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The biggest flaw in resigning is that it is an act whereby we almost are asking permission to leave, or at a minimum, are asking (depending on) the social “power” holder to validate our broken chain. In a some ways it’s a dis-empowering act. It’s impatient. It’s drastic. Some people really do need a symbolic act. There is real power in that. Just like baptism is symbolic of joining the church, resignation is symbolic of leaving. So I am not saying it isn’t without value. And it most certainly is the best choice for some people.
There are many ways to test the waters and explore your feelings about disconnecting from “the chains.” If nothing else, just go out and enjoy yourself doing what YOU like one Sunday instead of going to church. I don’t know, that’s just a small example. Go out to breakfast and then go for a hike in nature. See what that feels like, and don’t feel guilty about it. God doesn’t really care nearly as much as we think. Can you enjoy doing what YOU want?
I’m no therapist, but we always recommend going slow and trying things out. We were all raised with ideas of all-or-nothing, righteous-or-wicked, follow every “commandment” perfectly or run out and become a crack-addicted prostitute bank robber. You know what I mean. But life isn’t really like that. Maybe you just need a break for a while to gain perspective?
Once someone resigns, it’s such a hassle to keep connections in the LDS community if you want to, or even just to show up to a church activity if nothing else. It’s all awkward. It’s way easier to be inactive
😆 I’m an expert.The chains are broken when you simply take them off, and don’t let them bother you anymore. That is something that happens inside your heart, not on a piece of paper, or in a few keystrokes into the database at church HQ.
This isn’t anything helpful really, but it was a fascinating experience: I was in a silly facebook game online about a year ago which had a live chat feature. One guy I was talking to for a while changed the subject and started proselytizing to me about Islam. I just let him talk and go on. He seemed nice enough. What was so very fascinating was HOW MUCH he sounded like us Mormons doing the same thing.
He asked me if I knew about Islam, and if I had ever read the Qur’an. He gave me a list of passages to read in it. He also said the Qur’an contained a promise: that if I read it with a sincere heart, and prayed to Allah to know if it was true, that Allah would reveal the truth of it to me. In that way, I would gain a knowledge of the truth. He had this kind of experience and wanted to share it with people he met. He was a very nice, respectful and reasonable person to talk to.
We discussed it for several minutes. I was just mesmerized hearing our own Mormon missionary style played back but with a different religious context. (btw, he had no idea what Mormons were, or really understood the difference in Christian denominations. I asked him about some of this because I was curious).
The laws against polygamy were used for so long as an excuse to abandon that disastrous practice, it creates a conundrum for the organization if the laws are lifted. It’s a problem because they NEVER own up to changes, just take the lazy route and wait for it to fade from memory. But we’ve spent so much time away from polygamy that there is NO going back. We can point to hardcore fanatics who would do anything they are told, but the fact is most members would NOT comply with this. It opens up a whole can of worms. It would force people to look back into history to understand why … and that is the last thing they want — people exploring history. It would destroy the church as we know it. And they KNOW it (the leadership).
If the laws against plural marriage were lifted, the prophet would inquire of the Lord and conveniently receive revelation instructing the church to continue as it is without polygamy. That would be the most convenient solution. I’d bet money on that.
The notion of priesthood has morphed tremendously since the restoration began in the early days of the church. It was originally more of a power to commune with God. Today, it is almost exclusively only an administrative hierarchy structure — an organizational chart. So yes. The “power of the priesthood” makes the jello salad appear at the ward social. But that is organizational power, not spiritual power. A string of managers from the top down designed organizational programs, handed off the orders to implement them to middle managers down the chain, until at the bottom of the chart, workers fill the order making the jello salad and deliver it to the “customers” in the ward.
The best historical references for this are Daymon Smith’s social anthropological works on Correlation (new book coming out called “A Cultural History of the Book of Mormon”) and D. Michael Quinn’s two volume “Mormon Hierarchy” set.
Still had some problems. Hosting was suspended since last night. Made some more changes to the server settings and got the account reactivated. Sorry for the downtime. Should be ok now. I fully agree that the most common source of disillusionment and disappointment is caused by the difference between people’s expectationsand the historical reality. The wider the gulf, the more the pain it causes when that gap snaps together. I also believe strongly in the context in which one encounters this gap. The tone makes a huge impact. When you hear it from a trusted source who also has a mature viewpoint on it, it makes all the difference in the world!
Good point on the difference. I read you wrong and focused in on people leaving the church, not the church leaving The Gospel. Carry on… 
There are many examples of of prophets and apostles being imperfect in the scriptures, even making very big “mistakes.” Yet somehow we expect our leaders today to be cut from a cloth with no flaws. Examples:
-Noah had a serious drinking problem at one point in his prophetic life
-Moses wasn’t allowed to enter the promised land because of his sassy attitude of disobedience, and taking credit for the miracles. He was one of the greatest prophets.
-Nephi laments his weaknesses and sinful nature, but has hope in the Lord.
-Joseph Smith’s many many quotes on being no better than anyone else, having many flaws.
-Peter denied Christ and was also a hot head with a sword, but was still the rock upon which The Lord was to build his church.
-The many instances of the apostles not understanding Jesus in The Gospels.
