https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/kirby/2019/09/08/robert-kirby-jesus-lavina/?fbclid=IwAR0zWYcqmryQiq3Dt9xDjr3pyqx3wfr22JzjQVHv0Qp2rFMqmjDCBxmIlys

"Excommunicated Latter-day Saint writer Lavina Fielding Anderson made the news last week after her request to rejoin the Mormon fold was summarily turned down by the governing First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Lavina — I’m going to use her first name here because she’s a friend — was exed in 1993 for writing an article about the ecclesiastical abuse of Latter-Day Sai — meh, the hell with it — Mormon intellectuals.

Despite getting the priesthood chop, Lavina has never stopped attending church, serving where and when she can (authority permitting), even though she still maintains views about the “one true church” that may be considered heretical.

For example, Lavina believes that five of the original apostles chosen by Jesus (Philip, James the Lesser, Thomas, Simon and Bartholomew) were in fact extraterrestrial life forms sent here to …. Hang on. I’m the one who believes that. I also believe that I could have written a better Book of Revelation in high school while heavily influenced by Tolkien and toking.

What Lavina does believe is some stuff about ecclesiastical abuse, women’s roles in the church, and better treatment of LGBTQ-M(ormon) couples. She also wants greater recognition for Heavenly Mother.

It’s rather unfair when you think about it. Lavina and I might not agree on everything but we do on others.

I didn’t get excommunicated when, on May 16, 2015, I wrote a deeply introspective column about how the Old Testament sounds inspired by a cranky old man whose children had gotten on his last (deleted) nerve, whereas the New Testament has a softer, more feminine touch.

I’ve also written that I don’t care if my bishop is gay. And I think women should get the priesthood — if for no other reason than it’s their turn to lift pianos and food storage into moving vans.

And while I haven’t done it since my mission, I have no reservations whatsoever in telling overbearing church leaders to pound sand.

So why haven’t I been excommunicated? It’s a fair question, given that Lavina is a better person.

True, maybe Lavina has an evil side of which I’m unaware. What I do know is that she once came to my aid when others wouldn’t have, and some might have gone so far as to use it against me.

On March 23 of last year, Lavina and I were honored with lifetime achievement awards by the Association for Mormon Letters at a dinner in Provo.

Lavina got hers for years of scholarly writing about Mormonism. The best I can figure is I got mine because many of the columns I’ve written for The Salt Lake Tribune contain the word “Mormon.”

During the evening, Lavina noticed me taking some pills. She asked if I was OK. I admitted that I was taking Lortab because I had blown out my knee a few hours before and was trying to not scream whenever I moved.

When the event ended, Lavina refused to let me drive home. She took my keys and gave them to her son Christian. He drove me home while Lavina and her husband, Paul, followed. They went out of their way to help someone who tried to talk them out of it.

Here’s the sad part: Paul, who already wasn’t feeling well at the time, died later that evening of a heart attack. Lavina had spent some of the last hours with her husband making sure an incorrigible lout got home safely.

Excommunicated? Give me a break. That’s the kind of person I fully expect will make it to heaven."

Robert Kirby

I'll up the ante. My father was molesting his adopted teenage daughters while serving as a branch president at the MTC. Don't worry, no revelation involved. The old branch president was a friend. I assume he recommended my father.

For my mother this was the height of her fame and shame. It was the highest calling my father got. Paraphernalia still hangs on the wall at home including his placard.

After he was excommunicated my father just did the same things like going to church things though he had to go sleep in the county jail for a year. Several years after his excommunication he began periodic petitions for re-baptism. He petitioned The First Presidency I think like 3 or 4 times. After each rejection he was furious. He was so upset about it but it only took him a decade to get his "blessings restored."

I guess Mormon Jesus likes people who abuse kids more than people who challenge his leaders.

That's terrible Elder Berry. My commiserations to you and your poor sisters. How did he go about getting his blessings restored? Is there a formal process with written confirmation?

(sorry I don't know as I am a never-mo)

oldpobot Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's terrible Elder Berry. My commiserations to
> you and your poor sisters. How did he go about
> getting his blessings restored? Is there a formal
> process with written confirmation?

