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Thanks:) Didn’t really turn out the way i thought it would, but it ended up ok. Thanks a lot for all the input.
About a week ago, I asked everyone here for some input for a talk I was asked to give. The subject was “Faith”. Thanks a lot everyone:) The talk didnt turn out as great as I wanted, but it was still ok. I’ll post it here so you can read if you want. It’s been through google translate from Danish to English though. I don’t feel like translate everything by hand right now;)
Hey. I have been tasked with talking about faith today.
And I want to start out strangely to get your attention:
About a year ago, I walked in a tunnel down at Roskilde (the town where I live) station.
There was, as usual, incomprehensible graffiti around.
I went through the tunnel, and when, almost like a parable, I came out of the darkness and went out into the light at the end of the tunnel, there was someone who had been silly and written in big graffiti letters “BEWARE! JESUS COMES AFTER YOU!”.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
It got me thinking about how much our faith in God (or Jesus) can change what and who we are.
Mostly when I had to write this speech of course, because I don’t think of such a deep something normal.
Which God do we believe in?
What qualities do we believe God has right now that are not actually true?
A scripture we have all heard of before is
2 Nephi 2:25
“Adam fell for mankind to come into being, and mankind to enjoy it.”
Enjoying REAL joy is probably one of the hardest things to do, I think. Really living this scripture requires a great deal of us.
It requires, for example, that we peel off layers of ourselves that we don’t need.
The layers we use to hide behind good and evil.
Layers that can prevent us from enjoying pleasure.
It requires that we have a loving self-image and it requires that we have a picture of a God who lets us be happy and not a picture of a God who demands the impossible and is always after us.
I believe that all of us today, right now, are creating God in our own image and not vice versa as we should. For none of us has a perfect understanding of God.
We each have our “idol” / version of who God is, often depending on what parents we have had, whether they have taken care of us in the first years of development.
Have we learned to survive because of distrust and only feel good when we give? Have we learned that we are good no matter what we do?
These things shape us so that we each have a unique image of who God is.
Again:
Adam fell for mankind to come into being, and mankind to enjoy it.
Can we enjoy joy in our lives if God is evil to us? A busman? Or one that demands things that are unattainable to us?
In the church, there is sometimes a culture of always being good and unfortunately it can sometimes result in being painted with thick bold graffiti:
“watch out! Jesus is coming after you!”. Because, of course, we’re not always good. We’re just people trying to be good.
What can you do about it?
The opposite of belief, we tend to call into question.
But the opposite of faith is also to be absolutely safe.
For example, we can be absolutely sure of things that are not actually true.
Because every time we do not want to talk about things that we believe can cause us to falter in our faith, or our current understanding of who God is, there is a possibility that we will miss eternal truths that can help us move on in life. :
When in doubt, we have a mechanism that allows us to be humble enough to learn more.
There is a beautiful turn that, if I translate it into Danish, reads something like this:
There’s a cut in everything, that’s how the light comes in.
Wrong understandings of God may be that “God is always good, therefore I should always be good and never speak out about my negative feelings but just let them accumulate”.
Another could be: “God always believes in the best in me. That’s why I ALWAYS believe in the best in all people.” It can result in us remaining childish and naive and eventually exploited by others if we are not careful.
Every good thing has a shadow page that we need to bring.
Jesus knew that too.
Matthew 21:12
Then Jesus went into the temple square, and he drove out all those who sold and bought there, and he overturned the exchangers ‘tables and the pigeon-traders’ benches, and said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer.’ You make it a bullet.
We cannot be good without also having boundaries.
If we don’t have boundaries, we can’t actually be good.
In Matthew 5:48 we can read:
Then be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!
It does not say that we should always be good and good, as God is always good and good. It says that we must be perfect, as God is perfect.
Being perfect is not the same as always being good and good, but being able to make the right choice, between all the emotions you have and to express the ones that are best in a given situation.
Just as the Savior did it in the temple.
It is better to be whole than to be good.
If we can love ourselves, even our “bad sides,” we can more easily and completely accept others with all their “imperfect” sides.
It is simply to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Completely and fully.
