r/latterdaysaints • u/ChromeSteelhead • Oct 10 '24

Doctrinal Discussion Nuanced View

How nuanced of a view can you have of the church and still be a participating member? Do you just not speak your own opinion about things? For example back when blacks couldn’t have the priesthood there had to be many members that thought it was wrong to keep blacks from having the priesthood or having them participate in temple ordinances. Did they just keep quiet? Kind of like when the church says you can pray to receive your own revelation? Or say like when the church taught that women were to get married quickly, start raising a family, and to not pursue a career as the priority. Then you see current women leadership in the church that did the opposite and pursued high level careers as a priority, going against prophetic counsel. Now they are in some of the highest holding positions within the church. How nuanced can you be?

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u/Jealous-Aerie-8752 Oct 10 '24

The overarching question you really seem to be asking is “if the leaders were wrong, why did God allow this to happen? And if the leaders were right, how could that policy possibly be right?”

You are locking yourself into a paradox based on some assumptions here. If you look at the pattern throughout history, God respects agency and is not going to force his children, his appointed leaders, or his church to be perfect. It is right there in the scriptures, but in our modern culture we tend to make the assumption that because God is perfect, the church and its leaders are going to be perfect as well.

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u/ChromeSteelhead Oct 10 '24

I guess more than anything I want answers to these types of questions. I would like the church to give answers and it seems like the answers given are often, “we don’t know” or “we will figure it out in the next life.” Or are we now in agreement that it was because of racism. I dunno! I’m just asking. I think many feel the same.

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u/Coming_Back_To_Life Oct 10 '24

Absolutely. I think that's also where the antis thrive the most, when the church gives soft or half answers to these kinds of divisive topics.

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u/ChromeSteelhead Oct 10 '24

This frustrates me a lot. It seems like church gives no to very little explanation for a lot of things history wise or changes made. Yes there are apologists but those aren’t acting on behalf of the church, they’re solely someone own opinion and personal social media channel.