Ward boundaries & freedom of choice

Every week my Catholic grandmother drives 20 miles to the next county in order to go to Saturday mass with her sister. Both are elderly widows, and the routine has been ongoing for over twenty years. I think their little tradition is really sweet, and it means a lot to them. Whenever I go to visit I go along with them because it’s such an important part of their lives and I like to be a part of it, even if it is only once or twice every few years.

Of course if they were mormon this wouldn’t be allowed. As a missionary I spent almost a year in our mission office. One of the other elders was responsible for transmitting all the baptismal data to SLC every week. One of the things he told me was that the church has the whole world mapped out, and every inch of it is in one ward or another. When we needed maps of every unit in the mission Salt Lake was more than happy to oblige.

As mormons we were assigned a ward and we had to go to it. No excuses no exceptions. Indeed if we had dared to attend somewhere else we would have been barred from holding any callings. So why when most churches allow parishioners to choose their congregation are the mormons different? Why don’t they allow you to choose?

Well, what if you want to attend a different ward, not for social or familial reasons, but because the new bishop is really cool? Or there’s a great sunday school teacher? The fact is that different church leaders tend to have slightly different views and pet topics.

When I lived in UT I had an Institute teacher who’d been a Presbyterian minister for 30 years. Unsurprisingly he taught from the bible more than any other book. If mormons could choose which congregations to attend there would be movement according to belief. Where there was a socially liberal bishop, socially liberal members would follow, and where there was a hardcore über TBM bishop, the über TBMs would follow.

Over time congregations with a distinct take on doctrine would develop just as they have within Anglicanism for example, with its’ high church/low church split. Such a move would deal a fatal blow to the last 30 years of top down correlation of materials and teachings. There are different and distinct brands of mormonism, the mormonism of Spencer W. Kimball and the mormonism of Hugh B. Brown are different. Congregations of brand adherents would start to campaign for their beliefs to hold overall ascendancy within the hierarchy.

Wards would become more vibrant and the members more passionate, but the church would cease to be homogeneous and cease to speak as one with the same cultish manner that they do now, and there could rise a congregational style movement. The brethren realise this would lead to democratisation and a loss of power and control. Instead of General Conference there would be a General Synod.

What seems like a small and innocuous little rule buried within the Church Handbook belies the the controlling nature of the church. It exposes their authoritarian tendencies and desire to protect members from themselves. The limitations of freedom to associate within the group may seem innocuous, but in reality it is a key indicator of some of the cultish and controlling practices of the LDS Church.

Warm Fuzzies, the priest and me

As we all know the LDS church tells its' members to base their lives on the feelings of the spirit not on facts or rational argument. Since the early days of my enlightenment I have been able to see how flawed this is.

As I struggled with new found facts that conflicted with my feeling I faced a struggle between to sets of conditioning. One the Mormon set and one the secular set which demanded reasoned argument. My breaking point in terms of faith came when I realised that faith cannot withstand fact. That at some point the evidence against an idea could become so compelling that an alternative conclusion was outwith the bounds of rationality.

Having come to the decision that Mormonism could not possibly be true based on the evidence presented and that to have continued to believe, in-spite of the facts, would be irrational, I have not really looked for nor stumbled into any alternative faith. However I have had religious experiences since my departure from the LDS church.

For several months after my departure, whilst still hesitant about my decision I lived with my Grandmother. My Grandmother is a life long Catholic, and over the years had educated herself in her faith. I consider her to understand Catholicism better than most. So many catholics fail to realise that they belong to a church based on a coherent theology that has been built up over thousands of years. Instead of seeking that out they get caught up in the superstitious and outward elements of the faith. Not dis-similar to the way many Mormons are - appearances being everything.

For months I attended Mass with her and actually quite enjoyed it. I enjoyed actually hearing about the teaching of Christ who at the very least has an inspiring philosophy even if I cannot decide if I can believe he is the son of god. It was refreshing to hear about his teachings and not those of a bigoted hick with masturbation on the mind or some other LDS prophet. I did start to take some comfort in the rituals too, I don't know what it is about human nature but rituals do seem to do something for many of us.

I noticed how I felt the same warm fuzzies that I always thought had been the spirit at mass. My Mormon thought patterns told me that this was because they must have been talking about something true, but even when discussing things which the LDS church oppose, like reciting the Nicene Creed I felt the same fuzzies. Brilliant I thought, and took this as evidence that warm fuzzies meant nothing, a position I still hold.

A further confirmation of my anti fuzzies resolve came last week. I was visiting a friend from uni. The last time I had seen her was on her wedding day, about a year ago. At the wedding I again felt these fuzzies. The wedding was a full Wedding Mass led by my friend's parish priest. His performance was wonderful, aided by the choir that my friend and her husband had hired for the ocassion.