There is a theory called “Fowler’s stages of faith”. It explains how / why we believe differently and that it is quite common development. This theory has helped me in my own journey of faith.
James Fowler is a professor of theology and human development, and pastor of a Methodist church.
In 1981 he published a book, which became one of his best-known books, entitled “Stages of faith”, in which he tries to find systems in the spiritual development of man.
There are various stages from 0-6 and this can be read more about even if you are interested in development in psychology and spirituality.
Various studies have been made of human general development from child to adult in psychology, but this applies to spirituality instead.
On the church’s website there is an excerpt from a presentation given by “Scott R Braithwaite” who is a psychology professor at BYU.
He says of the “fowler’s faith stages”:
“These stages of faith, I think, are a great help to us because they help us to realize that there is not just one way to believe.”
Most people, according to Braithwaite, remain in Fowler’s Stage 3 all their lives, which is a conventional belief characterized by conformity to an authority that is a strong cultural element of religious life. An “us” against “them” worldview, and at the same time ignoring all conflicts in the person’s own beliefs, due to a fear of the discrepancies in that belief.
“Stage 3, is where I think we are most vulnerable to end up in a crisis of faith because some expectations are set that are impossible to fulfill,” says Braithwaite.
I think they live in a world that is binary, it is black and white, where the church is only good and impossible to do anything bad, and the opposite where the world is evil and decaying.
“The perfectionist idea can be dangerous because most faiths have different human elements in them.” says Braithwaite. “
Here he explains only about 1 stage out of 7.
I think we all sometimes have a very black and white and subjective view of who God is and how we should be made worthy of his love.
I hope that we all “can live to enjoy joy” by letting light and humility enter through the small crevices and cracks there in our faith and align with our understanding of who God and ourselves are and live the happy life that God has created us to live.
I hope when we walk through our own metaphorical Roskilde station tunnel towards the light (that is, when life is over – yes, I know it is a strange parable), that we have not spent our lives believing that “Jesus is coming after us. but that we have had a belief that we have the right to be loved and enjoy.
Hi everyone. I have been away for a long time, but lurking a lot as well:) A counselor to the bishop asked me to give a talk on “faith”.
I accepted.
Just some background:
My wife does not attend church. I take the kids to church about 1-2 twice a month.
I dont believe in the BOM or BOA as literal truth, but as spiritual truth.
I have openly (on facebook, having many LDS friends there), critized the church because of the gay/kids/baptism policy.
The counselor is a great guy and I have nothing but good feelings towards the church in general. I really value my church upbringing, but really dislike the black/white thinking. No free speech or thought etc.
In the past I have given talks that rock the boat a bit, but only in a “rocking the boat” towards more compassion and less black/white thinking.
My last talk really hit it home with people in the ward (so many were really grateful afterwards), some people referred to it as “the talk of the year”. Even though it contained adam god doctrine, blacks and the priesthood and church leaders being completely wrong in the past.
So i’m hoping to give a talk again, that will be a little bit of an eye opener to some in the church. Let everyone be more compassionate and loving towards each other.
So i’m writing here to find some of the great nuanced minds and ask for thoughts:)
If you were to give a talk on the subject of “faith”, what would you talk about?
Off the top of my head, I think i will mention that faith in God is just as important as faith on yourself. And if you dont couple the two, you are nothing. (the kingdom of god is within you etc).
Any thoughts, tips and tricks?
Thanks a lot!
SamBee, I so agree with everything you say. Sometimes, it feels like people are assuming bad things about what words are used, when in reality, it is the intention. I also think that the people being affected by gender pronounce (gender fluid) are such a minority, that it feels like a complete waste of time to try to adjust language. It feels like a kind of narcissism to me sometimes.
If I knew X person, personally, and he/she/whatever wanted me to call her/him whatever by a specific pronoun, I would gladly do it. But having to police my own words all the time, is nonsense to me.
It really is a matter of intent, and people are forgetting that a lot.
I have been called ” the Mormon boy” many times. Did I mind? A bit, I never spoke up, because people can say what they want. I definently grew up as a minority (Mormon in Denmark, only Mormon at my school). I never expected anyone to change their language in general, because of me or any other minority.
