Tribal Connections

I started writing this as a comment, but as I continued to write — I decided it would be best to make this into a post of its own.

Affecting Change:

I was once optimistic that my discussions with people in person and online could affect some greater change in the world at large.  When LDSA wrote that this posts should be considered open copyright — I agreed that perhaps distributing these ideas could play a part in the ushering in of the conditions for the great and marvelous work.

I despise echo-chambers — and while I think preaching to the choir has its place [hence my participation here], I’ve always felt that ideas also need to be floated among more hostile company too [iron sharpens iron, and all that].  I’ve done letter campaigns, anonymously e-mailed copies of the 2010 CHI to anonymous askers [read the end of this comment], and participated in many different discussions online.

However, two comments were written to me today that have caused me to change my mind.  One from the conversation here:

“Justin, this may make sense to you, but many people aren’t interested in putting themselves in a situation where they need to hide what they are doing from their ward/family and explain to church leaders that they are reinterpreting garment-wearing. Whether or not the church culture as a whole pays attention to the wording in the initiatory, we all know what rules you must follow regarding garments if you want to stay well-integrated into your ward.”

and the other from here,

“Justin:

In discussing the hierarchy and how some of these ideas exist in the LDS Church, it is taught, directly or indirectly.

“Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it but you don’t need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.” – Marion G Romney
“When the Prophet speaks the debate is over”. – N. Eldon Tanner
“Follow your leaders who have been duly ordained and have been publicly sustained, and you will not be led astray.” – Boyd K Packer
The “12 points” recently discussed

These types of quotes are where it comes from. Whether this is what God intended or not is obviously up for debate, but within this organization, this is how it is.

Since there are no females in this hierarchy there is essentially no mechanism to change this, unless the hierarchy itself decides to change.”

There are three topics about which people will never change their views on as a result of a single conversation they have with another person:  religion, diet, and politics [This site is especially bold for trying to tackle two of them at the same time — however the same thing I’ve noticed among LDS sites is also happening within my diet community too].  For these three, change will only come after a singly large, devastating life experience or after a long course of personally-driven study and reflection.  This is not the means by which we can affect change.

Tribal Connections:

This was said before, but it bears repeating here — for the people who don’t follow the comments:

I have a feeling that people, (in particular, LDS), have a hard time grasping the concepts put forth in this post (and others like it) because we don’t have a clear idea of what the future should look like.  We see agriculture and money being passed around and know that these things have existed for thousands of years and we hear of prophets and righteous men and women tilling the ground, using money, etc., and we think that the gospel is designed for an agricultural, money-based lifestyle.

The gospel is flexible, adaptable to the conditions that exist among men, but it is not designed to leave men in those conditions, but to allow men to use the truths, principles and powers found in the gosepl to change them so that they match those found in the heavens.

Unless we look forward and use our imagination to envision what the future is supposed to look like, how in the world can we ever work to remove ourselves from our present, fallen condition into a more exalted, heavenly one?  It seems to me that mankind is largely spinning their wheels and letting the future bring what it may, without actually striving to shape it themselves…

…That’s okay for the rest of the Gentiles, but the Mormon Gentiles have been given the restored gospel and should be more enlightened than that.  We’ve got everything we need to establish the future God has designed for the Earth.  We just need to organize ourselves into cohesive, gospel-based tribes and make it happen.

We only have our tribes.  Even non-religous observes have noted that the collapse of this system of -isms and -archies is imminent, and that survival will be tribal.

As I noted in Connecting with Pixels, the Lord is about connecting humans to other humans.  That is what activating tribal worship services, tribal family units, and a strong tribal priesthood is all about.  Our online discussions are only valuable insofar as they aid each of the readers in making these connections.  This is not the connection.

If we aren’t walking away from our computers and working to establish and spread our own tribes, then we have missed the mark.  [The reader may already know this — I’m just acknowledging it out loud for myself.]

I’d be interested in hearing reports on how others are doing at establishing the tribal connections among their own families.

Next Article by Justin:  Tribal Rituals

Previous Article by Justin:  Money-free Communities

LDS Anarchist’s Posts Are “Open” Copyright

Freely Print What You Want

What this means is that anyone is free to to take any of the 180 or so posts that I’ve written and print them out and distribute them to the members  and leaders of your local ward or stake, or any ward or stake, for that matter, including to any general authorities.

