I have a question wrote:mentalgymnast wrote:True and/or valid teaching(s)? Well, at the time they were/are practiced/taught, they were/are. That's the thing with truth and/or those things that are circumstantially correct/valid, it's all relative to time, place, and circumstances. Didn't Joseph Smith teach something to that effect?
You've just articulated why we cannot trust Church Leaders to tell the truth.
You're also advocating "follow the Prophet, even if he's wrong".
Racism has never been okay, even if society found it acceptable in a certain era of time.
The Church confession tells us that.
You seem to be suggesting Church doctrine is as susceptible to the vagaries of the human condition as any other man made organization. Shouldn't we be anticipating Gods Church to be a little better than that?
But I haven't said that we can't trust Church Leaders to lead us in the direction of truth that
really matters. This is a church of common consent. A critical mass of people have to be on board before anything can be subscribed to as a core/essential doctrine. Doctrines such as baptism, repentance, basic gospel teachings (those in the realm of the Beatitudes), service, the atonement, Jesus as Savior, God as our Father, prayer, and such, have been readily accepted by the church and have remained core teachings without much of an upheaval or disbelief attached thereunto. But some of the other teachings/practices have been either unacceptable and/or unlivable by enough saints (or other factors have entered into the picture) that the doctrine/practice has been taken off the menu, so to speak. Think back to Moses and the higher/lesser law for example. It appears that God works within a closed system in which mankind creates the
current reality in which truth is disseminated.
Can God
change that reality...that human nature once the ball is rolling?
Common consent. The Church is a communal kingdom. People have to be on board for anything to stay in place over time. And numbers do matter. If Brigham and some of his associates hadn't been creatures of the culture in which they lived and the 1978 revelation had come to either Joseph or Brigham, how would that have worked out in the decades to come within the cultural environment of America? The influences that the saints would be subject to from the outside? Schools, workplaces, institutions, etc. I suppose we don't really know. But it is easy to armchair it and say how it
should have been and recourse to calling folks racists or uninspired.
So can we trust leaders to tell us the truth? Sure, inasmuch as they understand it or are willing/able to accept/understand it.
It is quite obvious, however, that if our expectation is that God tells us the truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth...we're going to be disappointed. Should we expect God's church to be "better than that"? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that one would think that there would be
more folks within the church that would consent to more 'truth' from God than there are those that do not desire more truth. And no, in that the church IS people. And people are fickle. People are stupid at times. People can't always be trusted to do the right thing.
Regards,
MG