Thread by @hollywelker

A question for Latter-day Saints: Do you agree with the statement below? Have you heard this exact statement or statements like it in Conference? Do you accept it as official church doctrine?

"The prophet cannot err when making official pronouncements of faith and morals." 1/

If you are/were a Latter-day Saint, you may have heard this saying: “Catholics say the pope is infallible but don’t really believe it; Mormons say the #prophet is #fallible but don’t really believe it.” 2/

To test this statement, someone asked his Elders' Quorum if they agree that "The prophet cannot err when making official pronouncements of faith and morals."

All but one of them did. 3/

And that's a problem, because that statement is NOT Latter-day Saint doctrine but Catholic doctrine.

Instead of #infallibility, Mormons have something called #instrayability, or the belief that *the prophet will never lead the church astray.* 4/

religiondispatches.org/the-mormon-ver…

But the belief that God will not allow the prophet to lead the church astray is easily disproven by the presidency of Russell M. Nelson, who labeled one of his predecessors' signature achievements "a major victory for Satan."

We all remember this, right? 5/

Gordon B. Hinckley's enthusiastic embrace of the word "Mormon" as meaning "more good"? the whole "I'm a Mormon" thing the church invested so much money in? The elaborate campaign that the church has erased from its website? Check the web address below. 6/

You can still find something about it on Youtube, at least for the time being.

But all that money & effort wasn't merely wasted on something ineffectual or silly: it was spent on something that is--say it again--"a major victory for Satan." 7/

In his conference talk, Russell rejects the idea that the church "should make the best of" its nickname, stating instead, "If this were a discussion about branding a man-made organization, those arguments might prevail." 8/

churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-…

Here's the thing, Russell: Under Hinckley & Monson, those arguments DID prevail.

The church went all-in on something that only make senses as a matter of "branding a man-made organization."

How could this happen? How could the church err so badly? 9/

How could something created & promoted by a Latter-day Saint prophet be revealed by another prophet as "a major victory for Satan"? Surely that constitutes a prophet leading the church astray.

It's supposed to be impossible for the Lord to let that happen.

So what's up? 10/

Personally, I must agree with my dad, a lifelong Mormon who has never had a problem disagreeing with the General Authorities when they are clearly full of shit. He dismissed Russell's argument as "silly" because after all, "God is just a nickname." 11/

https://twitter.com/hollywelker/status/1572734680881037312

I prefer Orwell's nonfiction to 1984, but I must say, at some point, the church really does sound like it's telling us, "The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. The name of the church was never Mormon. The name of the church has always been _____." 12/

Now I'll wait & see if this thread is picked up by TBMs, who will freak out about how the rest of us *just don't understand how the church can still be true when its leaders make so many mistakes* while trying desperately to ignore their growing cognitive dissonance. 13/

And just to be completely clear:

I am saying that neither Hinckley nor Nelson (nor any of them, for that matter) are prophets, that they are just men with personal agendas, & the COJCOLDS is entirely a man-made organization that exists primarily to amass & hoard wealth. 14/14