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Posted on June 7, 2019 June 8, 2019 by RickB — Leave a comment
Revelatory Whiplash (Part 3 of 4)
https://media.blubrry.com/gospeltangents/p/content.blubrry.com/gospeltangents/285-WhiplashB.mp3
(Updated-Fixed mp3-link) When the Nov 2015 policy was announced, many LDS Church members were hurt to learn that children of gay parents couldn't be baptized, and gay couples were considered in apostasy. Fast forward to April 2019 and the policy was reversed, causing joy among some church members, and pain from other dues to the quick nature of the change. Still others were outraged at the reversal. Some church members may have felt a bit of revelatory whiplash at the sudden changes. Dr. Greg Prince will talk more about the pain caused by the Policy and its reversal.
GT: I know, some people made an interesting observation last night at your book signing, that there was not a single mention of that [in General Conference]. Why do you think that was?
Greg: I think that's because they had good input from Public Affairs, that if you're going to announce something like that, which is not real cheery news for the institution, because you're erasing something that people thought was permanent, when you called it a revelation three years earlier. The way to do it, essentially, is what the government does when it has bad news, you announce it after five o'clock on a Friday afternoon, so that by Monday, people have pretty much moved on. By announcing it a couple days before General Conference, and then not mentioning it, it became non-news. I think that was a good move on their part.
GT: So, I know a lot of people, I know that I was very happy with the announcement. But I know a lot of people have been just as upset, and I think the main reason why is because there was no apology. I know Elder Oaks is often quoted as, "The church doesn't apologize."[1] Do you think it would have been a Public Relations win if the church had said we know there's been some damage done here, or do you agree with Elder Oaks, "The church just doesn't apologize."
Greg: No, I don't agree with that. I think they should apologize on multiple things, and it would have been a P.R. win, if they had said humbly, "We apologize for the damage that this has done," because demonstrably it did a lot of damage. Families were ripped apart. I think there's good evidence that more than a few people took their lives over this, and you can't undo that by reversing the policy. That's the real residual damage of this thing. It's not like okay, we went there, now we've come back, now let's go on and life goes on as it did before, but it doesn't. You step in something and you step out of it, but you still got it in your shoes, and that's where we are? How do you undo that kind of damage? It also creates a dilemma that may even affect the orthodox church member more than the progressive church member, and that is, "Wait a minute, you told us this was revelation, and now three years later, you're saying it's back to where we were?" That creates a real dilemma.
GT: I have actually seen some orthodox members say, "I think the church is now in apostasy."
Greg: Yes. It's an unforced error, but, nonetheless, it's something that they're going to have to deal with, and it has repercussions because it affects the whole brand of revelation. If people thought that something being called revelation conferred permanence to it, now it becomes much more relative, and it has a ripple effect beyond that particular revelation. It calls into a question other [revelations] and say, "Well, how unchangeable is the rest of it?" In my mind, changeability is bedrock for Mormonism, but it's something that makes most church members really nervous. They will embrace the concept of continuing revelation, but they're really hesitant to accept change. It's a paradox.
[1] See https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2122123&itype=cmsid
Check out our conversation….
The reversal of the 2015 Exclusion policy earlier this year has caused a bit of revelatory whiplash among more orthodox Church members.
Don't miss our previous conversations with Greg.
284 – The Christian Right & LGBT Fight
283 – Mixing Church & Politics in Gay Fight
Categories: Greg Prince, GT Podcast, iTunes, LDS Leaders, Mormon History, Theology
Tags: Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA, Family Proclamation, Gay Hawaii, gay LDS, gay Mormons, Gay Rights, Hawaii LGBT, LDS Church & Politics, Mormon Church, Mormon Proposition, orthodox Mormons question, Proclamation on the Family, Prop 22, Prop 8, revelation, whiplash
The Christian Right & LGBT Fight (Part 2 of 4)
https://media.blubrry.com/gospeltangents/p/content.blubrry.com/gospeltangents/284-ChristianRt-LGBT.mp3
It's not just the LDS Church that has had a difficult time dealing with gay rights. The Christian right is struggling with the issue as well. Dr. Greg Prince serves on the Board of Directors for a Methodist seminary near Washington, D.C.
https://youtu.be/FmaaUqUBHw4
Greg: The Methodists have a heap of trouble on this. In February of this year, they had what is termed a Called General Conference. They normally have general conferences once every four years. But they can have a special conference, and they did it for one issue, and that was LGBTQ. There were really three elements that they were considering during this conference. One is how do we deal with religious talk about gays? Do we brand them as apostates? Do we brand them as sinners? The second was, will we allow the ordination of gay clergy, and the third was, will we allow the performing of gay marriages?
