a little deeper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKblIMfmjI

This week I will be looking at another Mormon Messages video on youtube and the responses it garners. The Mormon Messages video I will be focusing on is called, “A Testimony of the Book of Mormon”. This video is made up of pieces of the testimony of Elder Jeffery R. Holland (of the quorum of the twelve) which he bore at the October 2009 General conference in a talk called, “Saftey for the Soul”. It is more doctrinal than the video I used last week (which many people, religious or not could agree on) this one, however, is very specific to the restoration.

My main question for this week was whether or not the type of comments left by non-members be different now that some heavier doctrine is introduced. Would the non-members that were drawn to a more serious video already have a better understanding of the doctrine and principles of the church and would the responses to the questions of non-members go into deeper doctrine?

There were the standard jabs:

1. Mormons are not Christian

2. Taking out the second "m" in Mormon and Mormonism.

These, as is the norm, did not get any real response or attention. The LDS believe that truth comes from God and you can know of the truth through personal revelation given by the Holy Spirit, but contention is of the devil (3 Nephi 11:29) and the spirit cannot dwell in an unholy temple therefore debating is useless as the person could never come to the truth and dragging yourself into that debate could harm you. 

The reactions that got the most response were:

He DID show it to 11 people whose witnesses can be found in the very front of the Book of Mormon, it's true that some later fell away, yet all maintained that they had truely seen the gold plates. go to mormon.org to request a free copy. --The overwhelming majority of responses went along those lines there were a few, however, which deviated from the script. 

yupyup22100 responded that you must walk by faith and did not mention the eyewitnesses at all.

TheCompassion101 says that God told Joseph not to show the plates to people because of their sacred nature. 

 This also gets a lot of attention and the responses are also very uniform. Nobody asked about his "don't use the humble approach" thing and I have no idea what he means by that. People pointed out that we do use the Bible quite often but that the Book of Mormon is newer, it is something unique we have to offer, because it is newer and was only translated once to English it did not loose as much as the Bible has.

The responses to this were split yet united. Some said that through faith we can gain a knowledge of all things and truth that comes from God is stronger evidence than history and science. The other half argue that there actually is a lot of history and science that supports the Book of Mormon and not that much that contradicts it. Every single response that I read urged him to actually read the Book of Mormon.

The three most responded to comments did not show a better understanding of the church and responses didn't go too far into doctrine in responding to them, but deeper doctrine was mentioned when the conversations were between two church members.

Choose This Day

The first video who’s comments I would like to explore is called, “Choose This Day” It is produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as part of the “Mormon Messages” series, A series made for a broad audience with messages of basic doctrinal truths and family values. 

Many people from different faiths enjoy this video, though even without controversial content some bring controversy with them. 

 Castheman1050 received 74 likes while truthdottcom was ignored. 

It is interesting to see how several members respond in a different (or similar) manner to the same criticism. But before we go any further, it is important to analyze the role of authority and structure of the church. The church is Christian yet it is NOT Protestant or Catholic or Eastern. The church is rooted in the old testament. The first recordings in the Book of Mormon took place in 600 BC and around 400AD Moroni engraved the last book into the plates and buried them in the ground. 

After the death of Christ, his church fell into apostasy and the keys of the priesthood were removed from the Earth before the councils of nicea.  The original church was then restored to the earth in these latter days and the keys of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood were confered upon Joseph Smith by John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John. The most significant part of having the church restored in such a way is that the modern priesthood holders can request their "line of authority" which is just a printed piece of paper tracing their line of authority directly to Jesus Christ.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson, who gives revelation today just as prophets of old did.

The result of this authority is that there is very little debate or contention among members. I can think of only a few areas like caffeinated soda, R rated movies, if Kolob is a planet or a star and how much meat you can eat and still be considered "sparingly." And if on October 5th during General Conference President Monson said the caffeinated soda falls into the "hot drinks" category then the conversation would stop there. You don't deny the authority of the Prophet without denying the authority of Christ because that is where it comes from. 

That was a long winded explanation of the church's understanding of authority but it is important to understand when we look at how people respond differently or  similarly to the same question. 

Many have the misconception the Mormons believe that they can be saved by good works and keeping the commandments alone, they are usually Christians who believe that it is by grace and by grace alone (without regards to following commandments or preforming ordinances) that man can be saved. All three responses are doctrinal, they all reinforce the importance of the atonement but that works play a role as well, however each responder has their own way of explaining the same doctrine.

Proposal

“The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace” those were the words used by Lilburn Boggs, governor of Missouri in Executive order #44 of 1838 an execution order against Mormons. Families were forced to leave their homes and forfeit all property by the Missouri State Militia.

Though this order was rescinded in 1976 there are many people who still actively search out members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to attack and persecute them. Dealing with such adversity has been part of what it means to be a member of the church since the restoration. Though, these days the adversary takes a different form. Men do not come to our houses in the middle of the night, beat us unconscious, tar and feather us, as they did to Joseph Smith. However, there are still those who use social media, such as YouTube, to seek out and attack the church and it’s members.

My case study will focus on the response of individual church members to these attacks. I will not be looking at anti-Mormon videos, but anti-Mormon comments and the reactions from individual members to those comments. The videos will be official church videos either from one of the church’s official YouTube channels (Mormon channel, Mormon.org, Mormon newsroom, BYUtelevision, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, BYUDivineComedy) as well as non-official church material (such as General Conference talks) from non-official YouTube channels.  I will be focusing on the comment section from a variety of videos. The videos will range from those discussing deep doctrinal themes to entertainment only videos. I will look at anti comments which get  responses from multiple members and see how they respond differently to the same attack. I will also look at anti comments that have not gotten any response, since ignoring the comment is another way of reacting to persecution.