Judges, Samuel, Kings–Principles of Authority for Father’s Day

You can’t solve coordination problems with less coordination. Either this is God’s way of forcing us into clans with stricter rules or it’s just punishment, it’s our faces ground into the dust.

I am getting the vibe, that we are going to have to live without access to our buildings or to leadership. And church truly will have to to home-centered.

We had better be ready for it.

We obviously won’t be ready for it, aren’t ready for it. We’d have been more ready for it going cold from having a lot of programs we were experienced with than with decades of retreat followed by a plea to just do those things no one even remembers how to do. We’re failing a transition because no one is guiding us through the transition, which is our only hope because we can’t be held responsible for not doing things we weren’t remotely taught how to do.

Last week I saw an article with photo of a BYU student/right wing yahoo named Kai Schwemmer. His mullet led me look up what had happened to grooming requirements at BYU. As with home teaching apparently BYU dress and grooming has been changed to principle-based with no specifics of implementation.

I think I kind of get it? (not that I like it) There is no secular monoculture to compare yourself to, the church itself is global. So to establish a set of explicit standards and practices requires having a strong culture yourself, As a church or as individuals or families, and then enforce it everywhere, which is legally, socially and otherwise risky. Would a 1980s or 90s style For the Strength of Youth work today? or would it cause mass apostasy?

I think a lot of people are looking for structure. Who’s offering structure?

A lot of people are looking for structure but think they aren’t and reject it when its on offer.

A lot of people are looking for structure but think they aren’t and reject it when its on offer.

I am on the pessimistic side here (obviously, read the opening) but I don’t see an obvious alternative. There is no ‘if we would only just…’

Someone–probably many many someones–are going to have to soar.

I think we all have to start thinking and acting like we’re the only unit in the Church.

On one hand, the point about how we are doing poorly isn’t completely wrong. But I am not certain it is all a cause for pessimism. Look at the recent proliferation of people making LDS content – quality stuff too.

My husband and I have both recently had two strong, connected impressions, that we received largely independently of each other.
The first was that we need to be living like an apostle’s family – that we need to be as spiritually motivated and ministeringly minded as they are or we will be being too complacent. (This might sound like a pretentious impression but for us it was more of an extreme anti-complacency message. Obviously we are all supposed to be like Christ, which is even more out of reach. My theory is that living like an Apostle is still absurdly out of reach for us but that having a slightly more visible goal was intended to shock us into – like G says- trying to soar)
The second was to have a ‘home where the Spirit of the Lord dwells,’ paired with a quote from the Bible dictionary that the only place comparable in sanctity to the temple is the home.

We have had some interesting impressions and thoughts as those two things have been our goals.

All this I guess to say that I’m kind of in the Zen camp that the decentralization is meant as a preparatory tool, and for me personally a lot of these changes have been an incentive to develop a better personal relationship with the Spirit (as per that P Nelly quote that has been reiterated by the GAs so many times).

The big difficulty, for my husband and I, has been trying to organize a community of people we can do things with. We are both awkward introverts and are missing a lot of spiritual opportunities because we don’t engage with other people I think.

Something I have been very struck by though while reading the OT, and connected with the John Adam’s quote brought up in the religious liberty broadcast, is how important it is to be a community of saints. It isn’t enough to be very motivated individually, and maybe not as a family either.

In the Old Testament, they go from having judges to having kings and in the Book of Mormon, they go from having kings to having judges. The Book of Mormon was written for our day so maybe there is some significance there.

“”In the Old Testament, they go from having judges to having kings and in the Book of Mormon, they go from having kings to having judges. The Book of Mormon was written for our day so maybe there is some significance there. “”

That is an incredibly important point, especially if I were examining this as a Jew might. The contrast is not accidental. The Bible is Israel slowly moving away from God, (in general, of course) and the Book of Mormon wants us to reverse that, and come back to the presence of God.

In the vein of @don’tknockmysmock’s comment, I’ve had several very strong and quite clear promptings to do or become something quite different than I expected when I asked the Lord what, exactly, he wanted from me. Related to Isaiah’s exploration of the tabernacle as a refuge, apparently I’m supposed to create, maintain, or become a refuge . . . whatever that means.
Since the temple is a house of order and beauty, I decided to focus on making my home inviting, both in spirit and physically, as the temple is.
To that end, I’ve followed two pieces of advice: ‘tend what you can reach’, and ‘turn your waiting room into your classroom’.
So, I’ve spent the last two years doing house improvements, trying to better maintain my parent’s house and yard, and doing the work to host parties and get-togethers with friends and family. All of which sounds very prosaic and non-religious, but the intent is to consecrate my efforts to the Lord’s work, so I figure it counts.

Part of the Israelite’s problem when leaving Egypt, was that they had been slaves, and didn’t have the vision to be either free or holy.

Likewise, I think if we are going to do this, we need the vision of how to do it.

Like several of you, I have also had some personalized directions lately. For me, it has been having the Spirit with me, avoiding social media, web surfing and other wastes of time and learning to focus intensely, so I can get things done, both spiritual and a business idea I have had for a while.

@EC, that’s really interesting. For us, one of the prompting about making our home a holy place had been to deep clean on Saturday, which also seems a little prosaic but has been a cool experience for us 🙂

It’s not like the Israelites learned how to sin from kings – read Judges! or the Nephites became holy from their judges – read Helaman! the difference was in who was responsible for what. Out of all Nephite kings we only have record of a single one who was unrighteous, and he was king of a distant colony. Their monarchy was fine, they obviously knew how to handle it, and almost everything Mosiah warned them a king would do happened under the judges anyway (we don’t have records of the chief judges’ tax policy).

The difference was that Mosiah was no longer responsible for the righteousness of the Nephites, and, more importantly to him, his sons would never be either. The responsibility would be broadly spread through the population. This would prevent the sins of a king from cursing them, but it would also prevent the sacrifice of a king from blessing them, and their system lasted less than a century. Chilling thoughts if compared to home church.

Keep in mind, we are missing 400 or so years of Nephite history, that ended with their annihilation in the Land of Nephi. And only Mosiah I (father of King Benjamin) and the righteous surviving and joining with the people of Zarahemla.

Ok, that was a lame response that I had. It was true, but just a lame argument.

Yes, the Nephites as a whole, became more wicked, but the Righteous became more righteous, until they experienced Christ’s First Coming. Likewise, I think we are supposed to become more righteous, whilst the World becomes more wicked.

So yes, [] was right about the Nephites as a whole, but I think it still applies to the Righteous, and it is relevant to us.

>In the Old Testament, they go from having judges to having kings and in the Book of Mormon, they go from having kings to having judges. The Book of Mormon was written for our day so maybe there is some significance there.

very perceptive

Let’s take this idea about Judges a bit further. Could the Constitution handle being interpreted this way? We know the prophecies about the government, and about the “full end of all nations”. And the period leading up to Christ visiting the Americas, was filled with political assassinations. So, I don’t think that this is only an intellectual curiosity. If the Book of Mormon is prophecy, then this may be our lived experience.

We know how an over-centralized government works. But how would a fully decentralized government work?