Comments on: Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

By: Jeremy's FW

Jeremy's FW — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“One participant…” ? Come on, Grog, fess up – we all know that was your sweet little wifey. Dumb as a box of rocks, but ‘rilly spirtchal”

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Being true to my own post, let me copy and paste a comment I made on the T&S thread:

Frank, I don't like it and I don't think it will have much effect, but I'll agree with your reading of the statement.

1. Personal notes, including the edifying example supplied by Dan above, "are for individual use only" and "should not be distributed" without consent.

2. Statements inaccurately attributed to Church leaders (the referent for "such statements" later in the paragraph) should not be taught or passed on without being verified against an approved Church source.

Number 2 is a little opaque. Since circulating statements do not come with a "this is an inaccurately attributed statement" label, it suggests one should verify every statement attributed to a Church leader before circulating it. But that's not actually what it says. Read carefully, it doesn't prohibit teaching or passing around accurately attributed statements as long as one is not passing around personal notes. At least that's how I read it.

By: Randy

Randy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Christina is right–the people in Atlanta (or at least most of us) really don’t care about these quirks and foibles. When our ward read the letter from the First Presidency about a month ago, we all wondered what could have prompted such a response from the highest levels of authority. A couple of weeks later, I came across the article referenced by Dave. When I first saw the title, “LDS Church warns members not to believe everything they hear,” my curiosity was seriously peaked — I was certain that there were rumors about some scandalous thing that some GA had allegedly said. Instead, the rumors had to do with eating chocolates and walking through doors. Convinced that the Trib had simply not told the whole story, I continued to look on the internet until I tracked down the offending email. What a disappointment. That such trivial matters could gain the attention of so many members is simply mindboggling.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Christina, perhaps the urge to edit out any anecdotes that might pass as foibles is in fact a recognition of the limitations of the Mormon audience, some of whom tend toward the hyper-judgmental. To such people, anecdotes could do real harm, although plainly it is their hyper-judgmentalism, not the anecdotes, that is the problem. Gut check--does knowing the Twelve eat a box of chocolates in order of seniority change my view of them? I suppose it's better than an undignified mad rush to get the light-colored chocolates.

On the positive side, personal anecdotes and even foibles keep the human side of our leaders and ourselves in the foreground. Over time we come to love those we love for their idiosyncratic faults as much as their vaulting virtues, and something of the same dynamic should work with leaders. It certainly worked that way for Joseph and the early Saints--his faults (not all minor) were fairly visible but they loved him anyway.

If in fact the "announcement" was intended primarily to prevent circulation of seemingly unflattering anecdotes, why didn't they just say that? I shouldn't have to go read the Trib online to know what the heck an official announcement is really talking about.

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dave,
You’re right, we do love the people in our lives for their unique personality traits- good and bad. And I feel a bit of this for our current president, just because I have heard him speak in person a few times. But generally speaking, I think it is silliness on both ends. The hyperventilation of the authorities over gossip about themselves is just as foolish as the gossip itself. Solution: don’t pay attention to either side. I agree that we shouldn’t have to sanitize our leaders. But I think the much bigger issue is the idolizing of them that occurs, whether because of a sanitized or a worldly view of them. These leaders are only humans with particular callings. They may be no more righteous than our grandmothers, next-door neighbors or local politicians. They are just people. And until we see them that way, I suppose we will continue to have these problems.

By: Steve Evans

Steve Evans — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve just noticed that T&S, as usual, is stealing our thunder on this post.

I’m with Christina — I don’t care much about the quirks & foibles.

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve never lived in Utah, in fact I’ve never lived in the Mountain West, and I have never understood debates like this because I have never lived in a place where General Authorities/Members of the Q12 visit more than once in a blue moon. I think this is a problem of the cult of personality. It seems to me that the members of the church who are more often exposed to these men’s talks are much more interested than I am. Maybe I’m just not attuned to the current issues in the church, but I’ve never really cared about the individual quirks and foibles of these people. I don’t think members in El Salvador, Atlanta or Botswana get tied up about things like this.

By: Steve Evans

Steve Evans — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Look, I don’t think it’s that confusing, when you look at the context (one GA talking about another’s quirks) — they don’t want us spreading that kind of stuff around. What’s confusing are the ramifications of the pronoucement and its links to doctrine.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Okay--I added the link to the actual statement, a dramatic improvement to the post. It s a fairly straightforward paragraph. The main point, I think, is for members "to never teach . . . such statements without verifying that they are from approved church sources such as official statements, communications, and publications." Teaching classes and giving talks seem to be the primary concern. The only thing that is confusing is this apparent context of the chocolate box story and the gossipy email circulated around CES circles. Ignore that and it seems pretty straightforward.

Now if they'd just post all "official letters" on LDS.org and make the CHI available there so people could check what teachers and local leaders say against official statements or "approved Church sources", people could actively implement the new directive!

Of course, a good portion of what is commonly called "the gospel" flows from non-scriptural, apocryphal, or anecdotal sources. Mormon preaching in the 19th century was mostly storytelling, and many of those stories are still circulating.

By: Steve Evans

Steve Evans — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

So Dave... by commenting on this announcement, aren't you going against the announcement?

Perhaps the announcement is like Fight Club. The first rule about the Announcement is: don't talk about the Announcement.