I have watched all the changes Dusty Rusty and Wendy and ad the dew have been making. I grew up in the Church and Christ was the focus along with lots of other interesting stuff. It was fun going to Church as you never knew what the topic of the day might me. Now we have the CFM program.Its over kill. Now the Chapels will all have same artwork about Christ. More over kill.Talks and lessons are all about Christ and temples. I feel overloaded and feel that the identity of the Church is being lost as it blends into being like other Christian Churches, except for the temple. I have watched a decline of christian Churches. Christmas eve I attended a local Church. I was all older people. I watch people leave their Christian Churches on Sunday and its mostly older folks. I see all sorts of Christian Churches being sold or demolished. The Mormon Church today is no more exciting as these Christian Churches were when I grew up.

To survive many Christian Churches had to give up on teaching about Christ and focus more on social issues. I see this as were the Mormon Church is headed too.

I feel saturated with Christ this and Christ that. I feel saturated with temple stuff. Now we have a remodeling of church lobbies. I cant help but feel that Dusty's plan is doomed for failure in the long run.There must be a reason to make such radical changes.The stone that was cut out of a mountain has been stopped by two things. Dusty Rusty and a virus.Just my thoughts as I self isolate.

Last thought. Do we know if any of the top 12 disagree with Dusty's direction?

I do not see this as a new and improved church.
It is a decpetive rehash of the same issues.
If you tell a big lie for a time it will be accepted. But eventually it will be exposed!
The membership are being disillusioned by issues not in evidence and more and more require facts to support doctrine.
The concept of "you just have to believe" is being supplanted by "Prove it".
I have been doing research on ancient Sumeriam cunieform translations for the last 15 years and I have come to the conclusion that there is huge misrepresentation in the documentataion of both the Old and New testament.
So if this is anywhere near the truth then we must all take a new look at things



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2020 10:24AM by thedesertrat1.

Thank you. I agree with what you said.

Toronto Boy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do we know if any of the top 12
> disagree with Dusty's direction?

They wouldn't tell even Jesus if they did.

We will know when a Dusty is dead. If they roll back his changes the answer will become obvious.

Same old authoritarianism ... why don't they do something about that instead

I actually love the new church.

So clear now. Never saw Fraud in 4k Ultra HDR before.

Surprisingly, I used to love Nelson as TBM. Who knew as prophet?

But I can see him now - thou art Lucifer's brother, Rusty, he who was cast out of medical profession and cannot come clean on all his scams of being in father's presence.

Depart!

I don't see these as truly radical changes. It's just more lipstick being applied to the pig. It's still a pig. You can plaster the walls with Jesus but the foundation is still the BofM and J.S. Eventually that comes out unless they plan on tossing out the BofM entirely and pronounce J.S. a false prophet. That would be radical.

There were lots of things they never told me as an investigator but little by little I discovered them. My mom never did learn most of what Mormonism was about. She sort of stopped studying anything after the missionary discussions.

They should team up with Kim and Kanye. Call Kanye as a GA so he can really be fawned over. Let him come up with new church programs.

Nothing will change until they get rid of the temples, and here's why: the temples instill in the members a sense of exclusive superiority. As long as the temples are closed to outsiders, you will have people who get to decide who is and isn't an outsider (like gatekeepers at exclusive social clubs) and that leads to an inescapable cycle of judgement, shame and hierarchies as the members fight for the privilege of being the gatekeepers. So yeah, the changes are meant to convince people that this theology of exclusion is the best way.

I like the idea, makes me think of the Masonic tradition, that J.S. was into. I wonder if he saw this same psychological trick, and that's why he came up with the temple component in mormonism.

Until the mormon church leaders can in some way be called to accountability for the damage they do and have done, I figure that we're at all-out war. That is not going to change until they get an entirely different kind of so-called prophet. We may share communities. We may play nice most of the time. But in my mind, the Mormon church is the absolute enemy and I am not going to forget that nor pretend otherwise for long. Whatever they're doing, even if it is good, I am suspect and do not believe that their hearts are in the right place. I certainly don't want to see them get credit for anything good they do. They play that card routinely (do good things only publicly when the media is likely to notice and praise them publicly) and it's a lie. In my mind, they get nothing from me except for a demand that they start answering for the bad things they've done in the past and present, and that they refuse to talk about or to talk about honestly.

The mormon church plays hardball and you need to play hardball back. The idea is to take and not give when it comes to the mormon church. Try to limit or stop their growth. Don't cut them (the church itself) any breaks. When they see that there is a price to pay for their arrogance and self-righteous shut-out of everyone they've harmed, they'll come to the negotiating table and they'll have to start listening. Until then, keep the pressure on. There is no rest for the wicked. And they are wicked... whether they know it themselves or not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2020 09:28AM by azsteve.

The Mormon Church and its leaders know they are wicked.
They know they aren't receiving revelations, God has not spoken face to face to one of them at all. They know they can't tell us any future thing on the virus or any other event.

They know they are still collecting tolls for a road built long ago.

That the vehicle of faith (the means) is now being leased as the end of faith itself.

I am sorry I do not buy any ignorance of the lives and families they have damaged and destroyed so they wouldn't have to work but could find better ways to convert non profit funds into for profit funds. That money soaked in working people's sweat, tears and blood of teenage, etc suicides didn't just appear on their doorstep. They went out like wolves in sheep's clothing to get it. After life insurance sales people.

Beyond sickening!

Don't like it one bit

I feel bad because it sounds like I'm dumping on 'Christ' but as you said everybody is playing that game these days and it's all so generic.

I hate more the hypocrisy. They didn't change their passive-aggressive authoritarianism. The cold calculation of the shift is so obvious they don't even try to hide it. It's hard to believe they (the leadership led by Nelson for the moment) suddenly had a change of heart and realized after all this time that they weren't being 'Christ centered' enough. (Never mind if you think Christ is only a symbol or myth, that's beside the point here.)

A lot of people's response will depend on how they feel about Joseph Smith as a founding character. I've always found him an interesting character. The stories of the early church are pretty wild, reading them you feel like anything could have happened. And naturally the leadership back then was fairly YOUNG when they started out.

The church's special claim was that they were a 'restored' version of Christianity that had been lost for 1800 years. If they shift the focus away from the actual events of that 'restoration,' which directly involve Joseph Smith and his associates, it's just another Christian church.

Because prospective converts are going to ask HOW it got restored, WHY it needed to be restored, and WHO restored it, and WHY it's different from all the other 'Christ centered' churches. Then they're going to have to talk about Joseph Smith, the plates, the visions, and all that stuff.

That is the whole mormon mouse trap.

You are guilted into not dumping on Christ.
This church has nothing to do with Christ.

They are Christians in stolen logos and names only.
The temple never ran the way in the Bible as mormons do now, not even close.

If I ran a Christ Centered Child Labor Shop, would you feel guilty about saying bad things about me if I made my money off the backs of starving children? We literally have starving children paying for $600k+ bullet proof Audis.

What if I had a message that said Suffer the Children to Work in Our Factories? Are you convicted yet of dumping on Christ?

Um, even a fairly fancy armored vehicle adds about $100K to the price. Nor are starving children their cash cow.

And even if an armored car were $1 million (and they are not), even a million dollars is one thousandth of one percent of $100 billion. A car is not what you should be outraged about.