http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/1754786-155/mormon-lds-scripture-church-courses-curriculum

Quote from Article:

"The LDS Church is overhauling its educational approach to Mormon scriptures — and while some are cautiously optimistic, others clearly are unhappy about it.

"The new curriculum — to be taught at all LDS colleges and in Mormon institutes and seminaries — will be based on four "cornerstone" courses:

• Jesus Christ and the everlasting gospel: A study of the savior and his roles in Heavenly Father’s plan as taught across all the Utah-based faith’s standard works.

•Teachings and doctrine of the Book of Mormon: A study of the signature LDS scripture with emphasis on Christ’s ministry.

• Foundations of the restoration: A study of the key revelations, doctrine, people and events of the restored gospel. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe their faith’s founder, Joseph Smith, brought back, or restored, the pure gospel taught by the savior.

•Teachings and doctrine of the Book of Mormon: A study of the signature LDS scripture with emphasis on Christ’s ministry.

• Foundations of the restoration: A study of the key revelations, doctrine, people and events of the restored gospel. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe their faith’s founder, Joseph Smith, brought back, or restored, the pure gospel taught by the savior.

• The eternal family: A study of the central role of the family in the LDS plan of salvation as taught in the scriptures and the words of modem Mormon prophets."

Why the changes?

They want to dilute doctrine and focus on the common ground with christianity. With time, everything that stands out will be deemphasized.

TheOtherHeber Wrote:
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> They want to dilute doctrine and focus on the
> common ground with christianity. With time,
> everything that stands out will be deemphasized.


Yes and no. They want to focus on the common ground with right-wing evangelical theocrats. They do not want to focus on mainstream Protestant liberal theologians.

Selective picking & choosing. Teach only those things that reflect well with mainstream Christianity and hope people don't look too carefully at the weird Huh? stuff.

With all that's happening. It doesn't look so much like a white wash of history, doctrine, etc. But more of a rewrite to make things "fit" better with all the "questions" that keep coming up.

I smirked at calling the BoM, "the 'signature' LDS scripture." Signature? Whose signature, anyway?

We'll know they've gone "mainstream" when they stop requiring a tithe to get the temple recommend. Their unique and restrictive beliefs about, and rituals in, the temple will always set them apart from authentic Christianity.

Emphasis on Christ's ministry, focus on modern prophets, the BOM omly a "signature" book, rather than an essential or fundamental one, and Joseph Smith mentioned only in passing. Oh, it's a whitewash all right.

We have just witnessed the LDS equivalent of the first ecumenical council of Nicea.

"Teachings and doctrine of the Book of Mormon: A study of the signature LDS scripture with emphasis on Christ’s ministry."

This supposed ministry among the imaginary Nephites takes up just a few chapters in 3 Nephi and most of the words are copied from the NT. Why not just study the NT?

I notice the conspicuous absence of the bible, even though that's the book they send out to prospective members.

Guess the Bible is considered anti-Mormon propaganda. It certainly did the trick for me, so I would agree with that. If you are Mormon, stay away from the Bible or you might crash your shelf.


Kathleen Waters

On target, as always, Grammy!

they're mainstreaming to make Mitt Romney more acceptable to evangelical republicans.

Possible, but I doubt it, and here's why: Evangelicals came out in bigger numbers for Romney in 2012 than for McCain in 2008. To all but the most fundy evangelicals, Mormonism is just not that big a deal in politics...even though they see Mormonism as a theological cult, most evangelicals DO see Mormons as essentially moral people (FWIW).

Now that said, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Catholics all pretty much call Mormonism a cult. Now you have these goofy essays and people being aware of all the problems... Now, if you're honest, most churches that are growing (not the majority) are evangelical. I think you have LDS Inc. not wanting to court evangelicals or evangelical votes for Romney. I think much of the leadership basically realize that the BoM, BoA, Joseph Smith et al, are all being so discredited that even they won't be able to deny it. The house of cards is going to collapse, so they are trying to slowly BECOME theologically orthodox evangelicals before the whole house of cards falls. Not something you can pull off overnight, to be sure, not without a big schism. These guys are looking at the long-term survival of the Corporation.

If I'm right--and I might not be--I would still say it's going to fail, but the whole implosion will be even more interesting.

Notice that the "restoration" class doesn't specifically mention the D&C or Pearl of Great Price. I'm betting they want to phase out systematic study of these two scriptures because they don't want students to read all the crazy stuff in the D&C or look too closely at the BofA issues. They can also then pick and choose what they want the students to hear about vs. what they want to ignore.

The "Eternal Family" class is probably a giant temple infomercial -- but without any real discussion about garments, covenants to give everything to the church, or Masonic elements in the endowment.

As for BofMormon, they're clearly distancing from the Native American connection.

Dumbing down of its more dubious doctrines and trying to mainstream itself into modern Christianity seems to be the MO of the church these days. The problem is the temple is absolutely a sore thumb doctrinally.

Has anyone seen the new curriculum? I'm guessing not, since the article mentioned that this is all a basic outline, but I'm very interested in what is considered a "key" revelation. And as we know, today's "key" revelation is tomorrow's shoulder-shrugging "policy."