LDS Inoculation - Good or Bad?

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Tex

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

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?

[creekster]

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?

[Indy Coug]

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?

[Goatnapper'96]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

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.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

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?

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.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

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.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

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

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

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

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.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

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?

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.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Tex

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.

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.