[Andrew]

SD wrote:

That in frequenting boards like this you end up NOT nourishing the seed the way you should, and so, it doesn’t grow and swell….it leads to less activity, with JD as a case in point. I have to confess, for all the community-feeling you get on site like this, there is also exposure to additional doubts and concerns that can fuel existing ones, so in trying to make things better, it can actually make it worse for some people.

From my own experience, I think you’re onto something here (I wouldn’t want to speculate on the reasons behind John’s inactivity for any other reason than those he’s stated). And even if you’re not exposed to new questions or concerns, seeing more people struggling with local leadership or feeling unwelcome or whatever, just kind of ratchets things up. It builds up the negative image of the church as opposed to the positive one.

That’s why I think the church itself would be wise to create some sort of support group(s) for those struggling. By setting up a support group, the institution/corporation, with support from local leadership, a tacit message would be sent to doubters: “We want you to stay in our fold and we love you as you are.” The sanctioned forum would temper some of the real negative feelings and people wouldn’t feel rejected or the need to conceal their feelings.

As it is now, doubters have to turn to channels outside of the church for support and to discuss questions and experiences. We hide behind aliases and avatars for fear of being outed as a doubter, and of course most of us are loathe to express our true feelings in Sunday School or EQ/RS. We feel unaccepted and like we have to hide, which feeds, at some level, some antagonism or negative feelings toward the institution/congregation/theology.

Just a thought, riffing on your astute observation.

[Andrew]

GBSmith wrote:

I don’t know that it matters much if he’s going to meet with Elder Jensen, Elder Packer or President Monson. I’m just curious why he’d do it since he’s not active and doesn’t believe it or why they would feel the need to sit down with him. Is there something about his constituency of non believing, marginally participating, non tithe paying members that need more ministering, care and support? Does he somehow see this as his ministery and calling? It’s all very confusing to me.

I think he’s going to meet with the leader because the leader asked him to. And I can’t really speak for John, but regardless of level of activity, it’s pretty clear that John loves the Mormon people and his Mormon heritage. Those ties to the community and heritage are deep and strong for a lot of us – probably a lot on this board who aren’t “traditional” believers but continue to participate in the church.

And, I don’t think John has a “constituency” – that makes him sound like too much of a leader of some sort. JD’s clearly stated in recent years that everyone has to choose their own path and what makes sense for them. He’s not leading people one specific direction. But his voice is a welcome one of understanding and empathy for people who are receiving neither from the church or their families.

He’s helped countless people stay in the church and at least deal with their pain and confusion in constructive ways. And “his constituency,” if you insist on using that term, is far wider than you suggest. I know plenty (including me) of fully participating, tithe-paying, if partially believing members that are fans/friends/mentees of JD.

[Andrew]

Tom wrote:

Actually, I think that song is great spiritual teaching that holds potential reform for the church. “Reverence is love.” Have you been singing the same song I have been singing?

Nope, I was thinking of “Reverently, Quietly.” I wasn’t familiar with “Reverence is Love” – that is more complete definition of “reverence.”

[Andrew]

SD wrote:

do you believe this is true?

No. I was surprised when I got to my mission to find out that many elders did believe that. It was news to me.

SD wrote:

And is it a necessary condition of being an Apostle that you actually see Christ as some point?

By the way apostles are discussed in the New Testament, the answer would seem to be yes. From the modern LDS church, I’d think the answer is no.

Though some current leaders are awfully coy about their personal experiences, and seem to intimate that they have (“…through experiences too sacred to mention…”).

SD wrote:

Or is the Special Witness concept simply open to parsing or interpreted as having symbolic meaning?

Yeah, I think so. Though I do think that some of the Brethren are content to let members continue to believe that a personal visitation or vision of Christ is necessary to be an apostle.

[Andrew]

Unquestioning loyalty to the organization and its highest leaders seems to me to be an occasionally explicit, but mostly just very strongly implicit value of the church.

[Andrew]

Fatherof4husbandof1 wrote:

From the SLT April 26, 2011—-“Ballard and other speakers acknowledged that the Utah-based faith was worried about massive losses of members in this age group”

Whats going on here? Massive losses of young members?

This is hearsay, but yes, I’ve heard that it’s a problem. The church has always bled at this age group, but my understanding is that in recent years it has become worse than historical trends.

Quote:

“We hope you’ve got the message: You have no option to bounce around,” [Ballard] said, referring to a common practice dubbed ward-hopping in which young Mormons shop around for congregations they like. “We know where you are. We’ve got our radar focused on you.”

