May 22nd, 2023 by G.
Here’s a half-baked line of inquiry.
Before we do, we might want to say where this blog is at with respect to the gospel. The normal run of LDS online presence is either faith-promoting, faith-doubting, or for the rare neutralish account, faith-debating.
Faith promoting is selling the gospel and sharing testimony. Sometimes, though less often, apologetics.
Faith-doubting is often the opposite. At best airing grievances and trying to sell alterations to the gospel and at worst just anti.
Faith debating means pros and cons. These kinds of accounts are rare because most people don’t have the temperament for it in the first place and those who do don’t long halt between two opinions. Sooner or later they come down on one side of the debate.
The Junior Ganymede is usually faith promoting. Our readers don’t always realize it because we aren’t the normal run of faith promoting blog. We don’t sell. We don’t try hard to mimic the focus tested output of the PR department because we don’t have to. We don’t have a world wide audience of millions of ordinary people where everything we say is put under a microscope by unfriendly media, thank goodness. Ordinary faith promoting material doesn’t often come in the guise of comic light poetry. Our sweetness material is faith promoting, though that’s not exactly why we do it. Sometimes we find areas where some members have got themselves into knots, or areas of gospel conundrums, and find out how resolving those can bring us back to the abundant beauty the gospel was meant to be. Sometimes we explore the gospel, trying to recast or recapture it so people an experience the awe as if for the first time.
Which brings us to the last and most unusual thing this blog is. We are faith exploring and faith compatible. We start with the gospel as a premise and then work out from there. We take secular concepts and see where they intersect the gospel. What if we look at this doctrine from a new angle? What if brainstorm the way these two different experienced truths can both be true? Instead of trying to get you to believe, here we take it for granted that you already do and then try to advance the ball. We try to avoid arid intellectual theories. We are exploring implications of the gospel that should be deeply meaningful and life changing. At the same time, we are not the gurus on the mountain top. We are at best the gurus who are climbing the mountain ourselves. We aren’t delivering final revelations. You must approach these explorations like you do when reading the best books like Jospeh Smith said. Be discerning, follow the spirit, pick and choose what is appropriate for you where you are at, notice when your spirit soars in delight, notice when the voice within says, “well reasoned, fellas, plausible, but it just ain’t so.” Sometimes you might say, rightly, what the heck.
Today’s actual post is going to seem like a comically tiny afterthought in comparison to all this prologue. We thought the prologue here was worthwhile because one of the half-baked idle speculations assumes that the Church has some of the limits of ordinary human institutions. We think this assumption is compatible with the gospel and with our belief that the Church is true. Just like spirits and revelations can come to frail mortal bodies with diseases and weaknesses, truths and priesthood are housed in mortal institutions that have, sometimes, some of the same challenges and capacities ordinary institutions do.
Here’s our promise to you.
First, feel free to rebuke us at any time. All corrections gratefully accepted. When we see good saints and others concerned for our welfare, it makes us love them and it makes us feel loved.
Second, if you want to know how something or other is compatible with our belief in the gospel and the church, ask us. We will be happy to answer. (more…)
