“Fallible Sharpshooter”
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 12:05 am
It is fascinating to see how church culture is evolving to embrace the new apologetic that a prophet, seer and revelator is at once a mouthpiece for the supreme being of the universe and a fallible human who may speak untruth while in an official capacity.
The outcome, it seems, is an increasingly comedic tension as members disabuse themselves of long held expectations that the prophets and apostles speak for God, while the sitting prophets and apostles give speech after speech witnessing that the current leaders actually do speak for God. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
It occurs to me that this is what we might call a “fallible sharpshooter” model of illogic. While there are plenty of sharpshooter fallacy cases in Mopologetic studies and historical truth defenses, I think the more insidious apologetic is happening in real time as we see once-claimed targets being removed, and members actually blamed for believing those targets existed and were “bullseyed” in the first place. Whether it be Book of Abraham historicity, race and priesthood, historical flood or tower of Babel, or for that matter efficacy of Priesthood blessings, taking once firm bullseye stories and removing both the target and the intent to hit that target. Heck, if you go back to the 1980s, Kinderhook fits the model.
All of this just feels like a thin skinned leadership doing whatever it takes to never be held accountable for anything. (Is it any wonder Mopologists throw adult tantrums and refuse to be held accountable for anything?) Is there any specific outcome which members can demand from church leaders today? I would argue, there is actually no expectation of fidelity to their own words or actions in the Mormon leadership model. Leaders can practically say anything and not be held accountable for error or harm caused.
That is to say, not held accountable within their own system. Obviously the one, and only, accountability enforcement is when members leave or disengage. That is clearly happening at a far more rapid pace than the resignation data would indicate.
The outcome, it seems, is an increasingly comedic tension as members disabuse themselves of long held expectations that the prophets and apostles speak for God, while the sitting prophets and apostles give speech after speech witnessing that the current leaders actually do speak for God. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
It occurs to me that this is what we might call a “fallible sharpshooter” model of illogic. While there are plenty of sharpshooter fallacy cases in Mopologetic studies and historical truth defenses, I think the more insidious apologetic is happening in real time as we see once-claimed targets being removed, and members actually blamed for believing those targets existed and were “bullseyed” in the first place. Whether it be Book of Abraham historicity, race and priesthood, historical flood or tower of Babel, or for that matter efficacy of Priesthood blessings, taking once firm bullseye stories and removing both the target and the intent to hit that target. Heck, if you go back to the 1980s, Kinderhook fits the model.
All of this just feels like a thin skinned leadership doing whatever it takes to never be held accountable for anything. (Is it any wonder Mopologists throw adult tantrums and refuse to be held accountable for anything?) Is there any specific outcome which members can demand from church leaders today? I would argue, there is actually no expectation of fidelity to their own words or actions in the Mormon leadership model. Leaders can practically say anything and not be held accountable for error or harm caused.
That is to say, not held accountable within their own system. Obviously the one, and only, accountability enforcement is when members leave or disengage. That is clearly happening at a far more rapid pace than the resignation data would indicate.
