I grew up in the Church and I have never seen so much hero worship for a prophet that I see today. It seems that all my Mormon friends all they can talk about is Rusty this, Rusty that. Everything they seem to post is quotes from Rusty. And if you say anything negative its like you are going to hell.
The best one I hear is how he foresaw what was going to happen so he had revelation to shorten the meetings to 2 hours and produce the home study Come Follow Me program. My problem is I know two people who lived in two stakes that were doing a prototype of the 2 hour program before he took over. Plus I know a couple of other people that did a prototype of a home study program.
I guess I am so far removed now that I can not see his guidance and revelation. Most of my friends are so concerned that the second coming is just around the corner and they are so happy that Rusty is in charge.
I just did a study of all the wards in the Toronto area and surrounding areas. At one point all building had 3 and some 4 wards. Now there is just one ward per building. My friends tell me no one is going to the Toronto temple when it was open and they have trouble getting help. When I point this out I am told that is the signs of the times. Satan will cause people to fall away from the Church. Just a few thoughts on my mind tonight.

"Everything they seem to post is quotes from Rusty. …how he foresaw what was going to happen"

They like Rusty quotes, do they? Remind them of this one (April 2020 GC): "Little did I know, when I promised you at the October 2019 general conference that this April conference would be 'memorable' and 'unforgettable,' that speaking to a visible congregation of fewer than 10 people would make this conference so memorable and unforgettable for me!"

He admitted ("little did I know") from the GC pulpit that he had no idea Covid would even exist, much less affect the church in any way.

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The 2nd coming can't possibly be "around the corner" per standard mormon doctrine. Has the Jackson County temple been built? Not at all – but that has to be completed before Jesus does his awesome cloud flex. And what about the two prophets in Jerusalem? They have to tool around the city *and* do mighty miracles for 3-1/2 years, *then* die and get resurrected before Jesus appears on CNN. So even if Nelson & (Bednar?) were to book their one-way flight on El Al today, Jesus has to stay put for at least that long.

Your friends don't even know their own cult theology. Sad!

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"Satan will cause people to fall away from the Church."

The church is growing? Proof that the church is true!

The church is shrinking? Proof that the church is true!

If Jesus shows up in the news, it won't be on CNN. It'll be on Newsmax or OAN, shaking hands with Donald Trump. Just kidding.... I thought it would be fun to piss off a few people here.

This reminds me of the joke where the Pope is told that there is both miraculous good news and then also some bad news. The good news is that Jesus has returned and is on earth at this very moment. The bad news is that he is calling from Salt Lake City.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2021 10:33PM by azsteve.

Russ has been the Big Kahuna since ?/2018, correct?

to my info, he hasn't made (that we know of at least) any major boo-boos at least from TBM perspective.

It's more 'the office' that prophet-presidents occupy, because after they die, a lot of stuff they said, wrote, did is FORGOTTEN.

I can think of one thing he said before becoming Pres. that isn't readily agreed, understood or accepted now.

This is SOP for TBMs, isn't it?

Because the changes he's implemented, while ultimately superficial, are HUGE for the TBMs. No other profit in recent times has dared to be so revolutionary in their revelations. TBMs are accustomed to being restricted--don't you dare have more than one piercing per ear--not allowed more flexibility. I mean seriously, sister missionaries can wear pants! God truly must speak to Russ, as there is no way he could have come up with that on his own.

I wonder if some Mormons get prophet fatigue.

Prophets come and go frequently since they are so old and halfway senile when they become prophet. There really isn't a lot of time to get attached. The prophet position hasn't actually done anything significant for a generation. It's just a place on the management organizational chart.

True story. I used to think the only name that mattered in the LDS church was Jesus and that the rest were only groundsmen.

Then 10 or 15 years after my mission, I was having a discussion with a stake president who wanted to know what had gone wrong there (mine was one of those rare missions where things went so far off the rails that the church would review it from time to time). The SP asked for the names of some of the people involved--not the actual malefactors but some GAs who had been brought in to set things straight. I didn't remember the names of those men, for surely they were only bureaucrats, interchangeable cogs in a machine.

But the SP was appalled that I did not know who each of them were. To him you couldn't be a good little Mormon if you did not know, if not worship, the stodgy old men who were Seventies or some such for three or four pre-retirement years. I thought those priorities were a little sick, to be frank, part of the pattern of deference to authority that had caused the disaster that was my mission in the first place.

In Mormonism, Jesus is a marketing gimmick. What really matters is the men who rule in his name.

Oh please, please, please!!! Tell the fubar mission story!!!

Toronto Boy Wrote:
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> I grew up in the Church and I have never seen so
> much hero worship for a prophet that I see today.

