Do you believe the LDS Church has unique authority?
Do you believe salvation for the dead actually does something for the dead?
Do you believe the Book of Mormon is actually a record (of any sort) about real people that actually existed?
Do you believe Joseph Smith was visited by a The Father and the Son as actual personages in a grove of trees?
Do you believe the Father has a body of flesh and bone as tangible as man’s?
Do you believe Joseph Smith was called as a Prophet to the whole world?

I just want to point out that I said the following about this list which has been ignored by my critics:

“I made the following list off the cuff as examples of what what I was asking him…. My point is that it just isn’t generally that hard to differentiate between someone culturally involved with a religion and someone that actually believes in it.”

My thesis is quite simple and not obscured at all. That it is generally quite easy to tell if someone actually believes in the religion they practice, or if they disbelieve it. There isn’t a wide middle ground that some seem to believe. BH Roberts disbelieving a certain geography model does not make him “a disbeliever” by any stretch of the imagination. In my opinion, Mark’s counter point proves my point. The middle ground is truly rare, if it exists at all. (I’m not saying it does or it doesn’t. I just don’t know.)

Mark, you said you believe with everything on my off the cuff list, right?

So you are saying that you believe the LDS Church does have unique authority for the whole world? That you do believe the Book of Mormon is a real record of actual people and not fiction? That you do believe Joseph Smith was visited by a The Father and the Son? That the Father does have a body of flesh and bone as tangible as man’s?

Are you saying you are okay with a Bishop that disbelieves any of these? Your okay with a Bishop that, for example, has personally decided the Book of Mormon is fiction? Or that believes the LDS Church is just another man-made Church that works for some but has no message from God to the world?

I just don’t think this is that hard to understand. A person that disbelieves *all* the unique truth claims of the LDS Church just isn’t the right one to be a pastor in it. As far as I can tell, Mark, you aren’t arguing this with me, but instead making up a side argument that isn’t related to what I said, in my opinion.

If I understand your argument correctly, you are saying that you are not suggesting that Robert’s disbelieved in the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

Instead, you are arguing that Roberts’ was at variance with “the Church” about their (at the time) wide geography model or ancestry model for the native Americans.

Thus, according to this argument (if I understand it), you are saying that Roberts, who did believe in the Book of Mormon still as per his own book ‘The Way, The Truth, and the Life’ states, should still be understood as being “at variance” with “the core doctrines” of “the Church” over the wide geography model / ancestry model that he held.

Do I understand your argument correctly?

If I do, then first, I must say I disagree with your assessment about both Roberts and the Church. I do not believe, even back then, a specific model of geography or ancestry fits the mold of being a “core doctrine” that, if you disagree with it, you constituted a different religious belief system. Compare this to actually believe the Book of Mormon is a fabrication of Joseph Smith. It just isn’t the same thing – not by a long shot.

Personally, I think the reason the early Church held such models back then was much simpler to explain – they simply hadn’t thought of any other models yet. But I do not believe this ever constituted some sort of “orthodoxy” as you seem to be suggesting.

However, what if I am wrong? What if the Church back then saw a specific geography or ancestor model as “revealed truth that can never be challenged?”

Now I don’t believe this one whit. But if it were the case, I think what I am saying still holds — Roberts would be unfit to be a pastor in such religion. How, exactly, would Roberts fulfill such a role while publicly denying what you are considering a “core truth claim” of the Church? I see no alternative but for Roberts’ to resign his role. Anything short of that would be intellectually dishonest.

(As an alternative, I suppose he could explain that he still believes in the Book of Mormon but no longer in the current geography model and see if the Church was still willing to have him in a pastoral role. But then we’re just denying our assumption that it was “revealed truth that can never be challenged”)

If, on the other hand, you are saying that you think Roberts had at some point decided he no longer believed in the historicity of the Book of Mormon at all — he now believed Joseph Smith made it up — then I would think there would be a valid question as to whether or not it was appropriate for him to still hold a pastoral role in the Church. But you aren’t arguing this as far as I can tell.

Also, I ask for you to give me credit for already having addressed your objection in my post. See objection 4.

Since I clearly stated I was talking about people who believed in none of the unique truth claims of the LDS Church, I am not entirely sure why you are making this side argument. If you are right in it (and I believe you are not) then all you really did was uncover a “partial believer” just as I outlined in my object 4.

I’d be happy to consider that point of view further – that maybe there are more “partial believers” than I think there are. But honestly, I don’t see your Roberts example as being a counter example. I think he’s the perfect example of someone that believed *all* the unique truth claims of the LDS Church but was willing to come up with new ways of fitting them together. I think such a person is perfect for a pastoral role in the church, personally.

I don’t think that the model you have suggested to test people’s orthodoxy allows for somebody to publicly take a position at variance with the church or to play devil’s advocate, as the FAIR link clearly demonstrates Roberts did. But maybe I’m reading you incorrectly.

http://www.jrganymede.com/2009/11/17/doubt-vs-not-knowing/

B. H. Roberts was unfit to serve as a general authority because he had some serious doubts about the Book of Mormon.

This claim has been debunked.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/B.H._Roberts%27_testimony

According to the criteria you have laid out in this post, B. H. Roberts was unfit to serve as a general authority because he had some serious doubts about the Book of Mormon. And yet none of us commenting here is a big enough man to pick up his jock strap, spiritually speaking.

In a lot of ways that worries me since, honestly, it should be a given.

It’s a very different matter, though, when we start to talk about leadership positions. If I learn my home teacher is struggling with whether the Book of Mormon is historic, I’m sympathetic. Where I to learn my bishop was struggling with whether the Book of Mormon is historic, I’d be deeply worried.