Craig Paxton wrote:
Very interesting...Is there an existing thread on this Bremen Apostacy? I do find it very interesting how access to conflicting information impacts testimony.
There is, but my search skills in anything are terrible. If anyone can find it, that would be great!
If I recall, I was asked about this and shared some excerpts from a document this ex-mission president had made compiling his and my firsthand experiences with this. It started when I was a young zone leader (one of my greenies shared concerns about things that were going on in one of the Bremen wards). When I called my last greenie and comp to tell him I was getting married, he told me about the carnage and aftermath. Years later, I met this mission president through FAIR, and he had all of the background information.
What was especially tough for me was that one of the key figures was a young bishop my father knew in the late 1960s, and our high councilor in the mid 1990s on the North Sea coast. He also helped me with a tough issue I was seeking revelation on, and this was (I learned after the fact) during his spiral downward with his faith collapse. He definitely wasn't a "bitter apostate." His shelf collapsed. I enjoyed hearing from the mission president about how he had yearned for the days when he was a bishop and a stake presidency member: he said that they lived "
in einer heilen Welt" then (a whole, or complete world. "Heil" means "healing" or "salvation;" cf. "Heil Hitler"). The moral for this was that we both feel that if these people could have gotten quality help earlier on (before the shelf collapse), some or many of them could have been saved. As it was, what was available in German in terms of material and experience with Tanner material was very inadequate in the 1990s.
This can only happen when the conflicting information is more credible than the conflicting truth claim.
Not necessarily. If one's assumptions and expectations are way off, then that can be a significant factor as well.
I agree that this has largely been an unforced error on the part of the Church, and that whitewashing and hiding things in an attempt to protect have created a climate where shelf collapse is more catastrophic. The milieu of my upbringing is such that I was immune to any shocker! revelations about Church history, the scriptures, etc. I even remember getting a copy of Book of Commandments from the Hedrickites at a young age (their purpose was to show changes) and going through it and D&C. I already knew about "the rod" in D&C 8; it wasn't a pulling-out-the-rug moment for me. I realize that most people don't know this, and it is very jarring when they are told (always by critics who want there to be shock value).
The Church is baby-stepping its way towards better inoculation. All I can do is influence people in my sphere of influence