Having listened to Elder Ballard speak for 20 years or so, I’m almost positive that when this comment was delivered, there was some levity in it – a wry smile indicating playfulness. But that does not translate well into print at all. It’s hard not to read this and see it as Orwellian.

My own opinion is that this change won’t do much, if anything, to solve the problem of losing young adults. There are a number of challenges and issues young people face today, which this solution does not do anything to address.

Being a young single adult – even if you want to get married as soon as possible – in the church is really difficult. Our theology and our organization is centered on serving families.

On top of that, there are lots of temptations and sins that are pretty enticing. I understand the church’s position on things like chastity, and largely agree with it, but the way we present repentance may be a barrier to returning. Often, the grace and love available through repentance is neglected, while things like sexual sin being second in seriousness only to murder are emphasized. As one of my favorite bands, Mumford & Sons, says in their song “Roll Away Your Stone,” “it’s not the long walk home that will change this heart / but the welcome I receive with every start.” The prodigal son’s heart wasn’t changed by his lonely walk home. It was changed by the reception of his father, who, aware of his sons sins, embraced him and welcomed him warmly.

Also, there is a lot of economic uncertainty. With financial disputes being a major cause of divorce, is it that bad of an idea for young people to want to develop some economic stability before marrying and having children?

I think when a lot of young people experience the “world,” they find that it’s not as bad a place as they were told and warned about. Most people are decent and want to live good, fulfilling lives (however they define it). Many of these young people have gay friends and family members; it is difficult to reconcile personal experiences of kind, loving, and decent gay friends or family members with the church’s hard-line stance on homosexuality (both in the church and in the culture at large, though the official church stance, Packer excepted, has softened for the better in recent years).

Finally, there is a wealth of information about the church’s history now available. And the actual history of the church is far more complicated and messy than the neat, tidy narrative we were taught in Sunday School and Seminary. That discrepancy can cause trust in and loyalty to the institution to evaporate. Maybe my experience of this was unique, but considering how many friends and acquaintances I know who’ve also experienced this, I think it is a big problem, and church leaders are really struggling to develop a solution to it (and I do believe they are trying with things like the Joseph Smith Papers project and Massacre at Mountain Meadows book. I’m just not sure that these projects at the margin, absent changes in curriculum, do much for the majority of people who experience this shaken-faith syndrome).

[Andrew]

This is something I’ve had to wrestle with as I’ve lost faith in the institution as divinely inspired.

Service is meaningful and joyful for me when it has a direct human connection.

I think the way we sometimes talk about callings and “serving in the church,” as well as the way one of our temple covenants is phrased, can lead us to think about service in ways that aren’t all that helpful. That’s been my experience, at least.

For far too long, I thought of my service as something I was rendering for the institutional church, that it was my offering on the church’s altar. Of course for much of that time, there was little distinction between the “church” and God for me.

When I look back on that season in my life, it’s no wonder that I quickly found church service tiresome and unappealing. It was in a sense my idolatrous offering.

And the truth is that even though I love God and love Christ, service that is solely for God or Christ is not that meaningful to me, spiritually. I have a hard time making the connection between my actions and them. Hence my love of Mosiah 2:17 and Matthew 25:33-45.

As I began to think of serving in and out of the church as a way to help friends and those I truly cared about, and to try to practice loving those that I don’t naturally love, it became easier to render. I totally share your feelings, SilentDawning, on missionary work.

For me, the best kind of service (in or out of the church) is done when it is personal and directed at the person’s needs. When the expressed or implied focus of the service expands beyond the needs of the individual or community, to doing something because it improves the image of the church, gives us greater visibility, might reactivate someone, might help someone join the church, etc., I really sour on it.

My present calling is one that interfaces pretty heavily with church HQ (“the church”***). I must continually remind myself that what I do helps my good bishop, his counselors, and priesthood and auxiliary leaders. When I begin to think of my efforts only as benefiting a mere organization, I feel serious resentment toward the church.

So I don’t mind helping with moves. I actually like it. It is pretty “pure” as church service goes. I was the Gospel Essentials instructor for a while – I really enjoyed that calling, when the manual’s literal interpretation of everything wasn’t giving me angst, because I felt like I was able to present to new members and visitors the parts of the church and the gospel that I think are wonderful. My appreciation for home teaching has really grown – when you can get beyond the kind of rote dialogue and the need to reach 100 percent, when you really get to know families and individuals, it is such a wonderful way to create interconnectedness and promote Christian love in a congregation.

