues of race, and has always been in a state of denial about it.

But Church leaders are always up for a photo op with NAACP leaders to try and convince everyone the Church doesn't have issues with race.

I read through the article twice to try and figure out what he's really trying to say and I have to agree with the others who have noted that he's trying to have it both ways.

Maybe there's video of the talk somewhere that can give better context, because it's a really disjointed message at least as it is presented in the article.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Tue Aug 10, 2021 10:44 am"We are all children of God..."

some children get the priesthood and will have harems in the next life... and other children should stay barefoot and pregnant.

The "priesthood ban" did not end in 1978, it is still alive and well.

Angel wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 7:07 am

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Tue Aug 10, 2021 10:44 am"We are all children of God..."

some children get the priesthood and will have harems in the next life... and other children should stay barefoot and pregnant.

The "priesthood ban" did not end in 1978, it is still alive and well.

True that. The Church complements its inherent white supremacy with inherent misogyny. Why the hell did I ever think this Church might be a good thing to raise my kids in?

The church is a round hole. Most people in the church are round pegs so they fit quite nicely but quite a few are square (and other shapes) and don't fit. Most of the world will never become a round peg but the church keeps trying to get them to join then pounds them with sledgehammers hoping they will squish into the round hole.

Maybe the church ought to become a peg board that accepts a bunch of different shaped pegs instead of violently trying make all other shapes fit.

President Oaks’ definitions
Divisions: We have powerful forces that seek to draw us apart, dividing us from the unity that is our strength. These forces are relentless.

The "powerful forces" are poorly defined, so I agree with Reuben: Most members will just hear what they want to hear and keep doing what they've been doing. And, since the powerful forces" are so poorly defined, people continue to blame their usual objects of blame.

It's the same old same old.

Meanwhile, me and other "unfaithful" family members are excluded from TBM weddings. Who's really drawing who apart, Elder Oaks?

Translation of Oaks definition of diversity: There is no need for diversity as we are all children of god and all alike. There is not diversity among us because we are all correlated...like Bednar’s famous there are no homosexual members of the church.