Yep.

He needed a dunking and a piece of paper restoring their magic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2019 01:39PM by Elder Berry.

don bagley posted it on fb. I wonder if this will get him excommunicated.

My ex was not excommunicated for having sex with many, many men before he went in to be forgiven while he was dating me (and I didn't know about all this at the time). The bishop told me that they have found it they ex gays, they usually don't come back.

He has 2 friends who are still married (one won't get divorced and the other one, his wife won't let him get divorced) and they cheat all the time. Neither has been ex'd and both have been in bishoprics.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2019 05:38PM by cl2.

Lavina sounds like a terrific woman. Kirby did a nice tribute to her. One wonders why the Mormon church is so terrified of people who speak out against its teachings and policies.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lavina sounds like a terrific woman. Kirby did a
> nice tribute to her. One wonders why the Mormon
> church is so terrified of people who speak out
> against its teachings and policies.

When people speak with a voice of reason, members will pay attention. That scares the sugar out of mormon leaders. This lady has made it clear that the church needs to do more and the leaders aren't having it.

I remember Lavina from the U of Washington, 'terrific' only begins to describe her...


just sayin'

She has to right?

She knows all about what kind of person Joseph Smith is.

She knows all about what kind of person Brigham Young was.

She knows that the guys ("First Presidency") that she's petitioning to have no more real authority to act in God's name than she does.

Even if she believes in God and Jesus and priesthood authority in general, she's come to the conclusion that the leaders of the church have been manifestly wrong about the fundamentals and continue to be wrong.

So I guess my question is: WHY? Why does she want to get permission from the "Brethren" to go snorkeling in a Mormon baptismal font and have some phony priesthood holders mumble the prescribed incantations? Does she still believe in any of that hocus pocus?

She's an intellectual. But is she being intellectually honest?

Does she still believe in any of that hocus pocus?

Apparently, otherwise wouldn't she have found the exit door a long time ago, like the rest of us?

Finding your way out of the funhouse of mirrors isn’t easy.

intellect to successfully and ably scrutinize, analyze and deconstruct the foibles of a target-rich belief system like Mormonism can fail to intellectually recognize the fraudulence that is at the root of it all.

Did she somehow miss the part about the treasure hunting scammer? Did she overlook the rock-in-the hat method of translating the magically disappeared golden plates?

Did the history demonstrating that the "First Vision" story was a complete fabrication that evolved over time somehow completely escape her attention?

Has she really failed to recognize the deeper implications of the obviously self-serving and fraudulent revelation contained in D&C 132 with regard to the fundamental issue of the authenticity of Joseph Smith's self-proclaimed authority and prophet status? And if Joseph Smith was not what he claimed to be, what value is it to be baptized by some guy whose "authority" ultimately traces back to Joseph Smith?

I guess one explanation is that there may be familial and social ties that prevent her from taking the next logical step. 1 + 1 = ? She doesn't want to answer that question because it will impact her cherished relationships in adverse ways.

Maybe it's a case of big-fish-in-small-pond syndrome. Maybe in some ways it's fun to be a real intellectual in an organization full of people who think that Nelson's revelations are profound and Jeffrey Holland's essays are deep.

Another explanation could be the "subvert and redirect from within" agenda that many proud intellectuals seem inclined to pursue...as in, she doesn't really believe in it (and how could she?), but she likes the idea of infiltrating and influencing from within, instead of being perceived as an outsider, thereby giving her a better platform for undermining and ultimately wresting control of the minds of the members away from the "baddies", i.e. the unenlightened patriarchy of "General Authorities". Maybe there is some revolutionary merit in such approach, but it requires a large amount of dishonesty to pull off.

If she believes that the church is essentially what it claims to be, i.e. established by the hand and power of god, with more and better authority, revelation and inspiration than any other religious organization here on earth, how can she simultaneously believe that the priesthood hierarchy, order and system, as well as most of the decisions, pronouncements, policies and revelations produced by the men who were called to man all of the key positions in that hierarchy from the beginning, could have been so wrong about so much for so long?