-Abraham: his story of the almost-sacrifice of Isaac could also be looked at as following his local false traditions of human sacrifice.
These were all great prophets! They continued on to be prophets even though they were wrong at times.
mom3 wrote:Now I know it could be debated that her living with this imagined religion is just as unfair, because someday she would face the disappointment …
I still live in an imagined world based on what my heart and mind creates from my senses. Everyone lives in their own imagined world (their imagined “religion” being a subset of that world). We feel great joy and relief after we settle in comfortably to our new post-faith crisis imagined religion (whatever that is), believing we now have it all figured out.
But to me, my series of experiences over my life coming to realizations that I did NOT know “the truth” about things … that leads me to see a pattern. It’s most likely that I will continue to have such epiphanies and uncomfortable adjustments. It seems a lot like the Mormon term “Eternal Progression.”
So even though we may now have a broader and clearer view. We are still fundamentally in the same bind. We are qualitatively no better, even if we perhaps have a larger quantity of “truth.” We still have a long way to go before we can claim to no longer live in our own flawed imaginations, that we see reality without filters in the way.
All that is my long way of agreeing. I find it imprudent to push others outside their worldview, especially if it’s just so that I can feel good about myself for a few moments and feel validated.
What would happen if the Q15 devoted the next General Conference to exposing all the controversies? I imagine there’s be a couple million brothers and sisters all flooding into faith crisis doom spiral without a support structure to replace their destroyed imaginations. We already can’t keep up with the existing flood of people who are discovering this information on their own.
I don’t think the quality of “apostasy” (if we must use that loaded word) is any different. The quantity has been on a dramatic rise in the past decade or so. I would site the recent and famous Elder Jensen comment about this being as dramatic as the Kirtland-era, post banking scandal / real estate collapse time. The Apostle Paul is either directly or indirectly responsible for most of the New Testament. He never even met Jesus nor heard him preach in person. Paul claimed that Jesus appeared to him on his commute to the office (the road to Damascus) to tell him the “real” way of doing things, much to the frustration of Peter and James. Mohammed “memorized” the words taught to him by the angel Gabrielle over several years of camping out in a cave.
The Oracle of Delphi also received revelations while camping out in a cave filled with odd gasses that welled up from a fissure.
The Buddha sat under a tree until he realized he’d be happier without a nagging wife and kids, or the burden of partisan politics as a king — the original hippie-slacker! I’m not sure his “revelation” was all that original or required anything supernatural
😆 Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th century German mystic and nun, was the sickly 10th child of an aristocratic family and was tithed (donated) to the church. She is noted for all kinds of amazing and complex musical compositions, as well as treatises on healing and the use of herbs. She claimed she could retrieve any information she needed from a universal light that she could see (nobody else could see it).
Joseph Smith wrote books from words given to him by sparkly rocks in a hat, from visions, or from Egyptian papyri.
I’m not saying all this to point out that religion isn’t “true” or to make fun of foundational religious narratives. Billions of people have found great value in the teachings of some of these “prophets.” I’m just pointing out that if you step back a few feet and look at them all, none of them would be judged as normal by our current standards, or even the standards of their own time! The one universal truth about prophets is they are all a little crazy, and they were all truly inspiring enough to ignite a following.
I’m often curious why BoA discussions (or problems) never seem to sidestep into the Book of Moses. Both are set side-by-side in the Pearl of Great Price. Why doesn’t anyone ever seem to have a problem with the Book of Moses first? There was no text. Joseph made no claims of translating a historical record. He just sat down and wrote it out. From an outsider, non-believing perspective: he made the whole thing up! The notion that Moses even wrote a short book of scripture like that is even ridiculous, and that it would be transmitted thousands of years later to a frontier American mystic for first release (again, I am speaking from an outsider perspective).
But people freak out and cry foul when we find out that Joseph maybe just “made up” the Book of Abraham, riffing on some over-priced, looted Egyptian scrolls he purchased. I say: at least the Book of Abraham has some tenuous connection to history and a for-real ancient people!
🙂 My personal opinion: Joseph Smith used all kinds of inspiration to come up with his mystical and prophetic writings. It’s pretty much how all prophet-archetype figures have worked throughout history. The value in this genre of literature is the poetic meaning. Our church has focused far too much on the literal historicity as a form of “call to authority.” When IMO, a religious text is only valuable if WE can make something useful from it in the present context of our life.
Scripture is more like poetry than a technical hardware manual.
I happen to think the BoA is cool. It certainly makes Mormonism unique. The ideas in it are pretty trippy and mind-expanding. And yeah … there are some really bad ideas in it too (like the canonization of the “curse of ham” theory that isn’t original to Mormonism).
Predictions and warnings of a great “apostasy” go all the way back to the beginning of Christendom. Jesus and Paul talked about it. But really, I am pretty convinced they believed they were talking about their own time, not some distant future event. Yes. I believe the LDS Church is experiencing the effects of a broader cultural shift in the form of many people reevaluating their relationship with their religion. This is true for all religions, but obviously we care more to focus on our own. Based on our short historical track record, I predict our church will adapt and change. We’ve made major and totally unexpected changes in the past.
The LDS Church will change much slower than progressive folks want. It will change much faster than conservative folks want. It
WILLchange though. I can’t say how or exactly when.
