So I suppose it was constructed by Joseph Smith and in turn reconstructed again and again through successive prophets and eras. Some of us who deconstruct it don't bother to try reviving it afterwards. Others must try to keep it alive or lifelike, with jolts of emotion alternating with diversion or through superior taxidermy.
Notice that Bushman in no way, shape or form indicts the Brethren. He accuses them of nothing. It is simply the generic "church". This was very carefully done. He's in no danger here, he's being too vague. He knows that people know what he's really getting at, but he isn't really saying it in a direct way.
Last edited by Guest on Sat Jul 16, 2016 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door; Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors. One focal point in a random world can change your direction: One step where events converge may alter your perception.
I could speculate that he means that people in the church have a cleaned up overly sanitized picture of the churches history. The real thing is built on the same restoration foundation but includes more adult content in terms of conflicts, mistakes and even uncertainties. This leaves plenty of room to believe the church is true, to have testimony and participate in good conscience.
My own view is that the church narrative is not built on true foundations and adding the adult complexities will not change that. I would suspect the difference is why Bushman is participating in the LDS church and I am not.
sock puppet wrote:Or Bushman might be testing the waters for the Brethren.
meaning at their request?
Maybe, or voluntarily doing so in his own perceived service to the Brethren. Either way, his purpose may not be so much for his own position vis-a-vis the LDS church history and how it fits (or not) with being a believer, but for what he might have been asked by the Brethren or what he perceives would be a useful test for them to have the data from.
huckelberry wrote:I could speculate that he means that people in the church have a cleaned up overly sanitized picture of the churches history. The real thing is built on the same restoration foundation but includes more adult content in terms of conflicts, mistakes and even uncertainties. This leaves plenty of room to believe the church is true, to have testimony and participate in good conscience.
My own view is that the church narrative is not built on true foundations and adding the adult complexities will not change that. I would suspect the difference is why Bushman is participating in the LDS church and I am not.
I think that today there are more "Mormons", proportionally, than ever before that are, in their beliefs and thinking, in an elliptical orbit at some distance around the tight sphere of what the Brethren consider to be 'Mormon doctrine'. I describe that distant orbit as elliptical because on some sides, a "Mormon" needs more distance than on some of the other sides of the Brethren's tight sphere.
Bushman clarifies what he meant (in email to Dan Peterson):
Thanks for coming to my rescue Dan. I had begun to pick up indications of these exchanges a few days ago. I have been using the phrase “reconstruct the narrative” in recent talks because that is exactly what the Church is doing right now. The Joseph Smith Papers offer a reconstructed narrative, so do some of the “Gospel Topics” essays. The short First Vision film in the Church Museum of History mentions six accounts of Joseph’s experience and draws on all of them. That is all reconstructing the narrative. I got the phrase from a young woman who reported that she and her husband had both been through faith crises. She had come back; he had remained alienated. But both of them had to reconstruct the narrative. We have to include, for example, the fact that that the first words to Joseph in the First Vision were: “Your sins are forgiven.” That makes us look again at his life and realize how important a part forgiveness played. Similarly, we now have assimilated seer stones into the translation story. A picture of a seer stone now appears in the Church History Museum display. That would not have happened even five years ago. The list goes on and on.
I consider Rough Stone Rolling a reconstructed narrative. It was shocking to some people. They could not bear to have the old story disrupted in any way. What I was getting at in the quoted passage is that we must be willing to modify the account according to newly authenticated facts. If we don’t we will weaken our position. Unfortunately, not everyone can adjust to this new material. Many think they were deceived and the church was lying. That is not a fair judgment in my opinion. The whole church, from top to bottom, has had to adjust to the findings of our historians. We are all having to reconstruct. In my opinion, nothing in the new material overturns the basic thrust of the story. I still believe in gold plates. I don’t think Joseph Smith could have dictated the Book of Mormon text without inspiration. I think he was sincere in saying he saw God. The glimpse Joseph Smith gives us of divine interest in humankind is still a source of hope in an unbelieving world.
If anyone has questions about what I believe, I would be happy to hear from him or her. I believe pretty much the same things I did sixty years ago when I was a missionary. Richard
Well, this is quite funny. I never thought Bushman was rejecting the "Gospel." What he was saying, though, was even more significant. The narrative under which the Church has operated for generations is false. So what is true? Is the adjusted historical narrative true? Do we place confidence in that? What is the relationship between the historical narrative and the Gospel? These are all huge questions. No one need wonder whether Bushman is loyal. He is. But the questions he has raised leave everything aside from the choice of faith and obedience up for grabs. There is no true narrative. The narrative always changes.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist