Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _Kishkumen »

It took me a long time to get to this interview because it is incredibly long. I started it once but couldn’t get into it right away so I stopped listening. I must have been in the right place for it, because now I am hooked. Hendrix is a guy you wouldn’t know, but he knew a lot of the Mormon hierarchy. He was a CES guy and on the board of the Deseret Foundation. He was a mission president.

Hendrix is probably the most sympathetic and levelheaded liberal Mormon I have ever listened to. He is, in many ways, a laid back California Mormon. The guy who was more about Mormons doing good things now than obsessing over history and dogma.

But Roger is a liberal. What fascinates me is that he was in the thick of things in Mormonism for so long without feeling all that uncomfortable or unwelcome. He felt comfortable being open about his concerns about blacks and the priesthood. He talked frankly with church leaders about it, and he rejoiced when the priesthood was extended to all worthy males.

Then he started to have trouble when Prop 8 and the Proclamation came around. He became convinced that the Proclamation was anti-gay. He was convinced that the church was wrong in its attack on gay rights. This has led to him taking a sabbatical from the Church and re-evaluating his beliefs.

Hendrix is very interesting for the way he made it work for so long. He may be a rare case, but I’d like to think there are many other Roger Hendrixes out there. Somehow he felt he was a full Mormon, and yet he was conscious of his views being different from those of many other Mormons. He took validation in the Hugh B. Browns and David O. McKays of the Church. Had he been unacceptable or wildly out of step, he probably would have gotten out a lot sooner. It was not until the Church’s turn toward political activity on gay rights that he started to feel out of place. He saw something out of place in the spirit of the Proclamation.

See https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/roger-hendrix-part-two/

I really took a shine to Hendrix. I am quite different from him in my interests and personality, but I admire how he has handled and how he continues to handle himself in this situation. He seems to me to be a very decent, measured, and thoughtful person.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Nov 13, 2018 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Doctor CamNC4Me
_Emeritus
Posts: 21663
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:02 am

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

You know what? I think I'll listen to this podcast. I want to say I listened to the Jeremy Runnells interview for a bit, but I can't say with confidence I did. That said, thanks to your breakdown of the interview I am now going to 100% listen to a John Dehlin podcast.

I hope he kicks a dollar your way, brother.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_cwald
_Emeritus
Posts: 4443
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:53 pm

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _cwald »

I don't know. I use to really think this was a great thing and I really tried to live like this for years. You know, the whole Middle Way. But the simple fact is, Roger Hedrix is not welcome in the pews of the Mormon church that I know...liberals and democrats are not really welcome and their opinions are not accepted or okay. They only get lip service from members and leaders who hope they will change and repent.

So, I was thinking today out cutting firewood with my old BP (he asked me to help cut wood for an elderly guy in the area) what I would say if he asked why I left the church. I haven't been to church in eight years, and haven't really talked to the BP in that time since I was threaten with church discipline. It didn't come up and I give the BP credit for just letting it rest. But if it had, I was simply going to say that my core values of human decency don't match those of the corporate LDS church. And I was going to leave it at that. Of course he would have argued that was not true blah blah blah.

But then, tonight, reading over at MAD, Bluebell made this statement that absolutely validated my argument. And I don't think she is outsider or a lone voice in the church. This is how they feel about those who have different political and social values and opinions.

bluebell wrote: I think question 7 is primarily a rainbow flag question. If you are an ally of LGBT constitutional rights to marry, Hillary Clinton, or other non-profit organizations which promote LGBT marriages in a positive light, then depending on the views of the presiding authority conducting the interview they may decide to deny a temple recommend.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/712 ... on/?page=2

Support gay marriage? Hillary Clinton? Hillary Rodham Clinton? Reason to be denied a temple recommend?

I've been saying it for a while, there is no middle way. Roger made a good decision to take some time off. THERE IS NO MIDDLE WAY in Mormonism.
"Jesus gave us the gospel, but Satan invented church. It takes serious evil to formalize faith into something tedious and then pile guilt on anyone who doesn’t participate enthusiastically." - Robert Kirby

Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer. -- Henry Lawson
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _Kishkumen »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:You know what? I think I'll listen to this podcast. I want to say I listened to the Jeremy Runnells interview for a bit, but I can't say with confidence I did. That said, thanks to your breakdown of the interview I am now going to 100% listen to a John Dehlin podcast.

I hope he kicks a dollar your way, brother.

- Doc


There are many hours of this thing. I didn’t listen to every last hour.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _Kishkumen »

cwald,

I don’t think that this stuff from MAD about voting Democrat is accurate. That said, Hendrix is taking a break from the Church because he has objections to its position on gay rights. He mentions the fact that he was becoming an annoyance in meetings. I don’t intend to give the impression that he is comfortable in church right now. No. What is interesting is that he felt fine until the 1990s, the Proclamation, Prop 8, etc. It finally got to be impossible to just carry on as usual. This jibes with my sense of things having changed in that same era.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_cwald
_Emeritus
Posts: 4443
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:53 pm

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _cwald »

Yeah, I agree with that kish.
"Jesus gave us the gospel, but Satan invented church. It takes serious evil to formalize faith into something tedious and then pile guilt on anyone who doesn’t participate enthusiastically." - Robert Kirby

Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer. -- Henry Lawson
_cinepro
_Emeritus
Posts: 4502
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:15 pm

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _cinepro »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:You know what? I think I'll listen to this podcast. I want to say I listened to the Jeremy Runnells interview for a bit, but I can't say with confidence I did. That said, thanks to your breakdown of the interview I am now going to 100% listen to a John Dehlin podcast.

Doc


Uh, you do know this interview is like 7 hours long, right?

I made it through the whole thing (I was doing a lot of driving last summer). It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't listen to it again.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
_Emeritus
Posts: 21663
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:02 am

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

cinepro wrote:
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:You know what? I think I'll listen to this podcast. I want to say I listened to the Jeremy Runnells interview for a bit, but I can't say with confidence I did. That said, thanks to your breakdown of the interview I am now going to 100% listen to a John Dehlin podcast.

Doc


Uh, you do know this interview is like 7 hours long, right?

I made it through the whole thing (I was doing a lot of driving last summer). It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't listen to it again.


I sure as “F” found out. I had no idea what to listen to, and I wasn't going to listen to the whole thing. I mean, no hate toward either man, but they're not that interesting.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _Kishkumen »

The last three hours are interesting to me. The first hour gives you a sense of his personality.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Dr Exiled
_Emeritus
Posts: 3616
Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:48 am

Re: Roger Hendrix on Mormon Stories

Post by _Dr Exiled »

I found the series interesting. Mr. Hendrix seems like the kind of guy that the church would want to keep in its ranks. There is too much of the authority/militarism style in the leadership and Mr. Hendrix, refreshingly, seems to be the opposite of this. He doesn't seem to worship the rules for rules sake but is one who is more concerned with outcomes. I bet his religion classes were worth the time. Still, I didn't care for his stance on the hesitancy of the church to disclose finances. Even if big data and technology will allow a work around in the near future as he posits, the "church" ought to do the right thing now and let people know how it is run.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen 
Post Reply