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In my ward there were a few people who it seemed tried to move the discussion in a healthier direction, but kind of got shut down. One woman I guess is a therapist who has worked with youth, and was concerned about them feeling like they have to check certain boxes. Another mentioned that mental health should be part of preparation to serve a mission. Someone mentioned about still loving children who do not want to serve a mission, but then other people starting throwing in the whole “love them but don’t accept their decision” angle and how you’re in the wrong if you don’t keep pushing them to serve. There was a LOT of talk about “priesthood duty” and how no young man is exempt from serving, especially with the option of service missions.
This lesson was weird. I’m used to lessons like this trying to inspire people to serve missions or go to the temple, but today’s lesson felt a lot more like coercion. Like “serve a mission or else”.
Yeah…. Today I learned I have not fully overcome the trauma of my mission experience. As everyone was going around the room talking about how non-optional missions are and sharing the blessings and wonderful experiences of missionary service, I really wanted to say something but didn’t.
Then after the lesson a member came up to me and asked how I was doing; I must have been visibly upset. And at that point I actually just broke down crying. Yikes. I thought after being home for over 5 years I had finally gotten over this, but apparently not.
Well, the stake president was visiting today and I ended up in a meeting after church with the bishop and stake president explaining to them why my mission was so horrible to cause me to have an emotional breakdown during second hour. And that got into how I lost my testimony and everything. So I’m sure I’m a project now.
But yeah, this takes the cake for my worst experience ever with a lesson.
It’s interesting, my thoughts on seeing the photo were like “wow, he was an actual person”. I mean, of course he was. Nobody claims anything different, but it does feel weird having spent my whole life only seeing highly idealized paintings of him. I think it can be easy to forget that historical figures were actual people, not the just the characters of the many stories we tell about the past. Whether or not this photo is actually him, it is something interesting to think about. nibbler wrote:
If god wants someone dead, let god do the dirty work.
Amen to that. Why should we carry that responsibility if the consequences of being wrong are so drastic? Let God do it. I highly doubt the experience of cutting off a drunk guy’s head was a positive growth experience for Nephi that helped him become more Christlike. I can’t imagine God commanding us to kill each other would really benefit anyone, and to me would make God an evil deity not worthy of worship. I believe instead that violent people from a violent era naturally believed in a violent God, and those ideas ended up influencing the accounts in the scriptures.
Wow, I looked this up and this one is actually pretty close to home. I actually used to be in the same ward as the Osborne family. Rod was my Sunday School teacher at one point, and I even think Sally might have been a substitute for him one Sunday (assuming she is the one who competed in the TV game show Wipeout – that’s all I remember about her). I went to high school with some of the Osborne kids and again at BYU was in the same ward as one of them. Small world I guess.
I’m not too surprised that the family ended up being supportive. They never struck me as the typical Mormon family and were very accepting of their kids who were often kind of eccentric (in a good way). They were quite fun people to be around.
Welcome to the forum. Like you, my views on the church changed significantly with my mission. In my case, I fully bought in to the obedience culture and was obsessed with the letter of the law to the point where I developed mental health problems. I also found myself increasingly conflicted towards church teachings while attending college, even though I was at BYU. I also stopped attending church when the pandemic hit, which gave me a much needed break and an opportunity to step back and reflect on my new beliefs and relationship with the church. I have only recently started attending again, with (so far) mixed feelings.
Quote:I started to experience a lot of internal conflict (and still do to this day) because I cannot reconcile my stances on several social issues with the current teachings of the church.
Personally, I have mostly given up trying to reconcile my beliefs with those of the church, and I have just accepted that they are often different. I cannot change the teachings of the church, so I just content myself with developing my own personal beliefs even if those beliefs lead me to disagree with the leaders, the institution, or the membership as a whole. Some people go to church to be with others that share the same beliefs, but I go for other reasons.Quote:But, I feel this constant guilt because how can I be an active part of this religion that contributed to my friend wanting to end his life, especially when I know his experience is probably similar to that of many others?
I’m still trying to figure out how I want to live as a member of the church, but not feel like I’m contributing to some of the bad things that the church does (whether intentionally or not).
I think that there are many ways to engage in church without contributing to the bad. For example, I don’t believe my mere presence at church on Sundays negatively impacts anyone. But I personally do not pay tithing because I do not approve of how the church uses the funds. I also do not teach or advocate any ideas I believe to be harmful. Others may be more active in doing good, like being a good friend to those in the church who are marginalized, as you seem to have done. Though some may see the church as an all-or-nothing proposition, the reality is we are all free to choose which activities we participate in and which we do not, according to our own conscience and personal sense of ethics.Roy wrote:
Why does the Deseret News publish this guy’s perspective? Can anybody write perspective articles? Does publishing the article act as a form of tacit endorsement of not really?
