This is the most heretical thinking I've seen from The Maxwell Institute. I wonder what Neal would think. I know what Boyd would think. He was not on the side of this.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/01/23/what-latter-day-saints-get-wrong/

I also wonder if Nelson is driving ye old ship Zion? The old Zion is taking on whine in the red sea of collective Christianity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2023 11:11AM by Elder Berry.

The comments were interesting. One quoted Matthew 16:18 as proof that Jesus did indeed start a church, his church, contrary to the theme of the article---no restoration required.

No one takes into account that the Bible is a collection of Jewish Lore--first half-- and that the NT is written eons later in the same manner, handed down stories, more as memoir than history and then "edited" to death through the decades. Did Jesus really say that exact thing or did someone forget to take their Prevagen.

We only have Christianity because the ancient Romans found it useful as a control tactic and added it to their mix of fun and games and then ratcheted it up a notch with cute outfits and smoking purses. It lives on in the same manner any conspiracy theory does. People want to be the only ones in on the secret.

I have to wonder why as a Mormon youth I accepted the "fact" that the God who created the heavens and the earth and mankind couldn't even keep a church going when all the false churches were out pacing him to the point he had to take his off the market for a while. How did I swallow that?

So what is the point of being Mormon anymore? If it is not truth restored, there are cheaper churches with a better end user experience.

Who you going to believe, your lying, disappointed, embarrassed eyes or me, your if-I-see-you-at-Costco-and-wave-that-counts-as-a-visit minister?

When you have enough money and you like selling yourself a time share in Heaven, mormonism is great!

See you at Conference where we can exchange selfies!!

There are plenty of other churches out there that have good music and good activities. They even let you keep hating gays and brown people.

Since it is no longer the only twooth, I just am trying to figure out why people are still going? I guess they still have the priesthood but I bet they will scuttle that altogether before they ordain woman

I heard basically this same comment from a slightly active friend in Utah this summer. There is discontent brewing in formerly faithful solidly mormon communities.

>> What Latter-day Saints get wrong about the ‘Great Apostasy’ <<

I like how they phrase that and blame it on the members for getting it wrong.

Do they not realize that the members only get what they are told by leadership, taught in church, etc?

This 'blame the members' is how the Watchtower handled their failed prophecy of the world ending in 1975. The Watchtower blamed the members for their misunderstanding and inappropriate conduct due to their inability to interpret Biblical teachings correctly. Finland lost 1/3 of its JW membership over that debacle in 1976. Unfortunately, that event has gone down the memory hole and the Watchtower is now stronger in Finland than in was in 1975. It is a sick fallback - blame the members. A sure sign of a cult.

Why shouldn't the members be blamed? Being gullible comes with a price.

Almost any tactic at all works on them.

Fool me once--shame on you.

Fool me twice--shame on me.

Fool me hundreds of times and you can call me LDS.

When I was a missionary many years ago, the first discussion was scrapped, and we were introduced to a new first discussion, that was based around the Great Apostacy and The Restoration. Elder Charles Andre Didier of the first Quorom of Seventy sat down with myself and several other 20 year old kids and spent maybe two hours telling us how the church wanted us to emphasize the the Apostacy and The Restoration when teaching new contacts and laid out word for word a new discussion. It didn't sound anything like the enlightened and broadened view being discussed in the BYU professors new wonderful book.

Ah yes, the Didier Timeline. We had to use that for our 1st discussion in Montreal 1980-82. Didier was our designated area authority (I think back then they were called Regional Representatives) and so our MP's immediate boss.

As I recall, Didier was the owner of the worst comb-over in church history. No, Charles, you aren't fooling anyone. Half a dozen scraggly hairs won't cover up your completely bald scalp.

Ah yes the Belgian Comb Over. I forgot about that. I did not have too bad of an opinion of Didier, he seemed a lot more intelligent than other visiting general authorities I met like Tommy Monson, and he didn't ridicule the missionaries and tell us we were not successful in baptizing because we were lazy sinners ... the usual treatment we got from church leaders.

Hey Mordor...I was in Montreal at the same time. Do you remember Soeur Menanger and the great escape? Best story my whole time there.

I do indeed remember her. Even saw her post-mission for a few days, wrote about it here:

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2390688,2390776#msg-2390776

Listing of areas & comp hometowns (not names), see if any ring a bell. The APs (H & Z) gave me the nickname "Bedlam," if that helps any.

The point is important for the church to recognize, yes. But I'm struck again by the futility of it all inasmuch as the academic world has known this stuff for decades if not centuries.

A big part of BYU scholarship consists of the repackaging of work that mainstream experts have already done. What exactly is new here other than the fact that this time the material is coming from BYU? I'm sure the authors will earn Mormon plaudits and have another Mormon publication on their resumes, but ultimately it's much ado about nothing.

It's frustrating to think that our suffering, our self-realization, our achievements will be lost to the world, but they will. And that's the way it should be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2023 06:34PM by Lot's Wife.

Well if they recognize it at their highest level they will put the Bundys of their base in a choose America or everyone's Jesus quandary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2023 06:31PM by Elder Berry.