Boil it all down and her central argument seems to have to be something like this: "God used Joseph Smith to set up the truest and most correct church on earth, indeed the only church with true authority to administer saving ordinances such as baptism. BUT until I came along, it has been misled by fallible men who do not understand the Church's true mission and proper orientation. God has been waiting for me to correct this situation, show the benighted leaders of the church the error of their ways and instruct them regarding God's true will and intentions for the Church."

Hasn't it ever been thus with religious organizations? The only difference between heretics and revered saints in the end is who ultimately prevailed in controlling and directing the organization in question and therefore "won" the argument.

I think there's one of two things going on here (or maybe both):

The emotional pull of a religion IMO can often override any intellectual arguments against it. And second, she may believe in the foundational Christian claims, but not feel comfortable switching churches.

He's like a prosecutor who lays out a perfectly damning open-and-shut case against the defendant, supporting each critical accusation with incontrovertible evidence of the highest quality demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty as charged on all counts...and then inexplicably he addresses the jury in his closing remarks by saying something like: "And that is why I urge you to acquit the defendant and find him not guilty. My only hope is that me and the defendant can still be friends after the trial is over and I do hope that he will invite me over for Sunday dinner next week. I love the defendant. Really, really great guy."

They excommunicate people for speaking badly about the Morg publicly. Anything else is forgivable apparently. I knew someone who had been disfellowshipped for private apostasy; he had also committed fraud against a lot of members and god knows what else. He was quickly re-fellowshipped (or whatever the term is) when he claimed he had no memory of previous sins following a car accident. He quickly found a wife then carried on with a tonne of bad behaviour. When said wife gave him problems at one stage, he had her committed to a psych hospital until she behaved. During that time, he made sexual advances on his mother in law. This caused her and her other daughter to go inactive.
And yet this guy is considered golden by leaders. There will be hundreds of similar examples in TSCC.

I’m so glad I resigned my membership before I allowed them to take any such actions against me. If you continue to question you are gonna end up disfellowshipped, and if you do it publicly you will get ex’d. Why anyone would be put through that and then want to rejoin such a corrupt, evil organisation is beyond me.

against the church and/or its leaders, is not much different from formally "resigning" and speaking out.

Both processes are controlled by the church. The church wants to designate critics and whistleblowers as "former members" implying to hard-of-thinking TBMs that the critic is just a disgruntled crank and troublemaker.

I guess in following the church's procedures for formal resignation, the resigning member controls when the disaffiliation occurs. But beyond that it's not much different.

Thinking people outside of the church don't morally judge people who were excommunicated simply for speaking out and honestly criticizing the church. If the church tries to falsely imply that the excommunication was due to immoral behavior (e.g. adultery), the excommunicated party may be able to pick up a nice chunk of spending money pursuant to filing a defamation suit against the church.

Regarding excommunication for speaking out, versus resignation, Wally Pricne said:

"Both processes are controlled by the church. The church wants to designate critics and whistleblowers as "former members" implying to hard-of-thinking TBMs that the critic is just a disgruntled crank and troublemaker.

I guess in following the church's procedures for formal resignation, the resigning member controls when the disaffiliation occurs. But beyond that it's not much different."


Both processes are not controlled by the church. Resignation is controlled by the legal systems of the world. The right of a member to resign was imposed on the church by the courts. The church still refuses to use the term "resignation", even though it is a common, widely understood term. They do, however, recognize members' right to resign and handle them properly, because they must or face court sanctions.

"The church's procedures for formal resignation" are not the church's procedures. They are the legal systems procedures, imposed on the church. The church's procedure was that you could not resign, you had to request excommunication. That was their procedure for 150+ years until the Hicock case in Arizona established the right to resign, even when facing excommunication.

Any member can resign for any reason at any time. They have only one obligation under the law – they must inform the church they are resigning. That seems like a reasonable requirement. Do that, and the courts will back you up, if need be.

Lavina chose not to resign because as far as she is concerned the Mormon community is her community, and she was not going to let a bunch of frightened old men force her to give up her community. They could ex her, but even then they could not take away her community.