I get the impression that public figures or people with an impressive resume can get their opinions published in most newspapers, while the average Joe might not. The author of this article is apparently a professor at Princeton.
I don’t think this necessarily represents Deseret News’ agreement with the author’s opinions, but it may represent that they think this person’s opinions matter more than the average person’s.
Who gets to determine the list of requirements for someone to be a “real” adherent of a particular faith? For some religions there is a clear hierarchy with a single leader, like the LDS prophet or Catholic pope. The leader can decide what the official doctrine is. But what about Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, or hundreds of other religions without an ultimate religious authority? Quote:At the other end of the spectrum are those most strongly allegiant to the old religion or religions. They will refuse to capitulate to the new and will resist efforts to coerce them by means of cultural or political power
The author says this like it’s the most noble way to go. But as we cover the Old Testament in Sunday School, let’s say I’m really glad at some point there were those who were
notloyal to the “old religions”. Otherwise we’d still be stoning people as part of our religious observance. And by the way, the “inauthentic” paganism is likely the oldest of the old religions, maybe the author should consider that. Also, many early church leaders defended or practiced polygamy as a fundamental tenet of the LDS faith, they may think modern members have capitulated to the world’s demands. Quote:those who wish to retain the forms and symbols of the great historical traditions of religious faith while recasting those traditions
What is Christianity but the recasting of Jewish traditions? Was it wrong of Jesus and early Christians to apply Jewish tradition and prophecies to their new beliefs? Were they not “real” Jews because of this? They likely thought of themselves as Jewish, but others may have disagreed.Roy wrote:
In our church we believe that things have not changed and that God was the same back then as he is today. We manage this in two major ways: 1) We take modern church doctrines/temple ordinances and we imagine that these things always existed and where known and practiced by the prophets of old. Some call this retro-active continuity. 2) We take things that existed in the past and we try to smooth them over/justify/make them fit into our modern narrative.We try to justify violence in the scriptures because it just doesn’t fit our narrative that good and holy men that God talks to and imbues with power from on high could also do things that we in our modern society find abhorrent.
I do find it interesting that a common response to criticism of early church leaders is that they were men of their times. But for some reason we don’t seem to do that for scriptural prophets, even though I think it applies much better.
We also seem to be uncomfortable with the idea of the scriptures having an unreliable narrator. I have heard some people in church mention that Nephi may have been giving a biased recounting in the Book of Mormon, always portraying himself as the good guy and his brothers as the bad guys. But for the most part we tend to forget that the writers of the scriptures inevitably saw things through the lens of their own time, culture, and beliefs.
Minyan Man wrote:It just seems that there is a real need for moral authority & leadership. And, I can’t believe I’m saying this, the church needs to take a stronger
stand on some of these issues.
US politics aside, I have often thought this regarding the church’s presence in other countries whenever I see news the church of new temples or countries opening up to missionaries. Many countries where the church has a presence have authoritarian governments, human rights abuses, civil wars, or other things of great moral impact.
Where is the line that divides politics and morality? Does the church have a responsibility to call out morally reprehensible actions done by governments around the world? What happens if they do? We probably wouldn’t be able to have missionaries or temples in certain countries if the church leadership directly criticized those governments, and members may even face severe persecution as a result.
But to me it makes prophets seem quite weak. Where are the scriptural prophets who went up against kings and emperors, even if it got themselves and their followers killed? Even church leaders in the early days stood up to the government on the issue of polygamy for a while (though I personally think they were wrong). Instead in the modern church we have vague public statements that tiptoe around the real issues to avoid offending anyone.
And I don’t even mean controversial issues like many of the political topics in the US. Even when things like genocide and war are happening around the world, the church often fails to condemn those responsible.
One thing that continually bothers me about church leadership is how they will claim a moral responsibility to speak out about gay marriage or abortion, but then be silent or at best offer weak statements about topics like genocides against the Uyghurs and Rohingya or the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. I kind of understand why they don’t speak out more about those issues, but it still bothers me to see leaders who claim to be prophets like Moses be so powerless to call out even such blatantly evil actions.
So, today I tried going back to church yet again. This time was quite a bit better, an older lady actually came over and introduced herself, then took me to meet a couple YSAs in the ward (turns out there is actually a very small group of local YSA). I went and introduced myself to the bishop and he added me to a contact list for YSA activities in the stake. I even agreed to have my church records transferred here, so I guess I am “officially” giving church another shot. We’ll see how it goes. I’m still an atheist in terms of belief, but I’ve been trying lots of things to meet people in the area lately and have failed. So at least for now I’m going to try church just to get some sort of social life. I think at this point I am confident in my beliefs (or lack thereof) and in my own ability to set the necessary boundaries, and I really don’t have anything to lose if it doesn’t work out either. I can always just leave again if I don’t like it. But right now what I need most is a way to meet other human beings, and the church provides that.
