20170204 letter to
LaodeciaV24-summ
Book Summary, for
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Restoring the
Restoration:
Repairing 200 years
of LDS Doctrinal Drift
and Reaping the Benefits
and Reaping the Benefits
Introduction – Our duty as members today
I personally believe
that the most important question any one of us can have individually,
concerning our membership in the church, is what the scriptures tell us our
role should be today, and whether we are doing it, or at least have a plan to
do it. Are we nothing more than bystanders to sacred history, or do we have
some specific assignments we should learn about and execute?
Is a restoration of the restoration possible?
It is very early to
be proposing a complete solution to this gigantic religious problem of
seemingly inevitable doctrinal deterioration, but a hint from the Book of
Revelation might be put to good use here. I would like to propose a new and
very important mission for the 144,000 high priests mentioned in the Book of
Revelation. A large proportion of the LDS church members in the United States
are said to be from the tribe of Ephraim, based on their patriarchal blessings.
If the 12,000 high priests from the tribe of Ephraim were to qualify themselves
to be theological scholars to keep the church on the straight and narrow path,
avoiding any serious deviations from the original and scriptural gospel, they
would do the church and the world a great service. The full set of 144,000 high
priests from the 12 tribes are to "administer the everlasting gospel"
and "to bring as many as will come to the church of the firstborn."
(D&C 77:11)
The solution and mission I suggest at
the moment is to set up this group of scholars who can study all the scriptures
and all of church history and then constantly monitor the behavior and
practices and policies of the church and its members and point out any possible
or potential deviations. I would call this a member audit function.
Summary List
A few of the problems with today's church
Lessons and hints
from the Book of Revelation
If we are looking to the
future, and our proper place in it, one of the more interesting places to look
is in the Book of Revelation which is all about the last days and the end
times.
Premillennialism
versus post-millennialism
Does Christ come the
second time to begin the millennium or to end it? If he comes to begin it, we
have no duty to do anything unusual; all we need to do is wait and everything
will be taken care of for us like passive children. If he comes to end it, it
is our job to create it in the first place, and that is rather a large and
exciting responsibility
The Gathering and Building up of Zion
It appears that the
essence of the gospel program on earth is the gathering together of all
believers for mutual encouragement and strength. This has been true for
thousands of years. But the worldwide Gathering was informally canceled by a
single obscure speech in 1977.
The very nature of
Christ and his teachings
For 6000 years, Christ
always taught and acted vigorously against kings. Do we really expect him to
come as a literal King, like the worldly King David, when he comes for the
second time?
The 144,000,
priesthood keys, and a distributed church
Is today's church
improperly using the concept of keys to maintain an absolute worldwide monopoly
of priesthood power and therefore all the associated absolute administrative
power over all resources? As with all monopolies, that would result in an
extremely inefficient organization, with extreme barriers to entry, and an
overwhelming drag on member religious productivity.
Issues that are more observable and measurable
Paid Ministry
Christ was adamantly
against a paid ministry in any conceivable form, but the LDS church has
embraced it enthusiastically. (See article 8, "The Paid Ministry Issue," for more complete information.)
God as creator
Did God create the Earth,
all the animals, and man, or did atheistic evolution create all those things?
The LDS church seems undecided, and offers no resistance to the constantly
encroaching philosophy of atheism. This is a perfect example of the damage that
can be done to the gospel by being lukewarm. (See article 9, "Some Logic Applied to Religion and Evolution," and article 10, "The Debate About Evolution is Over," for more complete information.)
Freedom
-- Individual freedom as the "ground of being" for LDS theology
The LDS church could not
exist without general freedom and freedom of religion in the United States, but
the LDS church is unwilling to vigorously defend political freedom. Is there a
logical and practical problem there? (
Education
Today's church is
perfectly happy to have the government pay for the education of all its
children in public schools. There appears to be a very strong link between that
situation and the fact that about two-thirds of all Christian children,
including Mormons, move away from the church.
Organization and
Constitution
Even though the LDS Scriptures
incorporate the U.S. Constitution by reference, the church shows little respect
for that Constitution and does not incorporate its principles into its
operations. It apparently considers itself to be a totally autonomous, closely-held,
for-profit business corporation, with no government-style duties or
characteristics.
