Tags

Share this Podcast

Comments 5

  1. Dan, thank you for this podcast and thank you for citing Parker Palmer.

    For many years I held the very traditional LDS “party line” views and opinions on homosexuality. I was very “Boyd Packerish” in my thinking and I had no compassion or empathy at all for my LGBT brothers and sisters.

    There were a number of experiences that caused me to do a complete turn around and become an ally who fully supports complete LGBT rights. However, one of the main “eye opening”/”turning point” experiences was when a good friend introduced me to the works of Parker Palmer and I read his wonderful book “A Hidden Wholeness”. In it he recounts the story of Stuart Matis’s suicide at his LDS Stake center. I had heard Matis’s story before, but this time it really hit me. Much like Joseph Smith’s experience with James, I read it again and again and never did any passage of a book come with more power to a heart than that did at that time to mine. It was a real life changing moment. I keep a copy of the book in my desk to this day.

    Thank you sir for these wonderful podcasts.

    1. I knew Stuart and his family from our Ward here in the SF Bay area, and still have the program from the service that celebrated his life. Soon after the family moved to Utah.

  2. Nice —–??—-talk?—Dan. You are a very good person. I’m not sure where I am in the gaper, border liner member of the Church. I’ll have to listen to that again. I live in Minnesota surrounded by corn fields and yet have nothing to do with them. I’ve been in the Church since 1958 when my parents joined when I was eight years old. Somehow, throughout the years, I started getting very interested in doctrine, not Church doctrine, but what our Sunday School class is called, Gospel Doctrine. I would have to say that I believe all the church doctrine and I use the Churchs’ holy scriptures to find the gospel doctrine. I suppose what would get me into trouble would be interpretation in the scriptures, by me, as apposed to, by them. The big problem starts when what I am saying also can appose what the leaders are saying and preaching. The members don’t pray to the general authorities but they, most definitely, worship them. Everything the general authorities say is true ——-and that’s what I say——–very much—–most of the time and yet it seems, like sometimes we can get into stuff that’s outside of this ‘very much’ stuff. I remember somebody once telling me that if I lived in Utah I would get into trouble because of that. I have often wondered if I should move to Utah.
    The LBGT stuff is another thing that bothers me. The leaders don’t bother me. It’s the members. They should read the Old Testament. Jesus Christ was in charge. Look what the eunuchs went through. I suppose if they had children before they were forced into that they wouldn’t be able to have the priesthood for ten generations. There are places where God would curse the wicked up to four generations. How many innocent people died in the flood during Noah’s time? How many babies died when Israel took the land God gave to them.
    What has happened here is that extremely ignorant people have done is taken God by the arms and shaken Him and said, ‘Shame on you. Why did you do this awful thing. You are a worthless God.’ They aren’t angry at the Church or the leaders. They are angry at Jesus. It is time that the membership needs to grow up. Do they know that the Father and the Son appeared to Joseph Smith or don’t they know that? If they don’t than they should find out or they should leave and find something else. Sometimes I think the bloggernacle is complaining town, where the complainers go to complain their lives away. And it’s down in complainers town where complainers want to stay.
    Read the scriptures and get to know your God. He has seen things we haven’t. He knows things we don’t. The problems involved here is that we don’t know how terrible some things are and have been. And what do we do? We blame the leaders. Is God talking to the leaders or isn’t He? If He isn’t talking to them than that will be His problem, not ours. If He is talking to them that will still be God’s problem, not ours. In any of those cases nothing He does is wrong. The only thing that matters is that this Church is the Church that belongs to the Savior. If it doesn’t, go find something else.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *