I've Been Asked to Teach on a Very Strange Subject at Church

[Guest]

In any case, I’m intrigued at the possibility of some cloak and dagger politics. Are you suspected of heresy?

Doubtless.

I seem to have a polarizing influence.

Many Mormons love my teaching, because they actually get the chance to learn something new.

Many others abominate my teaching, because they actually get the chance to learn something new.

I have just been advised that the new ward Sunday school president has issued a list of approved substitute teachers to call upon when a regular teacher is absent.

Guess whose name didn't make the grade?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_consiglieri]

And this brings peace within the church.

Three-hour congregational comas are quite peaceful . . .

[_why me]

So far I have a quote from D&C 88 about using the "best books," a priesthood manual by Hugh Nibley, and a commencement address by a member of the First Presidency.

How am I doing so far?

And what do you have against cowboys, anyway?

Yee-Haw! Brazos!

All the Best!

--The Waco Kid

I have nothing against it. However, if you replace the lesson with his book, well, then there is a problem. Or if you use his book and use five other books and then the lesson runs out and you covered only the first paragraph of the manual because you used other books, well then there is a problem. Or if they learn the gospel of Consig, well, then there is a problem.

And maybe this was your problem as gospel doctrine teacher: you were cowboying it around roping anything and everything but the information that you were suppose to be teaching.

[_Buffalo]

I think you should teach the lesson exactly how they want you to teach it, teachers should not use outside sources, but use only outside sources when you teach that lesson.

During the half-hour I talked with the first counselor Wednesday evening, I mentioned how general authorities use outside sources all the time during conference, and that C.S. Lewis has become an especial favorite.

He said, "I know. I know."

I asked him if he knew why they would be allowed this liberty, and he said he didn't know.

I told him, "Because they are the adults and we are the children."

He didn't like the analogy.

But you should have seen his eyes bug when I told him the details on the how the Correlation Committe came into existence.

I asked him if he knew why all the manuals are the same and why they sound like they have been written by a committee . . .

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Refresh my memory. What's the origin of the correlation committee?

[_consiglieri]

Refresh my memory. What's the origin of the correlation committee?

Although I need to do some review (and have printed out the last four installments of Daymon Smith's BCC interview), my recollection is it was originally a committe of limited power created in order to subsume all the different church magazines into one.

Harold B. Lee was placed in charge, who in short order did a massive power grab to the point that the Correlation Committee now holds absolute control over the dissemination of all information in the Church, up to and including reviewing and editing the talks of apostles for general conference.

Amusingly, part of one of the last lessons in the Correlation Committee's Gospel Doctrine manual on the history of the Church lauds how wonderful the Correlation Committee is.

I kid you not.

I shared this with the first counselor, as well.

He could see the irony.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_consiglieri]

And maybe this was your problem as gospel doctrine teacher: you were cowboying it around roping anything and everything but the information that you were suppose to be teaching.

I had no problem as gospel doctrine teacher.

Unless it was that I taught the scriptures, rather than the manual.

My main problem with the manual is that it does not teach the scriptural passages it purports to address.

Rather, it uses the scriptures to launch into a thoroughly correlated lesson on what Mormons are supposed to think.

Which is frequently not the same thing at all.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Doctor Scratch]

I think you should proceed with caution, Consig. They are probably laying a trap for you--trying to see if you'll be obedient, or whether they should go ahead with their plans to frame you as an apostate.

[_RockSlider]

There is your answer!

Spend the majority of your time teaching the class the history of correlation ... then as the Moral of the story, drop back to the concept that, Christ is at the helm, and it is surely his plan that we should all be correlated Mormons (of course put this in a form they will need to chew on for a bit to get the jest of it) Then finish up with your testimony of how wonderful it is that you can walk into any chapel in the world on any given Sunday, and hear the exact same gospel plan taught there. Of course, be subtle but get the point across that the same pabulum feed to the deacons quorum is also feed to the EQ and HP groups … all across the world! What a beautiful baby!

Somehow getting in a mention of the old school of the prophets, and somehow relating that nicely to the always good “looking beyond the mark” should keep you well away from the teeth of the trap. A mention or two about the intelletuals being the enemy of the church should fit right in here.

[_RockSlider]

[quote="consiglieri
And then to show the difference between pre-correlation and post, I plan on bringing in my copy of Nibley's "An Approach to the Book of Mormon," which I imagine almost nobody knows was a priesthood manual before Correlation, and compare it with the gospel essentials manual we are commanded to use today.
[/quote]

You in SLC? I have a copy of the Truth, the Way, The Life - BH Roberts, which he wrote in his dying years with full intend of fulfilling his long time position/responsibility, of providing the old Seventies Sunday instruction manuals, and leaving with the church all that he had gleaned. Or I have several of the Seventies Course in Theology volumes, which were official "manuals"

Right at the headwaters of the move towards correlation (Talmage and all)

[_Scottie]

I think this is a test devised by the top tier apologists to see if he meets the rigorous conditions to join their elite ranks.