She didn't ask to be rebaptized. Her bishop asked her if she wanted to be readmitted to fellowship through baptism. She said OK. She had not, after all, ever abandoned her community. Gileadi was rebaptized after his third request, and I imagine if she asked repeatedly the FP would finally relent and let her back in, but she is not willing to grovel. She lived a good life, she gave them a chance to do the right thing, and they refused. She is not willing to grovel to get them to do the right thing.

And the world gets a reminder that they are still a bunch of frightened old men.

"Even though you have a legal right to resign from a church, the Mormon church isn't very gracious about letting people go. IF THEY WANTED, THEY COULD MAKE THE PROCESS EFFICIENT. If they wanted, they could make the process efficient and they could treat resigning members with respect. INSTEAD, LEADERS OF THE CHURCH HAVE CHOSEN TO MAKE IT A LENGTHY AND DIFFICULT PROCESS. Perhaps they want to make it an unpleasant process in order to discourage people from resigning. We'll keep trying to convince them to handle resignations promptly and with respect.

http://www.mormonnomore.com

No doubt, a person has a legal right to "resign" from membership (a process that the church refers to as "name removal"), but the church still controls the details of the process. Which bureaucracy within the church do you send your "request" to? That's decided by the church. How fast do they process it? There is no court supervision of the process.

In the end, what do you get from the church? At best, you get a short confirmation that your name has officially been removed. This can be advantageous if you need to sue them subsequently or seek an injunction due to harassment. But legally you could sue them for harassment anyway, once you've clearly put them on notice.

I'm not saying that resignation isn't in some ways better. Even though it can be like pulling teeth to get the church to process things for you, you do have more control over the timing of your disaffiliation than in the case of excommunication. But, either way, you're disaffiliating. My own opinion is that whatever local leader is in your area (BP or Bishop), that person is an agent of the church. The process of "resigning" should be just as simple as telling that person you aren't a member. For record-keeping purposes, you may want to get the bishop to sign an acknowledgement. The formal resignation process as it now stands is ludicrous.

Way to move the goal posts. In your first post you argued that there is little distinction between resigning and being excommunicated. Now you are arguing resigning is an arduous process.

Baloney.

You want arduous, try to cancel a cable contract. I've had magazine subscriptions that were more difficult to cancel than my LDS membership. The magazine contacted me more times than LDS Inc did.

Or move your IRA to a different financial institution. That requires filling out two forms that between them total about a dozen pages.

To resign LDS Inc you send them a letter saying you are resigning. Your resignation is effective upon their receipt of your letter, but they take 4 to 8 weeks to process THEIR paperwork. You don't have to do anything. The local bishop may or may not try to contact you. Again, you don't have to do anything with the local bishop. You can blow him off, tell him to process the paperwork, or read him the riot act. As long as you don't say "I want to remain a member", nothing else you say or don't say really matters.

Four to eight weeks for them to process the paperwork is not unreasonable. That's about what it takes to get a passport, get a visa issued, or get e rebate from a manufacturer. Paper shuffling takes time.

For the vast majority of resigners, that's the entire process.

Now, if you use a law firm, an unnecessary complication the resigner chooses to add to the process, LDS Inc wants your resignation notarized. Tit for tat. You complicate their process, they complicate yours.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2019 10:53AM by Brother Of Jerry.

BoJ: "Way to move the goal posts. In your first post you argued that there is little distinction between resigning and being excommunicated. Now you are arguing resigning is an arduous process."

Try reading with comprehension next time, instead of putting words into someones mouth and then beating up on your own strawmen.

For one thing, I never said that it was an "arduous process". I didn't move any goal posts. I was responding to your odd suggestion that the Church has no control over the process. My response was not something I pulled out of my butt. It was from a popular website known for advising people on the resignation process. If you don't agree with their assessment of how the church handles and controls the process, go yell at them.

In any case, it's odd that you missed the whole point ab initio. I was never comparing the two procedures in terms of how many weeks it took or how much paperwork was involved (and I went further to expressly point out in each comment that resigning does give the person more control over when their disaffiliation takes place).

