Respect for Authority is the True Deciding Factor

[_zeezrom]

After reading words written by David Twede (the MormonThink guy), I came to a realization. The determinating factor in being "in" or "out" of the LDS faith has less to do with what you believe and more to do with whether or not you respect the authority of the Mormon hiearchy.

His comment, was: "I find it extremely unlikely that this is what got the LDS Salt Lake leaders' panties in a bunch." This made me feel that he has little respect for the hiearchy's authority over him personally. He might believe in Christianity and feel tied to his Mormon roots, but as long as he fails to respect the authority, he is out of the faith as far as the leaders are concerned.

People like John Dehlin are somewhat critical of the church and his beliefs likely don't conform, but he doesn't use words like Twede does. Maybe John respects the authority while Twede likely does not?

We have discussed how in Mormonism, you are either in or out and it is difficult to live in between. I wonder if the emphasis on authority is the root cause?

[_Fence Sitter]

This focus on obedience as the way to salvation sounds quite a bit like a plan that was rejected a long time ago in a preexistence far away.

[_huckelberry]

The observation that the center of being Mormon is believing and respecting the churches authority claims is I think clear and unmistakable. One person believes God was once upon a time a regular guy like you and me. Another believes he would have been a special guy like Mit Romney. Then there are others who believe God was always God, never a fallible limited human. That is a big difference, (but oh well, do we teach that ?)

There is no need for the leaders to always be right. They have the authority.
It does not matter how or when an apostasy happened, authority was taken.
It does not matter if other churches may inspire faith and Christian living, they do not have authority.

It is important enough that early portions of D and C were rewritten to include the authority. It took a bit of time to realize authority was more important that Book of Mormon ,D and C , Pearl of Great price, any specifics of temple, polygamy, King Follet sermon. The realization required the early sections to be reinvented to clarify.

[_Fence Sitter]

We can be grateful for a living prophet who tells us when to go shopping. You can't find religious authority like that just anywhere.

[_huckelberry]

We can be grateful for a living prophet who tells us when to go shopping. You can't find religious authority like that just anywhere.

At least as I hear it the authority is what makes saving rituals effective. The prophet does not have to say anything. He can sit there mute supported by straps and be completely effective. In fact mute may be safer for institutional functions. It does not hamper the central function of centering the authority of the Church.

[_sock puppet]

This thread points up the starkness of Mormonism, its disciplinary functions, and 'stripping' an excommunicated member of his 'saving ordinances'.

Keep your off-the-page religious views to yourself, or contained to interviews with your ecclesiastical bishop, and you can keep your 'saving' ordinances despite thinking something different to be true.

But should you explain your differing views publicly, or criticize the purely institutional aspects of the LDS Church, and it does not merely kick you out. It proclaims you no longer have ordinances god requires you to have for your eternal salvation.

This harkens back to what was going on in the GC talk as given by Poelman in 1984 and the re-shot one for the video and the revision for the November 1984 Ensign. Poelman understood the distinction between the Gospel, a set of ideas, from "the Church"--a congregational institution to help one another live the precepts of the Gospel. Poelman's detachment of the Gospel from the Church left the COB rather stark naked.

High ranking Mormon bureaucrats quickly realized that as emperors with no clothes their power and control of the members had been placed where members should choose to continue the Gospel, without the need for the Church. No longer a package deal. They pulled rank and quickly scurried to re-write and re-shoot Poelman giving the changed version from the pulpit. Thereby, they refused the Gospel to the Church, and obedience to the hierarchy of the Church was restored as the first and foremost virtue of a Mormon.

What, for example, do you suppose the ratio is of occurrences of bcspace posting "the Church" to "the Gospel"? bcspace is an institutional devotee. A church mouse. The set of ideals, the Gospel, is definitely second drawer to "the Church" for so many like him.

It is one thing for an organization to decide it no longer wants to associate with a certain individual for his or her dissidence. For people masquerading as god's authorized agents to claim that such dissociation strips that individual of 'necessary', 'savings' ordinances is the height of piousness.

[_Blixa]

This focus on obedience as the way to salvation sounds quite a bit like a plan that was rejected a long time ago in a preexistence far away.

I know right? That was a question I tried to bring up in Seminary a couple of times, too.

The observation that the center of being Mormon is believing and respecting the churches authority claims is I think clear and unmistakable. One person believes God was once upon a time a regular guy like you and me. Another believes he would have been a special guy like Mit Romney. Then there are others who believe God was always God, never a fallible limited human. That is a big difference, (but oh well, do we teach that ?)

There is no need for the leaders to always be right. They have the authority.
It does not matter how or when an apostasy happened, authority was taken.
It does not matter if other churches may inspire faith and Christian living, they do not have authority.

It is important enough that early portions of D and C were rewritten to include the authority. It took a bit of time to realize authority was more important that Book of Mormon ,D and C , Pearl of Great price, any specifics of temple, polygamy, King Follet sermon. The realization required the early sections to be reinvented to clarify.

There is a passage in Wallace Stegner's Mormon Country, huckleberry, that addressed this authoritarianism at the heart of the religion and culture. I wanted to quote it, but realized that it is most of a whole chapter ("In Our Lovely Deseret"). Stegner, writing in '42, though, saw some of the theocratic authoritarianism of early Utah Mormonism as being on the wane. I'm not sure if he ever came back to the issue post-correlation. It would be interesting to find out and I think I shall. In the mean time, check out that chapter, anyone who is interested in these things...

[_CaliforniaKid]

Zeez,

You're driving at an issue that's even more sweeping in its implications than you may realize. In psychological studies of the core values of Republicans vs. Democrats and religious people vs. secular people, orientation to authority is one of the strongest characteristics of the conservative/religious end of the spectrum, along with purity, group loyalty, and just-world belief. The LDS Church exhibits each of these values, of course, but it emphasizes authority most of all. (This, I think, helps explain why religiosity and conservative politics are so strongly correlated: because they're both rooted in the same basic disposition and core values.)

[_Fence Sitter]

This focus on obedience as the way to salvation sounds quite a bit like a plan that was rejected a long time ago in a preexistence far away.

I know right? That was a question I tried to bring up in Seminary a couple of times, too.

I was too busy trying to slip out the window at the back of the one door seminary room, to ask many questions. In retrospect I suspect that the teacher intentionally looked the other way while I was escaping knowing we both preferred that I leave.

[Guest]

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