Using the recent Atlantic Magazine Article about Mormonism which includes an interview with Russel M. Nelson, President of The LDS Church as a springboard, RFM and Bill talk about Mormonism’s endless quest for acceptance by the outside world, and why Mormonism seems to be going about it all wrong.
Atlantic Magazine Article Link
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/the-most-american-religion/617263/
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All Mormons and Kwaku and most exmormons reveal thier embarrassment when they try and defend Mormonism by saying the Christian trinity, hell are crazy. The resurrection of Jesus is far more believable then the breathing fighting headless labban or of Jesus flying back to earth to visit Mexico. Why would all the disciples suffer awful deaths if they did not believe. your right about kwaku he shows up for debates a hour late and will not answer any direct questions Wilcox would be more reliable.
RFM,
Have you read Eric Hoffer’s book “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements?” You would probably find it interesting. He describes the characteristics and trajectories of religious as well as secular mass movements e.g. French and Bolshevik revolutions, Christianity, National Socialism, etc.
It helped me understand the LDS church. Mass movements have a dynamic growth phase, characterized by tension and conflict with mainstream society, followed by a phase of assimilating into mainstream society. The second phase lacks the dynamic growth of the first.
Mormon leaders are stuck in a transition, trying to have it both ways. They want to assimilate into mainstream society and continue the dynamic growth phase of the past. It’s not possible. Hoffer said that during the second phase, a movement’s leaders make friends with the intellectuals, and this unleashes the creativity of its members. The leaders obviously haven’t taken that step yet.
There are really THREE LEVELS of truth in the Church and not just TWO. There is the truth that is told to the non-members. There is the truth that is told to the average true believing Mormon. Then, there is the truth that is held by the high authorities of the Church. Why many TBMs are leaving the Church is because they come to realize, due to the internet, that what the general authorities believe is not what they are being taught in Sunday School and then they are attacked for not knowing the current truth.
You are correct, the Second Anointed (those who have gone through the Second Anoiting ceremony) have a “higher” truth than the TBM. They are also protected from Church discipline (Church Courts), and their blood relatives are often also protected (like the pedophile in West Virginia who was sent on a mission to get him away from law enforcement).
FYI, The subject of Armand Mauss’s book, “The Angel and the Beehive” is the tension between being apart/special and assimilation. The main tipping point originally was Utah’s quest for statehood but since then has manifested itself at different points in time.
Mormons call it “Speaking to the understanding to the hearer”. I would call it “Lying for the Lord”. Mormons do it all the time. Gordon B. Hinckley was a likeable/affiable man, but he LIED ALL THE TIME! I mean…ALL…THE…TIME! He couldn’t get through one interview without lying through his teeth. He grew up in that culture, when the Church LIED to the Gentiles (public) as a matter of course.