My main point is that for a person who wants to leave the church and does not recognize the authority of the leaders, being "excommunicated" is not a big deal versus resigning. Either way, you're out of the church. If you ignore the excommunication, the church does all the work for you.

Some people don't like the social stigma that may come with excommunication versus resigning, but my point with regard to that is that the only people who will think particularly negatively about an "excommunicated" person will be TBMs and TBMs will generally think at least as negatively toward a person who formally resigns. So in that sense there is not much difference between excommunication and resignation. Mormons will in many case hold an equally bad or worse opinion about a person who resigns than they will about a person who is excommunicated for being critical of the church.

On the other side of the coin, non-Mormons would tend to laugh at the church's formal "excommunication" of a member for criticizing the church. And they would also tend to think that jumping through hoops to resign by send a formal resignation letter to an office in Salt Lake City and waiting several weeks for the confirmation and acknowledgement is also ridiculous, since a person's affiliation with any particular religious organization is entirely voluntarily and can be immediately terminated at will.

You seem to be heavily invested in the merits of the formal "resignation" process as it currently exist. If it spins your propeller and makes you happy, I'm not suggesting it's bad for you or anyone else to go through it. I merely suggested that the net end result for many people isn't particularly different from other ways in which disaffiliation can be effected.

You seem heavily invested in making resignation look both difficult and useless, neither of which is true.

"I merely suggested that the net end result for many people isn't particularly different from other ways in which disaffiliation can be effected."

I am amazed at the amount of trouble a few people will go through to get Mormons to leave them alone without actually resigning. Yeah, you can probably get Mormons to leave you alone while still being a member if you work at it long enough, though stories here attest to the fact that that has a tendency to fail when new leadership comes in and they decide to "reactivate" people on the rolls.

I think there are sensible reasons for not resigning. That resigning is complicated or useless is not among them.

Disaffiliating without resigning is a little like saying it is possible to leave the house by crawling out the bathroom window rather than walking out the front door. Sure, it's possible, but why would you do that?

My Dad quit believing in Mormonism or any other religion except Einsteins, at 18, when he prayed to God for an answer to his prayers and never got one, so concluded there was no god.
Never resigned, just went "inactive" for 78yrs until he died.
Had home teachers every month.
You'd think they'd give up, but never did. The bastards managed to snare all of us kids in their fucked up abusive doomsday cult,, until 3 of us woke up and did the math as adults when shit wasn't adding up.

If he was clear in his opposition to the church and its teachings. If he had at anytime felt harassed by the regular HT visits, he could have ended them. He apparently didn't think it was important to him to disaffiliate from the church beyond simply being inactive. He probably didn't consider the consequences for his kids, or may have believed it was his kids' choice to make.

It's odd that he would let the HTs come into his own home and indoctrinate his kids, with no pushback and no setting of boundaries. This story from your own experience is more about your dad than anything else. Sounds like he was ambivalent and confused about the church throughout his life.

Even short of resigning, if he had been so inclined, he could have told them to stop coming. They can only get inside the home if someone invites them in. Any attempt at forced entry becomes a matter for the police.

In the original comment that you responded to, can you find any wording whatsoever that implies that resigning is "both difficult and useless"? Do you?

If instead of flying off the handle into a complete series of non-sequiturs, you can be bothered to ACTUALLY READ what I wrote, you will see that I was clearly talking about the results in terms of how people tend to view/judge people who have been excommunicated versus the way they view people who resign.

Unlike you, I do not edit my posts after the fact. So the original is there intact for you to re-read.

The comments about the ways that the church can make the process more difficult than it needs to be came in the context of my response to your odd claim that the church has no control over the process. That response was not part of my original point, which you chose to respond to with a bunch of unrelated, off-point comments. The church indeed has considerable control over the way the process of name removal is handled. To illustrate this point, I simply showed you a verbatim quote from the welcome page from one of the most popular websites that help guide people through the "resignation" process. The words are theirs. They have more credibility to me than you do.

