This week in the April 2021 Liahona (Mormon church monthly magazine) the LDS church released 6 online articles attempting to coach faithful Mormons on how to better treat family members who have lost their faith in the Mormon church. I my opinion, they really are groundbreaking articles (even though they were confusingly withheld from the printed publication).

Join us on 3/26/2021 as we discuss, praise, and critique the 6 articles. I would love your feedback on the articles as well. The 6 articles are:

 

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Timecodes:

00:02:20 – Background on “The Ensign” and “The Liahona”
00:05:40 – Introduction the articles – why are they significant and how can they help you?
00:11:42 – When John went to lunch with Elder Jeffery R. Holland
00:27:34 – Destruction of families in the LDS church
00:29:36 – Why is this only a “baby step”?
00:33:32 – Highlighting the themes/messages that come from these articles
00:34:04 – Why were these articles only release digitally?
00:44:15 – 1st article – “Are You the Only Member of the Church in Your Family? You’re not alone”
01:02:50 – 2nd article – “An Unexpected Lesson From Ammon for Today’s Challenges
01:10:03 – 3rd article – “How My Heart Changed When My Brother Left the Church”
01:20:48 – Quotes from Allan Mount & censorship/editing of people writing for the Church
01:48:29 – 4th article – “Maintaining Hope and Keeping Your Marriage Strong if Your Spouse Leave the Church”
02:04:20 – 5th article – “Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Talk About Less-Active Members”
02:15:04 – 6th article – “What You Can Do When Others Don’t Believe”
02:26:45 – John’s pledge to the LDS Church
02:37:25 – Concluding remarks

10 Comments

  1. William Ellery Channing March 26, 2021 at 9:46 pm - Reply

    In the article “Maintaining Hope and Keeping Your Marriage Strong if Your Spouse Leaves the Church” a husband discusses finding a way to still love his wife and keep his marriage intact. Then at the end there is a box called “Insights from the Prophets.” That has a quote from Russell Nelson: ““If you are married to a companion who has broken his or her covenants…”

    That puts it all right back to square one. Nelson the bully boy, demeaning anyone who has a different religious opinion, and who fails to worship him as “prophet.” He won’t let anyone leave the church and keep his or her dignity intact.

    These articles are just for the purpose of establishing plausible deniability that the church really teaches that you should dump your non-believing spouse. Withholding the articles from the publication means the church really doesn’t want them distributed, like the well hidden Gospel Topics Essays.

    • Barry Richins March 28, 2021 at 1:07 am - Reply

      John, please stop making excuses by saying that you are caffeinated, when in reality your are moved by your convictions! My god , John, no one wants you to be lukewarm when dealing with such important matters. Hell, John, no one that I know of wants to be taking on what you have been doing for so many years. Sadly for you, you are the hero of the common man that has been made so in spite of your kicking and screaming and your lack of a belly for it. Your fear and suffering are real, You are just about as crazy as Don Qixote himself, who was never crazy at all. He needed unbearable courage to right unbearable wrongs perpetrated by an unbearable foe, and, as a result, he payed the price. Does the analogy not seem familiar to you, my dear friend? Much like Quixote, you have a peaceable heart., but do you think he could face giants or armies or tyrants without getting excited? F… no! Nor can you do the same, Don Juan, without the rush of needed adrenaline to face almost daily an almost unbearable foe. You are not a goddamned robot, John, nor a superhero. You are a human being, subject to the strengths and weakness of the mind and flesh. Your friends who love and respect you know who and what you are. We expect no more or no less from a fellow human being. If you cannot be who you are, then we can never know or trust you , nor love you.

      Sincerely, Barry

      Now, William, I found your comments cogent and worthy of an insightful, intelligent person. Thanks for your opinion!

      Barry

    • Ricardo Montobon March 29, 2021 at 10:46 am - Reply

      I was just about to utilize the “email us your thoughts” noted at the bottom and mention this, then thought, this would clearly put me on their radar. It could also be a cleaver phishing expedition.

  2. Ryan March 27, 2021 at 4:57 pm - Reply

    I see a small upside to the articles being anonymous.

    Because the authors are not named, the articles are far more likely to remain posted. If an author was named and then later publicly leaved the church (as sometimes happens in mixed faith marriages), I would expect the church would pull the articles because they would not want the article to trigger google searches leading readers to “apostates”, as was done with the Homers. While I’m not justifying the church’s behavior in this regard, my expectations of the church’s likely behavior makes me glad they didn’t name the authors.

    Also, to the extent that these highly edited articles do not accurately or fully represent the authors’ thoughts, it is better that their name is not attached to them.

  3. Mark LeBaron March 29, 2021 at 12:19 am - Reply

    Not sure if anyone else has made this point, but I think it’s important to download these articles in order to be able to compare for changes and track when changes are made; especially since they are “online only”.

  4. Shane March 29, 2021 at 12:46 pm - Reply

    John,

    I absolutely loved this episode and agree that these are positive steps for the church and it’s members. One little piece of constructive criticism, in this episode as well as a handful of previous episodes you have made the comment that you have never identified as either agnostic or atheist. Sometimes this comes across as not wanting to identify that way because those are negative attributes or negative ways to believe or not believe. I know it is not intended this way but sometimes feeds into the stereotype that atheism or agnosticism is bad and that those that identify as such are bad or amoral. Again, not trying to be nitpicky love everything that you do and 100% support you.

  5. Serpent March 31, 2021 at 1:43 pm - Reply

    John,

    by describing your god/Jesus you reject parts from the bible (for example Mat. 19:29). Can you explain your selective picking?

    Back to your god: Later (around 1:00:00) you question if there is an intervening god and then, like an atheist, you ask about the holocaust.
    So god is irrelevant for your ethical decisions and therefore you are functioning like an agnostic. Why do you pretend no being an agnostic?

  6. VFanRJ April 12, 2021 at 10:13 am - Reply

    Except that in general conference Nelson made it clear that the faithful spouse is stuck with a Lazy Learner. As long as Mormonism maintains their literalistic perspective they will never goes beyond baby steps.

  7. Lynda Coombs June 11, 2021 at 11:18 pm - Reply

    How can I get copies Of the six articles from the Liahona April 2021?

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