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my point is that you’re wasting your time if you think glossy apologetic arguments are going to be effective against people who have objectively looked at this stuff and asked hard questions, and acted on the answers regardless of how painful the truth seems. If you’re going to have faith, then do it, have faith, which means believing in something you don’t know, in the absence of proof or evidence. But trying to twist the evidence into a shape that might, kinda, sorta make still believing plausible, and then trying to use that against someone that has already accepted and come to terms with the church not being what it claims, simply won’t work

Thanks for reposting this, Brian. This is the crux of the issue that I think is at the heart of most problems disaffected folks have with the Church. I know we can talk about stages of faith or about keeping the doctrines that speak to us while discarding those that don’t but the reality is (at least from my point of view) that, as Ahman states, the Church is not what it claims to be. And the more that individuals try to prove that it is, the more that dissaffected people (and I unfortunately am starting to consider myself among that group) feel as if our intelligence is insulted with what Ahman calls “glossy apolgetic answers”. I wrote my first post on this board a couple of days ago titled “why can’t church leaders be more straightforward?”. I think that title about sums up my point in relation to this post. Old paradigms of trusting our leaders to never lead us astray won’t work with the disaffected because by definition they are disaffected…disaffected from leaders, dogma, church authority, whatever. Folks (like me now) want answers.

Could you imagine ever buying a car after only reading the literature of the company whose car you are buying? Not with consumer reports and other websites. And how would you take Ford or whomever telling you they have the best car and you are wrong to read any article from anyone else that may dispute that? Sure, some sites are just plain wrong (just as some anti-mormon sites are) but let us decide for ourselves. Don’t discourage outside reading or study with no place but sites like these to explore our questions. No matter how good this site may be, it is still not official. So we may come to answers here that satisfy us but at the end of the day, they are still just for us. Sounds great in theory, until you walk into the temple recommend interview and then have to decide to stand on principle and lose your recommend, you privilege of attending your child’s wedding, or whatever or keeping it to yourself and having to justify it to yourself by parsing words or otherwise re-defining the questions in a way you know the leaders don’t intend them.

When it comes to what will be the biggest decision we ever make in our lives (no offense to my wife and our wedding ), we should be able to do it with all of the cards on the table. If I am honest with myself, even I in my current stage of faith, I would have my membership in this church solidified and strengthened if tomorrow I read: “you’re right, it doesn’t make sense. Let’s discuss it and not ignore it anymore. Let’s get back to basics. We may not be the only true church but that doesn’t stop the principles we share from being true. We focus too much on Smith or Monson and not enough on Christ and Heavenly Father. Our leaders are just men doing the best they can because they care about you. Whether or not they are God’s prophet is not as important as whether or not what they say makes sense. Test it in your own lives. Pray about it. Compare it to other churches and see what we believe to be the best way to worship Heavenly Father. We have made mistakes as all churches have but we humbly ask your forgiveness and pray you will follow us as we move forward together in faith to find the answers that matter to the questions you have.” To me, that would be courageous and would do more to keep me in the church than telling me it is the true church, we have God’s prophet, that we have to crawl over, under, or around the Book of Mormon if we can’t see that, etc.

The fact that this site and other sites like it as well as the “anti” sites (postmo, etc) are out there should be a huge red flag that the membership wants and I would say needs and deserves more than they are getting. I think the leaders can ignore this, but they do it at their own peril. I hate to be a nerd and quote Star Wars but, to paraphrase, the more they tighten their grip, the more (members) will slip through their fingers.

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Thank you for all the thoughtful responses. And I have to be honest that there is still some resentment in me which will color this final response for this thread and I apologize in advance for that.

But…

1. It was the leaders themselves that made this issue so black and white as to preclude some of the responses that I can just believe what I want to or the church can be what I want it to be my rejecting those things I disagree with and accepting those I do. What you are “required” to believe if you want a temple recommend, don’t want to be a social pariah in the ward, and hold callings may be too much to ask with what we know. It is all or nothing, church of God or abominable church, it is all true or a fraud. Those are the types of things we have heard over and over. That position is untenable as many of the responses here indicate but I do not see it changing, unfortunately. And to me it would be the same as being in a club where you don’t agree with what the club stands for. You may have fun and the club may do great things for the community but we are defined by the associations we keep. Keeping the LDS moniker, taking on us the name of Christ (as we have been taught by the LDS church), and participating in the temple ceremony with its associated covenants, requires you have to accept it all (or at least appear to) to maintain personal integrity to what you say you are (i.e. LDS). Unlike various sects of other religions, we don’t have wards that accept everything but the first vision or everything but the BoA or everything but the concept of prophets. You can do that in your mind but you really, in my opinion, only fool yourself since you have to keep that to yourself. Whether that be not to offend others, or not cause contention, or not be excluded from the group, it is the same…you are not being true to yourself. And not being true yourself is not how I think you should have to feel as you find a church to worship God.

2. I can never again look at a guy like President Hinckley the same when he and others like him conduct temple recommend interviews asking whether or not we are honest in our dealings with our fellow men when it is obvious the organization as a whole does not follow that requirement. That is probably me seeing what I should have the whole time (i.e. they are fallible, human, just like every one else, etc) but it still is disappointing. Sure he was a nice guy and had a great heart…but it has become apparent to me that he and the other leaders are not the only ones on the earth who are prophet, seers, and revelators who have the direct line to God. However, having that perspective makes you feel like you can’t state it without offending your ward family or that you can’t truthfully answer some temple recommend questions in the manner in which you should. That, by default, makes you a second class citizen in the church where you can’t even do things like attend the sealing of your own children or participate in a ward temple night.

3. I know many have said that we should find our own answers like LGT or whatever to help things make sense but they are not official by any means. If it turns out to be correct, great for the leaders. If not, it was only some academics who postulated that anyway. In fact, the church tries very hard to not get pinned down on any particular statement or position. The intro change to the BOM is a perfect example. A press release from the church says the change was because the intro was written by a man and was not official doctrine. But it was there for decades (indicating at least tacit approval) and no one ever acted like it was anything less than inspired before the change. And a press release? Again, it is too easy for folks to simply say it didn’t come from the GAs/conference/Ensign so they it isn’t official. That leads to the same “I’m sure they have their reasons because President Monson gets his direction as God’s prophet” mentality. It really is playing both ends against the middle such as Hinckley saying one thing to one audience (non-mormons watching TV) vs. another (mormons at GC). That seems dishonest knowing what we know. Is it so hard to have a column in the Ensign that said the FP and apostles were inspired to make the change or whatever and that is why it was done? It is if you don’t want to be accountable for something. So you see why it is hard for me to listen to a lesson where some church leader tells a story of how he stole a candy and his dad made him go back and return it because of personal accountability. The actions of the organization as a whole which claims to be the true church with Jesus at its head fails to do the very same thing. Is this, to coin a phrase, what Jesus would do?

I have a lot to ponder and pray about. But one thing is for sure…my world view will never be the same again. That the prophets will never lead us astray (and for me the definition is that they won’t try to trick or lie to us or teach us false doctrine) seems to be a PR technique to get us to follow without question rather than provide us the comfort that this is God’s one and true church that I thought it was. This is all very disappointing to say the least. We all find ways to cope. Apparently, I still need to find mine.

Thanks again for the responses.

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