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"Any Latter-day Saint who denounces or opposes, whether actively or otherwise, any plan or doctrine advocated by the 'prophets, seers, and revelators' of the Church is cultivating the spirit of apostasy. Lucifer....wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to 'do their own thinking'...."
"When our leaders speak, the thinking had been done. When they propose a plan -- it is God's plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy."
Source: Improvement Era, June 1945, 354.
A prevalent form of rebellion is the "higher criticism" which is the delight of those Church members who become proud of their intellectual powers. Reveling in their supposed superiority they argue back and forth, analyze with their unaided intellect what can only be discerned by the eye of faith, and challenge and debunk such Church doctrines and policies as do not pass their critical examination. In all this they undermine the faith of those less qualified in knowledge and logic, sometimes apparently gaining pleasure from this result. But the Lord's word to such people is still what it was two thousand years ago:
'... Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!
Source: Kimball, Spencer W. The Miracle of Forgiveness, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc, 1969. 45.
Elder Boyd K. Packer is a great believer in controlling what is released to members concerning Mormon history and doctrine.
He is currently in line to become Prophet of the Mormon Church in the future. I believe that independent thought and research into Mormonism's past will be curtailed even further at that time.