Hamblin's Creed

[_Drifting]

Drifting, by your logic who can class themselves as Jewish in New Mexico?

By your logic, who can class themselves as Roman Catholic in New Mexico?

Who gets to decide?

Why?

What's your view on that?

[_Sethbag]

So, when a person is baptized, are they asked point by point whether they accept all of the tenets laid out in the Articles of Faith? [and so on]

No. The church has missionaries attempt to baptize people as quickly as possible in order to lock them in, and assumes they'll learn the rest of it all in due course. I personally respect the Jehovah's Witnesses a lot more in how they do it, to be honest. A person has to make a major effort to be baptized by them. They require a person to study JW teachings and beliefs for like a year before they let you become a JW.

Apparently, saying "I am Jehovah's Witness" is supposed to indicate a lot more about a person's belief status than "I am Mormon". Too bad, I say.

My view is that your understanding of the role of beliefs and creeds of this kind lacks sufficient nuance to be anything other than an inverse of the kind of rhetorical wedge Hamblin has created.

And that means I'm wrong? My view is that it's possible to allow so much "nuance" in the use of language that it becomes essentially meaningless. Under the nuanced view of the word "Mormon" that you seem to support, it conveys almost no information at all anymore. I think that's too bad, and I would bet that if you could poll those actively still self-identifying as Mormons, you'd find yourself at odds with the vast majority of them in terms of what they expect that term to convey.

Both of you are looking for ways to exclude people from Mormon identity. He because he finds these cafeteria types a threat to his idealized faith; you for other reasons. Neither of you are correct or even very realistic.

I'm not looking for ways to exclude anyone. I have no need or desire for John Dehlin not to be seen as truly acting or believing like a Mormon anymore. I couldn't care less. My defense of Hamblin in this is not because I have an interest I am trying to promote. It's simply my view on this particular use of language. And that view is that the word "Mormon", referring to members of COJCOLDS, is meant by the church and the vast majority of its active membership to connote certain things about that person's beliefs. And Dehlin and others probably don't really fit that expectation anymore.

That's certainly a much different appraisal than whether or not their bishop should excommunicate them.

[_lulu]

Drifting, by your logic who can class themselves as Jewish in New Mexico?

By your logic, who can class themselves as Roman Catholic in New Mexico?

Who gets to decide?

Why?

What's your view on that?

You go first.

[_Sethbag]

Kish, how can you be classed as a Mormon and not sustain Thomas S. Monson as Prophet, Seer and Revelator?

That is such an incredibly absurd question that one wonders how you can pose it in seriousness.

So, basically you are telling me that you yield control of the term Mormon to a bunch of apologists, lawyers, and bureaucrats in Salt Lake City.

What on earth does their opinion have to do with reality?

Why would you want to buy into someone else's powerplay propaganda?

I find this all so confusing.

The lawyers and bureaucrats in SLC happen to be the ones in charge, and the ones active Mormons follow as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. I may not admire them anymore like I used to, but it's their football, so to speak, so I'll play by their rules or I won't play at all.

If a person were being interviewed on TV and the person claimed "I am a Mormon", and in reality this person hadn't been to church in 30 years, had never read the Book of Mormon, didn't believe in Joseph Smith's calling, had never heard of Thomas Monson and didn't really give a crap who the Prophet was, or take any effort at all to live the commandments and practices of the Mormons, ie: he smokes, drinks, lives with his girlfriend, plays golf on Sundays, takes food from babies and punches widows and then takes their apple pie, wouldn't you feel like a miscommunication of some sort had taken place? Wouldn't you feel that the audience of that interview was being led to believe something about this guy other than what was really true?

Maybe not. But I would. And I think the vast, overwhelming majority of active Mormons would too.

[_Drifting]

Drifting, by your logic who can class themselves as Jewish in New Mexico?

By your logic, who can class themselves as Roman Catholic in New Mexico?

Who gets to decide?

Why?

What's your view on that?

You go first.

Well, I'm not sure I can, at least not comprehensively. I do not know the criteria that these religious systems set for membership. On the assumption that they have some then I would expect to have to meet them before classing myself as part of their creed.

[_Stormy Waters]

Isn't the purpose of language to convey ideas or for disambigation? If the term Mormon becomes ambiguous then what we will see is people adding qualifiers or using new terms the same way that people do on this board. People will begin use terms such as true blue mormom, new order mormom, Internet mormom, or chapel Mormon. They already use terms such as jack Mormom.
To me this debate is not terribly meanginful, because language will just evolve to make the distinctions again.

