In November of 2021, I flew to Salt Lake City to debate the Midnight Mormons.
The entire debate lasted almost three hours!
I have worked hard over two days breaking it down into a Highlights Reel that is just over an hour.
I want to thank everybody who came to the debate and I think you will really like hearing the Highlights!
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I listened to the original and loved every minute of it! Thank you RFM! Your skills as an apologist serve you well in your new roll of “ pickitapartist “ 😂
Very well done RFM! You keep your cool and keep it funny while also sticking to your point.
RFM, how did you get mixed up with these characters? Surely you know the rule of pigs, and the fact you have experienced libel from the MMs shows they enjoy wallowing in mud.
On the matter of LBTQ and the church I think your position is emotional and lacks rigor. You accurately say the church cannot give full benefits to LBTQ because doing so would require it to reject foundational doctrine that was institutionalized by Brifham Young. Reality is the church cannot give full benefits to LBTQ persons because doing so would fracture the church.
The scriptures explain that the Priesthood (ie leaders) are to be examples of righteousness. What church leaders do as well as what they teach provides a pattern for disciples to follow. As much as LBTQ advocates say this group needs LBTQ role models in church leadership it is economically precarious for the church to provide that.
The two scripturally supported pastoral disciplines are celibacy and heterosexual marriage – think of Paul and Peter. This makes sense. Either the man, or woman, is celibate and refrains from expressing a sexual appetite, or the leader exemplifies the desired pattern of heterosexual union with the intended outcome of children. And I say desired pattern because any group with a long perspective knows there must be children and it is best for children to be raised in a two parent home.
Any church that places same sex unions as equal to heterosexual unions loses more members than it gains. This is not Brigham Young’s fault. This is reality.
Progressive Mormon critics love to make the LBTQ issue their favorite hammer. Problem is while LBTQ persons are equally deserving before God, their lifestyle is in conflict with heterosexual sociality. This conflict can and should be tolerated in civic institutions. But in a church it creates an unsolvable tension that has proven to splinter congregations (United Methodists exhibit #1 https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/1/7/21051757/methodist-church-split-lgbtq-same-sex-marriage)
I highly encourage you and Bill to do an episode on the schism the same sex marriage issue created in the Methodist church and would create in the LDS church. I suppose a possible solution for the First Presidency would be to spin off an LBTQ friendly LDS church that existed socially independent to the LDS church, but the corporate church benefitted economically from both.
Very interesting and refreshing comment, A Disciple. I too feel that the average exmo is more likely to simply cheerlead for the LGBT cause than to think through how and if it can be reconciled with the rest of society (whether civil, family, religious). My thoughts on the issue have certainly changed from when I was a TBM, but I wish there were more ‘moderate’ if you will, takes on the subject, and less fueled by emotion. Thanks for your thoughts.
John Dee, a very educated man, did not do his own scrying. That was performed by his partner, Edward Kelly, who used seer stones to contact angels. Eventually, one of the angels told Edward Kelly that he and John Dee were commanded to share their wives with each other. The angel was named Madimi, according to one source. Another source names the angel as Uriel. I have often wondered if the angel with the drawn sword who commanded Joseph Smith to practice polygamy or be destroyed was named Madimi or Uriel.