Clayton Christensen has died

BRT may have been your (and many others) approach to 'taught missionaries how to be Mormon missionaries), but it's not the only approach. ;)

I was taught about building a relationship because it is more than just an attempt to 'convert' someone—what things in life do you _not_ build a relationship of trust with others? You need to have empathy, understand them, to be able to help (if so desired), etc. I met with people who in the end, after understanding them and their situation, we simply helped out in other ways (more material) ones.

We weren't trying to sell things or increase numbers, but genuinely trying to help others. I had people who say they didn't care about the church, but because they trusted us, we helped them in other ways (finding work, overcoming alcohol addiction, etc).

Were there others who just wanted to convert/baptise a million people? Yup, but they're missing the point.

As an atheist who lives in Utah, I wish r/exmormon would calm down a bit. The echo chamber groupthink there is staggering.

This is sad. I've read and continue to read more of the writings of the old classic 'Philosophers', the reason I find their writing is because I like to imagine, when they wrote their ideas and indeed philosophies, people of the time might have imagined them as new age and progressive.

They were in a way, but by no means intentionally, just laying out ideas that people should think about.

When it comes to people like Clayton Christensen, I really do regard him in the same class. I was fortunate to have been introduced to him by another idol of mine, and straight away, it was clear, this is a person who really uses all the imagination that is possible, questions what the norms are, and at the same time will reign everything in to practicality.

After that I went and read : 'How will you measure your ife?'

I was young enough at the time, in my 20's and thought I had the world figured out. This book quickly corrected that.

I have met only a handful of people who know who this modern philosopher is, but everyone will agree: He has made an impact.

It's a life well spent. And I hope to find more like him. R.I.P

"It's easier to hold your principles 100% of the time than 98% of the time"

More like proximity to each other (and being a huge majority of the population).

See also: echo chambers, which are probably a societal plague more than anything.

> From 1849 to 1978, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) prohibited men of black African descent from being ordained to the priesthood. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_and_Mormon_priest...)

AFAIU, in the LDS Church all men are ordained priests. So whatever their stance regarding African-Americans in the social and political sphere, institutionally the church was very unique, even in the modern era. And that was the original point.

Contrast that with the Catholic Church at least formally having no trouble ordaining LGBT people[1], notwithstanding the male-female clerical role dichotomy[2], but does institutionally (and doctrinally) oppose many forms of practiced sexuality. (Notably, all clerics and monastics are celibate in Roman Catholicism, which they often used as a rhetorical shield.) This distinction matters because doctrinally Catholicism distinguishes behaviors from "what you are", and with the exception of male-female sex roles there has never been any classification system that treated people differently based on their inherent characteristics. This is true more generally in Christianity, although various denominations, especially in the South during the American slave period, flirted with such theological distinctions. Again, the LDS Church stood out from a theological perspective.

Churches are more than doctrine, of course. They're communities. And some communities deviate from the letter and spirit of their doctrine more than others. The more authoritarian (top-down) the church, the less likely such deviations occur, at least facially. Again the LDS Church stood out for a governance structured similarly to the Catholic Church, but with a racial system that resembled that taken up by niche, Protestant sects of the period.

Anyhow, things aren't the same today. And without trying to sound cynical, religions have wonderful ways of carefully papering over past sins and moving on. Ways that the secular world would do well to better appreciate and even, on occasion, mimic. This history of the LDS Church doesn't need to be denied or excused because the church has its own theological devices for setting things straight without prejudicing objective facts. The LDS Church seems a very beautiful religion with many devoted members who deserve respect and admiration.

[1] Indeed, likely for the entire period of the modern distinction of homosexuality the Catholic Church knowingly accepted gay men and women into religious orders. This has been used by conservatives, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, who conflate homosexuality with sexual perversion, to argue such knowing ordinations as being causative of child molestation. And, FWIW, seemingly by some liberals whose arguments effectively seem to say that that a celibate priesthood inviting homosexuals had the effect of providing an enticing shelter to pedophiles, because of the supposed of dynamics of sexual repression. It's a weird argument and just goes to show that the line which we use to label and distinguish conservative and liberal seems to wrap around at the edges.

[2] Technically, many if not most Catholic clerics are careful to avoid arguing that women could never become priests or that being female is incompatible with the role of a priest. Certainly most Vatican leaders are careful to walk this line. Women are barred as a matter of church law, justified by tradition, but there's no fundamental theological basis for it except that as a general rule deviations from tradition (e.g. the Apostles all being male) require strong positive justification. A failure to deviate isn't an affirmation or disaffirmation of anything. It's an exceedingly tenuous position, especially in the modern era, but it's worth pointing out. And if you listen to Catholic officials make their arguments, especially in prepared statements, you can see these distinctions very clearly.