The Ensign - worth it?

[Robin Hood]

I would be interested to know whether anyone other than me has quit taking the Ensign because it is just so awful these days.
I came across some copies I have from the 1970's the other day. When I compare the modern offering the phrase "dumbed down" came both forcefully and unavoidably to mind.
The older version had scholarly theological and historical articles within interesting and insightful perspectives. The current version appears to be full of sugar and sweetness, but nothing of real value.
Is it just me?

[Silver]

I would be interested to know whether anyone other than me has quit taking the Ensign because it is just so awful these days.
I came across some copies I have from the 1970's the other day. When I compare the modern offering the phrase "dumbed down" came both forcefully and unavoidably to mind.
The older version had scholarly theological and historical articles within interesting and insightful perspectives. The current version appears to be full of sugar and sweetness, but nothing of real value.
Is it just me?

The British Meteorological Society has issued a warning to all citizens living within one mile of Robin Hood. The likelihood of heaven-sent lightning bolts has increased to 100%. Flee now. Don't take any personal belongings. Don't look back. Remember Lot's wife.

[Lizzy60]

I quit subscribing almost 20 years ago. A friend found out, around 2002, and gifted me a subscription, and that settled it for me. Too dumbed down, and any article I might need for home/visiting teaching can be printed off the online version.

I have copies of many of the articles Hugh Nibley wrote, and the comparison to today's pablum is very, very stark.

You can go ahead and send those lightning bolts my way.

[Silver]

The theological/academic level of the articles in the Ensign should be seen as a symptom of issues among Church members rather than a cause for their lack of interest in more scholarly treatment of gospel subjects.

[Fiannan]

Remember Lot's wife.

At least according to the Muslims she divulged the location of the angles to the perverted mobs. She loved the city and enjoyed its pleasures. Her looking back betrayed her loyalties and she died.

Actually makes sense.

[Arenera]

Probably related to ADHD, Twitter, etc. Many people can only handle a small amount now.

[iWriteStuff]

I would be interested to know whether anyone other than me has quit taking the Ensign because it is just so awful these days.
I came across some copies I have from the 1970's the other day. When I compare the modern offering the phrase "dumbed down" came both forcefully and unavoidably to mind.
The older version had scholarly theological and historical articles within interesting and insightful perspectives. The current version appears to be full of sugar and sweetness, but nothing of real value.
Is it just me?

Two thoughts for ya:

1) It's pretty much free on the Gospel Library app, so why pay for it?
2) Yes it's pretty awful. The wife and I have been remarking on that for years. I'm not sure why it's so fluffy. Even the 1st Presidency messages are watered down to almost Chicken McNugget sized helpings, more fit for a Facebook post than print media.

Are there no Mormon scholars now? Are there no new discoveries or advances in defending the faith? Is the Ensign so small it can't accommodate a range of topics for all types of readers? I think it's great to have first hand stories about praying to find your car keys, but what about doctrinal issues for the meat-seeking members of the church?

I apologize to Ensign loving members who are perfectly satisfied with the offerings put forth therein. I know the church is bigger now than it was 40 years ago, with a wider audience than ever. I just sympathize with Robin Hood on this one except for in one case only: General Conference issues! Those are great. O:-)

And yes, I'll take some lightning over here, too, please :ymdevil:

[Z2100]

I would be interested to know whether anyone other than me has quit taking the Ensign because it is just so awful these days.
I came across some copies I have from the 1970's the other day. When I compare the modern offering the phrase "dumbed down" came both forcefully and unavoidably to mind.
The older version had scholarly theological and historical articles within interesting and insightful perspectives. The current version appears to be full of sugar and sweetness, but nothing of real value.
Is it just me?

I feel y’a. Looking back at the past Ensigns on the GL app, I thought « why don’t they talk about this stuff anymore? » there are people like me and many others on this forum who are lookin for good gospel doctrine. Reading the Ensign nowadays is almost like reading the Friend.

[Silver]

Don't forget that much of the Ensign = The Liahona, translated into a multitude of languages for all our brothers and sisters throughout the world, many of whom hail from non-Christian backgrounds.

[Irrelevant]

I would be interested to know whether anyone other than me has quit taking the Ensign because it is just so awful these days.
I came across some copies I have from the 1970's the other day. When I compare the modern offering the phrase "dumbed down" came both forcefully and unavoidably to mind.
The older version had scholarly theological and historical articles within interesting and insightful perspectives. The current version appears to be full of sugar and sweetness, but nothing of real value.
Is it just me?