I do not see a problem with saying albino instead of person with albino condition. To me, that is the exact same thing as saying that she is phillipino, he is danish, she is black, he is a doctor etc etc. people are assuming that I am somehow putting race, gender, country of origin or professions, higher than the person behind it. I don’t. And I would assume that 99% of the people I have ever known, wouldn’t do so either.
Again, if my dear friend insisted that I called him the latter, I would. But I would still feel kind of hurt, actually, because he partly assumes that what I would naturally call him, is somehow negative, said by me, on purpose. A case that would never be true.
I never wanted to hurt him.
I get kind of the same feeling when someone says that saying x is racist, and I’m white and therefore I don’t get to decided that it wasn’t racist.
I want my intention to count. Otherwise you can be offended by XYZ all day long, if you never look into what people actually mean with specific words.
I used to be much more left leaning in matters like this, but have recently changed. I really think, that if we change to much of society (language etc) based on whom ever would be offended, we all lose, because everyone can be offended.
That is not to say that no adjustment should ever be done, but I think the current focus on political correctness and the new more radical left+radical feminism, is hurting everyone and we fail to have true meaningful conversations/stating real opinions, because everyone is walking on eggshells.
Sorry, going a bit off topic here:)
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Heard lots of praise at SM today. Lots of testifying that this truly is gods church and that this new 2 hour block plus the teachings at home, is divinely inspired. It really annoys me. If I had suggested the exact same things a year to early, people would think I was weird.
I view this as purely cosmetic and has NOTHING to do with revelation. I’m sure the leaders prayed about it and felt good etc but I just don’t get it.
Feels like (on a much smaller scale) when the blacks got the priesthood. If I had advocated for it a year to soon, I could have been exed. Now a year later, it is divinely inspired.
I don’t know. Every time something changes in church, I see it being blown out of proportions and continuing a disingenuous narrative. Or the changes come so slowly (but deliberately) so no one will notice. It’s very dishonest to me.
That being said, I was really happy to be home earlier today. Didn’t have to bring lunch for the kids!
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I’ll be vulnerable here.. Porn can also be very helpful.
No one mentioned this at church.
I have come to view porn as almost everything else: Too much is bad.
For many years it has been almost impossible for me and my wife to have sex because she is suffering from anxiety and general shame about sex (shame was 100% church induced, maybe also the anxiety).
Watching porn, helped my wife to mature sexually and get rid of the shame. It has opened up the whole sex-talk in our relationship and frankly, porn has been a life(or sex) saver for us.
Why is stuff like this never mentioned at church? I thought the church was supposed to help people.
The church caused the problem (in my wife) and actively doing something that the church hates, fixed it.
Seriously – it makes me mad that it can ruin people’s lives and most importantly – keep them from fixing their lives.
Porn is like chocolate. Like wine, like money, like anything really.
It just matters how you use it, and what you use it for.
Addiction is often a different thing. People can be addicted to many different things. Porn and food included. I know people who easily become addicted to porn, video games, internet usage. And the common thing is addiction. Not porn. Not the internet. Not computer games.
Addiction is a thing in itself.
I don’t have addictive tendencies and if I drank I probably wouldn’t be an alcoholic. I play computer games but don’t become addicted.
I think the church conflates addiction and porn. And conflates evil and porn.
Sexual purity can be just as evil, if it destroys your future sex life. (As it did with my wife).
Please church, have some grey scale in your thinking. Not just black and white.
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Thanks everyone. Posted it the other place. It was VERY well recieved. I had 2 people telling me independently of each other that “it was the talk of year”. I had others tellin gme that “this was such an important talk” etc.
I’m very sure though, that there were some more orthodox members who had questions, but they never talked to me. I left very fast right after sac. meeting. I’m sure I would have gotten some positive comments, and maybe some negative comments, had i stayed.
I just want to thank everyone. The talk went well.. I was very nervous, becuase it was a very “out of the box” talk, and i think people see more who i truly am, which is scary but great at the same time. I don’t know if you want to read it, but if you want to, here it is. I put it through google translate because i was lazy, so some things might be very weird:)
Thanks again everyone, for your great input!
