Hi Joe,

I completely agree with you that Anderson and Allred are wonderful people and while I find Allred's scriptural exegesis to be seriously flawed I do find her work interesting.

I don't know as much about the Anderson excommunication so I can't really comment but I know a bit about Allred's. The fact is that Allred was openly and vigorously promoting the practice of praying (and possibly worshiping) Mother in Heaven. I'm not saying that idea is bad or good .... different strokes and all that. However, this teaching was at complete odds with the LDS Church's official doctrine.

I'll use hyperbole but what if I were Catholic and started encouraging other Catholics to begin worshipping at a statue of Mohammed? I could be the nicest guy in the world but my exhortations aren't going to fly.

When I was working for the NYSE and had started openly and publically stating that NASDAQ was the place to list new IPOs I would have been fired. When you are willfully a member of an organization I believe it is important for individuals have respect for that organization's official position.

I'm NOT saying that Church members should not explore and discuss theological questions and raise concerns to Church leaders. I think the Church would benefit from a little more open discussion.

I like Armand Mauss' take on it. He stated something to the effect that if a family member does something you stronly disagree with you don't go running to the newspapers. You keep it in the family and work it out. Plus, in the case of the Church we know that going to the press only causes policies to become MORE entrenched -- at least in the short term. If you take a close look at Spencer Kimball's apostolic career it becomes evident that he was moved, inspired, and influenced by members who expressed concern about the priesthood ban. I think he had in mind to change the policy as early as 1969 and it is telling that Stake Presidents and Bishops in Brazil were told months, if not years before OD-2. Kimball had to lobby the 12.

So I do understand the Church's actions but I disagree with how the entire affair was handled. The Church botched that one. At the same time, Allred knew what she was doing and if she says she didn't see it coming I would be surprised. She watched Sonia Johnson.

I'm not disparaging creative and exploratory theology (speculative theology I could do without) and I think the Church would benefit from deeper theological reflection. But there are certain ways to express new ideas within the Church and Allred did it all wrong.

I have a pending publication (in a Catholic legal journal) that looks at the whole concept of eternal progression and offers up an interpretation that differs from the official Church line. The paper has been floating around since 2010 as I've been getting feedback and critique from colleagues and friends. I don't anticipate any trouble with the Church.

Also take a look at Taylor Petrey's Dialogue article from last year. He offers a heterodox interpretation of sexuality and its place in the Church. He's still active as can be (and a great guy to boot btw...).

Whenever you are part of an organization It is important to understand the cultural place of disagreement. In our current top-heavy corporate structure where so much emphasis is placed on "following the prophet" it is important to express ideas in such a way as to not undermine the Church's authority -- that is, of course, if you wan't to remain a Church member.

Enough rambling.....

ETA - not really edited to add but rather change "constructive theology" to "speculative theology" which is what I really meant.

Seth,

Thanks you for your comments.

I could be wrong, since I never attended Janice's ward, but I would be quite surprised if she ever advocated these things at Church meetings. Everything I have read was clear that she as ex'ed over her writings and speaking outside of Church (Sunstone and Women's Forum).

Everything I have read about all the feminist and intellectual purging was similar. None of the people I talked with and none of the correspondence ever suggested their teaching that upset Packer where in a Church.

It was real until it sank into the sea. But a shadow lives on in Minas Tirith.

Joe,

I think you are correct that Allred did NOT espouse her ideas at official Church meetings. In fact, I'm pretty sure she didn't.

I think Allred has two major problems. I'd be interested to see if you agree (I'm assuming you have read God the Mother).

First, Allred treats scriptural texts as if they have a unified single voice. That is, she takes the word "spirit" from Nephi and applies it to later sections in the D&C. Now, if you believe in Book of Mormon historicity this is obviously a huge blunder. You can't take Nephi's words and apply their interpretation to a text generated by another author 2600 years later. I should point out that this is how Allred presents here thesis. She fully accepts Book of Mormon historicty and D&C revelations. Now, even if you don't believe in Book of Mormon historicty and attribute it to Joseph Smith you have a similar problem. Joseph's theology evolved to a point where it almost undermined the Book of Mormon (teachings on God, existence of hell, etc..). Therefore, you can't assume that Smith's use of the word in 1st Nephi has any relevance to its usage in D&C revelations.

Second, Allred's work is far to devotional. If you want to present a theological case then write as a scholar. If you want to write a devotional piece, then write a devotional piece. By mixing the two I think Allred created a lot of confusion about her own beliefs as opposed to speculations that she may or may not accept.

Seth

Seth,

I have not read God the Mother. I have read many of her articles and quite a bit of the Toscano's writings. The three seem to be quite similar.

But I will say that your critique of Janice's writings is right on target. I have major problems with what I call "creative theology" and I find their writings fall in this category.

As I said on the other thread, B.H. Roberts is my hero. I love his theology books and IMO his books are still the best of Mormon Theology.

Now that I have written this, I realize that this is completely off topic and I apologize to Simon for this. Sorry.

Well, I don't know if it is completely off topic as it does relate to how the Church ferrets out the wolves!

BTW -- I notice that the mods deleted the post that called John Dehlin a murderer. I'm usually not one for deleting posts but I think this was a good call.