Secularization
by incorporation
In 1923, the church headquarters
abandoned its nearly 100-year-old member-controlled association form and
unilaterally adopted a state-linked corporate form which denies all member
involvement in church government, breaking all legal links between members and
church headquarters. It went from being a creature of the members to being a
creature of the state, which automatically introduces a relentlessly increasing
secularism, as we can easily see today.
Administrative
inefficiencies -- genealogy work
Even though the
church could complete its genealogy responsibilities for the United States in
one year and for the entire world in 10 years, it has chosen methods which will
ensure that it never finishes
anything – not the United States and not the world. At a total resource cost of
$2 billion a year, it has wasted at least $38 billion in resources so far, and
the current process will continue for hundreds of years with essentially no
change. The current cost to create a new unique entry in temple records is
about $2000, as opposed to about $2 using better methods which have been available
for many years.
Administrative
inefficiencies -- missionary work
The current "all
in" cost for each new long-term member is an average of about $400,000.
Or, put another way, the church is spending about 97.5% of its resources on
itself and on its headquarters, with missionary work being at the bottom of the
priority list.
Administrative
inefficiencies -- representing a people and their welfare
If the LDS headquarters
were truly acting on behalf of its members rather than strictly for its
separate corporate self, it would have arranged about 80 years ago for church
members to have received $10 trillion in pension payments by today through
receiving easily arranged commercial payments which would have been five times
as large as the current Social Security pension payments. Notice that $10
trillion is about 2000 years at the church's current budget levels.
Additional Articles and Other Materials
Over the past few
years I have written a large number of articles, which have ended up more as experiments,
or memoranda to my own self and for my own files, rather than being used as
current messages to the public, although part of the search was to try to
construct an article that might be suitable for publication. I have covered so
much material on so many topics that it would be a very time-consuming and
boring process to try to take this material and collate and concentrate it into
a textbook-style treatment of the current doctrinal and administrative problems
of the church. Rather than spend many painful months trying to do that work of
consolidation, basically taking the enthusiasm and spontaneity of my earlier
writing out of these articles, I thought I would just publish the articles as
they existed in past years. There will be some inconsistencies, representing my
changes of understanding and attitudes over time, but they do generally all go
in the same direction.
1. Should the modern church strive to fulfill ancient
prophecy? -- 11pp -- p19
The prophetic
assignment of the restored church to change the nation and the world is clear
in the Book of Mormon, although those ancient charges are essentially ignored
today.
20160415 Third Nephi 21 22 29-V10-trim
2. Making Mormonism the Mighty Force for Good It Was
Intended To Be -- 6pp -- p30
The church needs to
adopt the religious policies and organization that allowed the church to grow
quickly just after the life of Christ and for 80 years after Joseph Smith had
his first vision.
20161117 tithing and taxesV32
3. Are All LDS Church 200th Birthdays Terminal? -- 5pp -- p36
At the 200-year mark
after the restoration in our time, the church has deviated from the gospel in
many ways. In all known past cases, that has led to the end of the church.
Without vigorous changes, the same result should soon be expected in our time.
20170123 Are All LDS Church 200th Birthdays
Terminal-V17
4. The LDS McDonald's Strategy -- 2pp
-- p41
The church sees its
role as just an ordinary business seeking customers from around the world. It actively
avoids changing other societies, even though its scriptural assignment is to
change all societies greatly.
20161226 church is McDonaldsV03
5. Church Grand Strategy Considered: Continually
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- 15pp
-- p43
The church's current
"big tent" attitude towards various conflicting ideologies dilutes
its teachings and actions enough to
completely neutralize it. It must change many things to be able to execute The
Gathering and to Build Up Zion.
20160523 Church Grand StrategyV17
6. The LDS Church's role in the modern world -- Version 1
-- 5pp -- p59
The church is
assigned to change the world, and the extensive resources needed to do that
task are available.