Opposites (so we can be one?)
Present the subject.
When we talk about this subject, almost everyone thinks about this scripture that I want to read now:
2 Nephi 2:11
Because it must necessarily be such that there is a contradiction in everything. If it were not my firstborn in the wilderness, justice could not be provided, nor wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor evil. Everything must therefore necessarily be a blend in one; If that were one, it would necessarily have to be as dead as it had neither life nor death nor neglect or immortality, happiness or misery, neither feeling nor insensitivity.
As we read this, we are talking about trials here in life. That it should be nice to feel it sour. Death for life to exist. Make sure there is happiness. And that without these contradictions it will all be dead.
We have heard that a couple of times before, so I’ve tried to ride a little bit inside my brain and see what new angle is on things.
I want to take a different angle and think about it in relation to the church and our relationship with each other and how much we embrace diversity.
Without diversity, without our individual different opinions and hence opposites, I think it would be, as in the scripture I just read, dead and our church will be dead because there would be no development.
What contradictions are there in such a congregation as ours (and everyone else)? I think we have a very nice compassion, I just hurry to say.
I think some of these contradictions can make a difference between us if we use them as a checklist on each other and also create a gap within us if we use them to have a checklist of ourselves.
examples:
-We have a temple recommendation or not
-We have been on a mission or not
-We pay tithing or not
-We overcome the word of word or not
Do we have an office in the church or not?
“We” know that the church is true or not
Do you have to drink Cola or not?
Do you want to take the sacrament with one hand or does not matter?
-The orthodox
-The unorthodox
-The progressive
-The “only” cultural mormon most comes to church because his / her family and friends do it.
All these different people are mixed around in a big pear wrap. How can we be without conflicts due to our contradictions in our understanding of the gospel?
I see things from my point of view and have opinions about things that may not be the same with another member, who sees things from his point of view etc etc.
And that will somehow create opposites. Especially because we may each think that there is only one way to see / understand things in the church and that’s my way.
Sometimes you may feel that you have other attitudes / understandings of things and you are afraid to say it in a class in the church.
That’s a bad thing. Not only do not talk about things, the classes may also be locked to some extent in standard answers, as we all know.
And it may mean that we never have the live discussions we could really have. And it can mean that we, as single people, churches and church, do not have the development we could have.
Hugh B. Brown, counselor in First Presidency, Speech at BYU, March 29, 1968
“I admire men and women who have developed a spirit that questions things that are not afraid to use new ideas as a stepboard for progress. We must, of course, respect each other’s opinions, but we should not be afraid to differ – if we are informed. Thoughts and expressing themselves compete in the free market we call “thoughts”, and in that competition the truth can only win at last. Only mistakes fear freedom of expression. This free exchange of ideas is not something we should look down on as long as men and women remain humble and can be taught. Neither fear of consequences nor any form of compulsion should ever be used to make sure we all think the same in church. People should be able to express their problems and attitudes and not be afraid to think about the consequences. We must maintain the freedom of the mind in the church and resist all attempts to suppress it.
So, do we really think so?
Two months ago, I was really happy because a church article circled on facebook that actually referred to the “Fowler’s stages of faith”, which I have chosen to translate as “faith stages”. Not something most people have noticed, but Fowler’s stages of faith explain how / why we think differently, and that it is quite common development. It’s a theory that I found a few years ago, and that helped me in my own faith journey.
James Fowler is a professor of theology and human development, and pastor of a methodist church.
He published in 1981 a book, which became one of his most famous books, titled “Stages of faith”, in which he tries to find systems in human spiritual development. There are different stages from 0-6 and you can read more about yourself if you are interested in development in psychology and spirituality. Different studies have been made of human development from child to adult in psychology, but this applies to spirituality instead.
In this article, there are excerpts of presentation given by “Scott R Braithwaite” as a psychology professor at BYU.
So in short: On the church’s website there is an article that has an excerpt from a presentation at BYU where Scott Braithwaite, explains James Fowler’s beliefs stages.
