The Sanctity of Dissent

The Sanctity of Dissent PDF

Author: Paul Toscano

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9781560850496

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In ten eloquent speeches, Paul James Toscano traces the odyssey of his life from conversion to the LDS church in 1963 to excommunication for heresy in 1993. Included are the addresses that resulted in church action against him.Authority is adored as the dominant divine characteristic of Mormonism, Toscano alleges; patriology blows unimpeded through the church like a cold wind, chilling compassion, hope, and faith. He worries that unless there is a spiritual revival of mythic dimensions, Mormonism is doomed to resolve itself into yet another sect full of ethical pretension and xenophobic aspiration.Considering himself a Latter-day Saint in exile, Toscano remains confident that Christian love may yet overflow the banks of righteousness, sweep away respectability, turn dignity into mud, lay waste the levees of our vaunted invulnerability, and contaminate us with holiness. The church will yet become an open, compassionate, and forgiving community, according to Toscano's wish -- one dedicated to the spiritual empowerment of each individual, the celebration of diversity, and the sanctity of dissent.

Dissent and the Failure of Leadership

Dissent and the Failure of Leadership PDF

Author: Stephen P. Banks

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1848442696

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This timely collection of original papers explores the vital but largely unrecognized connections between leadership and dissent. In an era when leadership failures can mean homelessness and even death for countless flood victims, losses of life savings for employees of bankrupt corporations, civilian deaths and ravaged societies in the Middle East and incalculable suffering among refugees in central Africa, the studies presented here offer analysis and correctives based on new understandings of the dissent leadership relationship. The book examines how dissent is implicated in problems plaguing theory development in leadership studies. Topics explored within this framework include dissent in corporate discourses of control, real and manufactured crises, cross-generational perceptions, women leaders personal and work lives, the professionalization of journalism, religious institutions, activist public relations and fear-based cultures. It concludes with new proposals for legitimating dissent as a unique instrument for advancing social development and avoiding failures of leadership. Examining dissent as the critical factor that differentiates leadership failures and successes from interdisciplinary perspectives, this illuminating book will be of great interest to advanced students and teachers of leadership studies, as well as corporate executives, policymakers and other leaders aware of the need to improve leadership practices.

On Dissent

On Dissent PDF

Author: Ronald K. L. Collins

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1107067065

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America values dissent. It tolerates, encourages and protects it. But what is this thing we value? That is a question never asked. 'Dissent' is treated as a known fact. For all that has been said about it - in books, articles, judicial opinions, and popular culture - it is remarkable that no one has devoted much, if any, ink to explaining what dissent is. No one has attempted to sketch its philosophical, linguistic, legal or cultural meanings or usages. There is a need to develop some clarity about this phenomenon, for not every difference of opinion, symbolic gesture, public activity in opposition to government policy, incitement to direct action, revolutionary effort or political assassination need be tagged dissent. In essence, we have no conceptual yardstick. It is just that measure of meaning that On Dissent offers.

Bodies in Early Modern Religious Dissent

Bodies in Early Modern Religious Dissent PDF

Author: Elisabeth Fischer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-31

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1000391361

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In early modern times, religious affiliation was often communicated through bodily practices. Despite various attempts at definition, these practices remained extremely fluid and lent themselves to individual appropriation and to evasion of church and state control. Because bodily practices prompted much debate, they serve as a useful starting point for examining denominational divisions, allowing scholars to explore the actions of smaller and more radical divergent groups. The focus on bodies and conflicts over bodily practices are the starting point for the contributors to this volume who depart from established national and denominational historiographies to probe the often-ambiguous phenomena occurring at the interstices of confessional boundaries. In this way, the authors examine a variety of religious living conditions, socio-cultural groups, and spiritual networks of early modern Europe and the Americas. The cases gathered here skillfully demonstrate the diverse ways in which regional and local differences affected the interpretation of bodily signs. This book will appeal to scholars and students of early modern Europe and the Americas, as well as those interested in religious and gender history, and the history of dissent.

The Sacrament of Doubt

The Sacrament of Doubt PDF

Author: Paul Toscano

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781560851462

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Paul James Toscano embraces his doubts--doubts that spring from an awareness intimately connected to faith. His doubts extend beyond the incidental aspects of Christianity and Mormonism to the fundamentals of faith. "I fear that Jesus, whom I love so much, may be a fiction," he writes. Even so, he explains that he cherishes the idea of Jesus "as a king in disguise among his people, eating of their limitations and drinking of their disappointments, yet able to descend into the abyss and rise again, pulling out of meaninglessness both soul and cosmos. If Jesus was not the Christ," he declares, "he should have been. If he is not God, he should be." At the same time, "if Jesus is real, where is he? Certainly he is neither clear nor accessible. And his gospel, as compelling as it is inscrutable, seems to sanctify least those who make it their career." Toscano also celebrates LDS founder Joseph Smith's awe-inspired view of the universe. In Smith's writings, the Old Testament patriarch Enoch "saw in vision the vast expanse of eternity" and "it shattered his belief. He was undone. He couldn't believe its creator could care about the microbial humans that inhabit this small speck of earth." Thus we see Toscano's encompassing view of a God who is so far beyond our ultimately petty concerns, he could not care about such things as pedigree--a God who loves everyone equally. However, according to some modern LDS commentators, "the full weight of salvation is upon us"; God's love is "conditional." If we err, we are lost. "This is not good news," Toscano asserts. "It is not the gospel. It is legalism." It is not the gospel of a God who cleanses us from corruption--something far and away beyond our own ability--and asks us only that we forgive our neighbors' trespasses. This God "does not require certainty or purity as conditions of his deliverance, merely that we recognize our lack and long to be filled." Such divine love transcends even Toscano's doubts.

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