[_Sethbag]

Language is a social construct, of course, and something like the use of labels is not an exact science. I acknowledge that Kish and Blixa and others who are on the other side of this discussion from myself get to mean and intend whatever they want to mean and intend with how they use language, just as I do.

There's certainly no grand Language God out there who will cosmically slap the wrist of anyone "doing it wrong" by some precise definition of how we are to communicate with each other. In my view it's not really about who is right and who is wrong in how a label like Mormon ought to be used. It's about how well a particular usage of the label will convey to others what one intends to convey.

That is, someone using the label intends to convey something by its use, and someone hearing the label understands something to have been conveyed by its use. When those two people do not agree on what the label is to connote, then good communication between them is hampered. They talk past each other.

All I am saying is that, with Hamblin's take on one side, and Kish's take on the other side, the vast majority of active, self-identifying Mormons would probably understand the term more like Hamblin does, and less like Kish does. And, really, probably the majority of people in general who know anything about the Mormon Church would understand it more like Hamblin too.

[_Blixa]

Language is a social construct, of course, and something like the use of labels is not an exact science. I acknowledge that Kish and Blixa and others who are on the other side of this discussion from myself get to mean and intend whatever they want to mean and intend with how they use language, just as I do.

There's certainly no grand Language God out there who will cosmically slap the wrist of anyone "doing it wrong" by some precise definition of how we are to communicate with each other. In my view it's not really about who is right and who is wrong in how a label like Mormon ought to be used. It's about how well a particular usage of the label will convey to others what one intends to convey.

That is, someone using the label intends to convey something by its use, and someone hearing the label understands something to have been conveyed by its use. When those two people do not agree on what the label is to connote, then good communication between them is hampered. They talk past each other.

All I am saying is that, with Hamblin's take on one side, and Kish's take on the other side, the vast majority of active, self-identifying Mormons would probably understand the term more like Hamblin does, and less like Kish does. And, really, probably the majority of people in general who know anything about the Mormon Church would understand it more like Hamblin too.

eh, I don't know, Seth. I think that an "ethnic Mormon identity" was once, pre-correlation, more of a commonsense understanding that it later became, because of correlation, during most of our lifetimes. That said, I think things may be changing and a more over-arching cultural definition (with plenty o' contradictory definitions inside of it) is beginning to emerge. I think that this is a good thing for everybody except those who want to stop history in its tracks.

[_lulu]

Drifting, by your logic who can class themselves as Jewish in New Mexico?

By your logic, who can class themselves as Roman Catholic in New Mexico?

Who gets to decide?

Why?

What's your view on that?

You go first.

Well, I'm not sure I can, at least not comprehensively. I do not know the criteria that these religious systems set for membership. On the assumption that they have some then I would expect to have to meet them before classing myself as part of their creed.

Here's an easier one.

Spain, 1493.

Who's Jewish?

Who's Roman Catholic?

Be careful, peoples' lives depend on it.

[_Sethbag]

Language is a social construct, of course, and something like the use of labels is not an exact science.

eh, I don't know, Seth. I think that an "ethnic Mormon identity" was once, pre-correlation, more of a commonsense understanding that it later became, because of correlation, during most of our lifetimes.

Social constructs are never static. You're probably right about "ethnic Mormon identity" having meant something a little different to people living in a different era and social environment than now.

That said, I think things may be changing and a more over-arching cultural definition (with plenty o' contradictory definitions inside of it) is beginning to emerge. I think that this is a good thing for everybody except those who want to stop history in its tracks.

You're almost certainly right about this.

By the way, Kish and others condemn Hamblin's approach because they say he wants to delegitimize John Dehlin and the NOMs for his own reasons. This is probably true. Has anyone ever asked what John Dehlin is attempting to do when he publicly identifies as Mormon? Is Dehlin attempting to legitimize himself with a largely Mormon audience? If you acknowledge this, then you're really acknowledging that Hamblin is right in his argument, or that, at best, both are wrong.

But if you try to assert that both are wrong and that only your way of using the label is correct, then you are claiming for yourself the very authority over the term that you decry Hamblin for usurping. I don't think you get to have it both ways.