“These beliefs, I think, are a great help to us because they help us realize that there is not only a way to believe.”
According to Braithwaite, most people remain in Fowler’s Stage 3 throughout their lives, which is a conventional belief, characterized by conformance to an authority that is a strong cultural element in religious life. A “us” against “them” worldview, while ignoring all conflicts in the person’s own faith, because of fear of the discrepancies in this belief.
“Stage 3, is where I think we are most vulnerable to ending up in a crisis because there are expectations that are impossible to meet,” said Braithwaite. I think they live in a world that is binary, it is black and white, where the church is only good and impossible to do anything bad and vice versa where the world is evil and in decline.
“The perfectionist idea can be dangerous because most beliefs have different human elements in themselves.” says Braithwaite. “
Here he only explains about a stage out of 7.
Should we all have faith / understanding together? I simply do not think it’s possible. We are all unique. And that should not create conflicts with us.
I am convinced that some of my attitudes / understandings about some subjects would make the bishop go to head. And guess what that applies to us all.
So there’s only one way to see things in the church? Should it create contradictions between us?
Not according to the church’s article. And in fact, according to the church’s history,
You can just look at the history of our own church and see the contradictions that have been in how our own church leaders have understood things. Which really shows that there is not only, or has been a way of looking at things.
In the 1850s and until the late 1800s, Brigham Young and the subsequent Church leaders taught that Adam was our God. That Adam was literally God for our earth. Also known as the Adam-God doctrine. If some have heard of it before. This was positively received by some leaders while it was directly rejected by others, among others. Orson Pratt, who was one of Brigham Young’s apostles at that time.
Adam-God’s doctrine was later publicly stamped as false teaching by Spencer W. Kimball, who was the leader of the church at the time in the 1970s.
Another example of opposites is that:
From Brigham Young’s time until 1978, they could not have the priesthood or come to the temple because, according to the church at that time, they were descendants of Cain.
Today we can read from the church website that the official position is now:
“Today, the church rejects the theories (and teachings) stated in the past that colored skin is a sign of divine misery or curses or that they are an expression of unfair actions in the past that race-mixed marriages are a sin or that colored or people of any other race or ethnicity are in any way laquered. Today, the leaders of the church condemn all racism, in the past or present, in any form.
When we know that church leaders have had different interpretations and understandings of core topics in the church throughout the ages, (and there are more than those here) we should also have an understanding of each other’s different understandings and interpretations of things today. Despite contradictions, there must be room for everyone in the church.
Both Brigham Young and Spencer W Kimball.
Elder Joseph B Wirthlin said at the General Conference in 2008 about those who think “different”. And we’ll do that all in one way or another.
“They feel like they do not belong. Perhaps because they are different, they find themselves drifting away from the flock. They act, think, speak and look different than people around them, and this sometimes causes them to assume they do not fit in. They conclude that there is no need for them.
Along with this misconception there is the wrong belief that all members of the Church should speak, be and look alike. The Lord did not populate the earth with a sound orchestra of personalities to exclusively appreciate the world’s piccoloflots. Any instrument is precious and adds more to the symphony’s complex beauty. All of our Heavenly Father’s children are somewhat different, yet each child has its own beautiful sound that adds depth and richness to the whole.
We are all unique and all voices should be heard. I think it is important that we in the church’s I think it’s important that we in the classrooms and elsewhere do not just stand for standard answers because we feel different but really have genuine discussions about topics. I think we will find that we all have a lot to contribute and that we do not have to be the same.
Have you ever been to the hospital?
A few years ago I got meningitis.
I was in church, felt a bit sloppy. We went home, I lay under the quilt and Anna went out with my parents to my brother.
2 hours later I was screaming because my head was about to explode and I had to call an ambulance.
After a while, they found me in the neighborhood and I drove off.
Imagine if we had stopped at the hospital entrance, where there were some doctors and they had told me:
“Doctors here are healthy and healthy, we know a lot about making people healthy, we are very clever. You can be like us if you just try more. When you are as healthy and as clever and know the very right things like us, you must come in and we can treat you.
It may not be the best way to run a hospital, nor a church.
