In her most recent Flunking Sainthood article, Jana Riess addresses the problem that the Mormon church is having with trust issues. She referred to a post by Kevin Barney, originally posted by Common Consent, saying, "Barney pointed out that keeping important information about history or decision-making so close to the vest is just not serving the LDS Church well in the digital age."

But then she says, "The impulse behind this circling of the wagons is well-intentioned, I think: leaders want to protect members from unnecessary pain or confusion."

http://religionnews.com/2017/04/19/mormon-leaders-have-trust-issues/

True/not true? Is she correct in this statement? Is this impulse well-intentioned? I'm too cynical to believe it. Personally, I think that the circling of wagons is simply a protective measure to further hide the truth, probably the result of a complete lack of both imagination and flexibility to intelligently react in a quickly changing world.

In other words, I think they don't got nuffin'. What once worked in the plodding age of information, delivered over the pulpit in droning talks to a mostly provincial group of people descending from a largely unsophisticated and mostly agricultural community, does not work in the digital age of quickly and widely available information, distributed to anyone with a bit of bandwidth. But well-intentioned...? My belief instead is that these guys can't handle it, so they huff and puff and blow stuff out their asses, because it's all they know.

I agree, they are not "well-intentioned." Their problem is in the truth. There is no way around the truth. If they tell the truth, people are turned off, and rightly so. If they hide the truth, people are turned off and feel deceived, and rightly so.

+1

Church members have been ex'ed for telling the truth - not perpetuating the lie. How does it make sense to break one of the Ten Commandments in order to get to heaven while denying this reward for someone who keeps this commandment against the leaderships' wishes? How can anyone consider this position to be well intentioned in any way?

The "circling of the wagons", IMO is not to protect members from pain, but instead it is to protect the leaders' asses and assets. There are intentions,and they are bad.

In Gypsy, there is a song sung by the strippers called "You Gotta Have a Gimmick." So true when you are selling something. A gimmick sets you apart. Garners interest. Makes one unique.

The Mormon church had many gimmicks. And they worked. They were the "only true church." "The restored church." They had the WoW, the Pioneers, and the Miracle of the Seagulls. They had the temples. And most of all, they had the Book of Mormon and the ruins of an ancient Central American civilization to prove it." They had the unpaid clergy. And, they had Jello.

And one by one the information age and common sense has stripped them of their gimmicks. They are no longer a peculiar people, they are an annoying and shallow people.

They have no new gimmick. You can see videos of the temple ceremony on line now and it is embarrassing. Few cling to the notion that Central America is Nephite Central as the Nephites and Lamanites achieve the status of unicorns, leprechauns and Big Foot. It turns out crickets are common and sea gulls eat them all the time. Unpaid clergy is becoming known as dangerously untrained clergy. And although they are left with the Jello, it just isn't enough even if you put pineapple and ham in the green one.

They have lost their offense strategy and they've gone on the defensive, trying to insure that everyone knows they really, really, really are a christian church and with their I'm a Mormon campaign waged a war to make sure everyone knew they were as common as anyone else. This isn't much of a gimmick.

Luckily, even the youngest of the Gerontocracy--the very Bednar himself--is as backward thinking as the rest and will help continue the demise. His only gimmick is to up the arrogance factor as he hopes that the church hangs together long enough for him to reign over at least one General Conference as the supreme leader.

Yes, cludgie. I'm with you. they huff and puff and blow stuff out their asses because it is all they know.

I really like your gimmicks thing. I never viewed it like that, but it's very correct.

"...leaders want to protect members from unnecessary pain or confusion."

In other words: "...leaders want to protect the members from finding out they've been lied to *by the leaders* for 180 years."

Exactly. It should say, " . . .leaders want to protect themselves from unnecessary pain and confusion as members more and more expect revelation rather than blather."

My thoughts exactly.

Over the years, I've watched and experienced their attitude on gays. Many people thought they were softening their stance. I watched as everyone was so excited that the church came out in support over gays about 7 months before they came up with their policy about children of gays. I knew they were up to something. I didn't believe it for one minute. Sure enough. They came out and took a step back in their policies to BEFORE I found out my "boyfriend" was gay in 1983.

They don't give a shit about the people. They are not to be trusted about ANYTHING.

Turns out that the collective Mormon kitchen was full of red herring. They loves them some red herrings, yassuh--fried, poached, smoked, or even preserved like lutefisk in lye. Or lie. (Play on words not intentional. It just works out.)

"The impulse behind this circling of the wagons is well-intentioned, I think: leaders want to protect members from unnecessary pain or confusion."

It's nonsense. It's obvious nonsense. I doubt Jana really thinks that, she's just trying to avoid a disciplinary hearing.

But then she says, "The impulse behind this circling of the wagons is well-intentioned, I think: leaders want to protect members from unnecessary pain or confusion."

In my opinion this is nonsense. Intentions, good or otherwise, have very little to do with it, because the truth about Mormonism takes Mormonism out of being Mormon. Therefore, it's simply about organization survival. If the Q12 were to ever man up, they would reduce the church to another another irrelevant, small religion. After all, isn't that what the reorganized church tried to do - take Mormonism out of being Mormon? And look what happened to it - their worldwide membership is now reduced to 250,000 members. There is no way that the Q12 want to have anything to do with that path!

Yes, they do just want to protect members from unnecessary pain.

And blacks were not admitted to the church priesthood before 1978 in order to protect the blacks themselves from retribution.

And Joseph Smith only married already-married women so he could help them financially.

And only men have the priesthood because women don't need the practice. How did that one go again? I can't quite remember.