LDS Inoculation - Good or Bad?
 

Last Sunday we had our first JS curriculum lesson. Predictably, there was much discussion regarding the first vision. One sister who happened to have her copy of RSR in tow, posed the question of why there were differing versions of the FV (1832,35 and 38) as described by Bushman, et. al.

The instructor actually deflected the topic very well by saying she was not aware of these details and "in the interest of time" moved on. For several in the class this was clearly their first exposure to this topic. This inquisitive group later gathered in an empty classroom with the sister who asked the question and engaged in a lively discussion.

Seems to me it would be much more constructive to confront and address this topic in a structured environment. I know that Bushman has postulated that such inoculation would be a good thing. Perusing the manual, it is clear that we will get a sanitized version. Given the preponderance of available information, would we be better served by some level of inoculation?

Did this sister happen to be a member of that fake AA choir in your fake ward in "Virginia"?

Warning: rant to follow. Nothing personal, Req.

This is not the purpose of priesthood and Relief Society meetings. I realize there's a desire on an intellectual level for the church to take on these issues and educate the membership, and if someone wants to hold a symposium, or "Know Your Religion" or what-have-you on it, fine. I have no problem with that.

The First Vision happened. Yes, there are differing accounts, but what we have is not "sanitized" and I'm getting a little tired of hearing it called that. What we have also happens to be scripture, canonized, affirmed and re-affirmed by every prophet since the one who experienced it. At least as it concerns a priesthood lesson, there's no point in spending the precious few minutes we have, with instructors who have difficulty preparing much ahead of time anyway, delving into (from a theological standpoint) mostly irrelevant details.

As to the concept of innoculation: I'm not sure I see the great saving grace in going through this exercise. Yes, it would avoid the "shock" a member experiences when some on-the-street anti-Mormon shouts it in their face, or when the occasional intellectual mentions it in class. But testimonies are not built (and they should not be shattered) on these details.

I shudder to think someday if our church meetings rotate from a focus on our theology and the Spirit to academic discussions. It's not the place.

Did I miss something?

The goal for me in a church meeting is to be inspired and uplifted and come closer to God. I see innoculation as a good goal, but not at the expense of other more important objectives in a church setting.

It's helpful to have a quick secular review of the background of the scripture text or topic. This portion of a lesson should be honest and would be a good time to provide some innoculation, but it shouldn't be the theme. The instructor would have to be skilled to provide that kind of innoculation in an appriate tone and appropriate allotted time and not let it take over the lesson and distract from the higher goal of worship and inspiration. It's not an easy thing to do.

Daniel Peterson recommends some form of inoculation for members, and he's an apologist working for FARMS.

The question of time and place is a good one. Although the purpose of worship is to edify, we should not be afraid of truth or true facts. I like jay's proposal of having the intro include some of the facts, skillfully addressing them and then moving to points of edification.

I know Dan Peterson. He's a good guy, and very smart. But he once told me about how he ruined a visit to the Hill Cumorah pageant by spending the entire pre-show period arguing with an anti. He got himself so worked up he couldn't enjoy the pageant, and he learned a valuable lesson. I think he sometimes has a hard time separating the spiritual and the intellectual when it comes to the church.

I'm not saying be afraid. I'm saying the 3-hour block is not the time or place.

I'm not sure if I disagree, but for many members, much of what they hear about the Church is during this three hour block.

And many members are afraid to ask question or don't know where to turn.

This is my concern.

Actually Jay, there are lots of things you miss.

Whatever. I really want to know if the instructor was in the fake choir or not. Req?

ouch, but seriously this "fake" thing sounds like a good story. what thread was it on?

You're the francophile, it's a faux choir dude, and that makes it all the better. Facades work better in French.

Maybe a coeur faux, which is even worse.

Respectfully Tex, that you relegate these matters to the realm of anti's shouting on the street and pointed headed intellectuals in gospel doctrine show that you don't quiet get it.

The fact is there is a flood of information available now in internet land, some from antis but a lot not, that is challenging to those who haven't been exposed to it. There ought to be a faithful context where they can get those questions answered. If the venue for that is not Sunday school or priesthood, then I guess I truly have no idea what the time spend at church outside of sacrament meeting is intended for.

Here you go:

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10466

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10679

How did you arrive at the conclusion that this was all a bunch of hooey?

We have our vays to make people talk.