President Uchtdorf of the First Presidency said in October 2014
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a place for people with all sorts of testimonies. There are some Church members who have a sure testimony that burns within them. Others strive to find out. The church is a home where everyone meets regardless of the depth or the strength of their testimony. I do not know any signs at the door of our church buildings, where it says: “Your testimony must be so high that you may come in.”
The church is not only for perfect people, but it is for all who want to “come to Christ, and be perfect in him.” The church is for people like you and me. The church is a place that embraces everyone and takes care of them, not somewhere that separates or criticizes. It is a place where we strive to encourage, elevate and help each other when we each strive to seek divine truth.
In the end, we are all pilgrims seeking God’s light on the journey through the path of the disciple. We do not condemn others for how much light they have or do not have. Instead of nourishing and encouraging all light, until it grows clear, glorious and true. “
I think it’s a reminder that witnesses, attitudes and understandings of things are available in all sizes, colors and frames.
And it is not our job to judge who is wrong or right. There is already one that has as job description and I do not think any of us are so much better than him.
Everyone is welcome as they are.
-The orthodox
-The unorthodox
-The on with the with blue shirt
-the one with the white shirt
-THe one with with long hair
the one who believes
the one has doubts
the one who does not believe
I hope we can all remain unique.
There are things in the church / gospel (I’m not sure where one term stops and the other begins), which I neither understand nor agree with, there are other things I have hoped for and so there are things I have one deep faith in. One of the things is that we have a God who loves us more than we can ever understand.
“If I speak with the tongues of humans and angels, but do not have love, I’m a resounding ore and a whining bell. v2 And if I have prophetic gift and know all the secrets and possess all knowledge and have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. v3 And if I divide all that I own, and give my body to burn, but not love, I will not profit. “
My hope is that we must have love for each other and give room for everyone’s interpretations and points of view in the church. That we must know that we do not have to talk and think the same and that knowing this, we can *be*can be *one*, instead of being the same.
I just want to thank everyone. The talk went well.. I was very nervous, becuase it was a very “out of the box” talk, and i think people see more who i truly am, which is scary but great at the same time. I don’t know if you want to read it, but if you want to, here it is. I put it through google translate because i was lazy, so some things might be very weird:)
Thanks again everyone, for your great input!
Opposites (so we can be one?)
Present the subject.
When we talk about this subject, almost everyone thinks about this scripture that I want to read now:
2 Nephi 2:11
Because it must necessarily be such that there is a contradiction in everything. If it were not my firstborn in the wilderness, justice could not be provided, nor wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor evil. Everything must therefore necessarily be a blend in one; If that were one, it would necessarily have to be as dead as it had neither life nor death nor neglect or immortality, happiness or misery, neither feeling nor insensitivity.
As we read this, we are talking about trials here in life. That it should be nice to feel it sour. Death for life to exist. Make sure there is happiness. And that without these contradictions it will all be dead.
We have heard that a couple of times before, so I’ve tried to ride a little bit inside my brain and see what new angle is on things.
I want to take a different angle and think about it in relation to the church and our relationship with each other and how much we embrace diversity.
Without diversity, without our individual different opinions and hence opposites, I think it would be, as in the scripture I just read, dead and our church will be dead because there would be no development.
What contradictions are there in such a congregation as ours (and everyone else)? I think we have a very nice compassion, I just hurry to say.
I think some of these contradictions can make a difference between us if we use them as a checklist on each other and also create a gap within us if we use them to have a checklist of ourselves.
examples:
-We have a temple recommendation or not
-We have been on a mission or not
-We pay tithing or not
-We overcome the word of word or not
Do we have an office in the church or not?
“We” know that the church is true or not
Do you have to drink Cola or not?
Do you want to take the sacrament with one hand or does not matter?
-The orthodox
-The unorthodox
-The progressive
-The “only” cultural mormon most comes to church because his / her family and friends do it.
All these different people are mixed around in a big pear wrap. How can we be without conflicts due to our contradictions in our understanding of the gospel?
I see things from my point of view and have opinions about things that may not be the same with another member, who sees things from his point of view etc etc.