The Priest who I thought was so wonderful is sitting in the dock of the High Court in Edinburgh being cross examined over the murder of a young polish woman who had been living at the priest's church. He admitted to having has sex with the girl, to being an alcholic and having had numerous affairs. As it turns out the prist was not the murderer, but his actions and reactions surrounding the murder in his church were less than valient and not befitting a man of the cloth. It was his negligence and his refusual to look into the backgrounds of those to whom he opened his doors which led to this death.

All the events took mentioned in court happened around the time of the wedding. My friend even joked last week that now she knows why he was so late for the ceremony. So my point is that the warm fuzzies show nothing. If I can get warm fuzzies from a wedding mass from a man not maintaining his vows and who's behaviour surrounding a murder was suspect to say the least then it shows nothing.

Feelings are unreliable, clouded by emotion and certainly not influenced by god. They can be manipulated by the silver tongued and through flattery, or even in the case of this priest, and Joseph Smith, by a good showman.

Please show your support and concern for Alan Johnston, the captured BBC corespondent. Alan is being held hostage in Gaza after being abducted on March 12th. Alan was the only western journalist left in Gaza.

Please sign the petition asking for his imediate release. Several days ago a Palestinian organisation claimed they had killed Mr. Johnston however this is now disputed. Such action can in my view only harm the Palestinian cause, it seems to me ironic that they should choose to capture a BBC reporter when the BBC unique amongst broadcasters strives to give a neutral and unbiased report of the horrific events that constitute daily life in Gaza.

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For all of you who can't get enough information on Mormonism, I thought this might be of interest to you.

A new quasi-blog has been established where mormonism can be discussed openly, no matter what your views or opinions. Click here to visit.

Holy Mary Mother of God

About a year before I left for my mission a good friend of mine and RM was on an apologetic kick. He suffered from depression and for whatever reason putting his mind to a set task seemed to bring some relief from his condition.

After several months of different small projects he came across accusations that the BOM in its' original form was not the same as the current version. He duly sent of to SLC for the Tanner's annotated copy of the original 1830 edition with the changes highlighted.

I had no idea he had done this. It just came up in conversation one day. He went on to explain that most of the differences were simply grammatical and spelling errors which had been corrected. I was inclined to agree and after having a flick through the book I decided he was right. He still is right.

Some time later in the mission field we were issued with a new translation of the BOM in German and told to stop reading the older 'Luschien' version as soon as the new investigator version i.e the single BOM was in circulation. Naturally we started to compare the translations to see what differences there were. Naturally there were a great many minor changes though nothing substantive other than the inclusion of JS-Matt for the first time. We did however get a kick out of the church releasing a 'new' version which still used the old 'rechtschreibung' rules.

My thoughts naturally turned to different versions of the BOM again and I was reminded of the discussions I had had some time previous with my friend. I went online and found that Herald House, the Deseret Book of the RLDS were selling replicas of the original 1830 edition, exactly the same as BKP had held up in conference not long before. I looked at the picture and thought it would be a cool gimmick for the street preaches we held ever week in the pedestrian precincts. (fußgängerzonen)

Though the BOM can be described as chloroform in print, I have always felt that the vision and dream sequences were vivid and well written. The reasons for that are obviously debatable given the magical thinking of JS's family. Anyway one of my favourite passages was the vision of Nephi in 1Nephi 11. The key passage, and the whole point of the is this:

Modern Version:
Quote:

14 And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?
15 And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.
19 And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look!
20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

Source LDS.org


Original Version:


Quote:
14 And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?
15 And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.
19 And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look!
20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

Source: Herald Heritage Re-print (1830 1st Ed. Book of Mormon)


To the untrained eye these do look like very minor differences, perhaps they were overlooked by my friend, or more likly he did not realise the huge ramifications in the changes.

Mormonism is in theological terms distinct from mainstream Christianity because it rejects traditional concepts of trinity, that is to say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. Mainstream Christianity is therefore monotheistic, whilst mormonism's doctrine of Godhead creates polytheism. It if for this reason alone that mormon baptism is not accepted by many churches, not least the Roman Catholic church.

We can see a perfect and relevant example of montheism at work in the traditional 'Hail Mary' prayer:

Quote:
Hail Mary
Full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen

Source: Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ignatius Press, pg.643


This prayer demonstrates the same interchangeabilityty of terms for god and Jesus as is found in the original 1830 version of Nephi's vision. Where clearly Mary is stated as being the mother of God, not the mother of the son of God as though there is a difference.

Why is this important? Well, it dispels the myth amongst TBMs that alterations of the BOM have been minimal tidying up exercises in grammar correction. Quite the opposite. The fundamental theology of the church has been altered, the very nature of the God being worshipped has changed from a mainstream nicean God to an idiosyncratic and literalistic version of God void of the traditional mystery and inherent contradiction.

It shows clearly how Joseph Smith was influenced in the writing of the BOM by his mainstream beliefs, those of Methodism and how those beliefs evolved as time went on. Evolution of ideas is simply not compatiblele with restorationist revelation.

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UPDATE - Sorry for delay

Hi Folks,

Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been very busy with various things.

So much has happened since the last time I posted.

What do you all think of the current government crisis?