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My mileage and experiences are different. Spiritual experiences are meant to be questioned (and not acted on) when the consequences are harmful for others. A lot of “unrighteous dominion” is branded as “spiritual purity and improvement” and the spiritual experience is branded about as the motivation for the action. – We lose a lot of teenagers to suicide because our culture insists that gender and sexuality are of paramount importance in the eternal scheme of things.
– Families break up because a husband (and it’s usually a husband) insists that they have the correct perspective and refuse to listen to their wife and children and their perspective.
That being said, post-faith transition me considers the biggest sins to be:
a) Certainty – It removes space for Doubt, alternative life experiences, and creates Isolation and Division.
b) Human Purity – It usually robs Compassion and Loving-Kindness and pays greater attention to what isn’t necessarily important or balanced.
The few times I have been at church experiences since 2020, I go as an interested, polite observer who participates when there is suitable common ground. it works to keep me from contaminating that space with my heresy, but it costs my resources to be there and participate in that way. The lats time I was there, I felt very much like a self-imposed exile attempting to re-visit.
My life journey has provided me with alternative ways of introspection. I horrified my husband yesterday because I was comparing and contrasting Joseph Smith’s afterlife theology with Isekai (aka “other world”) anime [the stories about a person transported to a different planet to live a different life] while doing the dishes. Specifically, I find it hilarious about the number of those anime stories who wind up talking about polygamy and almost-polygamy relationships. Say what you will about Joseph Smith, he was a story-teller before he was a theologian (as much as he was one).
But that doesn’t actually help you a whole lot with the Fast & Testimony meeting experience:(
As a people, we don’t like to talk about how we pay for our spirituality – in part because we don’t want to deal with supply-side compensation and discrimination issues (especially how women are not treated equally at the system-wide level) 
In this case, there is a fair amount of accidental friction between the missionaries doing social media stuff on their missions (paying for the privilege as it were) and the social media influencers getting paid to do a similar function from an entertainment platform. The college age kids who are serving missions could use the financial support (rather then supplying the financial support) and it brings up a question if the individual really needs to serve the mission, to spend their money that way to get the same effect.
In fantasy terms, it’s a competition between a bard and a cleric to woo the hearts of individuals (and get their time, talents, attention, and money). The church itself as a brand becomes part of the competition (and is losing out to grassroots relevancy) for the public speaking market share about church policy and news.
Roy wrote:
I think most members would be mildly/moderately uncomfortable with you saying that you had felt that God abandoned you in your hour of need … and it was hard … but then you got used to it.😥
I have this conversation with my mother every few years.
She feeds me the standard talking points that I “Yes and…”
I am lucky enough that she sits with me in my faith transition as much as she does and how she has handled her faith adjustment a good 30 years ago and how she respected her atheist/agnostic father in law.
I wanted to be at church to learn things. I remember looking forward to the temple prep classes so I could learn new things about the temple and the church – and then actually being present in the class and being bored because whatever that was introduced was not terribly new.
I would add that for some units, I am hearing that there is pressure on the YW to go on a mission as well (if there are enough YW already going) just like it used to be for the YM. I have also heard about more meetings to invite couples on senior missions in greater numbers.
About 6 years or so ago, there became a policy emphasis on Primary teacher training. Whether it’s a legal thing or just a way to protect children through training, I don’t know. I think that it came out after the Sam Young stuff broke, and there had been a record level of abuse cases coming to light.
I vaguely remember taking the training (2018 ish) mostly because I was trying to support the Primary organization for my kids (9 and up to 2 at the time).
I have mixed emotions about how the system works. The training itself is a more sanitized examination of the “reporting and removal” slippery slope. Our system for supporting abuse survivors is not robust enough to handle the 1 in 4-6 women, 1 in 7-10 men, and countless numbers of children (when you include children being abused by other children in the home) in abusive circumstances. This also doesn’t include that for some individuals with different mental capabilities, abuse is part and parcel of the caregiving landscape (dementia is a common example).
It feels to me kinda like someone trying to hook up their “besties” i.e. the church community and the church adjacent community associated with those letters and their allies. I agree it is a laudable thing to undertake and all the other considerations mentioned here.
I would add the additional concern that those who are facilitating these conversations may show up on the radar for those issuing church discipline.
You could start with something like, “I have been thinking about the “Covenant Path” recently, and this description by a GA really resonated with me…” He described it as:
Quote:“We embark upon the path at the gate of baptism and the “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. The two great commandments to the end.” Matt 22: 36-40″
As a tactical scenario, a way to avoid answering questions is to ask really good questions that prompt the questioner to talk and think out loud:) “What is most meaningful to you about point X from the lesson we just had?” Can help too:)
You could also switch tactics and just focus on treating them as a friend. You could even front-load the situation by saying something like, “I am happy to give you a ride and be your friend, but I am not your source of information for doctrinal questions. What else is on your mind?” could be a rough draft of a useful statement.
Deciding for yourself what you feel like talking about (and don’t) and figuring out ways to communicate that will make those potentially awkward situations much easier, I think.
My admittedly knee-jerk “hot take” to these stats is the fierce love and engagement that the parents and care-givers (usually mothers) have for these children and their faith in God and communities that a way will be made for these children eventually (if they can survive long enough). These parents and other care-givers are providing the love that is insulating these children and giving them enough hope to live on.
There were a bunch of community and security environmental factors mentioned as well that are also protecting the individual.
The powers that be decided to create a “best practices” timeline checklist because that works for their worldview (and doesn’t work for a lot of other worldviews) and called it a “Covenant Path. But the image of “Covenant Path” is really potentially more expansive. If you believe that C.S. Lewis’s description of living among gods and goddesses in disguise is a functional reality, then wherever there are humans doing human things, that is a plot of “covenant path” with humans doing the work of the divine.
Quote:It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/282593-it-is-a-serious-thing-to-live-in-a-society#:~:text=Sign%20Up%20Now-,It%20is%20a%20serious%20thing%20to%20live%20in%20a%20society,at%20all%2C%20only%20in%20a ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/282593-it-is-a-serious-thing-to-live-in-a-society#:~:text=Sign%20Up%20Now-,It%20is%20a%20serious%20thing%20to%20live%20in%20a%20society,at%20all%2C%20only%20in%20a You could even share that sometimes the contour of the “Covenant Path” bears characteristics of a “Liahona Path” where everyone is going in a specific direction dealing with darkness and peer pressure or a “Liahona Path” where people are being directed by God into personal paths with trials and headwinds. NOTE: This type of talk would flag you as being more doctrinally divergent and may be socially not appreciated.
There are likely a variety of general leaders who you could quote, including Chieko Okazi, Dieter Utchdorf, Keaton, Reyna Aburto, Holland, etc. You could share personal experiences about when people at church were connected to you and mourned with you.
Honestly, I would go with part of being on the “Covenant Path” is the responsibility given at baptism to “mourn with those that mourn” and run with it. Depending on how you do so, you will avoid offending anyone or everyone in mostly equal measure:)
It also might be that your demeanor indicates that you are used to being a leader and answering questions (and finding answers if needed). Or that you were one of the nearest individuals who wasn’t running around doing something, but was available for questioning.
Regarding “deferral” stuff – it depends on the personality of the individual to a specific degree.
My father tended to view the majority of priesthood stuff as “organizational/logistics stuff” and that his role was more of a “divine agent/representative/go-between family (or family member) and God (or the organization)” and less of a “final decision-maker” or “potential oracle”.
