Is it possible to transcend the LDS Church?

[_Analytics]

It's from Emerson's essay Self-Reliance.

If it rings to you, you won't regret reading the whole thing in context.

Thanks a lot!

I have printed it off and look forward to perusing it at length later this evening.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I hope you get the chance to come back and tell us what you think. Some people think that it reinforces Mormon thought, others that it condemns it.

For example, consider this quote:

Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, — means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it, — one as much as another. All things are dissolved to their centre by their cause, and, in the universal miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?

Would Mormons think that is inspired by God or the Devil?

[_bcspace]

When one has learned everything a given organization has to teach, what is the appropriate response?

To entertain the possibility of transcending the LDS Church means one hasn't learned or believed what it teaches, especially as it relates to it's truth claims. In that case, there is nothing to learn from LDS teachings because one cannot be sure of their veracity if one does not accept the original truth claims.

[_Drifting]

When one has learned everything a given organization has to teach, what is the appropriate response?

To entertain the possibility of transcending the LDS Church means one hasn't learned or believed what it teaches, especially as it relates to it's truth claims. In that case, there is nothing to learn from LDS teachings because one cannot be sure of their veracity if one does not accept the original truth claims.

That's not what Elder Poelman was inspired to say in the eighties.
He stated explicitly that is was indeed consistent with the gospel that members could outlive the usefulness of attending Church.

[_The Mighty Builder]

You don't know that, Nobody knows for sure, You weren't there.

[_consiglieri]

Would Mormons think that is inspired by God or the Devil?

Joseph Smith would have thought it inspired by God.

Thomas Monson would think by the Devil.

Mormonism was founded to break with tradition.

But now Mormonism has its own tradition it seeks to reinforce.

I am always amused come Christmas-time to find "Faith of our Fathers" in the LDS hymnal.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_consiglieri]

He stated explicitly that is was indeed consistent with the gospel that members could outlive the usefulness of attending Church.

I might suggest it is not only consistent with the gospel, but its purpose.

Something about birds and nests comes to mind.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Transcendence from Mormonism is the necessary starting point, I believe.

- VRDRC

[_Analytics]

Would Mormons think that is inspired by God or the Devil?

Joseph Smith would have thought it inspired by God....

While I'm sure Smith wasn't the only self-proclaimed prophet of the time that gave his prophesies in quasi-Jacobean English, I can't help but imagine that Emerson specifically had Joseph Smith in mind when he said in 1841,

If, therefore, a man claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe him not.