Seems like members and leaders alike were much less PC and a lot tougher in the 70's. About a year ago I started listening to all of the General Conference talks offered on the Gospel library app from the beginning. What happened to the fire? Same with the Ensign.

[Silver]

For da skolarz:
https://mi.byu.edu/

Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

[kittycat51]

I would be interested to know whether anyone other than me has quit taking the Ensign because it is just so awful these days.
I came across some copies I have from the 1970's the other day. When I compare the modern offering the phrase "dumbed down" came both forcefully and unavoidably to mind.
The older version had scholarly theological and historical articles within interesting and insightful perspectives. The current version appears to be full of sugar and sweetness, but nothing of real value.
Is it just me?

The British Meteorological Society has issued a warning to all citizens living within one mile of Robin Hood. The likelihood of heaven-sent lightning bolts has increased to 100%. Flee now. Don't take any personal belongings. Don't look back. Remember Lot's wife.

=)) =)) =))

Actually I still read it cover to cover. I have always enjoyed it. I'm not on the same illumined level as as many though. :ymblushing:

[passionflower]

I explained it like this to my son in law:
the church had its "age of the intellectual"in the day of John Widstoe, James Talmage, Alvin Dyer, etc. Now this university educated type is not needed so much by the church today as the University administrator type . So we are now in the "age of the administrator".

I haven't seen many good scholars in the church today. "Temples of the Ancient World" is a good book, though. But you won't see any articles from it in the Ensign.

For those of you who like and miss Hugh Nibley, he actually wasn't the best and most knowedgeable LDS ancient history scholar of his day. There were other ones, and I can think of another one right now I like much better than Nibley. Hugh Nibley just brought his subject down to an ordinary layman's level, and made everything he said sound so exciting. A friend of mine and I have dubbed him: " the Indiana Jones " of the LDS church.

I have records ( and a stereo to play them on!) which the church made for the blind, dating back to the 1960's, an era which I remember well. I love listening to these, too. General conference talks were not preplanned and written out, with GA's talking more naturallly from the heart, and you felt like Spencer W Kimball could be right there talking in your living room, instead of stiffly at some podium surrounded at a great distance by an audience of thousands.

I remember when LeGrand Richards wouldn't change his style to suit this new mode we are in today, and I guess because of his age, the church presidency just let him do things as he had always been doing them. He would get up in GC after GC, and talk on about reading the OT and his take on it. He said reading the Latin Vulgate was better than the KJV, and he recommended it to us all.

I love to listen to SWK on these records I have. HIs sincerity, genuiness, humility, and real love for the members of the church is so keenly felt, but even more importantly, his love for the Lord and His devotion to the work of the Lord. I was very saddened when "The MIracle of Forgiveness" was taken off the shelves of DB. This work has changed so very many lives. And the way Bruce R McConkie is treated like an old fashioned fuddy duddy today. No one could look down on him who has ever heard him bear his testimony. There are so many more I really miss, like Ezra T. Benson, for instance. You really knew where he stood on things.

[Robin Hood]

I explained it like this to my son in law:
the church had its "age of the intellectual"in the day of John Widstoe, James Talmage, Alvin Dyer, etc. Now this university educated type is not needed so much by the church today as the University administrator type . So we are now in the "age of the administrator".

I haven't seen many good scholars in the church today. "Temples of the Ancient World" is a good book, though. But you won't see any articles from it in the Ensign.

For those of you who llike and miss Hugh Nibley, he actually wasn't the best and most knowedgeable LDS ancient history scholar of his day. There were other ones, and I can think of another one right now I like much better than Nibley. Hugh Nibley just brought his subject down to an ordinary layman's level, and made everything he said sound so exciting. A friend of mine and I have dubbed him: " the Indiana Jones " of the LDS church.

I have records ( and a stereo to play them on!) which the church made for the blind, dating back to the 1960's, an era which I remember well. I love listening to these, too. General conference talks were not preplanned and written out, with GA's talking more naturallly from the heart, and you felt like Spencer W Kimball could be right there talking in your living room, instead of stiffly at some podium surrounded at a great distance by an audience of thousands.