I agree with Tex in principle. But while Requeim's story is pointless as she doesn't exist and if she did she is probably fat and ugly and most likely a dike, but that is beside the point. From my perspective the tension between academics/intellectually curious members and the whole "sanitized version" is as a consequence to the LDS Church and its policy concerning its history. There is merit in what you say concerning what is appropriate in a Church setting, I agree that is not the place to delve into the real history of the event. Discussion at church should be uplifting and focussed upon the aspects that impact one's testimony. However, if the Church did not go to such efforts to protect the members from the true history I doubt this type of discussion would get much thought. The Church is morphing into the policy of what is inappropriate for Church is still fine to study, but it is not the Church's role to bring that material to you, but this is recent and a result of technological inventions that bring the history to light.

In other words if the organization that is the LDS Church doesn't like that folks bring the tangential historical truths to light in a Church setting, it is my opinion that the LDS Church bears significant culpabality for why the situation is the way it is.

Respectfully, no, I don't think you do.

The fundamental problem is that the LDS Church uses terminology and some methods of judicial systems and empricism such as "witnesses" and "testimony," and and then when somebody takes up the challenge and demonstrates such thing as changed stories, lack of original documents, implausibility, character issues on the part of affiants and alleged divine conduits, and a penchant for outright lying on the part of the affiants or alleged dinvine conduits, etc. (again, the usual stuff of empiricism or a judicial proceeding) the LDS Church says this type of approach is not fair or appropriate when judging a religion.

The LDS Church wants its history and documents tested empirically, but only in kangaroo courts and show trials. No cross-examination, and no full disclosure. The LDS Church should stop the pretense of historicity and "testimonies" and proofs and instead focus on spirituality. But this won't happen while its members are complicit in the LDS Church treating them like children. Meanwhile, LDS gatherings are about as sterile and boring as any you'll find in any religion. Comments on this board about only one sacrament meeting all year more or less being not deadly boring, people chronically reading their handheld computers or sleeping in church, etc. testify to that. It shouldn't be that way.

Sterling McMurrin addressed this in his (in)famous, splendid 7th East Press interview.

I'm not trying to trade barbs here. Tell me why you think having members concerns resolved is not the function of Sunday school? Where does one go for this if not church?

Just as an example, my wife and I have a friend who we anticipate will be baptized in the near future. She is highly educated and has lots of tough questions which she asks nearly every week in our gospel essentials class. She gets an answer (maybe not always a great one) and moves on. This all seems very appropriate to me. When the instructor doesn't have an answer, he tries his best to answer the next week. If he doesn't know, he says so.

Should the instructor tell our friend that Sunday School is not the proper forum for inquiry?

Tex, I tend to be on your side of this issue, but I think UtahDan asks the key question. If not in SS, then where? I agree it would be hard to do deftly, but I think it has to be there. In fact, I think it is in the church's interest to do it there, so there can be some spiritual input along side the worldly hoo-hah. Do you disagree?

The biggest problem is that there are too many questions that even the highest levels of leadership of the church can't answer with 100% certainty (take the earlier reference to GBH's comments on King Follett).

Given that these answers can't be provided with a great deal of certainty, does it serve any valuable purpose to include flawed inoculation as part of the standard curriculum?

There are hundreds of doctrinal questions that cannot be answered with any certainty. The LDS Church has been doing the best it can to provide the best answer it can on doctrinal matters, it can do likewise on these types of issues.

When you have high councilmen giving sacrament talks on the 12 planets and Heavenly Mother, then you have no chance to do anything like this at the local level churchwide.

I'm sure he was reading a scripted talk from SLC. :)

I have been blessed with the gift of discernment. You all need to be very careful about what you post.

I'm pretty transparent about who I am (unlike Lebowski :)) and so forth, so I don't really have anything to fear.

No one espects 100% cetainty on anything. Can anyone adequately explain the Atonement with 100% certainty? Instead, I am thinking more about the value of addressing and pre-empting to some degree infomration and materials about the church and its history in this dispensation that any memebr is likely to encounter; to provide an appropriate and spiritually based context for the discussion and to affirm rather than leave hanging the merits of the gospel. It just seems to me this type of exchange must be in a forum like SS.

Shouldn't be shattered this way perhaps, but they often are. And with increasing frequency. All the hubris in the world is not going to change that.

I think that you make a fair point here, but I also think you are throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I would agree, for example, that Adam-God would be tough. It doesn't really get any better than saying "we don't know."

On the other hand, how hard would it be to say that Joseph practiced polygamy in secret. We don't know why it was in secret, but ultimately he revealed it to others and it was practiced openly. There I just inoculated 95% of the class.

Or how about saying while it was long believed that Joseph translated the Pearl of Great Price from ancient records, we now know that these we in fact Egyptian funerary scrolls. We don't know whether Joseph believed he was translating or whether this was just a tool to receive revelation, but we do know that revelation can come in many forms and regardless of the method we can seek a witness from the Holy Ghost as to whether the things taught in this book are true. Inoculated.

