I know I treat the apostles and other leaders with more familiarity than a lot of people find appropriate. I apologize to anyone who has been offended by my doing that—that isn’t my intention. I see them as normal, real people, and treat them like that. That is a foundational part of my testimony, that God is so amazing that he can take ordinary people and have them lead His church, and that it survives all the bungled attempts to follow and to lead that go along with that. Most days, that’s what helps keep me in the church, too: understanding that none of us are perfect.

i understand your comment, and I think I understand the tone. You strike me as someone sincere and thoughtful. Thanks for posting #5. I don’t have any real solutions, but I appreciated your comment.

Acknowledging weaknesses or requesting repairs from the experts (in keeping with the metaphor) did NOT get Kate Kelly excommunicated. Can you honestly recall any weaknesses which she admitted to possessing? She wanted all vehicles altered to her own specs.

Cameron, “Brother” is how I refer to all our leaders (except the women: I call them “Sister”). It’s a personal designation, not a derisive one. However, I have never understood using “Brother” or “Sister” and a last name, which is why after my first reference, where I use the full name, I usually just use the person’s personal name from there on out. In my own ward, I tend not to use Brother or Sister at all, and to call people, including leaders, by their first names.

It might not, but there weren’t any YSA women in the intended audience.

Is his message that if young people text with the Spirit it’s okay, because then they’ll understand one another?

This talk seemed more appropriate for 13 years ago, when the raising of the bar was first given. Then it was exciting and inspiring. A decade and a quarter later, it seems to have fallen behind.

I guess we officially know now which apostle is the one that pushed so hard for all the church universities to drop classes actually systematically studying the scriptures and replace them with generalized proof-text-approach-friendly courses.

I feel like the coming young generation is the greatest generation our church has had so far, and poor Brother Russell is the one being left behind, trying to pull the youth back to the old way the world worked, where you could believe what you wanted to believe, and wouldn’t be exposed to truths or opinions that didn’t fit inside of that.