However, the comparative difficulty of the process was not something that was even on my mind in my original comment. And even in the context of pointing to the informed quote that demonstrates that the church exerts control over the way that the process is handled, I think you can go back and find that I never said anything expressly or by implication to suggest that people should not resign because it's too difficult. That is just your own bizarre misinterpretation. At best, the only implication is that the church could and should make the process easier. Is that something you disagree with? The church has this all perfect and nice in your view?
In fact, I do believe that it is possibly more difficult and time-consuming than it needs to be, due to the way that the church itself handles do-not-contact and resignation requests. But, again, I don't believe anything I have said could reasonably be construed as an attempt to persuade people not to resign. That's a ridiculous (as in RIDICULOUS) response to what I have written.

You quote what I said, and then proceed to completely misunderstand and carelessly or willfully misconstrue what it means. I don't believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. As I clearly indicated, if the resignation approach is the best for someone, I would be the last person to suggest that they shouldn't do it.

You seem to be arguing with someone else in your own head. I'm just sad that I got dragged into your internal drama, particularly since you completely sidetracked from my original point in your attempts to turn my comments into a strawman that you could beat up.

Let me repeat my original point again for you: There is not much difference in the way that people who resign are judged by others versus people who are excommunicated. (I even further qualified this by narrowing my reference to excommunicated people to specify only those who have ostensibly been excommunicated due to criticizing the church.)

Now, if you actually want to respond to MY points, instead of the things you are making up in your head, I will be happy to discuss, debate or whatever. If you want to keep pretending that I've said things I didn't and then "win" your arguments against your own strawmen, knock yourself out.

your argument (such as it is).

Full statement: "I'm not suggesting it's bad for you or anyone else to go through it. I merely suggested that the net end result for many people isn't particularly different from other ways in which disaffiliation can be effected."

I love how you deleted the part that says "I'm not suggesting it's bad for you or anyone else to go through it."

Obviously you deleted it because you wanted to accuse me of "suggesting that people should not go through it".

Just weird.

Kind of a dishonest approach you're taking there, right?

What's even the point of trying to win an argument against someone who has already expressly stated the opposite of the point you're arguing against?

?

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ?

Sure. Right. It's all so puzzling to you now.

>>You want arduous, try to cancel a cable contract.

This hit a nerve. I tried to cancel my mother's cable subscription after she died. On my second attempt, after being told that my mother had died. the representative said that my mother had to be the one to cancel. I said, "She can't do that. SHE'S DEAD."

My bother was the executor of her estate. When I told him about this incident, he took it from there. *sigh*

I had another incident where I was trying to cancel a service contract without any luck. I suppose I could have just stopped paying the bill, but I didn't want any kind of a ding on my credit score. Finally in frustration, I got the name of everyone in the chain of command up to three levels above the person that I had been speaking to. That seemed to do the trick.

Great post BOJ. You hit the nail on the head when you said the church is her community. For many people who were raised in the church, the cultural aspects are very strong. Thank you for bringing this up.

I would say thinking people outside the church don't judge someone who was excommunicated from the Mormon church for ANY reason, whether it was for speaking up to authority or for adultery. Outside the Mormon church, no one really cares or is the least bit interested in the membership rules of the club and what gets someone thrown out. For the most part, excommunication itself is so archaic that a religion that evicts its own members is more likely to illicit a derisive snort for its self-importance than a condemnation of the victim because of their supposed transgression. Mormons don't have a good reputation with the general public--they're either comical for being credulous or viewed suspiciously as heretical, all on account of their Mormon Bible. An excommunicated person is generally seen as lucky to have gotten out.

For one, it sounds like her husband died in the recent past. That could bring on feelings of being unsure and wanting to take care of things so she can see him again. She obviously still believes some of it.

OR, this just occurred to me when reading some of the posts, this brings to light yet again that they are bullies. How many people think she is not worthy of being rebaptized? (Do they really baptize them again or reinstate their blessings?) Lavina has all of us talking about it now. Kirby has written a very nice column about her. The whole state of Utah at the very least now knows that the "leaders" have denied a woman like her the right to be rebaptized. The bastards. If that is what she wants, she certainly is deserving of it.

My understanding is that they do re-baptize, and that all previous blessings are restored with the re-baptism.