I could go on and on. This doesn't have to take over the class. It can just be candid approaches in the manual to some uncomfortable subjects as they arise, being clear about what we know, what we don't and what we can learn from it. The gloss I just put on two big problem areas above would be more than satisfactory to most people, and no one could any longer say they felt as though it was covered up.

This is just like anything else. Either we get out front and characterize these things, or the only characterizations available will be from the mouths of our enemies.

These are all good questions.

Let's look at the landscape.

The Church provides "uplifting" yet "sanitized" historical reports and doctrinal explanations.

Members are discouraged from participating in small groups religious study. I remember a First Presidency letter to that effect.

Many interesting but difficult facts exist for which the sanitized version of events do not account.

So if members are not to discuss or study these things in small groups, and if we are not supposed to discuss these things, what are we supposed to do, close our minds and pretend they don't exist because Big Brother Bureaucracy will take care of you?

We're painting ourselves into an untenable position. There must be reasonable outlets for ordinary members to explore these questions. We can let the anti's do it, or we can do it ourselves.

I don't know what the ideal venue is. I mentioned some other possibilities previously ... maybe there's additional options, I don't know.

The 3-hour block is intended to be for theological-based building of testimonies and faith. Tell me how a discussion on the controversy surrounding Adam-God, on the history of Joseph's polygamous relationships, on modern Egyptology's analysis of the Abraham papyri, on the varied and confusing contrasts between the First Vision accounts helps me:

- Be filled with love toward God and man
- Become a better parent to my children
- Gain a deeper understanding of the atonement, and its personal implications for me
- Offer more meaningful prayers
- Reach out more effectively to the poor, needy, sick, and afflicted
- Discern the Spirit more easily

These are the things the gospel is made of, not the details you're talking about. These are the things that convert, and retain conversion. These are the doctrines that form the rock the proverbial wise man builds upon. This is what inoculates.

The other is more liable to raise questions than "inoculate" against them. If someone wants them raised, like Dan's friend, then raise them in a different forum. The Sunday meetings we attend each week are not that forum.

Testimonies are tried in all kinds of ways, Leb. Build your house on the rock.

Your hubris comment is uncalled for.

I understand where you are coming from, though I disagree. I think that we DO uplift by preventing harm. Again, saying that you don't center your worship around these things is a straw man. Clearly you don't make that the focus. All I am talking about it tweaking the teaching materials to be more candid about these issues in context. It may not even come up every week.

Certainly I see that point that worship centers around inviting the spirit and feeling uplifted. But do you really believe that what I am suggesting here excludes that possibility?

I think what you're suggesting has the possibility of being a bigger distraction than you think. And I didn't say anything about "centering worship" ... I'm speaking of these items in the context we've been discussing them.

Appropriate historical background is perfectly fine, but I really don't see a need to ever introduce as a part of curriculum, from the pulpit or teacher's lecturn, the 3 different versions of the First Vision. I'm frankly amazed that you think doing so "prevents harm."

The substance of the issue aside, have you not read the plethora of posts on CG complaining about the lack of preparation and poor teaching skills of many class teachers? Have you ever been in a church class where the discussion gets irretrievably sidetracked by a completely irrelevant doctrinal topic? Even if the church did adopt the approach you're talking about, I'm not sure a lay membership is up to the challenge.

And let me emphasize: I'm not advocating a moratorium on all discussion. Just not during the 3-hour block.

If factual history is unimportant, with respect to spiritual and uplifting doctrinal discussions, why do they teach church history in Sunday School? Why do we spend so much time on the storyline in the Book of Mormon and the New Testament?

Because the factual background is relevant to the context of the spiritual teachings.

If facts are relevant to the context of the teachings, why isn't it important to get the facts right?

Or why don't we give some information on the varying viewpoints on certain factual assertions?

Basically, what Tex seems to be saying is that the facts don't matter, just that people walk away feeling good. We can make up the facts as we go along.

If the members feel good and like the story, it doesn't matter because it promotes faith.

Tex: "Appropriate historical background is fine."

SoCalCoug: WHAT?? You don't want the facts??? You don't want the background??

Archaea: Yeah! Yeah! Facts don't matter to Tex!

Nice demagoguery, boys. Two thumbs up.

Tex:

It is not a bad thing, but it shouldn't be in SS.

Several: Then where should it be?

Tex: Look, it isn't a bad thing, but not in SS.

Several: then where?

Tex: Don't be a demagogue.

...

Honestly, creek, you're above this.