The Conservatives prevailed, and that was primarily because of Africa. Forty-five percent of the delegates to the conference were from Africa, and that vote which was strongly homophobic, combined with the delegates from the American South prevailed, and it put the Methodist Church in a more homophobic stance than they had been prior to the conference. The other alternative that was put forward and voted down, was called the One Church proposal, and that was written primarily by the head of our Board of Governors. So, he was front and center in the debate, and he and other delegates from Wesley were just devastated with the outcome. It puts them in a much more difficult position, organizationally, than the LDS Church right now, because there's a very real possibility of permanent schism, that the United Methodist Church might not wind up being very united anymore. They're trying to work out some kind of a compromise that can avoid that, and when I went to the board meeting earlier this week, Tom looked at me and he said, "I never thought I'd see the day when the Methodists would make the Mormons look progressive."
In our next conversation, we'll talk about how the Christian Right deals with gay rights, and specifically discuss what happened in the Prop 8 battle in California.
GT: Okay, so, by November, the church with a coalition of the Catholic Church and some other organizations–now, one of the things that I found interesting last night was you said that that the Mormon Church combined with the Catholic Church and some evangelical organizations for some sort of a front organization, and then you said that they all said, "Well, we're behind you," but they weren't.
Greg: This went back to 2000, and it was reminiscent of Lucy and the football.
GT: Okay.
Greg: I won't lift up the football this time. And every time Charlie Brown fell for it, and every time she lifted up the football and he wound up on his back. So in 2000, the other churches said, "We're in this together," but the LDS Church wound up carrying all the water. In 2008, they said, "No, this time, we're really in this together," and the LDS Church wound up carrying most of the water. Because the money was given to a front organization, it's very difficult to figure out how large a role church members played in financing Prop 8. The best estimates are at least 50% of the $40 million, that the Yes on 8 Movement collected came from Latter-day Saints. It could have been substantially more than 50%, but we know that much just from reverse engineering because the donors' contributions were registered with the California Secretary of State, and a group of innovative church members looked at that list and started disseminating it to their network throughout the state, and identifying church members and then tabulating the amount of money collectively that hadn't been given by them.
The Christian Right is also struggling with gay marriage. Greg Prince tells interesting story about the Methodist Church.
Don't miss our previous conversation with Greg!
Categories: Catholic, Gay-Mormon Issues, Greg Prince, GT Podcast, iTunes, Matt Harris, Mormon History
Tags: Christian Right, DOMA, Family Proclamation, Gay Hawaii, gay LDS, gay Mormons, Gay Rights, Greg Prince, Hawaii LGBT, LDS Church & Politics, Methodist, Methodist seminary, Mormon Church, Mormon Proposition, Proclamation on the Family, Prop 22, Prop 8
Posted on June 1, 2019 by RickB — Leave a comment
Mixing Church & Politics in LGBT Fight (Part 1 of 4)
https://media.blubrry.com/gospeltangents/p/content.blubrry.com/gospeltangents/283-Church-Politics.mp3
I'm excited to have Greg Prince back on the show! We're going to talk about his new book, Gay Rights and the Mormon Church and we will discuss the history of LDS Church policy toward gays, and get into not only Prop 8 in California, but Prop 22 as well. We will also talk about the legal battles in Hawaii that led to federal legislation prohibiting gay marriage. But why did Greg write this book on church & politics?
Initially, I thought I would write a book about Prop 8 and the Mormon Church's role in it. Because even though people knew that there had been a role, there had not been anything published that tried to take a comprehensive look at that. When I started with Prop 8, I quickly began to realize that Prop 8 wasn't told whole story. It reached backwards into Prop 22, which was similar legislation in California eight years earlier and that, in turn, was related to the Hawaii lawsuit that began in the early 1990s, which was really the first time when the courts took up the issue of marriage equality, in any serious fashion, enough so that people thought that that would be the turning point.
He'll answer that in our next conversation….
Greg Prince details the history of LDS political fights over gay marriage from the 1990s through today.
Don't miss our previous discussion with Greg!
104: When did we start Ordaining Young Men?
103: Naturalist Explanation for Word of Wisdom?
102: Early LDS Priesthood: Similar to Ancient Christianity?
101: Ailing Church Leaders: "Not Ideal Governance."
100: The 4 LDS Leadership Vacuums – What Happened?
094: "There is Nothing in LDS Theology that Justifies Whacking Infants" (POX)
093: Greg Prince on History of LDS Policy Toward Gays
Categories: Gay-Mormon Issues, Greg Prince, GT Podcast, iTunes, Mormon History
Tags: Christian Right, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church of Latter Day Saints, Gay Hawaii, gay LDS, gay Mormons, Gay Rights, Hawaii LGBT, Latter-day Saints, LDS, LDS Church, LDS Church & Politics, Methodist, Methodist seminary, Mormon, Mormon Church, Mormon history, Mormon Proposition, Prop 22, Prop 8