Claim It As Your Own

You don’t have to give me credit for anything I’ve written here.  You don’t have to have to put the url of this blog anywhere on the page.  In fact, if you want, you can claim authorship of any of the articles.  I don’t mind.

Make Them Anonymous

It might be more effective to just keep the articles anonymous, without your name on them.  Then, people who read them will have only the message to judge.  They won’t be able to judge the messenger, as they won’t know who he or she is.

Modify Them As You Wish

Don’t like certain parts of my articles?  Just cut those parts out.  Don’t agree with certain parts?  Just re-word them so that they fit into your belief system.  Want to add your own words to them as if they were part of the original article?  Knock yourself out.

Want To Make Money?

For the really entrepreneurial types, feel free to take whatever group of articles you find on this blog (authored by me), modify and edit them as you wish, and then have them published in book form.  Sell as many of them as you like.  Keep all the profits yourself.  You don’t have to give me one red cent.

Here, I’ll get you started.  Go to FastPencil, sign up for a free account. then import the following blog post XML files to your account: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.  (Hyper-links forthcoming.)

Why I’m Posting This “Open” Copyright Announcement

After writing The Priesthood article, I began to review some of the conditions among men that would usher in the great and marvelous work.  I also began to review some of the things the Holy Ghost had told me concerning future events and conditions.  As I had these thoughts in my mind, a new thought struck me:

What if the LDS Anarchy blog were to play a part in the ushering in of these conditions?

This was a question I had never before considered.  Although I believe that some of the articles I’ve written are quite persuasive, there has always been one thing that has never allowed anyone (statist or anarchist alike) to take the concept of Mormon anarchism completely seriously, namely, the Mormon priesthood hierarchy.  Anarchists are all about dissembling hierarchies, so Mormon anarchy, in the minds of both anarchist and statist, is a contradiction in terms.

I knew from the start that anarchists and statists would be laughing their heads off at me and hardly anyone would believe a word I would write.  That was okay with me as my aim was to chiefly use the blog as a repository of my research papers and thoughts.  So, I pushed on with my writings, never once expecting that this blog would have even the slightest bit of influence upon anyone.

But my latest article on priesthood has made me reconsider everything.  It was that article and the research conducted for it, as well as subsequent research on priesthood (see An alternate view of the keys), that has turned everything upside down in my mind.  This research directly addresses the priesthood “hierarchy” and shows that it is not designed to be a hierarchy in the traditional sense, as used by the Gentiles rulers.

With this new, anarchic understanding of priesthood, the apparent contradictions cleared up.  The rest of my anarchy articles were now on a much more solid foundation.  As I considered that the strength of my arguments for Mormon anarchy were now immensely stronger than before because of the new priesthood research, it made me wonder if these blog articles could be more than just a repository for my future reference.  Perhaps the Lord could use this blog somehow.

I then turned my mind back to October 2007, when I began blogging.  I remembered the circumstances that caused me to consider starting a blog.  (See Why I started this blog.)  And I remembered how much pondering went into the decision to start it.  (See The Mormon Worker and the LDS Anarchy Blog:  The hand of the Lord or just a coincidence?)  Although I think that I did not mention it in either of those posts, to be entirely truthful, I actually did feel inspired by the Lord to publish my views on Mormon anarchy anonymously.  It was that feeling that clinched it for me to begin blogging.

So, here it is 2+ years and around 180 posts later, and now I’m having the thought that maybe the words written on this blog are not meant just to be viewed on a computer screen.  Maybe its purpose was to get the words out in public on the Internet, so that others could print them and take them to the True Blue Mormons who would never in a million years read anything here, because of that scary looking Anarchy is Order symbol at the top of each page.

Please Report Back

To those who take this “open” copyright and run with it, please come back and tell everyone how TBM’s reacted to whatever literature you got in front of them.  Also, let us know how you distributed material.  By mail?  Hand-delivered?  By pinning them to the bulletin board?  By printing out a bunch of copies and furtively leaving them in the meetinghouse foyer?  How?

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist