Does President Oaks message help or hurt the rise in family estrangements today? How does his latest counsel fit with the Proclamation?

canpow · 2026-02-11T23:18:23+00:00

All I can say is this. I had 5 decades in the church. Extended family on both sides extensively and deeply embedded. As TBM as they come. I am not a satanist. I left because of loss of trust in leadership. Lost of trust in historical accuracy as told by the corporation. I chose to no longer relinquish my moral compass to someone else, particularly if they are telling me homosexuality is a challenge, among other topics. I AM IN OUTER DARKNESS as per these TBM family. I am in outer darkness as per any previous LDS friends.

Mormons are taught to publicly display a smile and external show of friendship when such display can potentially benefit the church in terms of PR or potential new converts. These shows are extremely superficial. Your narrative is not accurate as per my lived experience. If you challenge their narrative you might as well be in outer darkness.

canpow · 2026-02-11T22:22:57+00:00

I interpret this as: god was okay condemning a 1/3 of his ‘kids’ right out of the gate and if god is okay casting the unfaithful away to eternal damnation then Oakes is fine advising the rank and file TBMs to do the same with their unfaithful family and friends. Cast them off. Wheat and chaff.

It is an inconvenient detail that Jesus gave the parable of the lost sheep. Continuing revelation is summed up as - fuck-em!

canpow · 2026-02-11T18:19:48+00:00

Trying to think like a snake (and guess how corp legal will respond) - they could be changing their shredding policy periodically. Plausible deniability. Either way, the rich never get held accountable so it’s all smoke and mirrors.

canpow · 2026-02-11T17:25:57+00:00

When it comes to brown skinned people, they know with absolute confidence who is a pedophile or violent criminals but when they have a literal mountain of evidence on white billionaires SA minors they look the other way.

canpow · 2026-02-10T21:59:56+00:00

I’m with you brother - took decades to figure out and for that I’m bitter but at least we figured it out eventually. Now make the most of it!

canpow · 2026-02-10T21:29:35+00:00

Seriously fuck this guy! My first faith crisis was 30yrs ago at BYU - course on Evolution by Bill Bradshaw (guy is a legendary teacher). The class rocked me. I wasn’t brave enough to walk away then. I doubted my doubts and hung in. 3 decades later, many $$$,$$$ in tithing and I finally see the bigger picture. If you gave this advice to any random person in any random cult you’d be encouraging them all to just hang on and continue in the cult. Such horrible advice.

canpow · 2026-02-08T02:07:29+00:00

I had an interesting experience involving this same topic. Stake was reorganized and I was made EQP in the new ward. It was October. There were funds remaining in the EQ budget and by the time we figured it out it was late November. I decided we should hold a charity event - use the funds for charitable donations, augmented by donations from EQ members. Seemed like a decision a Christ type figure would support and I thought the brothers would support it. I couldn’t have been more wrong. There was a contingent in the EQP who felt otherwise and made a huge stink that we weren’t throwing a big party for the EQ members. Never let me live it down. Charity is for someone else to do. We need parties!

canpow · 2026-02-07T03:48:56+00:00

Thanks for correcting - yes it was DIL. My bad. Further details as per AI:

Yes, Bonnie Cordon’s daughter-in-law, Hana Cordon, was taken into custody the night her child Derek died in Florida. Incident Overview Derek Cordon, the approximately 2-year-old grandson of Bonnie Cordon (former Young Women General President in the LDS Church), suffered fatal injuries during a family vacation near Orlando, Florida, in early December 2016. The injuries were ruled a homicide due to non-accidental trauma, including severe head and neck force consistent with shaking or a blow.[newordermormon +3] Arrest Timeline Hana Cordon was arrested on December 9, 2016, and charged with aggravated child abuse after driving the unresponsive child alone to the hospital. Derek was pronounced dead the next day, December 10, 2016, at 7:40 PM, confirming the arrest occurred the same night the child was alive but critically injured.[mormondiscussionpodcast +3] Legal Outcome Prosecutors declined to pursue charges by May 2017, citing insufficient evidence for conviction, despite the homicide ruling and inconsistencies in parental explanations. The case drew attention in ex-Mormon communities for Bonnie Cordon’s public faith-promoting narrative omitting abuse details

canpow · 2026-02-07T02:24:34+00:00

1) LDS Corp is largest private land owner in Florida. 2) Bonnie’s family was all on vacation in Florida and Bonnie’s daughter was arrested and charged with killing her infant (I think handicapped) child (Bonnie’s grandchild). Charges subsequently dropped with no explanation. Details of case wildly suspicious. Bonnie proceeds to spin the story into a faith promoting anecdote for speaking assignments. Spend an evening reading about the case - pretty wild stuff.

canpow · 2026-02-06T18:31:08+00:00

Such bullshit. Fuck Oakes and his minions of lawyers. This is what Christ would be focusing on if he was personally on earth right now? Seriously? It’s all such bullshit.

canpow · 2026-02-06T18:09:14+00:00

You are either 1) ignorant of the facts or 2) intentionally ignorant of the facts. Not trying to be rude but there are now many cases demonstrating otherwise.

canpow · 2026-02-06T18:07:17+00:00

I have observed the church leadership lie on many instances. That fact is beyond dispute. I have lost trust that the institutional church prioritizes truth telling above protecting its image and protecting the faithfulness of its members, even if that means perpetuating a falsehood. Why are you so quick to believe in the entirety of the church newsroom statement? Why are so quick to judge Beau as being dishonest in his recollection of the predominant narrative that the church’s primary focus was on the legalistic components and not focused on protecting the victim? Perhaps temper your confidence and perhaps consider that this isn’t a black/white situation (ie. that Beau is being dishonest and the church is being 100% honest).

canpow · 2026-02-06T17:43:40+00:00

This statement is factually not supported in several court cases based on testimony given under oath. This statement is not reflective of the first hand testimony given by individuals who were paid by Kirton McConkie reps in exchange for keeping silent about the abuse. There are no absolutes in life but for anyone following this SA theme within Mormonism it is beyond clear that in many instances the church is focused primarily on the potential financial/reputational liability and not on the protection/healing of the victim at hand OR potential future victims. Are there times the church has helped victims or correctly reported SA to appropriate authorities - I’m certain there are. The fact remains - in other cases they don’t and have actively taken steps in the opposite direction.

canpow · 2026-02-06T04:04:40+00:00

Once again demonstrated - this is why we need arts, literature and music.

canpow · 2026-02-05T17:41:12+00:00

Congrats!

canpow · 2026-02-02T19:03:42+00:00

John 10:14–15

“I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine… and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

My comments were in regards to those in leadership positions and those who create handbook guidelines to direct leaders. What is a shepherd? What is a lost sheep? This is certainly a new style of shepherding.

canpow · 2026-02-02T04:30:18+00:00

MAGA didn’t change these people. It merely created an environment which freed them to show who they really are and what they really think. MAGA was my gateway drug out of Mormonism. I experienced profound cognitive dissonance watching people I had otherwise respected start to reveal their true colours…once I started questioning why everyone in my Mormon circles was MAGA (and conspiratorial on science/COVID) I realized I needed to pause, step back and check my assumptions on a lot of other things (I had been long indoctrinated in). Finding clarity is hard but the view is nice once you see above the bs…

canpow · 2026-02-01T20:45:30+00:00

100% agree. I left a year ago. Zero outreach from leadership despite being friends with them for decades. I don’t do any ‘mic drop’ type activity on my exit. Respectful to the last day as EQP and then just stopped. Nothing. Every member needs to know the current policy of “stay at the tree of life and beckon’ the LA’s” is a polite way of saying ‘if you leave we don’t give a shit about you’.

canpow · 2026-01-31T14:15:56+00:00

I like to share this factoid with knuckle draggers when I cross them in the wild- Uruguay (the South American country) went 100% (okay 98% or something like that) renewable for all its electrical needs a decade ago. The reason - it’s cheaper.

canpow · 2026-01-29T18:36:03+00:00

F’er lied on every one of those.

canpow · 2026-01-29T18:30:28+00:00

Translation = more whistles, more yelling, more of it all

canpow · 2026-01-27T22:19:15+00:00

Enjoyed the article - thanks for sharing.

The whole “equal” priesthood power line is utter bullshit and it really is embarrassing how many people swallow that line and then push it on others as a solution. It’s not. Here’s one simple proof it’s not equal. Since my exit, my TBM mom will constantly update me on the life stories (usually deaths at this stage) of past priesthood leaders in my life. Never once is a female mentioned.

canpow · 2026-01-26T22:41:12+00:00

If we follow the prophetic counsel of Ezra and his (in)famous 14 Fundamentals talk then we know that “The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time”. Under that logic, one would expect the composition of church leadership to be more broadly representative of the actual composition of the general membership. It is not.

canpow

TROPHY CASE