How to CHANGE Mormonism- Sunstone UK 2021

hi everyone hi hello right so today we are talking about fighting from within and uh let's start off by talking about who i am lovely photo of me there that is how most of you will recognize me pair of headphones one eye looking at you the other one well uh and i'm a member of the church jesus christ lastly says i'm a third generation member of that church both my sets of grandparents were converts and yeah it's been going in my family ever since i was born in the commentary state in the meat and ward to be exact and then i'm currently in the reading stake i'm in oxford first ward i'm a great hugger as some of you may have experienced that was promised and advertised for sunstone i would be dishing out hugs um i do have a terrible beard though unfortunately so there is that now what it is i do very briefly for those who don't know i fact check church videos so i watch the church's media i go through it with a fine tooth comb and have a look and see if there's any lies being told any dishonesty or anything like that and uh and and then we'll see what we come out with i also review memes for the lighter side of that so a lot of the time the internet will explode around a certain issue and everyone will kind of make memes to try and deal with it and that's how i then also kind of cover some of that content i do a conference half-time show i've done that with peter blakely and with others we sit down straight after conference and we go through and give our take we watch conference basically so you don't have to because a lot of people don't want to sit through 10 hours of conference but i do uh i am the only living member of the church to interview the prophet joseph smith that is my other claim to fame here do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel of jesus christ hello i was there i i'm the one that did it indeed and did you didn't you say in fact that the church of christ is fully restored it is it is it's completely restored okay the restoration is complete okay we might want to have a word with president nelson then because he seems to be thinking that there's stuff yet to come if you think the church has been fully restored you're just seeing the beginning there's much more to come eat your vitamin pills get your rest it's going to be exciting that's the sort of stuff i do if you want to see more of that sort of thing that's my youtube channel up there you can go check that out some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul now this is pointing to me for two reasons first faith crises are often dealt with internally and personally we often don't have someone to share them with we we often can end up going through these things quite lonely second the church's largest battle at the moment is being fought within itself it's being fought by the members and actually it's the members of the church i care about more than the institutional church itself because the church has ceased to fight for its members and it fights only for itself you we must fight to make the church a better place for the members we can't do it for enzyme peak we can't do it for the pr department and we can't do it for the first presidency of church who sit on enzyme peak like smog on his horde of gold we can't do it for any of those people we have to do it for each other and the tenets to the issues that drive us to need to fight in the first place are these three i think like every large organization the church does have its flaws no one expects the church to be perfect but if it's being run by men who claim to speak for god we can expect it to be pretty close however there are in my opinion in the opinion of a lot of people some issues and i think they fall into these three categories equality the equality of women as women have entered into more facets of our life publicly and in the secular world the church is lagging behind and the larger that gap gets the less tolerant of it the members will be women do remain unfortunately very much second-class citizens within the lds church and that does need to change on lgbtq issues many members of the church simply will not stand for the church's stance on this they won't they won't accept it and so again that drives people to want to change it this friction between a more loving and accepting secular world with the supposed christian values of mormonism is going to create more and more problems the further the divide gets and the more friction there is if we're to retain the people who want to be loving we have to change and then this issue of autonomy it's a bit of a strange on this but i find that many members want to be an autonomous part of a religion they don't want top-down authoritarianism they want to be free to make their own choices we've seen this with the mask debate currently when it suits those members all of a sudden they are the most autonomous people you have ever met within the church the same people that would follow dogma to the ends of the earth have now decided it's their time for autonomy i think we all have a point at which we won't be told what to do anymore i think it's a matter that we can't dispute anymore that there's been dishonesty regarding the church's history we can talk about the extent to which it was covered up we could talk about the exact nature and nuances of it but i don't think we can say that it hasn't happened whether it's the removal of the 1832 account of the first vision and the hiding of it in the president's vault or whether it's more recent things like not portraying accurately the way in which joseph smith translated the book of mormon lies have been told cover-ups have been made and no admissions of guilt have been given the church therefore needs to talk about its fallibility it needs to be honest with its members about how fallible it is again it was elder oaks who said the church does not seek apologies and we do not give them but apologies need to be made if they're not people will continue to move and to leave the church is fallible and it has admitted it itself if you read the gospel topic essays on race and the priesthood you will see that the church disavows theories espoused