And that will somehow create opposites. Especially because we may each think that there is only one way to see / understand things in the church and that’s my way.
Sometimes you may feel that you have other attitudes / understandings of things and you are afraid to say it in a class in the church.
That’s a bad thing. Not only do not talk about things, the classes may also be locked to some extent in standard answers, as we all know.
And it may mean that we never have the live discussions we could really have. And it can mean that we, as single people, churches and church, do not have the development we could have.
Hugh B. Brown, counselor in First Presidency, Speech at BYU, March 29, 1968
“I admire men and women who have developed a spirit that questions things that are not afraid to use new ideas as a stepboard for progress. We must, of course, respect each other’s opinions, but we should not be afraid to differ – if we are informed. Thoughts and expressing themselves compete in the free market we call “thoughts”, and in that competition the truth can only win at last. Only mistakes fear freedom of expression. This free exchange of ideas is not something we should look down on as long as men and women remain humble and can be taught. Neither fear of consequences nor any form of compulsion should ever be used to make sure we all think the same in church. People should be able to express their problems and attitudes and not be afraid to think about the consequences. We must maintain the freedom of the mind in the church and resist all attempts to suppress it.
So, do we really think so?
Two months ago, I was really happy because a church article circled on facebook that actually referred to the “Fowler’s stages of faith”, which I have chosen to translate as “faith stages”. Not something most people have noticed, but Fowler’s stages of faith explain how / why we think differently, and that it is quite common development. It’s a theory that I found a few years ago, and that helped me in my own faith journey.
James Fowler is a professor of theology and human development, and pastor of a methodist church.
He published in 1981 a book, which became one of his most famous books, titled “Stages of faith”, in which he tries to find systems in human spiritual development. There are different stages from 0-6 and you can read more about yourself if you are interested in development in psychology and spirituality. Different studies have been made of human development from child to adult in psychology, but this applies to spirituality instead.
In this article, there are excerpts of presentation given by “Scott R Braithwaite” as a psychology professor at BYU.
So in short: On the church’s website there is an article that has an excerpt from a presentation at BYU where Scott Braithwaite, explains James Fowler’s beliefs stages.
“These beliefs, I think, are a great help to us because they help us realize that there is not only a way to believe.”
According to Braithwaite, most people remain in Fowler’s Stage 3 throughout their lives, which is a conventional belief, characterized by conformance to an authority that is a strong cultural element in religious life. A “us” against “them” worldview, while ignoring all conflicts in the person’s own faith, because of fear of the discrepancies in this belief.
“Stage 3, is where I think we are most vulnerable to ending up in a crisis because there are expectations that are impossible to meet,” said Braithwaite. I think they live in a world that is binary, it is black and white, where the church is only good and impossible to do anything bad and vice versa where the world is evil and in decline.
“The perfectionist idea can be dangerous because most beliefs have different human elements in themselves.” says Braithwaite. “
Here he only explains about a stage out of 7.
Should we all have faith / understanding together? I simply do not think it’s possible. We are all unique. And that should not create conflicts with us.
I am convinced that some of my attitudes / understandings about some subjects would make the bishop go to head. And guess what that applies to us all.
So there’s only one way to see things in the church? Should it create contradictions between us?
Not according to the church’s article. And in fact, according to the church’s history,
You can just look at the history of our own church and see the contradictions that have been in how our own church leaders have understood things. Which really shows that there is not only, or has been a way of looking at things.
In the 1850s and until the late 1800s, Brigham Young and the subsequent Church leaders taught that Adam was our God. That Adam was literally God for our earth. Also known as the Adam-God doctrine. If some have heard of it before. This was positively received by some leaders while it was directly rejected by others, among others. Orson Pratt, who was one of Brigham Young’s apostles at that time.
Adam-God’s doctrine was later publicly stamped as false teaching by Spencer W. Kimball, who was the leader of the church at the time in the 1970s.
Another example of opposites is that:
From Brigham Young’s time until 1978, they could not have the priesthood or come to the temple because, according to the church at that time, they were descendants of Cain.
