How weird... I thought all the LP boards were a thing of the past. Something possessed me to see if they'd changed somehow, and here they are... sort of...
Well, I hate to say I told 'em so (okay, I really don't), but here's what I wrote about this policy and its chances for lasting very long: <Remember how I said that I thought in 20 years whoever the leader of the Mormons is will have a "revelation" and change the policy for gay people? I think this may have moved the timeline up. I don't think they thought this through. I don't think they realize how many families they're going to lose over this. And those families will mostly be gone forever. If they won't accept those families, the parents will just raise their kids in another religion, or no religion at all. And those kids, like most kids, will stick with the church they grew up in. Why in the world would they suddenly decide at 18 to join a church that didn't want them to begin with? Especially if they had to repudiate their parents. Ultimately most kids love their parents, and they're not going to do that. So the Mormons have just lost most of those families – and probably a certain percentage of their extended families - forever. Eventually they'll figure that out, and then it will be a revelation time.> And... bingo! The recent change is also being called revelation.
The "continuing revelation from God," phrasing was why I HAD to post even if no one read it. So I'm happy that you responded. So many words written in WE over the years, about the LDS Church and their "revelations."
Hey all! The change to LDS policy seemed to come out of nowhere, too. It was all very strange and a horrible misadventure that led to at least a dozen or more suicides in Utah among young people. And for what? Such a waste.
I find nothing shocking about this. Just as I would find nothing the least bit shocking about a similar declaration from any number of other denominations. What I did find shocking was a somewhat similar declaration coming out of the recent Special Meeting of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church. I was under the impression that fundamentalism in the UMC (rather common when I was growing up; I was raised Methodist and am now pan-denominational) was all-but-dead, except for a small handful of throwbacks. And even more shocking was the discovery, when I was looking for an early enough Easter service to allow me to "triple up" on Easter morning*, that the UMC congregation geographically closest to my home is affiliated with the most reactionary wing of the denomination. The history of Methodism is filled with schisms and reunifications; there may very well be another schism on the horizon. _____ *St. Wilfrid's Episcopal's Easter Vigil was the beginning of Easter for me, for many years, but this year, they moved their Easter Vigil from the traditional 0-dark-thirty, with the transition to the first Mass at literally the crack of dawn, to just after sunset Saturday evening, the earliest permissible time.
