Apostacy and Social Change

Do apostasy, or deviation and distrust in any system lead to refinement and reconsideration of that particular system?

Nature screams to differ. Mutation is all about breaking the mold and reaching for something beyond. Our own secular history is one of bucking and questioning the system. America was based on dissention. You are right, war and bloodshed often follow...but only if the governing system is rooted in complete control and is unresponsive to the needs and desires of its free citizenry.

I have another view...revolution, dissention, apostasy...all of these latent drives are activated when a controlling body pushes beyond prudence and artificially constrains the souls and will of mankind. We are built for freedom and agency. Control of that agency is the basis for the war in heaven, is it not? I feel that the brethren forget that point at times and have adopted a policy of control, rather than a theology of agency, albeit in a more passive sense. Ruling by fear, guilt or an appeal to blind obedience equates to control in my mind. My soul feels this and is reactive to it.

Fear kills the soul. It stunts growth. it stalls progression...is there any other more concise definition of the word "damned" than that of blocked progress or personal access to God and our own sense or intuition?

What of slavery? What of Women’s Suffrage? Child labor? Gay rights?

The church brought itself under condemnation for its world view. It was persecuted by those it meant to subjugate. It created a banking system. It created a standing army bigger than the existing US army at the time. Its people attempted to squelch free speech and freedom of press through vandalism and violence. Its leader proclaimed himself king and aimed at the presidency of the fledgling nation that was struggling for a sense of itself. Its leaders proposed a nation, Deseret, be created just outside of US boundaries that constituted an area almost equal in size to the existing country.

The early church was not persecuted for its righteousness, but for the very real danger it presented to national cohesion.

The BoM persecutions weren’t about doctrine either, they were an outgrowth of an attitude of entitlement, condescension, fine twined linen syndrome, equation of prosperity with spirituality, etc. If you read it again, it is an admonition for the members to keep humble and submissive to their leadership in order to secure a collective financial / economic base for that particular society. There were no rich or poor among them. They had all things in common. The problems arose when the leaders, individuals, etc began to keep the profits for themselves and did not take care of each other. The dissention was created by a sense of entitlement to the fruits of one’s own labor and a tendency to amass wealth instead of keeping it in common.

Equality was, in the ideal, the basis for that society. It isn’t the same now, and the church is naturally going to have dissention. Are there poor among us? Are there wealthy? Are we standing on the ramiumptum telling each other that we are blessed with wealth because we are righteous? Are we equal in all things? Do you know that a GA makes close to $90,000 a year from the church coffers? That’s three times what I make. Three times. If the church practiced the BoM religion, there would be no discrepancies between us. They would all live in 1965 duplexes like me and drive a truck that occasionally craps out. They would dip into title loans and pawn their valuables to make ends meet.

Wouldn’t it???