[jhp33]

Well, this morning was my meeting with the SP. Ended up being a marathon (almost 2 hour) meeting.

We started by me sharing my concerns about the Proclamation and referring to it as scripture in Primary. As expected, he went to D&C 68 and referenced the “if spoken by the Holy Spirit” definition of scripture. We went back and forth many times on the issue, talking about “little s” scripture and “big S” scripture and in the end, he wasn’t really persuaded that it was at all a problem. He was not aware of the Elder Packer talk a few years ago where the reference to it being a “revelation” was intentionally redacted, and that very much surprised him.

He then transitioned into a discussion about what exactly it is about the Proclamation that bothers me. I told him in general I don’t have a real problem with almost everything in the Proclamation, but that I’m not convinced that we’re not living in our own version of the priesthood ban, or Adam-God theory being preached by the prophet. I’m not convinced that God condemns homosexuality.

Of course, that sent us down that rabbit hole. We unpacked all of my thoughts and feelings about Prop 8, past statements from church leaders about homosexuality being a disease, shock therapy, etc etc. He agreed that the church has rightly shifted toward distinguishing between thoughts/feelings and acting on it. I could have left it at that, but I just couldn’t leave without going to the next level and taking a stand.

As we continued discussing, he started making comparisons between homosexuality and bestiality, a compulsion to steal, alcoholism, inability to marry and addiction to pornography. I began to get very flustered at that point and it was difficult for me to form my thoughts coherently because I couldn’t really believe he was going there.

We agreed to disagree on the issue at that point, and went back to the nature of prophets and my struggles with the fact that I don’t see the fruits of prophecy from our modern day prophets. He seemed blown away that I could possibly think that modern revelation has changed since Joseph’s day. I told him that, as I study the scriptures, I see distinct differences between the way God communicated between to his prophets and his people and how it seems as though it’s done today (philosophies of men, mingled with scripture..although I didn’t use those exact words).

Again, he wasn’t very convinced and kept repeating that he had a testimony that we are led today by a living prophet.

In the end, nothing really got resolved, but I was able to share my concerns and he was very receptive to me in general and patient with my concerns. There were some spots where it got a tad testy/contentious, but he always made a point to slow us down and make sure I understood that just because we didn’t see eye to eye on things, that didn’t mean he looked down on me.

We ended with me expressing my concern that I don’t know how to be a fully functioning part of the ward when I see things so fundamentally differently than most ward members. He acknowledged that this must be difficult and he empathized with my situation, but at that point he was running very late for his next meeting, so we didn’t get to unpack that fully.

So, bottom line, nothing changed, but it was nice to be heard and to be understood.

I am working on crafting an email to him with references to things that made him go “huh?” during our discussion. I will post tomorrow if it’s of interest to anyone.

Thanks, all.

[jhp33]

Mike wrote:

jhp, thanks for your post. As you can tell, many of us have gone through this phase in our spiritual development.

You have made a list of the things you don’t believe or can’t agree with, can you make a similar list of the things you do believe? or agree with? or like about the organization?

My suggestion (for what it’s worth) is:

1. Don’t make a quick decision about leaving.

2. Continue to share your ideas & feelings with us.

3. Find one other person in your ward that you can talk to & won’t pass judgement. I have 2 or 3 people in my ward that I can talk to about anything at any time. I know that they will not betray my confidence. It may take a little time & effort to develop a close relationship.

Keep coming back. We want to hear more from you.

Thanks, Mike (and to all of you) for your words.

I think making that “agree with/believe” list is a good idea. I’m going to work on that this week.

I think I have identified someone in my ward who I can talk to, but I need to tread lightly as he is in the bishopric (and, with our bishop moving soon, there’s a chance he is in line to be the next bishop)

[jhp33]

Brian Johnston wrote:

I used to quote other fictional literature and even the “scripture” of other faiths when I taught lessons or gave a talk in sacrament meeting. I could sense brief vibes of awkward reflection among some people … but I would argue with ANYONE that doing so as is purely “Mormon” as it gets. We’re supposed to draw from the best books and the best thinking, from any and all sources, because truth and knowledge come from God.

Second, I also used to make it a point not to let that false teaching about “scripture” stand unchallenged: that anything a leader says is scripture. Conference talks are *not* canon scripture. Proclamations are not scripture. Policy manuals, lesson manuals, procedure manuals … are not scripture. We host an excellent article that describes the process by which a text becomes canon or doctrine: “Mormon Doctrine, What is Official and What Isn’t” by Donald Ashton http://www.staylds.com/docs/WhatIsOfficialMormonDoctrine.html

Basically, it has to be acknowledged as a revelation and voted on by the WHOLE body of saints, approved “by common consent” as binding upon the church. Everything else is varying levels of inspiration, depending on your own personal revelation.