in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse even cursory reading of the teachings of presidents and prophets at the church of the past will show you those were not theories those were core doctrines of the church and because the church has admitted it's fallible to its own history it therefore needs to apologize financial transparency is a pretty clear one it shouldn't take whistleblowers for us to know how much money the church has it shouldn't take people like me talking about this over and over and over again to get it in the public mind the members should know what is happening with their money they should know where it goes and we need more than a milk toast thumbs up from the church auditing department every 12 months saying it we don't think we're doing anything wrong because to be honest a lot of other people disagree and the final of the tenants is charity now the church has a humanitarian aid crisis in that it doesn't do enough humanitarian aid for the means that it has the church has the means to do far more than it does and this is at odds with the christian values it espouses of loving neighbor as thyself the church has a problem with its christianity the church has a problem with its acceptance of others it's polar to that christian ethic that the church would choose to use its money to build temples temples which benefit less than a percent of the human family we form such a minority that to choose to benefit ourselves over all those living in the world i think is the antithesis of a christian value but if you have issues if you raise your voice if you say i'm not happy with this what are some of the consequences i think a lot of us in this room know these consequences quite well social isolation loss of family relationships for those that work for the church you can lose employment you can also lose your status and reputation if you were in a calling if you enjoyed doing something within church that could be taken away from you you can be given a reputation as someone that shouldn't be listened to as a pariah within the church and that bottom one capitalized for effect excommunication the church will do that to you as some people in this room know examples of those who have paid the price natasha helfer sought to change ideas around sexual health sam young sought to protect children from sexual predation and peterborough he just called the leaders liars and satanists that's what got him in trouble but on a serious note peter has drawn attention to a lot of the ethical issues at the top levels of the church leadership he dared to fight for a better mormonism one with christian values and for that we have to applaud him but some people have not been excommunicated some people have not been kicked out of the church even though they've said things like god's ways are not your ways because you're not a polygamous racist that was radio free mormon in a live interview with a member of his own state presidency he sat and listened to that and went we're not going to kick you out not at all and he's talked about why he hasn't been excommunicated the member of the state presidency said that apostasy is not listed as an offence which necessitates a trial so because they don't have to they're not going to this is what we call leadership roulette if you had different leaders things could be very different we also know that he spoke to timothy j dykes who was a member of the strengthening church members committee he confirmed that the church has a file on the member that they believe to be rfm but because rfm refused to confirm that for them they have not taken any action on that file people are also saying things like this the suggestions simply stay away from people talking negatively about the church leaders because they are doing the bidding of satan is reductionistic and dangerous that's dr julie hanks another person who is pioneering this tightrope of which you can walk you don't believe me that she said it there it is from her instagram she is allowed to publish these things publicly things that are antithetical to the teachings of folks like iring who say that it is a sin to even think of church leaders as having human weakness and she addressed that this morning people say but dr julie how do you stay in the church as you gave this response i've been repeatedly asked by members are you really a member of the church and by post mormons how do you stay in yes i'm a member of the lds church answers the second part the question is i focus on the gospel of jesus christ and the beautiful eternal truths while simultaneously working to change negative aspects of the culture i focus on filling my heart and my life with love and connection i believe everything in the church that resonates with me as right good helpful or true i claim my own personal authority and personal revelation i consider and try to heed the council of prophets and apostles and i follow jesus christ i've learned to tolerate not knowing and to embrace mystery and messiness in its history doctrine policies organization and practice i choose to continue my faith tradition because it's mine and it's where i feel called to be right now she talks to them about learning about founders stages of faith and identifies the people in different stages and ends with we are all on different journeys at different paces just like i get to decide my own faith tradition you two get to decide yours so she mainly deals with cultural issues and i think that's why she survived and also she has a loyal following of active lds members if you can get in well enough with enough people that would kick off if they kicked her out i think that's how she sticks around it would be a pr nightmare if they were to remove her because so many members resonate with what she's saying but the problem for the church with the fact that they resonate with what she's saying is what she's saying is actually quite critical of the church it's just hidden well enough in criticism of the culture when if you take a look at it the culture is pervaded by the church after all this and the thing you probably came here to learn about or at least to hear my opinion on is how can we fight what are the mechanisms by which we can seek to