Windy Sydney

July 12, 2008 at 7:36 PM

The way Mormons talk about their prophets being "just men" is, in my opinion, the LDS version of the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which essentially states that the pope can do no wrong when it comes to religious matters.

Saying someone is just a man is a very convenient way of alleviating any cognitive dissonance that may arise from the the negative actions and/or teachings of the prophets. If you look at anything bad and then explain it all away with a simple phrase, well then, you don't have a problem any more now, do you?

To me, if a person is going to call himself a prophet, be an interpreter of scripture, doctrines and morals, and be a leader of millions of people, then he must be held to a higher standard. "Just a man" simply isn't good enough.

July 12, 2008 at 9:11 PM

You are judging these men by their faults. I don't see how you can make character judgments based only on what they did wrong. If you are going to evaluate their lives why don't you learn more about their lives instead of being happy with the lack of information you have.

It's obvious what Brigham Young's weakness was but his strength is being industrious and may have been exactly what the saints needed in order to get Utah settled.

I don't see how you think you can make a better judgment than God about who should be prophet when he knows all and you only know little glimpses of a few men's life.

July 13, 2008 at 9:33 AM

Oh Dearest James,

It's you who doesn't have the information.

Brigham Young wasn't a good man.

You are one to sit back and make comments about there only being on "judge!" You find it easy to judge those who happen to be homosexual and tell them what their rights should be.

It doesn't seem like you really get the point here.

What the church does is gloss over and ignore the bad things he, and others did. They don't talk about them, and they certainly don't offer an apology for the way they treated others in the past (or the way they treat others now!)

Wake up and try some coffee.

July 13, 2008 at 10:23 AM

I think James is echoing what the church's leadership commonly pushes today, which can be boiled to an "accentuate the positive/ignore the negative" attitude. This idea was heavily pushed when I began my studies at BYU in the mid-90's. I also think of this idea as a nice corollary to the "he was just a man" or "he was just acting as a man" ideas that so many Mormons seem to favor.

I would be a lot more accepting of the "accentuate the positive" idea if the church eagerly encouraged people to study ALL aspects of church history, especially with regard to the lives and teachings of the prophets. However, this is definitely not the case. As has been mentioned here and in many other places, the church has systematically altered and/or writings and history when it felt those things may have been embarrassing or difficult for the membership to accept.

How anyone can knowingly accept such doctrines and behavior in good conscience is totally beyond me. It's unethical, and it's intellectually dishonest. It is also unacceptable to tell people to "just have faith" when they discover these things about the church and the prophets. Faith is unnecessary when we have so many facts laid out before us.

July 13, 2008 at 1:31 PM

James-You are right, BY was industrious. But with the way he treated people, who cares?

For me the problem is that the church claims that their prophets will not lead the church astray when they clearly have made poor choices and that they have led the church astray. BY organized racism in the church. He organized the slaying of innocent people.

BY was not a prophet of God, he was an evil man.

July 21, 2008 at 11:53 AM

This post hits on the real trouble of Mormonism, I think. That is, we really aren't comfortable in our own skin yet. While unspeakable acts have been performed in the name of God for thousands of years, we humans still seem to think that there's got to be something out there that's bigger than us - something to idolize or serve or strive for, or just admire - but something spiritual and worthy of respect.

Even if, from time to time, repugnant people assume the roles that we humans, in our religious structures, try to reserve for people whose morality should be similarly worthy of respect, we eventually get over it, putting their acts in the past and applying the more uplifting aspects of religiosity to our own lives and relationships.

But, as Mormonism is only a couple hundred years old, it's proving nearly impossible for Mormons to be forgiven for doing this. If we pull the "just men" card, for example, we are rightly lampooned for turning a blind eye to gross injustices, inaccuracies, and immoralities which plague our leaders' and our religion's history. Also, we are stuck with the "all or nothing" attitude, which asserts that Mormonism must either be entirely True, or entirely erroneous.

Well, if critics and indeed apologists can discredit so many practices and statements by church leaders, why is it so difficult for us to get past the "all or nothing" idea? Why can we not agree that, perhaps the Mormon church isn't immensely different from any other religion out there? There are aspects of our past, and of our practice, that cannot be justified as God's work. Okay. But, there is still value - overwhelming value - in the family and community unity that can be fostered in a tolerant, loving, religious environment.

It's not the ONLY way of life. It's not the end-all be-all. But it's not the worst thing in the world.

Religion, like any other constructed system of power, is a blessing and a curse to those who encounter it. That's life, people. Someday, probably in a few hundred years, maybe we'll be more comfortable with the fact that belief systems don't match up, they don't congeal into a cohesive, perfect picture, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily evil. It means they're human.