Awesome. Thank you, Brian. I printed that article out and will be studying it for the next few days.

My appointment with the Stake President is on Sunday morning. I will be sure to update you all as to the nature and outcome of the meeting. My wife is nervous, but I am calm as a summer’s morning. 😆

[jhp33]

Orson wrote:

I know short thoughts in text format can come across as preachy or harsh, I am really just trying to throw out ideas to think about.

Please don’t apologize. I really appreciate your comments and helping me see things just a little bit differently. Yesterday was a pretty bad day after a pretty bad Sunday, so I was at a bit of a low, and you guys have helped me get through this without making any rash decisions.

I think the thing I am most struggling with right now is a lack of a feeling of belonging in the church. That mostly stems from how I feel about my current ward. If, somehow, I could attend church with the lot of you, how my experience would be different! Just to know that I am sitting next to or near someone who is maybe rolling their eyes at the same thing or feeling frustrated about the same thing or pumping our fists collectively at the same rare instance of open thinking would really help. But if there are people like that in my ward, I don’t know who they are. The bishop’s behavior lately, and the fact that the ENTIRE bishopric knows of my faith struggle and still pretty much ignores me and my family just makes me feel like there’s nothing really there for me.

Again, I know a lot of that is on me, as I don’t take the time to reach out and look for opportunities to serve (although, we did commit to cleaning the church on Friday…a small step but a step nonetheless). This is compounded by the fact that I asked my HPG leader to release me as a Home Teacher and I’m sure word has gotten out about that. I just don’t need that added pressure right now of having to home teach six (yes, six) families in one month while having the second counselor breathing down my neck via email every first Sunday of the month about my report. I simply can’t handle that right now.

So I’m sure that creates a stigma in my ward of people who look at me or treat me differently, and some of that is on me, but I can’t help but feel not very welcome in general. I wish I felt like the church needed me, but I just don’t.

But I have my family to think about, too. To answer someone else’s question, my marriage is suffering as a result of my faith transition, but to my wife’s credit, while this is clearly very hard for her, she has told me multiple times that she is committed to the fact that we are a family first and that is ultimately what matters and even if I were to leave the church, the most important thing is that our family stays together.

She wants the traditional Mormon lifestyle. She wants me to baptize our kids and ordain our son and for him to go on a mission. I want to respect her dreams and wishes, while still remaining true to this new part of me that is emerging, and that’s very difficult as I know all of you already know.

[jhp33]

On Own Now wrote:

jhp33,

One thing I would suggest is that when you have an emotionally charged issue, you might consider speaking to the person face to face. That’s a great way to understand each other. The medium of email is uni-directional. It’s a great medium for conducting business, but it’s much less effective for conveying ideas that are in dispute. I think talking to the SP is a great idea, but honestly, emailing and cc’ing the bishop will almost certainly come across to them as combative. I think it would be good to try to diffuse the situation by asking if you could meet with the SP in person.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately. I understand the arguments for and against certain types of communication. The fact is, though, that I am a written communicator. That is how I communicate best, and most effectively. No form of communication is perfect, and I choose the form that works best for me. The bishop is also free, instead of responding to my email, to pick up the phone if he so chooses.

That actually segues really well into the latest development.

The Stake President received my email and responded on my way home from work. He indicated that, in order to understand my concerns more, he feels like he should meet with me in person. Obviously, he values in-person communication, which is great considering we’ve never spoken before. I told him I would contact his ExecSec and get an appointment set up.

To be honest, I’m surprised as I expected a quick brush off via email and for him to automatically defend the bishop. He may still do that in our meeting, but at least he’s taking the time to meet with me.

[jhp33]

Old-Timer wrote:

I feel like I should add a little bit to my last comment, but please don’t take it as siding with your Bishop or Stake President. I don’t mean it that way – at all. I just want to explain a little more why they might be reacting and react in a way that doesn’t please you.

Thank you. I really appreciate your insight.

I think behind all of this is my history with the bishop. He knows full well that I am struggling right now with church. If I was just some random member emailing him about this stuff, I could see him blowing me off a bit. But he knows that I have issues and that I am holding on by a thread right now.

That almost makes his reaction that much worse. As if he couldn’t care less whether this pushes me out of the church or not.

