RFM tackles the 2017 October General Conference. Tackling Sunday’s Afternoon session where the only good books are those that are in the approved curriculum and only inside the Church along with several other talks in this final installment 3 part series!!!!
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Dear RFM,
Or should I say ‘camouflaged caterpillar’?
I couldn’t help but notice that getting all of our information from so-called ‘approved sources’ is one of the indicators that you are dealing with a CULT! Yikes!!!!
I listened to a podcast where a very active young father with high callings in his ward, moved to SLC and was called to work in the temple. Between his veil worker responsibilities he started reading the New Testament….and walked out of the with his entire immediate family. So even reading out of the best books can kill a “testimony of the church”.
Yesterday’s anti-Mormon rumors are today’s Gospel Topics Essays. hehe
Please keep ‘gnawing’; I am loving it!
You are right, Gale!
Even reading the scriptures can knock somebody out of the church.
But one usually has to be to the point of being able to read the scriptures without doing so through the lens of Mormon Doctrine.
I know that, for years, I read the scriptures only through that lens, and the “amazing” thing was that I found the scriptures to be teaching only Mormon Doctrine!
25-years ago I came to the point where I was wondering why I spent all that time reading the scriptures when really I already knew everything they had to say.
It was at this point that, through a serendipitous event, I began to realize that maybe, just maybe, I was reading the scriptures with blinders on.
As soon as I took off the blinders and began to read with an eye toward legitimately trying to understand what the author was saying, that I actually began to learn things from the scriptures!
I have been at this same point about all things LDS, including conference. Being raised in the church, I felt like I got there at around age 17 when I realized there was no more “graduating” to actually learning more in church, or at least it’s how it seemed to me. I knew for example there were historical things I could maybe learn that would help me understand the context of the culture where the Bible came from, but I didn’t know where to start to find and learn those things and the fact that no one at church seemed to care or try made it seem daunting.
Thanks so much for all the research and effort you share in these podcasts. I feel like it’s helping me learn to do better research and know where to start.
It is great to see new listeners going back into the archives! Great to have you aboard, Erica! Thanks for the kind words. There is lots more to explore in the world of Mormonism, and I hear Radio Free Mormon is a pretty good place to do some exploring. Have fun! You are in for the ride of your life!
sorry I meant that ‘the young father walked out of the CHURCH with his entire immediate family.’ Where is the edit button when you need it?
Thank you for articulating my subconscious!
Regarding Elder Arden’s talk – what better example of your point about getting both sides of the story than Elder Ballard’s comments about Jane Manning James? If you accepted this at face value, how would you ever know about the multiple pleas (denied) for her own endowment? How would you know about a special endowment to seal her as a slave to JS, without even allowing her to attend? Watch the video (not an approved source) about this sordid episode in racism and use the intelligence and spirit you have to arrive at a conclusion about how she was treated.
Without full information, you would go away in bliss thinking how the church followed the example of the Savior in their love and compassion towards Jane, oblivious to the whole truth.
My expectation is, if you bring up a subject, person, practice, doctrine, historical event, it’s fair game to explore all aspects of your topic.
Telling members to read only “approved” materials is a pathetic, desperate ploy when the S.S. Zion is on fire and sinking.
What a great insight, Poor Wayfaring Man!
Cross-referencing Elder Ardern’s talk with Elder Ballard’s talk is pure genius!
Getting only the church-side of an issue definitely can, and often does, leave one with something substantially less than the truth!
I love RFM!!!! I wish he put out even more episodes as he is the reason I subscribe.
Loved it. I found myself laughing more than once. I also found myself shaking my head in pretty emphatic YES when he hit point after point.
RFM…your note from Greg Prince about the 60,000 people leaving was something I hadn’t heard about. Thanks for sharing. I’m gonna go out there and try to learn some more about those numbers and where Greg got them.
He said the 60,000 figure was from an inside source that he was not at liberty to identify, but whom Prince felt was extremely reliable.
If Joni Koch pronounces his name like the company, Koch Industries, or the politically conservative billionaires who own that company, the Koch brothers, then it rhymes with “coke”.
I mean, sounds like “coke”.
Great Message. The church leaders are trying to solve a three dimension problem, using their one dimensional viewpoint. Probably because they value people with a one dimensional viewpoint.
RFM,
I listen to all of your episodes. I think you’re doing some of the very best work anywhere within this realm and even within just the written realm if you’re comparing podcasts to written. Kudos to you, and thank you so much for the significant amount of thought and effort you put into these episodes.
Wow!
Thanks so much for the supportive words, Ryan!
I really appreciate it!
RFM
The caterpillar example makes me smile. Recently my kids and I visited a field of milkweed (prime location for monarch butterflies). While there, we learned of a delicate symbiotic relationship between the two organisms, and how they both harm each other in order to propagate together. The caterpillar may harm the plant, nigh unto death, but the adult butterfly is able to most efficiently pollinate the same plant it was destroying. Thus allowing the expansion of healthy plants to support more monarch caterpillars
So if RFM (and the like) are caterpillars, well then are they not the one’s that will allow the milkweed-church to mature and continue? Just my brief observation.
Thanks for another great post-mortem examination… it was much cleaner than others I’ve seen before 🙂
Nice analogy, Ben!
Now if we only had this kind of teaching in General Conference, maybe I wouldn’t have to do three episodes critiquing it!
Instead we are left with half-baked parables about pickles . . .