I remember when LeGrand Richards wouldn't change his style to suit this new mode we are in today, and I guess because of his age, the church presidency just let him do things as he had always been doing them. He would get up in GC after GC, and talk on about reading the OT and his take on it. He said reading the Latin Vulgate was better than the KJV, and he recommended it to us all.

I love to listen to SWK on these records I have. HIs sincerity, genuiness, humility, and real love for the members of the church is so keenly felt, but even more importantly, his love for the Lord and His devotion to the work of the Lord. I was very saddened when "The MIracle of Forgiveness" was taken off the shelves of DB. This work has changed so very many lives. And the way Bruce R McConkie is treated like an old fashioned fuddy duddy. No one could look down on him who has ever heard him bear his testimony. There are so many more I really miss, like Ezra T. Benson, for instance. You really knew where he stood on things.

I agree with much of this, though I am firmly in the "Nibley was a genius" camp.
Just like the Ensign, I also have great difficulty with general conference these days. It appears to be so stage managed and contrived. I get the impresssion the speakers, and church officials, are more concerned about how their comments will be received in and by the world than by the church members.
There are exceptions of course, but the general direction of travel is trending downwards towards a pretty low common demoninator.

I can't get away from the feeling that something has been lost. The vitality I remember when I was young appears to be gone.

[h_p]

Now we're reduced to memes and conference quotes set to music. If you want the good stuff, you have to hunt for it. The good thing is, there's lots out there, and it's pretty easy for even us out here in the "mission field" to find nowadays.

[marc]

My in-laws still subscribe. My MIL still reads it. When it's left on the table, I open it up and start reading. I close it after about ten seconds and push it back where it was. The book of Isaiah for me, please. And Second Nephi.

[Juliet]

I do think it is dumbed down. Part of how we learn, is to branch off into creative ideas, but then go back to simple ideas. Then we branch off again into creative ideas, and then go back to simple ideas. When I read the journal of discourses, there are nuggets of gold in there. But there also is just a lot of plain speculation. I watch how my young kids explain the world from their perspective. Many times, they speculate: this is how it is, and that is how it is. I just say 'ok' because that is their view from their experience and it will change as they grow. That is just how we learn. It takes a while of simplifying our many creative ideas into base doctrine and principles; in order to realize what the gold nuggets are in those creative branches.

I once had a kid who was very smart teach me calculus in 20 minutes. I then took a calculus class. Looking back, I saw that the smart kid really had taught me everything that I just spent a whole year studying in class.

If you are really smart, you can explain incredible concepts in a nutshell, and it works just as well. And if you are dumb, you can take books of words to explain incredible concepts, and people will adore you for being so smart and thoughtful, yet they will probably walk away from it none the better.

Who is to say which is the best way? I will tell you what I respect. I respect writers who can think up more questions than what they have answers for. It is the articles that leave you with more questions than answers that really are going to teach you something. I do not like it when the article starts off explaining an extremely tragic scenario and then saying 'all is well' because of this or that reason, and many ensign articles use that approach. But maybe I am just faithless in that regard.

[h_p]

My in-laws still subscribe. My MIL still reads it. When it's left on the table, I open it up and start reading. I close it after about ten seconds and push it back where it was. The book of Isaiah for me, please. And Second Nephi.

Yes! After reading Avraham Gileadi's stuff for a year, pretty much everything else feels like I'm eating cotton candy. I hope to meet him some day so I can personally thank him for everything he's taught me.

[Yahtzee]

Who is to say which is the best way? I will tell you what I respect. I respect writers who can think up more questions than what they have answers for. It is the articles that leave you with more questions than answers that really are going to teach you something. I do not like it when the article starts off explaining an extremely tragic scenario and then saying 'all is well' because of this or that reason, and many ensign articles use that approach. But maybe I am just faithless in that regard.

:ymapplause: totally agree with this.

No, you're not faithless. It takes the most faith to have a tragic scenario, not have it get better, but to continue on in Christ when all is not well.

[MMbelieve]

I have read through this thread and I see that most people think the ensign is dumbed down. I'm not sure why we had to dumb it down, we already have the new Era and the friend and now a second friend magazine. Maybe we just need a new magazine for the scriptorians. I think that would be really facinating. Sunday school on steroids

I started having issue with the ensign and other produced church things a few years back. Since I wasn't even alive in the 70s yet I can't compare the ensign to much else than what it was a few years ago.