Seth,

One of the items leaked about Gregory's article on John was the two missionaries who drowned in a lake(?) and Gregory some how decided that John has power over earth and sea and was responsible for the deaths.

Is this what the poster was writing about?

Holy crap .... If what you say about Greg's piece is true that is truly despicable.

The post I am referring to was, at least I am hoping, an intentional joke to show the absurdity of the statement "causing someone to lose faith is the same as killing them" which has been expressed a few times in the thread.

This called John out and said how awful it was that John was leading so many people away. Then the final line was something to the effect: "Anyone who leads members (or the flock..??) away is a murderer.

Like I said I strongly suspect that this was not a real post but rather, an attempt to show the absurdity of the whole discussion.

I have it on good authority that this is not included in Smith's article.

Have a nice night, folks.

Previous drafts?

I would advocate avoiding hyperbole and seek a closer example, like adding Mary to the Godhead. After all, Mother in Heaven already receives hymns of praise in "O, My Father." So it is not as if She were completely foreign to LDS theology.

The simple fact is that the sexism of the 19th century persists. Mormons aren't alone in that.

Very good points, Kishkumen. I think one of the issues is that yes, while HM is part of the Mormon conciousness, it remains so ill-defined and ethereal that any attempt to integrate the concept into a systematic theology is frightening because it would require true modern revelation in order to bring any clarity to the matter.

In many respects the Church of the 19th century was quite progressive in regard to women. Women held the priesthood, gave blessings to their children, were included in the Annointed Quorum, etc... Unfortunatly, as part of the Americanization of the Church, he place of women has reverted to 19th century puritanism.

Very true. I think it was in the 70s that they cracked down on women giving blessings and prayer circles outside of the temple.

They have made the LDS Church progressively more boring and corporate over the years. Sucked the marrow out of the entire thing.

I don't think the Church is in as much control over that as they think. In our family all babies are blessed and named at home - women are invited in the circle as are members of the family that are not members of the Church. The Bishop is allowed to attend, but he knows if he causes any trouble - he'll be invited to leave too.

Impressive! I admire that kind of courage and conviction.

My belief is that the Church if not outright regrets Sept. 6, it has serious misgivings given that there was really nothing gained in trade for the bad publicity. There wasn't even a hope of gaining much. That must have been the best day of the Mopologists' lives, but unfortunately for them, it probably won't be repeated. The online witch hunt will not result in trials held by church leaders, only exposes on blogs and published articles from the MI and FAIR.

The internet has really changed so much for the LDS Church. If there were any modern invention that they might be tempted to attribute to the machinations of Satan, I bet the internet would be it.

Possibly. But you know, John, far more publicity and rife speculation has been given to this here and elsewhere when, as far as I know, it has not even been published. The speculation can sometimes be more harmful than the actual document. Those who never knew about this "incident" will now be far more curious than ever.

If you ever want to witness "hit piece" after "hit piece", then just keep reading the threads on this board. If you were a wise man, you'd learn from this board how not to react to the problems in apologetics, through speculation, innuendo, character defamation and plain mob rule. It's far worse than anything ever published by NAMIRS.

That's actually a pretty good comparison. There's a pretty significant Catholic movement advocating that Mary be regarded as a co-redeemer with Christ. The Church considers this to be heterodox, but it arguably stems from authentic strains of the tradition itself, just like Mormonism's Heavenly Mother movement.

What does it say about Dan's hit pieces when the only way you can make him look good is by comparing his "scholarly publications" to anonymous bantering on an internet forum?

Yes, I'm sure you can find some spiteful comments on these forums, but the point is Dan is supposed to be a scholar. He is supposed to be operating at a much higher level, but as Kishkumen has demonstrated, he sets the bar extremely low as far as scholarship goes.

Dan is obsessed with attacking and lampooning former members and critics. He's been doing this since the 90's. He and I used to tag team on the Walter Martin forum, and I remember the way he'd take pot shots at these folks with a twisted sense of gratification. He loves it. He lives for it. He even admits being addicted to reading comments from the subculture known as the counter-cult. He's been using sock puppets for years on the ex-Mormon forum, just to be an offender for a word. He's done this on numerous forums, included one that I used to own and operate. He doesn't debate anyone on anything. He flees the scene when asked tough questions, and no, his departure has nothing to do with civility. He's ignored people who have been quite civil towards him. He then publishes hit pieces, taking advantage of the pulpit his Church has given him. That's despicable and speaks to his character.

Criticizing a public figure like Dan Peterson is what you might expect on discussion forums, but public figures spending all their time criticizing anonymous posters on discussion forums isn't what we'd expect to see from real scholars.

I read Dan's article after John Dehlin posted a link on Facebook. I didn't know Will Schryver was the muse behind it, but it definitely had the cadence of a sunday school lesson. What a crappy style of writing.

{quote a bunch of scripture] ... interpret .... [quote a bunch of scripture] ... interpret ... [quote a bunch of scripture] ... interpret....

Why don't you just say what you mean without intermingling the scripture bull crap??? Maybe exegesis has a place in some humanities disciplines, but in a printed article it is phony and stilted. Especially when the quoted scripture is a damn fairy tale.