Today we tackle the Elder and Sister Renlund Devotional from January 13th 2019. We dissect the Renlunds two parables and their commentary about doubts and those who have them. Along the way we tackle their comparing the Church to a Dilapidated Dinghy as well as their concept of Church Wack-A-Mole. This is a three part series and we hope you enjoy!!!
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Might I suggest we cut Elder and Sister Rendlund some slack, after all the ship is in might stead need of repairs and they are busy piloting the ship to eternal life.
We’ll get there… you will find out that they were right all along after we die. That’s the test of life… will you be true and faithful no matter what. Kind of like marriage, right?
Excellent podcast, I can’t wait for the other two!
RFM and Bill, I like your own parables of what the dilapidated dinghy and captain realistically reveal, stand for, which relates to what the church still tries to hide but can’t. What a perfect allegory of the church and it’s “Masters over men” after all! Your analogies are Much more Christlike and truthful. Get the hell away from this deaf, deceptive “only captain who can save you” who misleads and lives higher than he leads you on to believe.
This captain would “Lovingly” hog tie you, give you 50 lashes and boot you off the boat with lies and threat in real Mormon life – lovingly “Burn you at the Stake (center),” which is sooo underhandedly bullying, forcing salvation (the other brother’s plan) and thus “Christlike!”
The truth shall set us free, or a kind old deaf savior slave-master captain (with no rudder to Christ) who volunteers to be our savior, which the real Jesus warned of in so many ways?
Maybe the kind old deaf captain who can’t go wrong really is exactly like Mormon Leaders, a ravening Pharisee in sheep’s clothing here to save the flock of all ewe sheeple who can’t see each other on his eternal salvation dinghy.
It was a very traumatic experience for me twenty years ago as I began to understand how wrong the correlated material was that the Church was serving up. It wasn’t until many years later when Greg Prince’s biography of Leonard Arrington came out that I understood how deliberate the lies really were. But at that time when I was weighing whether or not to resign, I paid close attention to that year’s general conference talks. There was one talk delivered specifically for people like me. The message was that the I had lost my belief in the institution because I was materialistic. The problem was me, not the Church and that I needed repent and come back to god. So with that “inspired” from god’s representatives I sent in my resignation letter. And while most of my family, immediate and extended, are still active believing members (who by the way are unwilling to vet out the Church’s claims) it is clear in their mind that apostates don’t lost their morels when they step away.
I’ve been thinking about the idea of sign seeking since listening to this episode, and it seems to me that there’s a difference between expecting God to fulfill a promise that he’s extended (or through a prophet) versus expecting God to fulfill demand that we’ve generated on our own.
This has actually been rolling around in my head since the General Conference Death March episode, because I think that the scriptures are fairly clear when they encourage us to identify God’s prophets by the miracles they produce.
I’ve always felt like faith was expecting the signs and wonders that God has promised will identify his prophets, because I didn’t set that expectation. I’m not demanding that the church Elders produce miracles to preface my belief, but I feel perfectly comfortable identifying the absence of miracles as a sign that God has chosen to not fulfill a promise.
A second thought, I’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea that praying about the Book of Mormon and receiving an affirming answer would then logically mean that the whole package was infallibly true. On my mission, it was pretty common to end that first discussion with, ‘Once you know that the Book of Mormon is true, you’ll know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, that he founded a true church, that all the prophets in that church are true prophets, and that you need to get baptized.’
Receiving a witness of the Book of Mormon simply means that the book is true. Whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet, would require petitioning another witness from the Spirit. Receiving a spiritual witness of Joseph Smith would simply narrow options down to the branch of restoration Christianity that stemmed from Joseph Smith’s prophetic work… Not just the sect that’s been the most successful. Knowing the LDS Church was true would require spiritual affirmations of Brigham Young, John Taylor and so on down the line.
In light of Sister Renlund’s reasoning: Would you trust a money digger, a con artist, a narcissist, a sex offender, or a used car salesman to lead you in your spiritual growth? But wait, Elder and Sister Renlund are dressed so handsomely (even color-coordinated) and are so well-versed and composed; therefore, they must know what they’re talking about. … Please, allow me laugh until I cry!!!
AS LONG AS WE REMAIN IGNORANT OF THE FACT THAT ALL TOO OFTEN THOSE WHO CLAIM TO PROTECT US FROM FEAR ARE ACTUALLY MANIPULATING OUR FEARS FOR THEIR OWN BENEFITS, THEN WE WILL CONTRIBUTING TO THE MISFORTUNE OF THE WORLD.
(The doubter) interesting how they want to portray the doubter, a
big difference between just a plain doubter and a true seeker.
Ironic … teaching pathway to Godhood and you can’t even use critical thinking.
bill, I liked the work that you doing specially around the safe space.