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God bless you sir. All of us are here to comfort you. All I can say is that you need to assess the needs of your children. Ask your wife if the severe emotional detriment of a divorce on the minds of your children is worth it. Your wife does have a right to be frustrated, because your issues compromise her self esteem. But in the church, we don’t believe in revenge, and children shouldn’t have to pay for the mistakes of their parents. I don’t believe you deserve all the guilt you’ve faced. Theres nothing that sickens me more than church leaders who may have treated you poorly in your time of distress. As I’ve read, I agree with everyone else’s posts on how we may have created an environment were we abuse ourselves with guilt. I don’t believe infractions of the law of Chastity are comparable to murder. In the Puritan religion, you could’ve been executed if you were caught masturbating. That society failed miserably. Enough is enough. The importance of Chastity is to have self-control and discipline of your physical body so that you save the best joys to share in the expression of Love with your spouse.
Godspeed you in your endeavors to keep your precious family together at all costs. Without trials, how would we know of the love we have for one another??
Thank you all so very much for your wonderful words of advice. I’m so thankful that I still have time to ponder my decision. There is lots of pressure for me to go on a mission. It is hard to ignore at times. In my younger childhood, I was very timid. I think I’ve matured and eliminated that as I’ve sharpened my ability to be independent. But I’ve developed a suspicion and hatred for the possibility of being decieved or used to progress someone else’s agenda. I want to serve God. If God desires me to serve a mission for the LDS church, I’m sure he will manifest it. If he doesn’t he won’t. No, I don’t believe that if the ban had been lifted earlier, blacks would’ve faced discimination in the church. Obviously, the ban prevented black men from having the priesthood, and black men and women from entering the temple, but it didn’t prevent them from being baptised and being part of congregations. Also, I think that most members have always been loyal enough to the Prophet that when he comes out with a revelation, they accept it. For members to display racist behavior towards any other members, at any time, before or after the ban, would’ve been apostasy and sin in its purest form. There isn’t as much racial understanding in the church as I would like there to be. We hold back on exploring solutions to understanding the nature of the priesthood ban, dark skin as a punishement in Biblical/BoM times, the concept of God having a chosen people, and the plausiblity of natural selection giving a human population more individual characteristics over time. Sometimes we may even try to hide it.
How many times in the Bible is it been reiterated that the Hebrews were God’s chosen people, and others were, to some degree, lacking the same, if any, capacity to achieve a spiritual relationship with God? It is made clear to us that the Lord does regard race in some way.
I encourage everyone in the church to heavily ponder and seek revelation to the topic of race. Its one of those things where you really have to be patient and have Faith that Heavenly Father will reveal to you the answers. It can’t be taken lightly. You can’t ignore it.
Thank You. I enjoyed reading your concern. I have to say point-blank to you that I do believe that this is a church centered around republican conservatism. There are many, many people in the church who, like yourself, agree with liberal ideals and such. For instance, I’m sure you’ve heard about the gay rights advocacy movement that has hit BYU. A public forum, sanctioned by the deans, was held on campus to discuss ways of future acceptance of gay and lesbian mormons. So many people attended, that the auditorium they had planned to used filled up completely and there weren’t enough seats. I’m sure you’ve heard about that. I sometimes wonder if the deans decided to allow that in an effort to suppress all the flak BYU has been getting after recieving the title “officially rated #1 un-friendliess campus in the USA for LGBTs,” but that’s a whole other discussion.
The point I wanted to make is that you are part of a rappidly growing demographic— those in the church, especially youth, who sway towards liberal ideas.
However, like I said before, the church itself is centered around fundamental republican conservatism. In most of the families in my ward, I could easily walk into their house, sit down, and openly say that Obama and his supporters are a detriment to the country, and they would either passionately or casually express their agreement.
(((just as a sidenote, I consider myself to be a pure moderate. I plan to spend more time focussing on politics and forming an opinion once I have settled my personal religious disputes.)))
I will make the assertion, my open opinion, that this stems from the heirarchy of church leadership. All twelve of our current Apostles, President Monson, Eyring, and Utchdorf are all heavily conservative men. They present conservative ideals in code-talk over the pulpit at General Conference and the like such. And our culture reflects it- cultural factors such as literature. Thats why some Deseret author can write a book like the one you mentioned.
So my point in a nutshell– there are many liberal-minded young people in the church, but they recieve council from conservative elders. Being raised in an all-or-nothing environment of obeying the prophet no matter what, they suppress, change, or ignore their beliefs.
I hope I’ve expressed my opinion clearly. Once again, thank you for your expression of concern.
Pleasure to meet you. We live in an increasingly liberal world. Many eyes are focused on the church and how it will adapt in the comming years to the rapid changes that are taking place in the world, Gay/Lesbian rights just being one example. I commend you for your honesty. As members of this forum, I consider us all patrons of genuine truth- which by the laws of nature must be accumulated from multiple perspectives.
Nice to meet you, baldzach. Thanks for sharing. You say you served a mission in Germany. I have a few older friends that went there and really enjoyed, despite the slow-gowing amount of investigators/converts. Well it sounds like your heart is in the right place. In the end all that matters is the way you look up to Jesus Christ and God.
