Ten Questions - Interview with the Stake Presidency

[_William Schryver]

Here’s your chance!

I’m inviting you, one and all, to make a list of ten questions you’d love to pose to a stake president and his counselors.

I will, in return, promise to compile a list of what I consider to be the ten best of your suggestions, and present them to the members of my stake presidency this coming Sunday morning.

My intent is not necessarily to provide you with their answers, but to at least provide you with their reaction to your questions. (To tell the truth, I’m probably as interested as many of you in what the reaction will be.)

Alright, go for it!

[_Dr. Shades]

QUESTION #1: Are you willing and able to answer all the forthcoming questions on this list without name-calling or getting angry?

[_Trevor]

I am not sure why this is interesting. What would a stake presidency say that would enlighten me concerning the difficult questions concerning Mormonism? From what I can tell the Brethren don't have much to enlighten us with on these points. I am not saying this to disrespect them, but it seems to me that these folks aren't riddle masters or genius historians. They are men of spiritual conviction.

[_Who Knows]

What is a circle jerk?

[_the road to hana]

I’m inviting you, one and all, to make a list of ten questions you’d love to pose to a stake president and his counselors.

1. How much of a difficulty is convert retention currently in your stake?

2. Do you believe membership statistics accurately reflect current numbers?

3. What do you believe is the greatest obstacle to missionary efforts currently in your area?

4. What would you like to see central LDS Church leadership to do to better support your efforts on the local level?

5. How much of a difficulty is illegal immigration in your area, and how do you respond to it within your stake?

6. Do you believe that the way wards and stakes are currently organized and sized best meets the needs of the membership?

7. Do you believe that the current 3-hour block meeting schedule best serves the needs of the membership, or should reduced or split schedule be revisited?

8. If you could change one thing about doctrine or practice in the LDS Church, what would it be?

9. Do you feel most members have a good understanding of LDS Church history, and that this is supported by official Church teaching materials? Or do you feel this is an area where there could be significant improvement?

10. What is your greatest frustration about how Mormons are perceived in your community and in the world as a whole?

[_beastie]

1. What do you think the impact would be on wards if individual members took upon themselves the role of ferreting out closet nonbelievers and attempting to ascertain if those same nonbelievers are trying to undermine other people's faith, or if they are simply trying to resolve troubling issues, in order to expose them and force them out of the church?

[_William Schryver]

I’m inviting you, one and all, to make a list of ten questions you’d love to pose to a stake president and his counselors.

1. How much of a difficulty is convert retention currently in your stake?

2. Do you believe membership statistics accurately reflect current numbers?

3. What do you believe is the greatest obstacle to missionary efforts currently in your area?

4. What would you like to see central LDS Church leadership to do to better support your efforts on the local level?

5. How much of a difficulty is illegal immigration in your area, and how do you respond to it within your stake?

6. Do you believe that the way wards and stakes are currently organized and sized best meets the needs of the membership?

7. Do you believe that the current 3-hour block meeting schedule best serves the needs of the membership, or should reduced or split schedule be revisited?

8. If you could change one thing about doctrine or practice in the LDS Church, what would it be?

9. Do you feel most members have a good understanding of LDS Church history, and that this is supported by official Church teaching materials? Or do you feel this is an area where there could be significant improvement?

10. What is your greatest frustration about how Mormons are perceived in your community and in the world as a whole?

I acknowledge that those are very good questions. However, I kind of have something a little different in mind. But perhaps we are all a little jaded to the kinds of questions I have in mind, since we have all been discussing them for so long they just seem boring at this point in time. Still, you have to understand that most members of the church, including stake presidencies, are completely unaware of the kinds of questions that make the rounds on LDS-related message boards; the kinds of questions that have factored into the equation when members have become disillusioned with the church and left it, or lost their faith in it. So, just as an example of a question I will almost certainly include in my list:

Why does the church often use an illustration of Joseph Smith wearing a breastplate and some kind of spectacles, and looking intently at an open set of gold plates, when in reality the Book of Mormon was dictated while he looked at a rock in the bottom of hat?

You see, I'm almost certain that no one in our stake presidency is aware of this, and therefore I consider it to be important for them to be confronted with such a question. This is their first week on the job. And after I pose the questions to them, I suppose it could be my last. ;-)

[_William Schryver]

1. What do you think the impact would be on wards if individual members took upon themselves the role of ferreting out closet nonbelievers and attempting to ascertain if those same nonbelievers are trying to undermine other people's faith, or if they are simply trying to resolve troubling issues, in order to expose them and force them out of the church?

I'll only ask them that question if you provide me with your real name and your bishop's and stake president's phone number. You can send the information in a PM. It'll be our little secret.

[_the road to hana]

I acknowledge that those are very good questions. However, I kind of have something a little different in mind.

1. (the question you gave as example)

2. Why does the Church continue to portray Joseph Smith as the husband of one wife, Emma Smith, and their marriage as a monogamous one, including in official LDS teaching materials, when the Church's own genealogical database clearly documents several marriages, including to women who were already married to other men?

3. Do you believe there was ever an official doctrine of a "curse of Cain" that lead to the priesthood being withheld from black males until 1978?

4. Why does the LDS Church now want to be considered "Christian" when early leaders of the LDS Church were quick to openly decry Christianity?

5. Which of the several accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision do you consider to be most correct, and why?

6. Which do you think is more likely: (1) the Church will give women the priesthood, or (2) the Church will more openly embrace gays and lesbians and be supportive of those in same-sex relationships?

7. Do you expect that the lack of archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon will eventually lead to a less literal view of the book as history?

8. How do you account for wholesale lifts of passages of the King James Bible in the Book of Mormon?

9. Why would someone who had been told by God the Father and Jesus Christ to not join any other church then go and affiliate with the Methodists?

10. Does Joseph Smith's involvement as a treasure seeker and money digger complicate the story of the restoration, or is it critical to its implementation?

[_John Larsen]

I don't understand why you think the answers provided by your stake president are a thing of interest. Who is he?