[jhp33]

Orson wrote:

I can go along with everything you wrote, except #2 and the conclusion. As far as prophets I believe that anyone who speaks with the spirit of Christ can (or is) speak as a prophet. I also believe it is primarily MY responsibility to determine when someone is speaking as a prophet.

Fair enough. To me, there is a distinction between a “little p” prophet and a “capital P” Prophet. The scriptures speak of prophecy as being essentially bearing testimony of Jesus Christ. What I’m speaking more of is the “prophet AND seer AND revelator” type of role. The one who speaks for God and establishes doctrine. Does that make sense?

Quote:

My own conclusion is I can worship God according to the dictates of my own conscience – how, where, or what I may. I choose to practice my religion by regular church participation while not trying to push my own unique views on anyone else any more than I like it when they push their views on me. I consider it the stronger person’s responsibility to take more than they dish, and I try to be a stronger person.

FWIW

I think there’s definitely a principle in there I need to reflect on, especially as it pertains to “pushing my unique views on anyone else.” I don’t know that that’s necessarily where I’m coming from, but more like it bothers me to hear the classic Mormon myths being perpetuated in church and/or misrepresentation of the actual history or meaning of certain things. I feel the need to speak up when I hear things either that are woefully inaccurate or what I think are damaging/close-minded.

I have been asking myself a lot lately what exactly it is I get out of going to church. I haven’t found a good answer yet, other than the fact that my wife would like me to go for our family’s sake and the sake of the kids. I feel like I don’t get much out of it, but I also fully acknowledge that you get out of something what you put into it. So perhaps this is all on me and I’m not putting enough into it. I dunno.

[jhp33]

On Own Now wrote:

jhp33 wrote:

one of the presidency members stands up and says “Now Johnny will give our scripture” and Johnny stands up and recites that line from the Proclamation.

Yikes.

At the same time, I think this helps bolster your stance with the Bishop, should you choose to pursue it. The proclamation isn’t scripture. Presenting it as such is diluting the concept of scripture. This is pretty Black & White

I decided to email the stake president, since I was getting nowhere with the bishop, who has now ignored multiple emails from me (I know he is ignoring them because he responded to my first email and has since been posting on Facebook).

I explained to the SP that I don’t have a huge problem with the Proclamation per se (I have small, sort of nitpicky problems with it, but I didn’t bring that up), but I do have a problem with it being presented as scripture and as “a revelation from God to his prophets” in primary. I added that I was very concerned by my bishop’s dismissive reaction (and CCed the bishop) and that I hoped the SP would take some sort of step to resolve my concerns.

[jhp33]

Thanks, DJ. I really appreciate your feedback and insight, as hard as it may be to hear.

[jhp33]

On Own Now wrote:

jhp33,

Two followup questions:

– What part of the POTF is being quoted? Just curious, it doesn’t change anything, I would just like to know what the primary thinks the kids should hear from it.

It is this part, as outlined in the Sharing Time manual: “Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and … the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children” (“The Family: A Proclamation to the World”).

https://www.lds.org/manual/2014-outline-for-sharing-time-families-are-forever/april-the-family-is-central-to-gods-plan?lang=eng” class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.lds.org/manual/2014-outline-for-sharing-time-families-are-forever/april-the-family-is-central-to-gods-plan?lang=eng

Quote:

– When the quote is made, do they say it is scripture? In other words, do they say, “We will no have our scripture…”? Or is it just a quote that in the past has been a scripture and is now a statement from the POTF, and next month could be a quote from TSM? What I’m asking, really, is whether the kids are set up to receive the POTF as a part of the scriptures.

Yes, one of the presidency members stands up and says “Now Johnny will give our scripture” and Johnny stands up and recites that line from the Proclamation. No other actual scripture is given either in conjunction with or relating to the quote.

[jhp33]

nibbler wrote:

Did your bishop really laugh at your reasons for resigning from the seminary teacher post? That’s unfortunate.

Well, the conversation was a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the general feeling I got.

I went into the meeting with him with only one main question: is someone who thinks the way I do and believes the way I do really welcome in this ward and in this church?

I asked him that question directly and he gave a response similar to the email above. He laughed out loud (I mean, literally threw his head back laughing) and said “Don’t be ridiculous.”

[jhp33]

Forgotten_Charity wrote:

Life is about transmitting your own frequencies, but we have been trained to just receive frequencies.

That’s why I’m not partial to givens or others on either side. Once you learn you that everything created in life was by people no smarter then you , you can start to open up and not be bound by limited learning and thinking by others ideas but create your own fruit and spread that to the world regardless of what other people have to say.

