Take any man in this kingdom, and if the people say that they will make him a President or a Bishop, or elect him to fill any other office, and the faith of the people is concentrated to receive light through that officer or pipe laid by the power of the Priesthood from the throne of God, you might as well try to move the heavens as to receive anything wrong through that conductor.

No matter whom you elect for an officer, if your faith is concentrated in him through whom to receive the things which he is appointed to administer in, light will come to you. Let a presiding officer or a Bishop turn away from righteousness, and the Lord Almighty would give him the lock−jaw, if he could not stop his mouth in any other way, or send a fit of numb palsy on him, so that he could not act, as sure as the people over whom he presided were right, that they might not be led astray.

JD 6:99, Brigham Young, November 29, 1857

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I do not expect to preach a lengthy sermon this afternoon, but there is a great deal to be said and done. The Lord Almighty leads this Church, and he will never suffer you to be led astray if you are found doing your duty. You may go home and sleep as sweetly as a babe in its mother's arms, as to any danger of your leaders leading you astray, for if they should try to do so the Lord would quickly sweep them from the earth. Your leaders are trying to live their religion as far as I am capable of doing so? Yes, I do. The power of God is with
me continually, and I never mean to live an hour without it.

JD 9:289, Brigham Young, February 23, 1862

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Huh! Well, I guess the many ways in which the church has gone wrong is the way it was meant to be.
Who'da thunk it?

it is the fault of the members for not having sufficient faith.
"he will never suffer you to be led astray if you are found doing your duty"
"if your faith is concentrated in him ...light will come to you."
Prohibition on blacks in the priesthood? Members lack of faith.
Adam God? Our fault.
I guess we only have ourselves to blame for Packer's homophobic diatribe,

there is the definite possibility that God has had to kill every LDS pres there ever was as they were about to lead the church astray.

Well I guess it could be said that Joseph Smith was taken away by God, since he was killed. But instead of thinking of it that way, the members choose to think of him as a martyr for the cause.

I am always impressed by your knowledge of the facts, especially with references to the Journal of Discourses.

What do you believe to be the three most damming parts of the JoD?

I'm gonna try using that on my staff - telling them it's impossible that anything I tell them will be wrong. Hmmm ... think of the hours I could make them work, maybe have lunch brought to my office every day, even make up shit - the possibilities are endless.

That these sermons were given over the pulpit and in the name of the Lord by prophets of the Lord, and quoted heavily for many years by later prophets for the edification of the saints.

That this collection of sermons was highly recommended by the church leadership for the salvation of souls because they were given under the direction of the Holy Ghost and contain a wealth of knowledge.

And that the church today is embarrassed by these sermons and has counselled its members that they are of historical value only. This is because of their effectiveness for spreading what is called 'antimormon' literature, where the critics bring to light teachings on Polygamy, Adam-God, Men on the moon and sun, Mark of Cain, Blood Atonement, shunning family, God not appearing to Joseph, and a host of other topics that the church would rather keep out of sight.

and not important for our time. Now we can criticize them all we want.

So what does it mean if God just hits them with dementia or a stroke? Does that mean they were partly right?

And they have to be propped up and a committee makes all the decisions---Steve Benson, help us out here?

Were the decisions of the supporting Brethren equally protected by the death threat of God? Were they afraid of making a mistake?


Anagrammy

All the Mormon leaders would be gone tomorrow and we could all go to the beach instead. Because ALL Mormon leaders lead people astray.

Another disappointing promise the Morg didn't keep.

with their current policy of putting only geriatric cases in the top seats, the simple passage of time takes them down sooner or later. Just be patient.

It really helps if you resign, too. Then you don't need to give a flip who holds the reins or what drivel they come out with at the next GenCon.

No Church Leader has ever led the Church astray.

That is the stance that the organisation takes.
Has the Church ever admitted a mistake?
Said sorry for a wrong doing?

Think about some of the more obvious things:
Blacks and the Priesthood - the Church received a revelation that God now wished His policy to be reversed. NOT, Sorry the previous Leaders got it wrong and we really shouldn't be discriminating.
Mountain Meadows - this unfortunate incident was down to some local members and had nothing to do with the Church's leaders.
The Book of Abraham - we'll let FAIR who are not official spokes people for the Church have a stab at that one, if they come up with a good enough answer we'll adopt it as policy.
Changes to The Book of Mormon - well we've made a few grammatical changes and clarified what was intended to be said...
Adam God and other Whoopsy moments from past Prophets - they were speaking as men not leading the Church astray.

I could go on and on with examples but my finger tips hurt

This is why the leaders teach the membership of today that they should look only to todays leaders and read only their words and those past teachings that they currently approve.

To me that is significant. If past prophets' words need to be discarded in order to protect the church, then we must refuse to accept todays prophets who claim a direct line of divine authority from them. Otherwise, we run the risk of teaching our children false doctrine just like our grandparents and parents taught us.

It's true. After all, it did get Joseph Smith shot.

Well, if they believed that back when Joseph Smith was shot, and being it was connected to the New Expositor exposing his polygamy and his response of destroying their printing press, they could have concluded that God did NOT want polygamy and they could straighten up and fly right.

They didn't really believe it then and they certainly don't believe it now.

After all, Gordon Hinckley didn't die after his despicable and cowardly performance on TV with Larry King.

Anagrammy