affect change from within the church not as an outsider shout again but in the words of elder rukhdov brethren stand close together and lift where you stand we can lift where we stand particularly while we're still in even if only holding on by our fingernails those who opposed any of the proposals should contact their stake president now just stop and take a look at that eye contact that is a man who does not really want you to talk to your state president he just wants to scare you into thinking that you've done something terribly terribly wrong but i did talk to my state president i registered an opposing vote and you can too if you're still a member of the church you can do that you can contact your state president you can lay out your concerns and most importantly you're going to need to be persistent i went to him with two pages of a4 as i spoke about earlier and i laid out my concerns he addressed them by saying i don't think there's a problem i counted and i continued to counter because he stopped talking to me so i continue to send messages and talk through my bishop and say how can we you know how can my concerns be resolved i've been instructed by the leaders of the church to speak with you about this so we need to have a conversation and i'll let you know how it goes and i'll let you know at what point the glass ceiling kicks in but if you don't fancy doing that and i can't blame you then you could start a petition or you could protest this is outside the church paradigm it brings external pressure but it is more risky some of you may feel more comfortable being outside the church's rules and regulations it may be more comfortable for some people to fight the church where it isn't in charge you can do that with a protest or a petition it will bring external pressure my petition was featured in the salt lake tribune so those with a geographical interest in mormonism but not necessarily a religious one we're able to get behind it we're able to put the pressure on the church to do more what was my petition i started a petition to ask the church to allow members to pay their tiger money to local and international charities because if you look at the maths the church can continue to run on the profits of its enzyme peak fund in perpetuity really that frees up seven billion dollars of good to be done in the charitable sectors of the world so that sort of pressure might be a pipe dream but you know what does happen when this sort of external pressure comes onto the church they change just a little bit a one percent increase in the church's charitable spending is more charitable good than i could do in my lifetime with my own money and so for that small achievement alone it would be worth it but it's more risky you can be accused of airing dirty laundry and not dealing with things in-house hush much the same as if you go to the police rather than calling the churches hotline they don't like that either but you know what you should the world needs to know the problems of the lds church because the world is often better equipped to deal with it than we are in house this one i reckon we can all do this one is one i see the girls on 21st century saints doing a lot we can unleash our individuality we can be the change that we want to see it's what i call a private protest sometimes in changing your own actions you're not going out you're not gathering people to mass and rally around you but you're making changes in your behaviors that mean that what's going on in the church for you aligns with your values this can be paid in paying tithing to charities without signing a petition just doing that yourself a lot of people i know do that this can be wearing what you like to church and anything in between it can also be just being honest where the church won't be being honest in your family home evenings being honest in discussions with people either privately or publicly it improves the church and it improves you because you become more authentic and true to yourself and the church becomes a more authentic place honestly it seems like a softball approach but if more and more members started to do this we'd see a place where the opinions of the top church leadership really would cease to matter so much we'd undermine the authoritarianism because everyone just become independent agents to act elder bed now loves to talk about this he loves to talk about people being agents to act and not be acted upon while being guilty of doing quite a lot of acting upon us this top-down authoritarianism can be undermined by the end of that individuality of spirit that we members can show it's frankly underrated too because i'm fed up i don't know about you of seeing people that all look the same and act the same i'm tired of it i want to see what you can bring to mormonism in my congregation people in your congregation i can guarantee would find it refreshing to see what you could bring to you can just rabble rouse that's what i've been doing it's very easy it's private or public and it's kind of risky sam pinson was excommunicated for his facebook posts but i have a youtube channel that's coming up on 5000 subscribers now and no one seems to care so you can do what you like really and just take the gamble you can lead the peasants revolt you can lead the push from underneath but ultimately we have to fight for each other we must make space for each other because the church won't any questions [Applause]

Channel: Nemo the Mormon

Views: 4,027

Rating: 4.9534883 out of 5

Keywords: mormon, mormonism, lds, apologetics, rebuttal, fact check, fact checking, nemo fact checking, nemo, apologist, ex-mormon, exmo, ex mormon, progressive mormon, ex mo, prog mo, christ, christian, jesus, church, god, jesus christ, faith, faith crisis

Id: wN8PGfu2878

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/likable_fruit]

Thanks Nemo. I struggle to be convinced that it can be changed from within. It took a long time for Russell to get any traction on changing to not use the word Mormon and that only happened when he was top dog. Even that is struggling to be consistently applied.

Great video anyway and I appreciate your work.

[u/LegalLass13]

Thanks, Nemo!!! You Rock!!! 👏👏👏