[Bear]

hey Cwald – what was that you were referring to? I seem to be rememberring something about E. Holland saying that as a response having talked to John Dehlin?

And on a sidenote:

Its going to be so interesting to see where the church is heading in the future. I personally think something BIG is happening the next 10-20 years.(and it is happening right now) I think we will be moving FAST away from the recent 50 years of “fundamentalisation” (is that even a word? of members of the church.(yeah! curse you “correlation”!! 😆 ) I think with people like Henry B eyring and Dieter Uchtdorf we will see a much more dynamic, nuanced, embracing and “big tent” mormonism in the next decades. I really hope that for my kids!

[Bear]

I served a mission in Sweden and live in the neighbouring country. Sad to see a man finding stuff out after so many years. I don’t know the man personally but I have heard of him and know his twin brother and the family a bit. Luckily I stumbled across “stuff” in my late teens and later on after my mission so I kind of got used to the thought that everything isn’t textbook perfect, over a long period where I was forming my religious identity anyway. (Not that you can only do that in your youth, but I think it might be easier). He comes from a very active church family with his twin brother being the stake pres. The last couple of years A LOT of members in Sweden went inactive in the church because of historical stuff. And I mean A LOT!

Very Recently one of the members of the former stake presidency in an area in Denmark (where I live) went inactive because of the same issues.

I don’t know if that will start a wave here in Denmark as well. My own father and father in law are inactive now because of the same stuff and there are not a lot of members in Europe already.

It makes me so sad and angry everytime I hear of yet another person leaving. I want the info to come out from the top as soon as possible because it is causing so much grief and sorrow in people’s lives. Much more than the average active person can understand.

I even wrote the current stake president telling him about my faith crisis and how I come out on the other side with MUCH more stronger relationship to God (and a much more open view of what church is and what it should do for people). I plan on writing an email to the inactive former member of the stake pres as well, pointing him to this site among other things and the various podcasts. And most of all I just think people need to feel that what they are going through is totally ok and justified – but it doesn’t mean that they have to throw the baby(their religion) out with the bathwater.

Aaaarggghhh – it makes me so sad. There is a (middle)way to stay in church but many times people don’t even know that there is. And not necessarily a middle way, just a new view which personnaly freeed me from all the folklore and “evil traditions” that crept into the church. Now I see the gospel as the center thing and the church as the next important thing….. It’s hard to explain..using an iPhone to pour out my heart here:)

sorry – just had to vent.

[Bear]

Thanks! Any other ideas?

[Bear]

Ok. Another round:

Im going to give the lesson from chapter 13 about relief society/true worship/true love (translated title..)

Any suggestions?

Thanks:)

[Bear]

Great thoughts from all of you. I live in Europe and I have never felt anything taught from the pulpit that sex is evil etc. I have though, seen some members that put it that way. Overly emphasizing the topic and potentially messing up the sexuality of their children.

My thoughts are much more about Pre marital sex. Not fidelity in marriage. The marriage part makes perfect sense to me – but Pre marital sex is a harder topic for me to completely grasp. I completely agree with “Contraception isn’t foolproof. The possibility of bringing an eternal being into the world should give people pause, and I don’t think the freedom and pleasure of the 99 is worth the distress of the 1”

But just to take it further= if we invented a 100% foolproof contraception, would that make the law of chastity meaningless? I personally don’t think so. The line I quoted seems to me to be the physical aspect of the law of chastity, which makes sense. But there must be a spiritual/emotional benefit from living the law.

What is that?

One thing I have been pondering is that I believe not having premarital sex, has the potential to “bind” you much closer to your spouse in the future.

I have personally always lived by tloc (the law of chastity) and feel that my wife and I are close because we never were with anyone else.

Any more inputs and thoughts?

[Bear]

Thanks a lot for the comments so far!! Roy, I really like your line of thinking and would love to hear more from you:)I am thinking from a pretty tbm /faithful perspective. Why does the law of chastity make sense to us?I guess emotionally I like the law but intellectually I have a hard time explaining it to other people/ to my self.

The reason for this whole thread is that I want to be able to explain to others about my faith and why I live the way I do. (Wow, tithing etc) but I just can’t explain chastity in my own head. As I stated earlier, it’s much more a feeling to me. It makes sense emotionally…

If I go at it from a non lds perspective it’s very easy to come up with explanations but that’s not really where I am coming from:)Thanks a lot for the comments though. Looking forward to your reply ray:)

[Bear]

Thanks again to everyone for your comments! I just prepared the lesson and it was great fun preparing it. I’ll be using the FP quote at one point in the lesson and I will be going through a brief history of tithing (illustrating that it has not always been 10 percent) – The church faced economical problems because of polygamy (the state took the church property because they didn’t follow law of the land). That ended in 1890 – Lorenzo spend a lot of time trying to resolve the problems= revelation on tithing=> How do we get revelation= when we work for it! Prophets aren’t told by God what to eat for breakfast, just like you and I aren’t told what to do. I will include lots of material from the lesson book and i hope the lesson will be faith promoting and uplifting – and maybe even provide a new view on the church and its history to some.

So great to get inspiration from you guys and gals.

:thumbup:

[Bear]

What a great way to put it:)

[Bear]

Thanks ray. Any suggestions for “tithing has meant different things in different times”. ?

[Bear]

Great insights and ideas. Thanks a ton!

[Bear]

Ok. Here we go again. I am teaching lesson nr 12 “tithing – a law for our protection and prospering” – a loose translation.

Any thoughts about how I can plant some seeds in the “pupils”?(see my first post).

Thanks:)

[Bear]

HPMBH wrote:

I am actually teaching this lesson next week and have done a quick look through. I think there is definitely some potential for having a good conversation on the history of “the vision” and looking critically at what it actually tells us and what it doesn’t about where we go after this life.

Is there anything special about the history?

Share! Share!

[Bear]

Thanks a lot.

I am a little sceptical when it comes to “God is behind all”. Seems to me that God talks through a person and therefore the translation will use his language and not some exact way of saying things. I am sure wordings in the bible have changed throughout history, so it is a little “iffy” imo that God chooses the exact same wording as the current bible.

That being said, I believe in tbom in a litteral way. So if you know of any other explanations feel free to chime in!

Thanks

[Bear]

What are the possible/plausible explanations for the issue? I have wondered about this issue myself but haven’t had time to investigate it further.

[Bear]

Where is that quote taken from?

[Author]

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