DarkJedi wrote:
I also think it would benefit the church were we more involved in community service. Not the “helping hands” disaster clean-up kinds of things where we’re all wearing yellow vests identifying ourselves (although I think that’s OK), but more day-to-day public/community service where we’re not advertising “Hey, look at us Mormons – er members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – and what we’re doing!” Things like helping at soup kitchens, the homeless shelter or cemetery cleanup and just talking to and being with people outside our tribe without the aim of trying to convert them. The Baptists and Methodists and Catholics who already work together on those kinds of projects aren’t there to convert each other, but they do respect each other and they learn from one another.
Yes, I have always been disappointed with the church’s approach to service, even when I was an active member. Service projects were often things like getting the youth to weed the young mens leader’s garden, even though their family was wealthy and could easily hire someone.
In one of my BYU wards they put me on the Elder’s Quorum service committee. When we had the planning meeting I was thinking something like soup kitchen or homeless shelter, or some kind of community-oriented service. But what they ended up going with was starting a rideshare program for the men to give the women rides to and from campus. I guess they thought women don’t drive? Like, they didn’t even discuss who owned cars and who didn’t, they just assumed women needed rides and men would provide them. And of course in a singles ward you know what the real motivation was.
It sometimes feels like instead of trying to be an active part of the community the church tries to replace it with an alternate, insular community. Taking “in the world, but not of the world” a step too far, to where we try hard to not even be in the world anymore.
nibbler wrote:
The master plan feels like redirecting energy away from anything that doesn’t directly impact growing the church or making some report look good. Ironically, if we dedicated more time to activities and socializing I think church leaders would see more growth. If church meetings are only about meeting church goals (lecture on serving a mission, attending the temple, ministering, etc.) then there’s not going to be much of a desire to go to a meeting.Building a community through socializing is a gospel purpose. Upping the percentage of endowed members with an active temple recommend is not.
Of all the issues, this one is actually the one that makes me most pessimistic about the future of the church. The community aspect has long been one of the biggest strengths the church had, and now it seems like it’s getting axed. All the activities are getting refocused around a spiritual purpose, and there is no longer room for having fun just for the sake of enjoying life with other members of the community.
Roy wrote:
3) I believe that our church model is that people are so convinced as to the rightness of our church that they are willing to endure the unpleasant meetings and environment. Some other churches have a model where it is just the opposite, that the meeting and environment are so pleasant that you may choose to participate even if you are not sold on the doctrine.This fits in really well with our missionary posture. We send out young people to proclaim our doctrine and they are trained at converting individuals as to the rightness of our doctrine. They then ask those individuals to begin making sacrifices or lifestyle changes based on that doctrine.
This may be the way missionaries are trained, but not always how it works out in practice. Personally I’m not sure any of the people I saw join the church on my mission were drawn in first by the doctrine. A lot of them came to church because there were friendly people and fun activities, and later became interested in the beliefs through that. I think a lot less people these days are looking for the one true church with the most correct doctrine, and many more people are looking for ways to meet other people and make friends “in real life”.
It does seem like we don’t put much importance on making the church experience enjoyable. In fact it seems like some view it as a badge of honor to be able to put up with boring meetings, and others are blamed for not putting enough effort in to get anything out. The whole “I’ve never been in a boring sacrament meeting” story suggesting it’s up to us to not be bored.
DarkJedi wrote:
As a missionary and as the father of missionaries I always felt the same way. Even God rested on the seventh day, but not missionaries. I do believe that giving the missionaries more of a an actual rest day would do wonders for their mental health. I get that Sunday is a good day for contacting people and a day when religion might be more at the forefront of people’s minds so maybe in the spirit of “it doesn’t matter which day as long as there is a day” it could be another day of the week (other than p-day, which is not a day of rest).
I have often thought my mission wouldn’t have been quite the disaster it was if I actually had been able to take a break. And where I served Sunday was a day when everyone was at the beach and not at home, so we just wasted time tracting in empty neighborhoods.
But if we had a day of rest to recharge, it would have been great. Maybe even an hour or two in the evening to recuperate, or even let us have some entertainment other than watching “The District” training videos and reading Jesus the Christ? Or even a week off each year. People need breaks. Working 12-16 hour days with no breaks for two years just is not healthy.
