Posted by:
axeldc
(
)
Date: January 30, 2011 02:24PM
The point is that there are 2 ways to be "the one true religion":
1) You are on the vanguard of social change. God has knighted you to crusade for change in society. A truly inspired church would have fought for abolition, black equality, women's rights, gay rights, etc. Church leaders would be willing to go to jail and suffer unpopularity to enlighten society to its flaws. Examples: Jonah, Abinadi, Jesus, John the Baptist, Unitarian-Universalists.
2) You are the guardians of the truth. The church is perfect as is, and stands up against the pressures of society to corrupt its traditional values. You do not allow divorce, excommunicate those who try to change the church, and are willing to let the public despise you and the weaker members leave to preserve the faith. Examples: Hassidic Jews, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Mormon Fundamentalists, John Taylor.
The LDS Church falls in the middle. They are conservative, but bow to pressure. They fight against social change, but eventually succumb. They claim revelation, but really only change because society forces them. They abandoned polygamy, they finally gave blacks equality 15 years after the Civil Rights Act. They opposed working women and discouraged divorce, but Mormon women now work and 50% of LDS marriages, including temple marriages, end in divorce. They are fighting against gay rights, but their position on homosexuality is in flux and has been changing since SWK's antigay crusade in the 1960s and 1970s.
Nothing about the LDS Church says that it is either leading change or holding fast to tradition. It's just being pulled kicking and screaming along with the evolution of Western Society. Mormonism is a product of conservative social forces, not God-given revelations.