***The usage within Mormon culture of “the church” as a stand-in for church leadership and hierarchy and the organization rather than as a description of a global or local community of believers is such an odd phenomenon, and one that I wish would end. “The church” should be a place to hear and experience God’s love (talk of, rejoice in, and preach of Christ) and practice Christian love (mourn with those who mourn, comfort those in need of comfort); the church should not be an institution that tells us how to behave and what to believe. Perhaps this mini-rant would be more appropriately placed as a response to Ray’s thread, “How Much Direction is the Right Amount?“

[Andrew]

doubtingmom wrote:

doubtingthomas wrote:

SamBee: I cannot stand listening to re-hashed conference talks. It especially becomes nauseating when they say something along the lines of “I was asked to give a talk on so and so’s Conference talk” or “I was asked to speak on this topic and was given two talks from so and so to use.” I tune out almost immediately upon hearing that.

Ugh this is a pet peeve of mine. I don’t know if it’s because I took a public speaking class or what but I feel it’s the number one rule in speaking to not say I’m going to speak on ____. Whenever I’m asked to talk I take the GC talk or article and use it for jumping off points. The best compliment I got after a talk was that it flowed very nicely.

Yeah, this is one of the worst trends in the church. It allows speakers and lesson givers to get away without doing much thought, prayer, and study of their own and rely on the crutch of authority.

It also seems to promote my pet peeve in Sunday School and EQ lessons: “So, the manual (or Elder so-and-so) says…”

Don’t tell us what the manual or the speaker said! We can read it. Tell us what it means in light of past teachings, what it means in your life, etc. Basically, tell us just about anything other than what it merely says.

[Andrew]

SilentDawning wrote:

Without some kind of structural or content change to the meeting, I don’t think a name change will help. For example, if I’m the ugliest person in the world and my name is “Ugly Silentdawing”, then changing my name to “Handsome Silentdawning” won’t help; people will still find me ugly. In fact, they might even stop trusting the person who effected the name change since there is no truth behind it.

Look, I agree that structural and content change is needed to accompany a name change.

But you can’t deny that presentation and names matter. They set expectations and give behavioral clues.

If you started calling yourself “Ugly Silentdawning,” guess what people are going to notice first about you? And whether you call yourself “Ugly SD” or “Handsome SD,” both send an immediate message about how you see yourself and how you wish to be seen. And people (not all, but many) will respond to you based on your self-presentation.

Clearly, a name change alone would not do enough to make our Sunday meetings as engaging as I personally would like them to be; but focusing on “worship” rather than “meeting” might energize us a bit, inspire us to lift our voices when singing the hymns a bit, encourage our speakers and testimony-givers to be a bit more reverence (in the literal sense of the word, not in the contemporary LDS usage of the word) and filled with praise and joy.

[Andrew]

Fun question.

First, I don’t think that by broadening the appeal of our weekly meetings or making them more interesting we have to give up our unique Mormon heritage. In many ways, we could embrace our heritage (think of the spiritual manifestations the early saints experienced in their meetings, particularly in Kirtland!).

I’d love if we broadened our cultural or institutional understanding of reverence. Thanks to that darn primary song, reverence is associated in the church with being quiet (by the way, here’s a great little book on the political and cultural need for reverence).

I wish our cultural understanding of reverence recognized that the act or attitude of revering God can include at times shouting, clapping, praising, singing at the top of our lungs, music from a variety of different instruments. We don’t need a rock band, but allowing (and encouraging) musical numbers with a wider array of instruments would be great.

Similarly, true reverence doesn’t require suits and skirts. I kind of enjoy getting dressed up for church – it’s nice to have special clothes for that occasion. But as dress in general has become less formal in society, how many investigators have a white dress shirt and tie, let alone a suit, to wear? Are we making our services inaccessible to people simply by how we dress? And I think a loosening of our dress standards (nice pants (either dress or chino-style) and a dress shirt of any color) would not only make Mormonism more accessible to visitors, but would maybe even help us to relax a bit and feel like we can enjoy ourselves.

I know this is nit-picky, but I also think a name change could help. Let’s drop “Sacrament Meeting” and call it “Worship and the Lord’s Supper” or something more involving and interesting. “Meeting” sounds passive to me. I associate that word with an agenda that must be gotten through and listening to authority. “Worship” on the other hand sounds much more involved to me – it implies that something more than simple attendance and quiet is expected of me.