There is an actual priesthood ordinance called restoration of blessings which is performed - from a previous version of the CHI
http://www.provocation.net/chi/chi10.htm

Restoration of Blessings

Endowed persons who were excommunicated and later readmitted by baptism can receive their priesthood and temple blessings only through the ordinance of restoration of blessings. Such persons are not ordained to priesthood offices or endowed again, since all priesthood and temple blessings held at the time of excommunication are restored through the ordinance. Brethren are restored to their former priesthood office, except the office of bishop or patriarch.

Page 106

Only the First Presidency can approve the performance of the ordinance of restoration of blessings. The First Presidency will not consider an application for this ordinance sooner than one year after the person is readmitted by baptism.

To submit a recommendation to the First Presidency, the presiding officers complete each step on the Application to the First Presidency form. In the United States and Canada, this form is available from the Office of the First Presidency. In other areas it is available from the Area Presidency.

The stake or mission president sends the completed application form and any necessary attachments (such as letters that are required on the form) to the Office of the First Presidency or to the Area Presidency if the unit is outside the United States and Canada. The Office of the First Presidency will notify the stake or mission president of the decision.

Performance of the Ordinance

If the First Presidency authorizes the restoration of blessings, a General Authority is assigned to interview the applicant. If the applicant is found worthy, the General Authority performs the ordinance to restore the person's blessings.


An old post from someone who had it done:
https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,91438

Then you don’t have to worry about being interviewed by a steaming pile of dog poo and found worthy.

It's not too much of a stretch to believe that she heavily identifies as a mormon, even if she has her disagreements. It's also not too much of a stretch to believe that it's her cultural heritage and home base.

Then again, since she hasn't renounced her disagreements, it's completely in character for the powers that be to bar her. This comes as no surprise.

Her identity (ego) is still attached to the group think (meta narrative) she was born into, despite the fact they rejected her for thinking independently from the group (herd). While she may disagree on certain doctrinal issues, which were once common, (Heavenly Mother, women holding the priesthood) but later ignored, she still chooses to place her faith in the ideology she inherited.
It's a lot like going to a movie and suspending disbelief, for the sake of enjoying the movie.

Like the battered wife defending her abuser.

You've got to find this strange.

Here they are sending out missionaries all over the world to baptize people. Many of the people being baptized have little idea what they are doing or why. The MTC training suggested that someone could get a testimony the first day reading the BOM and commit to baptism at the second discussion--if not sooner.

Now they have Lavina Anderson, who I assume has some well-considered (even though it really isn't what I would do) reasons land in their lap and say "no." But instances like this should provide evidence to those on the fence about LDS, Inc. that there really isn't a place for a loyal opposition, New Order Mormonism, or whatever one wants to call it.

I couldn't agree more.

That is one of the reasons that the Disaffected Mormon Underground, meaning sites like this one, are withering away. If your church has no doctrine and allows no "middle ground," there is nothing left to debate. The church won its war against cafeteria Mormonism, but it was a Pyrrhic victory.

snowball Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You've got to find this strange.
>
> Here they are sending out missionaries all over
> the world to baptize people. Many of the people
> being baptized have little idea what they are
> doing or why. The MTC training suggested that
> someone could get a testimony the first day
> reading the BOM and commit to baptism at the
> second discussion--if not sooner.
>
> Now they have Lavina Anderson, who I assume has
> some well-considered (even though it really isn't
> what I would do) reasons land in their lap and say
> "no." But instances like this should provide
> evidence to those on the fence about LDS, Inc.
> that there really isn't a place for a loyal
> opposition, New Order Mormonism, or whatever one
> wants to call it.

Mormon missions are for brainwashing missionaries, more than growing the church. the main growth in Mormonism is from children born to Mormon families who never really question their faith. It just works for htem and that's good enough for them. I get the feeling that's like Lavina. She identifies with it, it's who she is. She's Mormon through and through, she's just got some kinda strange ideas about Heavenly Mother that are now considered heretical, when once they were common knowledge.

"Motrix"...

I think it has some potential.

The go-along-to-get-alongness of allied mormonism...

Cypher : I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?