http://www.mormontimes.com/people_news/education/?id=11424
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While preparing for this devotional address, Rasmus said she struggled to decide what to prepare. She finally got down on her knees and prayed for guidance, understanding, wisdom and the enabling power of Christ to know why this was so difficult.

“With force and power, these words came streaming into my mind, ‘Because Satan does not want you to teach of the atonement of Jesus Christ,’” said Rasmus.
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And really, His opinion is the only one that really matters.

Low-church preachers (like Baptists) do it backwards. Instead of stepping through the book and seeing what it says, the preacher decides what point he wants to make, writes that on the sign out front, then scours the scriptures with a concordance looking for evidence to corroborate it. The Synoptic Gospels are not amenable to this casuistry and are rarely cited. Instead, St. Paul, Acts, and Revelations are mined for ammunition. The result: you’re going to Hell, unless…

You would not know that these two churches purport to believe in the same Jesus. I agree with Antonio that how — and how much — emphasis is placed on one or the other aspect of one’s beliefs strongly shapes the resulting faith. Catholics are do-gooders, and Baptists are scare-mongers. Mormons appear to me to be obedient-ones. It is no surprise to me that Catholics are infamously cafeteria: we have never been taught to obey or be afraid.

Ray:

I have no reason to doubt your assessment of the Savior/prophet ratio during the most recent General Conference. However, I am sure you recognize that 2 days in a given October (how ever wonderful they might have otherwise been) are not necessarily representative of the day-to-day/week-to-week/month-to-month experience of Saints everywhere. (In addition, you will note from the quote above from Elder Oaks in Comment No. 62 that even General Conference can be “deficient” in its reference of Christ and the atonement.)

Second, talks about the “Godhead” are not necessarily the same as talks about Jesus of Nazareth (although theologically we know that Jesus taught that He and His Father were one). I dont think that the topic on this thread has been that we don’t talk about “God” — it was more concern about the attention (or, in my humble opinion, lack thereof) that we give to the life of Jesus as opposed to the time that we spend talking about the life of Joseph Smith.

I have pointed to you to a longer test period, i.e., 2008-2009, where virtually all Priesthood/Relief Society meetings have been about the life of Joseph Smith, usually preceded in 2009 by a lesson about Joseph Smith during Sunday School. Contrast this with our study of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, which is limited to an approximately 5 month period once every 4 years when studying the New Testament. Thus, in terms of our formal curriculum, there can be no doubt that we spend substantially greater time talking about the mortal life of Joseph versus the mortal life of Jesus.

Of course, this does not mean that Latter-Day Saints worship Joseph Smith. Our prayers are to the Father, in the name of His Son. We covenant each Sunday to “remember Him always”. And, of course, the temple is very much focused on our Lord.

Still, when it comes to the “meat and potatoes”, i.e., how we spend our formal Sabbath experience, there is (for me, at least) not enough discussion about what Jesus said and did when he walked the earth. In order for him to be our Examplar, it seems that we need to focus consistently on the wealth of information found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and 3rd Nephi about the example He set during his bodily ministry, which is extraordinarily relevant to us as we go about our bodily ministries.

(To address Ardis’ concern, this does not mean that we don’t study the Restoration and the parts played by Joseph and others in establishing this beautiful, beautiful Church. These miraculous events have much to teach us. But, as taught by Elder Howard W. Hunter during his last talk prior to becoming President of the Church, only Christ can say “come, follow me” — “do as I do”. For this reason, we should spend time considering exactly what it was that Jesus said and did, in order that we can fully understand His example.)

If we can set aside 2 years to talk about Joseph Smith’s life and teachings in Priesthood and Relief Society, surely there must be a way to set aside at least a comparable amount of time to study — and I mean ~really~ study — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

There is power in Jesus’ life and atonement, and I, for one, benefit greatly when my worship experience with my beloved Latter-Day Saints includes time spent remembering and talking about His matchless life and ministry.

How yawn-inducing would 4th Sundays be if every single TFOT lesson was about Easter?

I took the trouble to do a little checking. It turns out that general conference falls on Easter an average of about 2-3 times per decade, and that going back at least 50 years, there has never been a conference on Easter without one or more talks focusing on Easter and the resurrection.