Posted by:
Cold-Dodger
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)
Date: June 18, 2017 09:05AM
I've gotten used to living in my own exmormon bubble while surrounded by TBMs. I'm genuinely surprised when TBMs know anything about anything. Usually the unsavory happenings, the stuff that makes the exmormon sphere buzz, doesn't penetrate the general consciousness of Mormonland. When it does, it's only because it was something so stupidly audacious that the rest of the world did a double take and the newspapers commented.
"Staged"... what, the gay agenda strikes again? Did a 12 year old girl not bravely come out of the closet and own it proudly in front of her ward? Did something else happen? Was I tricked? My roommate pointed out that it was recorded in a chapel. Faithful Mormons don't violate the sanctity of a chapel.
So that's probably what he means: the girl had at least one accomplice, the person recording, and they were both faithless apostates out to stage a little show to wound the church. That's always what it's about. Because otherwise everyone would just sing ceaseless praises to the man who communed with Jehovah.
I'm reminded of when I first learned about Ordain Women. I was used to dismissing 1, 2, or 3 people at a time as trying to "stage" something to hurt the church. But this was hundreds. Would hundreds of women show up and politely request more rights if they didn't have testimonies? I waited with bated breath to see how many women in the church Ordain women really represented and how the Brethren would respond. The Brethren must have been waiting anxiously as well to see how far this went, and when they were confident it was only hundreds, and no more, they asked Ordain Women to cease and desist and disband. They did not, and the church's hawks descended on the poor souls on cue. Kate Kelly was exxed. Everyone else was chased out of the church or back into silence. The general membership satisfied themselves that it had all been "staged" — that no one involved there really had a testimony at the time and they were just there to hurt the church however they could because that's what apostates do, according to popular myth.
I don't know how to dusrupt this perpetual self-gaslighting that TBMs do to themselves. They will only hear criticism from one of their own but once you start criticizing them, they don't count you as one of their own for very much longer. Always busy trimming away more dissenters while telling themselves that the church has never been bigger. They can't see that they themselves are the reason the world thinks they're bonkers.
Consider this irony: the church pushes the image of Joseph Smith as a young teenager, because why would a young teenager put themselves out there for criticism unless it was for something that meant everything to them? Now, it's all a lie. Joseph was 17 when he had his first vision according to his 1832 account and it was significantly different from his 1838 account. In the telling and retelling the first vision story, Jospeh's cheeks got rosier and his innocence more obvious so that anyone who criticized the story would appear a son of a bitch. Because it is powerful when a young person knows who they are and stands up and owns it. The church holds up the image of a sincere young teenager to draw people into the church, but if you actually are a sincere young teenager boldly asserting your self-esteem, they turn off your mic.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2017 09:08AM by Cold-Dodger.