Farewell Friends, I Was Just Called As Bishop

[_Blixa]

A tad off topic, but great avatar, UnicornMan!

[_Drifting]

Poor Everybody Wang Chung, here is an example of what he would have been required to announce at yesterday's Sacrament meeting.

1. The cleaning hasn't been done for a few weeks, please check the rota and make sure you do your turn.
2. Most members are not turning up for tithing settlement. Please see the list for when your appointment is/was and attend or rearrange. Remember the Prophets letter I read out last week, you are not being obedient to it.
3. Home teaching and visiting teaching is not complete for November, make sure you catch up in December.

These were the announcements yesterday - the Sunday before Christmas...

[_sock puppet]

Poor Everybody Wang Chung, here is an example of what he would have been required to announce at yesterday's Sacrament meeting.

1. The cleaning hasn't been done for a few weeks, please check the rota and make sure you do your turn.
2. Most members are not turning up for tithing settlement. Please see the list for when your appointment is/was and attend or rearrange. Remember the Prophets letter I read out last week, you are not being obedient to it.
3. Home teaching and visiting teaching is not complete for November, make sure you catch up in December.

These were the announcements yesterday - the Sunday before Christmas...

But I am sure it helped these people that he was at the lectern telling them these things.

People really continue to go to church meetings to be ragged on like this?

Hope I don't see them in the hereafter they're hoping for. I don't want sit through eternity hearing that crap.

[_Tarski]

Something about this bugs me.

When people ask themselves whether it is reasonable to believe that the church is true (angels, gold plates etc.) they inevitably call to mind apparently rational people they know in leadership positions and assume (rightfully) that such people believe in a Mormonism that isn't watered down or intellectualized or reinterpreted metaphorically.

It is for this reason that I think this decision is tantamount to telling the world that you really believe in all the usual orthodox chapel Mormon stuff. You are implicitly bearing a testimony. You are sending a message to all observers.

But I don't think you believe it. Does not some part of you feel sneaky or hidden?
Are you thinking that while the church might not be literally true in the way average members and even general authorities understand it, lesser minds still need the fantasy to add structure and hope to their lives?
I hate this kind of thinking.

Are you really serving?
People just deserve the plain truth. No weasel words, no hyper-pragmatism, no postmodern weasel words.

I don't think you should take this calling unless you can openly and honestly state your doubts in public and to your leaders---or unless you yourself think that the correlated version of the gospel is just frankly and unreservedly true.

[_Runtu]

I couldn't do what you're doing Everybody Wang Chung, but I hope it works out for you and your ward members.

[_harmony]

I don't think you should take this calling unless you can openly and honestly state your doubts in public and to your leaders---or unless you yourself think that the correlated version of the gospel is just frankly and unreservedly true.

No one, not even the Brethren, believes that, Tarski, so I think it's unfair of you to put that burden on Everybody Wang Chung.

[_Tarski]

No one, not even the Brethren, believes that, Tarski, so I think it's unfair of you to put that burden on Everybody Wang Chung.

Well, they better believe subject only to the reservation that there could possibly be rare and unintentional errors.
(after all, what is the point of correlation?)
Otherwise, the Brethren are dishonest. (which is quite possible in some cases)

No?


Does Everybody Wang Chung believe that

1) Joseph Smith restored God's unique priesthood authority and his one true church?
2) Joseph Smith translated gold plates containing an account of a real and historical people?
3) Polygamy was instituted by God and practiced properly by God's own prophet?
4) God has a physical (glorified primate) body and appeared physically to Joseph Smith?
5) The Brethren are speaking for God on the issues which manifestly preoccupy them such as masturbation and homosexuality? (If not that, then on what matters are they sustained seers and prophets?)
6) Joseph Smith was an exceptionally righteous and honest man who received diverse revelations from God on topics such as the Garden of Eden, the star nearest to God and even what little secret nicknames his servants should use (Gazelem etc)?

If he or anyone denies or seriously doubts any of these, could they say so in church?

I can tell you that if any of the Bishops of my youth had had doubts, I would have wanted to know and I think I deserved to know. I could have used that information in my effort to gain circumspection regarding the church and my own beliefs. I believed partly because seemingly smarter and wiser people believe (or so I thought).

I would have been kinda pissed to find that things were not as they seemed in this regard? Is there some young person out there that would feel that way if they could read Everybody Wang Chung's thoughts as he has sometimes expressed them here?

What bugs me is simply that if the church is not true (and let's not wax philosophical about what that means) then it should not be supported as if it were.
And it isn't true by the way. Obviously.

I believe a Bishop should believe that the church is true in a basically straightforward, unqualified sense without use of weasel words or tricky reworked concepts.

That said, an "enlightened Bishop" may still do less harm than would otherwise be the case.

[_Fence Sitter]

Just a personal observation on Bishops. The ones that seem/seemed most effective to me were the ones who were the least concerned with rules and doctrine.

[_quaker]

Just a personal observation on Bishops. The ones that seem/seemed most effective to me were the ones who were the least concerned with rules and doctrine.

Indeed. Bishops, priesthood leaders and other ward leaders who simply love the gospel and Christ, and whose actions reflect that love, seem to have more of an impact years down the road than do the 'hardliners'. I've seen it over and over again.

[_Drifting]

In the event that as Bishop Everybody Wang Chung is asked a question by a member of the ward and the truthful factual answer he knows could damage that members testimony, should he:
A. Lie
B. Obfuscate (which Apostles have told us is the same as lying)
C. Tell them it's not important to their salvation to know the answer
D. Tell them the actual answer he knows to be factually correct

99.9% of Bishops and Stake Presidents that I have known over multiple decades would absolutely not pick 'D'.