I first noticed that the images and pictures were taking on a more "advertisement" angle than I appreciated. Then I noticed the articles were just getting boring (I thought it must have been my fault or a sign in was faultering). I haven't renewed my subscription this year but when I look through the stories, I'm hoping for something interesting and applicable. If it sounds interesting, I'm usually dissapointed after reading it because it either upset me or it didn't really offer much other than basics in primary.

But hey, with how sinful the church has become, maybe it's more our fault that we only get the basics now.

[iWriteStuff]

By a stroke of irony, I was just reading in Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life and just came across this passage:

"The objection to an "over-intellectual" approach to the Gospel runs entirely counter to the long tradition of learning in the Church. When I wrote the Melchizedek Priesthood Manual for 1957, the "Reading Committee" rejected each and every lesson as it was submitted week by week, and in each and every case without exception President McKay overruled the Committee, saying, "If it is over their heads, let them reach for it - that is what we need!" Every lesson was printed without any alteration; the Manual was reprinted many times and with all its "mistakes of men" is still in print. So much for study that is "too advanced" for our people."
- Hugh Nibley, "To Whom It May Concern" (letter of recommendation for Avraham Gileadi), p. 252

We've all been given our "talents" and the commandment to put them to work during our time of probation. I guess if we want to drink in the "over-intellectual" stuff that's out there, it's up to us. But I, too, long for the days of meat.

[Arenera]

By a stroke of irony, I was just reading in Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life and just came across this passage:

"The objection to an "over-intellectual" approach to the Gospel runs entirely counter to the long tradition of learning in the Church. When I wrote the Melchizedek Priesthood Manual for 1957, the "Reading Committee" rejected each and every lesson as it was submitted week by week, and in each and every case without exception President McKay overruled the Committee, saying, "If it is over their heads, let them reach for it - that is what we need!" Every lesson was printed without any alteration; the Manual was reprinted many times and with all its "mistakes of men" is still in print. So much for study that is "too advanced" for our people."
- Hugh Nibley, "To Whom It May Concern" (letter of recommendation for Avraham Gileadi), p. 252

We've all been given our "talents" and the commandment to put them to work during our time of probation. I guess if we want to drink in the "over-intellectual" stuff that's out there, it's up to us. But I, too, long for the days of meat.

I like the part of reaching for it.

[Matchmaker]

Wow! I thought it was just me! I used to read the Ensign from cover to cover, and now the only issue I read all the way through is the Conference issue.

[marc]

My in-laws still subscribe. My MIL still reads it. When it's left on the table, I open it up and start reading. I close it after about ten seconds and push it back where it was. The book of Isaiah for me, please. And Second Nephi.

Yes! After reading Avraham Gileadi's stuff for a year, pretty much everything else feels like I'm eating cotton candy. I hope to meet him some day so I can personally thank him for everything he's taught me.

I don't care to visit Deseret Bookstore anymore either, although to me, the only thing there really worth reading is the Joseph Smith Papers series, but it can also be read online. I don't care to buy ridiculously expensive paintings or knick knacks. The vast majority of books are fluffy infotainment to me with little to no substance. This topic reminds me of what I've pondered today from 2 Nephi:

2 Nephi 33:1 And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.

2 But behold, there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as things of naught.

3 But I, Nephi, have written what I have written, and I esteem it as of great worth, and especially unto my people...

Nephi spent countless hours transcribing Isaiah's words onto his plates because of the importance and relevance of Isaiah to his people and to us. He even took the time to plainly expound to them what Isaiah was teaching and even had his brother, Jacob, expound Isaiah to them. I've often heard members joke about skipping over 2 Nephi making excuses about not studying Isaiah. I am at a loss for words for the gruel served up in the Ensign magazines today. I much prefer feasting on the dense nutrition found in the scriptures, especially served up by the likes of Nephi, Jacob, and Isaiah. I mean, Abinadi commented on Isaiah to King Noah and even Jesus Christ at Bountiful expounded upon Isaiah. Four commentaries on Isaiah's words by four people are found throughout the Book of Mormon. That's saying something!

[JohnnyL]

Don't forget that much of the Ensign = The Liahona, translated into a multitude of languages for all our brothers and sisters throughout the world, many of whom hail from non-Christian backgrounds.

Yet, the Ensign has more, maybe 1.3 x more, or so?

And you'd be surprised how quickly many foreigners pick up the gospel...