What hero do you think "Praise To The Man" is about?
It's been sung all along, with the same gusto.

The are not worshipping Rusty.

They are showing who can be the best Rusty Worshipper.

There is a big difference. It's a contest now. My family is in it to win it.

Yep. Lots of truth to this.

He looks evil and away with it.

I left thin 2017 with much hatred towards it - however I do fee) Tommy Monson was a genuinely good guy and had love for its members and not their money. I felt great sadness when I heard he passed away.

Hinckley was "so cute"! Female members would say he looked like Yoda. He is soooo CUTE. As if he was an infant.

I am glad that ended.

Every prophet gets his day in the sun.

Hinckley was evil.

He was a big part of the correlation effort of the 1970s and thereafter. He suppressed information that was either true or could be true if it contradicted the Mormon story. He lied about LDS doctrine on national television and in published articles. He fought against gay rights in Hawaii in the late 1990s (?) and in California in the early 2000s and set the stage for the work against Prop 8. And throughout that period he presided over the excommunication of people like the September Six. It is difficult to think of anyone who had a clearer sense of the evil he was perpetrating.

His goofy little smile concealed a truly wicked man.

So he wasn't like Yoda he was more like Chucky.

Yeah, I found him a chilling presence. I saw no empathy, no gentleness in the man beyond his smile.

Hinckley also was the person behind the temple building blitz, and The Conference Center. I think he wanted the Conference Center named after him. He did go on repeatedly about his walnut tree that provided the wood for the podium. Hint hint.

I also think he wanted to install one of his sons in the Q15. Neither happened. I think at least some of the Q15 were onto him.

Okay. Some inside baseball.

I have met Hinckley a couple of times. I have friends who lived in his ward, which he sometimes attended and at which he sometimes spoke. Towards the end of his life Hinckley's behavior became quite strange. Once he spoke in church and, stumbling slightly on his way down from the stand, bizarrely yelled out "talley ho!" The people in the audience looked at each other as if to say, "what the fetch?"

My friends were close to his son Richard. According to their accounts of conversations with him, at one point Richard said he wanted to be an apostle and his father said that he must first be an SP and a Seventy. So they set those things up. My friends also had a personal experience with Richard when they asked his help with a church problem that their son had encountered. Richard helped a bit but refused to do anything public because, in his words, the church never admits errors publicly.

Dick, if I may be that bold, isn't as intelligent as his father or as devious. Gordon was evil with a capital "e" while Richard is evil without the capitalization--a boring, banal evil of the sort Hannah Arendt denounced. In short, he's a dick.

I have not heard of Hinckley being referred to as Yoda before. I only heard that about Kimball.

Cult Members need a Cult Leader;

isn't it as simple as that?

Nobody cared about Russell Nelson until he because president. Still, yawn, except if one is talking about his medical achievements. And, he undermined his legacy by peddling in this BS.

There is only one reason that I can think of
That is "It is the current thing to do"!!!!!!!!!!
Understand the dependency that members of any cult have on the FEARLESS LEADER of that cult exclude any feeling except hero worship.
To do otherwise would undermine the entire mind control structure around which such organizations are built. So whoever becomes the leader under any circumstances must be fawned over, worshipped, adored and kow-towed to.
If a human being is to be a prophet they must speak to God and that is in person not "It was impressed upon my mind"
So the general rank and file member's mind set is I must adore above all and that is what they do!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2021 03:06PM by thedesertrat1.

^^^ Yes, so agree that members' hanging on to their cult leader's every word is part of the whole scene - an amazing cult must have an amazing leader. So, the TBMs hang on his every word and declare most of them as inspiration and miracles straight from God.

I also agree with the looks of the head hauncho.... he bleeds looks of arrogance down from his perch above his peons as he gives them his "fatherly" advice, that by God, they better follow word for word. "You are so lucky to hear from me," along with, "Why, I am a surgeon and am taking time out of my busy schedule to actually speak to you! By God, you better be sooo grateful and be obedient or perish."

I think Rusty is so popular because unlike his recent predecessors, he truly believes that the LDS church is true, that it all happened just the way we learned in Sunday School, and that he is a true prophet, who may one day add his prophecies to those found in the D&C.

Exiting times! I remember when I was a child, I kept wondering "when is the good stuff going to happen?" Did all I have to look forward to was more boring meetings? Did Jesus die on the cross, did Joseph Smith get tarred and feathered, did the pioneers suffer endless persecutions just so we could sing the same old dreary hymns over and over and over?

I wanted prophecy! Visions! Heavenly manifestations! And I wanted them now!

Rusty is a true believer. He not only drank the Kook-Aid, he IS the Kool-Aid.

You go Rusty!