The Mills of Apostasy Grind Slowly

This has concerned me before.

What is worrying me right now, is the number of people inside the church, giving it a bad name. For instance, the feminists making a fuss of the lady breastfeeding in sacrament meeting, which it turns out, wasn’t actually much of an issue as they made it. But now that we suddenly have a bit of a national voice, we have people speaking up, making more of issues than they really are.

The Nephites greatest danger, was not the Lamanites. It was internal dissension, and that is what I think we are seeing.

Your insurance policy and that of your family is to know the Spirit, not blind obedience or mindless practice.

Amen, brotha. Apostasy is better translated rebellion, as DP has recently reminded. When we rebel against the leadership of local and worldwide leaders who have been given mantles of authority, when we rebel against the strictures of commandment, we will see it in our children. I live in constant concern – not fear, but it’s next-door neighbor – for the welfare of my children. It will take all we have, for the world grows more insidious, as I have recently written myself. Blasted world.

What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?

It’s not just parents. We had a Stake President who did away with Home and Visiting Teaching. He had a “better idea”. Eventually a GA was sent to set him straight. But in theis part of the US, the members feel that anything the church leadership directs is just recommendations.

Knowing the Spirit leads to seeing obedience and mindful practice. In any case, we see in this world through a glass darkly, and faith and trust are both necessary. Teaching your children that faith and trust mean following the Spirit but not the Church will likely mean that in a generation or two they are “spiritual but not religious” and happen to believe and practice exactly what the secular makers of opinion teach should be believed and practiced.

Kramer,
there are endless numbers of scriptures about bad pastors. Its a real concern. But how many of us have done the same as the Stake President within our own stewardship, i.e., for ourselves?

Knowing the Spirit leads to following the Spirit which includes customized personal tutoring that includes the mighty change of heart and eventually seeing more clearly which transcends both obedience and the law.

My own experience has been that, with rare exceptions, seeing more clearly by the Spirit causes me to better appreciate the wisdom of the law and of the things taught by the Brethren.

Yes, there are exceptions. But in 40+ years of active Church membership, the only exception that springs to mind is the ban on ordaining blacks. And this was eventually changed — by revelation to the Brethren.

Great example Vader! I have followed the Spirit well beyond the point of selling what I had, giving it to the poor and following him and I have experienced many, many more exceptions.

The church is but a necessary temporal symbolic metaphor for spirituality but following the Spirit IS spirituality making you your own prophet and the prophet of your family.

But in the absence of the Spirit by all means follow the prophet holding tightly to the iron rod least someone at church offends you or you become too tempted to sin to avoid it any longer and fall victim of the incremental seduction of apostasy. It can begin with the smallest thing like being late with your home teaching or not staying for priesthood meeting.

Put simply, Howard, you’re wrong. The spirit that teaches you to preach that there are “many, many” exceptions to the prophets and that leads you to the conclusions I’ve seen you advocate here and elsewhere is not the Spirit of God. It is often a lying spirit.

Salvation is participation in a divine community of the redeemed. Private salvation is, by definition, not salvation. Given human weakness and diversity, some of our paths to our communal salvation will take private twists and turns, but those private paths that are genuinely private will be private, not proclaimed on the internet.

Gnosticism, antinomianism, the 60s enlightenment–we’ve seen it all before and we’ve seen how it ends.

Apostasy is damnation, not a higher spiritual path.

Isn’t that cute? I’m in moderation giving Adam the last word?

Wait… Howard was serious? Oy vey…

What is the point of going through all the bother of having prophets and priesthood leadership if they can not rebuke you when you need it. It isn’t just when you happen to agree. Saying you only do it when you agree, and that there are many, many exceptions, is essentially saying that the prophet is apostate, which means the church is apostate. You might not mean it in such harsh terms, but that is the logical consequence of what you are saying.

Disregard the watchman on the watchtower if you so deign, but it is not greatly appreciated when you encourage others to do so as well.

In Howard’s defense:

Elder Russell M. Nelson, Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
CES Fireside for Young Adults, February 6, 2005. Brigham Young University.
http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,538-1-2946-1,00.html

“Through the years you will note that apostles and prophets teach the rule. We don’t teach exceptions to the rule. Exceptions are left to individual agency and accountability. The Lord knows we live in an imperfect world. He knows it is ‘ripening in iniquity’ (D&C 18:6). His judgments will be fair, just, and merciful.”

Elder Oaks explained the same principle in a talk given May 1, 2005, at a CES broadcast, and reprinted in the June 2006 Ensign.
http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/2006.htm/ensign%20june%202006.htm/dating%20versus%20hanging%20out.htm?f=templates$fn=document-frame.htm$3.0

“The explanation I gave that man is the same explanation I give to you if you feel you are an exception to what I have said. As a General Authority, I have the responsibility to preach general principles. When I do, I don’t try to define all the exceptions. There are exceptions to some rules. For example, we believe the commandment is not violated by killing pursuant to a lawful order in an armed conflict. But don’t ask me to give an opinion on your exception. I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work that out individually between you and the Lord.”

Those teachings by Nelson and Oaks are a fair bit different from encouraging the saints to not yoke themselves down with immature things which they call prophets and a church.

Henry Eyring in a couple of talks has suggested that spiritually aware disciples have less need of prophets; not because they can ignore what the prophets are preaching, but because the Holy Ghost tells them those things directly before the prophet does.

It never fails. Cobble a shoe, and there will be those who come out of the woodwork to loudly announce that it fits.

Advocatus Diaboli,
you are quite right that we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. We’re all of us muddling through. No one muddle is quite the same as another.