Is Mopologetics Equivalent to a Church Calling?

[Tom]

How about a two-year mission on behalf of the Strengthening Church Members Committee to rescue doubting members?

[tagriffy]

I think in fairness it should be mentioned that older couples are not called out of the blue, at least not last I heard. Like the boys and girls, older couples have to put in paperwork to be considered. Petersen is apparently saying he and his wife just decided not to start the process leading to a calling.

That's a fair point, but this wouldn't be "out of the blue"--the exhortation from the Brethren was right there in General Conference. Dr. Peterson heard it and has decided that he's got better things to do.

That makes sense.

[tagriffy]

How about a two-year mission on behalf of the Strengthening Church Members Committee to rescue doubting members?

Now that's funny!

[Gadianton]

How about a two-year mission on behalf of the Strengthening Church Members Committee to rescue doubting members?

I'm blown away by this suggestion, Tom.

Wasn't it admitted that a certain SCMC "intervention" failed? You know, I always thought that was odd. I mean, people in those quarters don't generally like to admit that they've ever lost or failed at anything. Nothing has really ever not gone exactly to plan. Everything the Mopologists do is a success. Okay, there was 2012, but that was a conspiracy. I don't recall any blame of nefarious forces for the failed intervention.

I fear we're getting into some complex psychology here, and I really hate to speculate. But what the heck, I'll give it a shot anyway.

What if -- what if that intervention was "thrown"?

Because think about it, had it been a blistering success, there would have been the expectations for another, and then another -- and before you know it, cancel those plans for a week in the Swiss Alps, because the Lord has actual, real work for you to do rescuing his sheep.

[Doctor Scratch]

Critics have been asserting for decades that the Mopologists have been driving people out of the Church, but the assumption was always that they were doing this inadvertently, or doing it in a sort of uncontrolled rage. I.e., they were angry that anyone would dare doubt, so they were happy to shove people off the cliff.

But what you are suggesting is far more sinister, Dr. Robbers, and I actually think that you are right. I don’t think you’re right in the sense that DCP “threw” the intervention so that he could go on many vacations; rather, he did it because he is contemptuous towards Church authority, and hates being told what to do, and despises feeling like he has to be constrained by the Brethren’s stupid “rules.”

[Moksha]

How about a two-year mission on behalf of the Strengthening Church Members Committee to rescue doubting members?

Now that's funny!

I think this already happens with those monitoring these boards and the rest of the internet, to return and issue their reports to the SCMC.

[Dr. Shades]

Both Loveridge and Teneva have said that the mission still allowed them enough time to pursue other things. I think the Dean is right, and that Dr. Peterson won’t sign up for a mission—as the Brethren told him to—because he’s afraid it will eat into his travel plans.

As I pointed out over a decade ago in bullet point #11 on my website on Internet Mormonism vs. Chapel Mormonism, "Chapel Mormons tend to believe that a prophet's words apply to everyone he's addressing. Internet Mormons believe that a prophet's words may not apply to at least some of the people he's addressing."

[I Have Questions]

Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles described taking his turn in the weekly meeting where mission calls are issued and finding that there were 10 senior missionary couples to fill the 300 requests for senior missionaries from the church’s 411 missions.

“As an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I ask you to serve as a missionary in the gathering of Israel and perhaps serve again. We need you — we need you,” said an emotional Elder Rasband, who spoke with tears in his eyes.

“I pray that the next time I sit down to assign senior couples there will be hundreds of you waiting anxiously for your call,” he said.

https://news.yahoo.com/elder-rasband-sa ... kyCMcTiHKw

There's the call, right from the Apostles mouth.

Peterson:

I sustain, honor, and revere all of the leaders of the Church.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... -fall.html

My wife and I have considered this matter a great deal. Right now, our conviction (which, I realize full well, will be mocked and derided by the usual suspects) is that, through our daily involvement in the work of the Interpreter Foundation and given the multiple massive Church-related writing projects that I have underway and the regular small-scale Church-related writing that I do every week, we are serving a kind of mission.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... tener.html

Peterson has decided he can issue and accept his own mission calling. I'm not sure that is consistent with his claim to "sustain, honor, and revere all of the leaders of the Church". I think people are correct - he's decided a senior mission would seriously hamper his travelling, his income from travelling, his ability to run a blog, and would mean less attention focussed on him. Nobody puts Peterson in the shade, not even the Lord via an Apostle.

[Philo Sofee]

Critics have been asserting for decades that the Mopologists have been driving people out of the Church, but the assumption was always that they were doing this inadvertently, or doing it in a sort of uncontrolled rage. I.e., they were angry that anyone would dare doubt, so they were happy to shove people off the cliff.

But what you are suggesting is far more sinister, Dr. Robbers, and I actually think that you are right. I don’t think you’re right in the sense that DCP “threw” the intervention so that he could go on many vacations; rather, he did it because he is contemptuous towards Church authority, and hates being told what to do, and despises feeling like he has to be constrained by the Brethren’s stupid “rules.”

That would make good sense because their rules are stupid, and we all do despise them for their insistence God is as short sighted as they are!

[Tom]

I envision the proprietor heading up a jump team of elite undercover Mopologists armed with iPads and copies of Richard Lloyd Anderson’s Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses who perform tactical positive and negative Mopologetic strikes on wavering members. The proprietor recently lamented the fact that some former Latter-day Saints simply assert the golden plates never existed. He wrote:

I had hoped that the stimulus to conversation provided by Witnesses, Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, our still not-yet-complete series of short “Insights” videos on the topic, and our still-under-construction Witnesses of the Book of Mormon website would have made it almost impossible to remain in such willful ignorance.

Mopologetic jump-team missions would allow the specially chosen and called elite Mopologists to force doubting Saints to view hours of “Insights” videos and watch and rewatch Witnesses until they beg for mercy and/or are reconverted.

These missions could be carried out across the world. I can see in my mind’s eye the proprietor unleashing his pure German to effectuate a Stuttgartian Rescue.