I don’t know anybody in any work environment I’ve ever been to who enjoys and looks forward to meetings. Why would that be different on Sunday? Let’s call it something that we can look forward to participating in and attending.

[Andrew]

Ray wrote:

In summary, I get it that it can be a wonderful experience for someone who is humble and has a broken heart and contrite spirit, and I get it that it might be considered symbolic in that tradition – but it might not, and, taken literally, I really don’t like a mortal forgiving sins about which he doesn’t know and for which the sinner doesn’t have a repentant heart.

All good points, Ray. In fact, many of the points you articulated are the very reasons I felt uneasy as I watched this happen to those in front of me, though my emotions and thoughts were all a jumble at that moment.

I hope that no one would take that ritual literally – that is, that one’s sins are truly forgiven because a pastor says so. Rather, I’d hope that the truly penitent who experience that would view it as a representation of God’s love and grace when we have a contrite spirit and a broken heart. Unfortunately, too many people probably do understand such a ritual literally, and it likely is intended literally, which for the many reasons you pointed out is problematic.

We have a lot of provisional promises of sins being forgiven and being made clean from the sins of our generation in the LDS church and its rites, but never (as far as I know) the pronouncement that we are forgiven. In my experience, bishops and others leave it entirely up to the penitent to determine if God has accepted their repentance. I agree that, if interpreted literally, a blanket statement forgiving sins is problematic; nevertheless, hearing those words uttered is powerful and promotes the healing that the contrite in spirit and brokenhearted may need.

[Andrew]

Thanks for sharing, GB. That sounds like a beautiful service and practice.

On Thursday, I went to a noon hour Maundy Thursday service at a Lutheran Church. At one point, the pastor had all attendants approach the front area and kneel. the then went around, placing his hands on each head, saying, “By the commandment of Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.” It was very different from what I’m used to as a lifelong Mormon, and as i watched it happen to several others I had mixed feelings. Then those words were uttered to me and I felt God’s love at that very moment.

I understand our need to be unique and separate in many ways from other Christian traditions, but I think we’ve given up many beautiful and powerful rituals in the process.

cwald wrote:

It really seems to me like the church with all of it’s gazillion rules and cultural traditions and commandments, and all the focus on temple recommends and prophets and obedience and such, are so much of a distraction that I can’t focus on what is really important and great about the gospel anymore.

This is how I feel, too.

[Andrew]

As far as I can tell, when Jesus originally said those words, he said them to Pharisees and religious leaders who doubted his messiahship. They wanted him to prove he was indeed the messiah by performing miracles. But Jesus’ miracles (with the exception of the cursing of the fig tree which I can’t, for the life of me, figure out) always had a greater purpose – to heal, to forgive, and of particular importance in 1st century Jerusalem, to make ritually clean by removing disease.

They wanted to see power without purpose.

I think there is a huge difference between asking for a sign of Jesus’ messiahship or God’s goodness and asking for evidence that the church (or a church) is true or that it’s claims are accurate. When we or others ask such questions, we’re typically not asking for a raw, pointless demonstration of power; we ask because we want reassurance that we are on the correct path, in the correct place, and doing the right thing.

And as many frustrated parents have said, “the good Lord gave us brains; he expects us to use them.” When we learn of things or see things that don’t seem to fit with our previous perception or understanding, it’s natural to want to reconcile them. The easiest way to do that is to have an assurance that the church is what it claims to be and that its provenance was providential.

[Edited to add conclusion]

Seeking a sign with respect to the church or even with respect to the church’s or an individual leaders’ teaching is not evidence of infidelity; indeed, if we’re concerned that the message doesn’t conform to what the Savior taught and with historical precedent, seeking a sign is, in my opinion, more an indication of fidelity to established truth or teaching.

[Andrew]

Katzpur, that is tragic.

I know it’s highly discouraged, but you should write a letter to one of the brethren. They need to know stuff like this is going on and that the way chastity is taught can have long-lasting negative repercussions.

I’d recommend writing Elder Scott, as to me, he seems to be the most compassionate to those struggling with sin and whenever he talks about these sorts of things, he also always mentions forgiveness through the Atonement.

[Andrew]

SamBee wrote:

Is it true that the people who produced it got told off/kicked out?

I don’t think so…I was young when it came out, but I seem to recall it having a pseudo-official imprimatur. Many of the contributors, if I recall correctly, are names we’d all recognize, Bushman, McConkie, etc.

[Author]

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