Today we can read from the church website that the official position is now:
“Today, the church rejects the theories (and teachings) stated in the past that colored skin is a sign of divine misery or curses or that they are an expression of unfair actions in the past that race-mixed marriages are a sin or that colored or people of any other race or ethnicity are in any way laquered. Today, the leaders of the church condemn all racism, in the past or present, in any form.
When we know that church leaders have had different interpretations and understandings of core topics in the church throughout the ages, (and there are more than those here) we should also have an understanding of each other’s different understandings and interpretations of things today. Despite contradictions, there must be room for everyone in the church.
Both Brigham Young and Spencer W Kimball.
Elder Joseph B Wirthlin said at the General Conference in 2008 about those who think “different”. And we’ll do that all in one way or another.
“They feel like they do not belong. Perhaps because they are different, they find themselves drifting away from the flock. They act, think, speak and look different than people around them, and this sometimes causes them to assume they do not fit in. They conclude that there is no need for them.
Along with this misconception there is the wrong belief that all members of the Church should speak, be and look alike. The Lord did not populate the earth with a sound orchestra of personalities to exclusively appreciate the world’s piccoloflots. Any instrument is precious and adds more to the symphony’s complex beauty. All of our Heavenly Father’s children are somewhat different, yet each child has its own beautiful sound that adds depth and richness to the whole.
We are all unique and all voices should be heard. I think it is important that we in the church’s I think it’s important that we in the classrooms and elsewhere do not just stand for standard answers because we feel different but really have genuine discussions about topics. I think we will find that we all have a lot to contribute and that we do not have to be the same.
Have you ever been to the hospital?
A few years ago I got meningitis.
I was in church, felt a bit sloppy. We went home, I lay under the quilt and Anna went out with my parents to my brother.
2 hours later I was screaming because my head was about to explode and I had to call an ambulance.
After a while, they found me in the neighborhood and I drove off.
Imagine if we had stopped at the hospital entrance, where there were some doctors and they had told me:
“Doctors here are healthy and healthy, we know a lot about making people healthy, we are very clever. You can be like us if you just try more. When you are as healthy and as clever and know the very right things like us, you must come in and we can treat you.
It may not be the best way to run a hospital, nor a church.
President Uchtdorf of the First Presidency said in October 2014
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a place for people with all sorts of testimonies. There are some Church members who have a sure testimony that burns within them. Others strive to find out. The church is a home where everyone meets regardless of the depth or the strength of their testimony. I do not know any signs at the door of our church buildings, where it says: “Your testimony must be so high that you may come in.”
The church is not only for perfect people, but it is for all who want to “come to Christ, and be perfect in him.” The church is for people like you and me. The church is a place that embraces everyone and takes care of them, not somewhere that separates or criticizes. It is a place where we strive to encourage, elevate and help each other when we each strive to seek divine truth.
In the end, we are all pilgrims seeking God’s light on the journey through the path of the disciple. We do not condemn others for how much light they have or do not have. Instead of nourishing and encouraging all light, until it grows clear, glorious and true. “
I think it’s a reminder that witnesses, attitudes and understandings of things are available in all sizes, colors and frames.
And it is not our job to judge who is wrong or right. There is already one that has as job description and I do not think any of us are so much better than him.
Everyone is welcome as they are.
-The orthodox
-The unorthodox
-The on with the with blue shirt
-the one with the white shirt
-THe one with with long hair
the one who believes
the one has doubts
the one who does not believe
I hope we can all remain unique.
There are things in the church / gospel (I’m not sure where one term stops and the other begins), which I neither understand nor agree with, there are other things I have hoped for and so there are things I have one deep faith in. One of the things is that we have a God who loves us more than we can ever understand.
“If I speak with the tongues of humans and angels, but do not have love, I’m a resounding ore and a whining bell. v2 And if I have prophetic gift and know all the secrets and possess all knowledge and have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. v3 And if I divide all that I own, and give my body to burn, but not love, I will not profit. “
My hope is that we must have love for each other and give room for everyone’s interpretations and points of view in the church. That we must know that we do not have to talk and think the same and that knowing this, we can *be*can be *one*, instead of being the same.