I understand what you’re saying. I just don’t understand the practical application of it, especially when it’s impossible to me to separate who we “really” are and can be from what we have absorbed throughout our lives. It seems disingenuous for Steve Jobs to say he was purely and perfectly blazing his own trail when much of who he was was influence by his experiences, the people he came in contact with, etc etc.

It’s much akin to art, whether you’re talking about fine art or pop culture art (movies, music, books, etc). Really, there are no new movies or books or songs. They are all just repurposed ideas, plotlines, notes, melodies, in some form or fashion. When I go to write something “original,” all I really am doing is curating information from around my environment. I’m not really creating anything new, per se.

So I have trouble grasping onto this idea that we can live and operate and function completely independently of other peoples’ thinking. To me, it just doesn’t work that way.

[jhp33]

Curtis wrote:

Based on what I’ve read from him, I would say “weighing” rather than “ignoring”.

That’s an important difference to me.

Yes, very important.

To me, it is very much like a scale. On one side, you have physical/historical/practical evidence. On the other side, you have spiritual/emotional/personal evidence.

Which side weighs heavier to you? That’s not ignoring evidence. It’s weighing the two against each other. And so often, I feel like the church teaches (wrongly) that as soon as you place a rock in the spiritual/emotional side, your scale is so tipped for eternity.

When, instead, life is about those two scales constantly moving up and down based on what we live, experience, read, feel and do. At all points, we are constantly choosing what to believe.

This is, to me, central to why I think so many people so freaking bored at church. Because the current system sets you up to learn and have a testimony of all the doctrine by the time you’re in your early 20s (through seminary/institute and through the temple) and after that, it’s just rehashing of the same “truths” over and over and over again.

In the three or so months I’ve been on my new “spiritual journey” I can tell you for a fact that I have read, prayed and studied more about the gospel than I ever have in my life, with the exception of my mission.

[jhp33]

Ann wrote:

Thanks so much for reminding me that life is beautiful and messy. Only if you’re comfortable – do you see a scenario where you could have a conversation with your parents? I ask because of a situation in my family.

Thanks, Ann. Good question.

I think perhaps at this point, the time has passed on that. Mainly because my parents are getting up there in age, and I feel like a conversation along those lines could and would only cause them pain. I have no doubt they are different people than they were back when they made the decisions they made, especially my mother. They have repented. They have moved on. It is not my place to retry them for their sins.

In fact, learning what I have learned almost helps me understand her better, as she was always a strict disciplinarian who drilled into our heads that bad decisions can have very harsh consequences. She was not a “live and let live” type of person, and I think that was probably borne out of her personal experiences.

So unless something drastic changes, I think I’m content knowing what I know, letting some of the rest of it still be vague and unanswered, and saving those types of conversations for the hereafter where there will be a much smaller measure of embarrassment, judgment and shame.

And thank all of you for your kind words.

[jhp33]

Unknown wrote:

That sounds tricky. I’m not a parent so I can’t speak from experience on that side of things, actually, I’m probably still closer to being a 15 year old than having one. The first thought I had when I read this was “teach them correct principles and let them choose for themselves.” I just think back to when I was 15 and decided I was going to do something forbidden, there wasn’t really anything anybody could do about it. Disapproval and restrictions only taught me to be good at keeping secrets and I started sharing less and less with my parents, even things that weren’t bad. Reflecting on that, my advice would be to be crystal clear on how you feel about it and why you think he should feel the same, and after that, take the focus off of his relationship with the girl and put it back onto his relationship with you, and move forward.

This.

If something is forbidden, it usually becomes someone’s greatest desire. Clear communication with your teenager that you recognize and accept the fact that, ultimately, you have ZERO control over his decisions I think will be mind bending to him. That doesn’t mean you don’t set rules and standards, but it means you recognize that ultimately there’s nothing you can do to force him to obey them. That’s on him.

But, on the flip side, there’s nothing you can do to stop the negative consequences that come along with certain decisions we make. As much as you want to, as a parent, keep him from making bad decisions, he’s going to make them. And you can’t deprive him of living the consequences of them, or he will learn nothing.

This is why I really love the church’s teachings on agency, because they apply so well to parenting. We think we can control our children, but we SO cannot. And we should expect to. We can only teach them the best we can, hope they recognize the importance of considering consequences when making decisions, and when they fall, help them dust themselves off, cover the skinned knee and make another attempt at choosing the right path.

[Author]

Posts