Wow, this just blows my mind how much they have shifted in what they teach.

Yes, I'd think this would make a TBM's head spin!

All you're life you're told only you and your select group have the truth. And everyone else who thinks they have it, well that just shows how wrong they are. Then one day...

I think i finally threw it away, but for a long time I kept my hardcover seminary text entitled "The Restored Church". ( I think I am remembering that fairly accurately.)

Yep. I had that also.

TG

the " restoration " of Jesus Christ's original and "true" church could be a super important issue .........IF the Jesus Christ character of the New Testament had ever really existed. The New Testament is purely fiction just like the Book of MORmON is purely fiction even if the NT is a much nicer story, All the BS ranting of the Apostle Paul can not press Jesus into existence no matter how much that Paul inspired con man Joseph Smith.

Joseph Atwill, Ceaser's Messiah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HklIkOpexY
THE "HISTORICITY" OF NEW TESTAMENT jESUS IS JUST AS valid AS THAT OF THE Nephites

"Atwill states that the authors of the Gospels were mainly Flavius Josephus, the Herodian princess Berenice, and the military general Tiberius Julius Alexander, with contributions from (the Gentile) Pliny the Elder. However, the book ends without Atwill offering any timeline or scenario in which these individuals collaborated for a years-long project. Nor does he explain how the work was disseminated, or why it was adopted by (purportedly) messianic Jews around the Mediterranean, or how this provenance segues into the known history of second-century Christianity."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar%27s_Messiah

Those objections are valid. But there are more.

Atwill would have us believe that Josephus, who led the Jews against the Romans until his force was defeated in 67 CE, was soon thereafter cooperating with his erstwhile enemies to create a new religion. Moreover, his history of the Jewish War wasn't published until about 12 years later--which puts it after the point at which the Book of Mark was compiled. So we are asked to believe that a conspiracy was formed between enemies who managed to go back in time to create the Christian mythos.

Is there an alternative hypothesis? Why now that you mention it, yes. It notes that Atwill has no background in any relevant topic besides studying the Bible, Latin, and Greek in high school. His books--Caesar's Messiah, and Shakespeare's Secret Messiah--were published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. In other words, he couldn't get a real company to print his books and had to do it on his own dime.

Sometimes the determination to disprove one or more religions leads a person to embrace all sorts of nonsense. This is such a case. Atwill is a distraction, nothing more.

Yeah Atwill is a crackpot. Certain subjects attract crackpots and this is one of them.

Fire Atwill!

Okay, that's good.

Of course, an attempt to pretend Mormonism is Christian, in order to sell the church to mainstream America. I should say, yet another attempt.

But I'm going to guess this one is gonna rub a lot of Mormons the wrong way. For obvious reasons.

Maybe a trial balloon. To see if it wins with the public without losing too much with Mormons.

By public I assume you mean church-going public or at least the subset of the public that is OK with the ultra-conservative thinking that is Mormonism. Fair enough, but since now Mormons are just any church in the crowd and not all that special since "truth restored" is not just another couplet, what would compel them to want to sign up with Mormonism?

The dirty, stinky building that they will be asked to clean?
The demand for 10% of gross?
The weekly speakers that including some mumbling teen speed reading a talk?
The amateur music that all sounds like dirges?

The end product is so inferior to everything else out there I am not sure why they are choosing to go in this direction

All good points! And good questions.

When the BoM says "Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth" and when we had a Protestant minister in the service of Satan during temple ceremonies.....

.....you just didn't understand the nuanced subtleties of what it *really* means...

s/

Love it. But they have a polygamist precedent in their BoM which can be overwritten by a living group of people at will.

Most correct means most editable, fungible and malleable.

that is awesome , since by MORmON scripture and doctUrine and convention it means that LD$ inc is automatically a church of Satan as there is no way that LDS inc is really any church of Christ, LMaO, stupid ass MORmON

Here is James and Hannah Stoddard saying something similar

https://www.tiktok.com/@curelomhunter/video/7086451019907075374?lang=en&q=hannah%20stoddard&t=1674712805261

Who are they?

Mopologists with some rather unorthodox beliefs

Here is his obit

https://www.bergmortuary.com/obituaries/James-Stoddard-4/#!/Obituary

Looking at his books and documentaries you find that he believes Nephites escaped to Europe, Asia, New Zealand

- Nephites in Europe

Joseph Smith did not use a seerstone to translate the BoM

- Seer-Stone-Urim-Thummim-Translation


And that LD$ leaders and historians since Arrington have been deliberately rewriting church history
- Faith-Crisis-Were-Not-Betrayed

Russ will announce he’s closing BYU. Elder Holland will go into a rage and rush the prophet but before he can strangle Russ, Holland will be tazed by church security.

It would be easier to slip something into his vitamins.

Anyway, I believe a watershed had happened and BYU is getting the green pen light to rewrite Mormon history once again in regards to their Great Apostasy. It is like the BoM in being a bad religious relic. Too conspiratorial.