20160818 church role in the worldV17-trim
7. The LDS Church's role in the modern world -- Version 2 -- 37pp
-- p64
In order to actually
meet the strenuous commitments the Scriptures have placed on the church in our
day, I believe there are four major things which are needed, none of which we
actually have today:
1. An accurate and comprehensive version of
the true church
1.1 Hiding the critical doctrine of Freedom,
contravening the Scriptures
1.2 Accepting a paid ministry, contravening
the Scriptures
1.3 Failing to maintain an accurate
understanding of church history and related doctrine
1.4 Accepting atheistic evolution, which
"proves" there is no God
2. Finding the necessary resources to
influence the world
3. Unity of purpose on all major religious
and social issues
4. A comprehensive plan, including all
second-level information which may not be included explicitly in the
description of the true church
20160825 the
answerV26-trim-trim
8. The Paid Ministry Issue -- 28pp -- p101
Although the
Scriptures are unanimous in condemning a paid ministry, the current church has
embraced it enthusiastically and there are many negative consequences of that
choice.
20170111 paid ministry for FAIR Mormon
siteV17-trim
9. Some Logic Applied to Religion and Evolution -- 9pp
-- p130
The church cannot seriously
be the church of God if it is not willing to constantly affirm the role of God
in creating the earth and everything on it, especially including humans, but
the church today ignores that issue.
20170125 Evolution issueV05
10. The Debate about Evolution Is Over -- 2pp
-- p139
In about 74
scientific studies beginning in the 1950s, evolution has been proven not to
apply to humans.
20130826The-Debate-About-Evolution-Is-Over
11. After 200 years, LDS theology is still poorly
defined: Part 1 -- Freedom -- 5pp -- p141
Political freedom is
crucial to living the gospel correctly, as taught unequivocally in LDS
Scriptures. The LDS church today sees no reason to promote freedom, even though
it could not exist today if other Christians, including early church members,
had not put enormous effort into establishing political freedom.
20160906 LDS church after 200
years-part2-V17-trim
12. The Silent Prophets
-- 19pp -- p146
The church members
and many other people in the world are calling for prophets to intervene in our
failing society, but our current leaders are too busy managing our current "McDonald's
hamburgers" operations around the world to engage with the world as other
prophets have done in the past and as it has been prophesied that it will happen
in our time.
20141027 The Silent ProphetsV04
13. Two Versions of the 12th Article of Faith -- 3pp -- p166
As part of its
worldwide strategy, the church today emphasizes the children's version of the
12th Article of Faith and ignores the more robust adult version available in
the Scriptures.
20161017 two x 12th article-V04
14. The Real Reasons Why Mormons are not Christians
anymore -- 4pp
-- p169
The LDS church has
abandoned the cause of political freedom, the signature cause which the
Christian religion invented and has prosecuted for hundreds of years.
20170105 Mormons are not ChristianV07-trim
15. The Cost of a Soul
-- 2pp --
p174
The current cost to
the church of a new long-term member is about $400,000, a grossly unreasonable
figure.
20161229 cost of a soulV15
16. The Minimal Modern Church: A Member Strategic Audit
Report, Volume
I --
5pp -- p176
The modern church headquarters
looks out only for itself and displays minimal idealism and altruism, even
towards its own members.
20160208 The Minimal Modern Church-V21.rtf
17. "Hastening the Work:" Church Management
Failures And Their Costs To Fix -- 10pp
-- p181
Fourteen areas of
church policy and practice are poorly defined and managed.
20150510 how to spend $200 billion on good
thingsV25
18. Can the LDS Church Ever Become a World Church? --
11pp -- p190
Being considered a
world religion requires that there be a civilization based on the values taught
by that religion. Only when the LDS church has created a gospel-based
civilization (often referred to as "Zion") can it be considered a
world church.
20140721 Can the LDS Church Ever Become a
World ChurchV21
19. A Suggestion For An LDS Member Constitutional
Convention: A Church Trajectory Review -- 16pp -- p201
The voluminous scriptures
we have been given today provide a "constitution" for the gospel. The
teachings and practices of the church today have deviated greatly from that
inspired "constitution," even though we have that
"constitution" before us at all times. Apparently, only vigorous
member involvement can rectify the deterioration caused by the many destructive
administrative changes.
20160313 Catholicism-liteV03-V20
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