[Surfah]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Having been around politics, management and law, the Church leaders do a very admirable job of governing a large mass of now dissimilar persons. They simplify doctrine because that's what a large body wants and needs. The more complicated stuff is there for personal divination.

Here is the key which most members miss. We are to follow the prophetic counsel, learn the Spirit until we receive constant personal revelation consistent with general guidelines and we are in fact prophets for our own domains.

History, any accurate history, never lends itself to a Sunday School version.

Originally Posted by All-American

I think the Mormon church, its scholars, and its people are being as open regarding its history as ever. Bushman's book is one of the best examples of this. We have plenty of people trying to figure out to what extent the Lamanites were the primary anscestors of Native Americans. As for me, it bothers me not one whit that we have left the language as saying they were. The question is undefined and unsettled-- why retract the statement now?

Besides, if I find out some day that the Lamanites actually comprise only 1% of the ancestry of Native Americans, that doesn't disprove the book of Mormon. The reason the church does not focus on the warts of its history is because they are ultimately unimportant. Anything Joseph Smith did, Brigham Young taught, or Bishop Fillintheblank said to you is subordinate to the ultimate question regarding the truth of the Book of Mormon. That book cannot be disproven with one questionable statement written in the introduction.

The veracity of the church rises and falls on the truth of the Book of Mormon. If a fatal flaw can be found in that book and exposed for the world to see, the church would crumble apart. Instead of hiding the book and its potential to destroy the church, we instead ask the world to read it and have been doing so for 170 years. Just this year the prophet has pleaded with the members of the church to read the Book of Mormon. That to me is a strong argument in favor of the book.

If you're looking for a perfect book, a perfect prophet, a perfect bishop, or a perfect church, you will not find it, and none of the above claim to be it. My experience has been that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be-- another testament of Jesus Christ, and through obedience to the precepts in the book, a man may become closer to God than by any other book. I've seen it in my life, and in many other lives. If the book of Mormon is true, and I believe that it is, a hundred thousand mistakes may plague Joseph Smith and the LDS church throughout the remainder of its history without changing the ultimate fact that he was a true prophet and the church is Christ's church restored in our day.

Amen.