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DevilsAdvocate wrote:Arthur Ruger wrote:
…Temple-worthy is also a status you cannot obtain unless you buy it through your voluntary payment of tithing. In this regard purchasing LDS temple-worthiness through tithing looks like a first cousin to the old fashioned indulgences the Roman priesthood used to sell…
When it comes to exacting payment, unworthiness is the principle leverage for completing the deal through the priesthood brokers…In other words, Mormons inflict upon themselves unfair comparisons with each other based on the notion of worthiness…We know we are not expected to be perfectionists in this life. We know that perfectionists not only die at younger ages and often with high blood pressure, but also that they have unreasonable expectations and make unreasonabole demands on themselves…They also tend to be highly intolerant of flawed-ness and imperfection in others… It looks like it’s not simply a matter of treating people in a disrespectful and unfair way and setting many up for unnecessary disappointment. From a practical standpoint, I think the obsession with temple worthiness and what this currently means could end up contributing to the eventual downfall of the Church even more than the internet if nothing changes. Think about it, who currently falls away from the Church permanently in the largest numbers? People that drink, smoke, had sex before they were married, and/or don’t want to pay tithing are often weeded out before they ever even have a chance to get married in the temple. Basically it is the Church itself that sets the expectation that this is the way active members should be and if not then it’s not alright so it’s no surprise that literally millions of members have quickly gotten the impression that the LDS Church is just not for them for decades even before the internet was available.
And now even many members that had already accepted these strict temple worthiness requirements mostly because they actually believed this is they way they were supposed to be are finding information on the internet that leaves them feeling like there is not as much (if any) reason to go along with all of this anymore. Once people believe Church leaders are just ordinary men that don’t necessarily have any special knowledge or authority from God then much of the power the Church has over them is gone, often permanently, and the main influence the Church has left is through other Church members that still expect compliance with these requirements. So many members will either put up with some of these expectations grudgingly and dragging their feet or refuse to play along anymore even if their relationships with other members suffer as a result.
That’s how I’ve felt when I find out historical details that made me questions the authority and wisdom of church leaders. I think the beginning of my perspective change began with the Race and the Priesthood essay….. I then began to think, how am I suppose to trust that the way I’m told to live is really exactly what God wants? Anyways, it’s been confusing. I felt like I’d put a lot of energy, time, and emotional struggle into living a certain way that I now think could possibly be more man made than divine.
As to the worthy/unworthy topic, I completely understand why the church sets forth principles we must abide by to go to the holiest places on earth (temples). I just wish it came across that being honest with your fellowman (and principles like this) was more important than if I drank a cup of coffee.
On Own Now wrote:ktmxr,
One thing that has helped me tremendously is to think of the Church as an environment, rather than a godly institution. In this environment, there are faithful people trying to live god-centered lives. They believe some things I don’t, I believe some things they don’t, but I identify with them, I associate with them, I celebrate with them, and I mourn with them. Within this environment, I am at liberty to pursue my own brand of spirituality. It is sometimes very similar to theirs, it is sometimes very different. Either way, I own it as mine.
How does that work exactly? Does your wife still insist on reading the BoM together daily? Daily prayers? Etc? Sometimes this is where contention occurs. I always pray and read with my wife but she can tell I’m not feeling it the same way… this really bothers her and can cause hurt feelings. How do you go about teaching your kids about JS, church history, etc? I worry about how I’ll handle that…. I would feel like I was lying if I told the version I always believed, but I know my wife doesn’t want to tell them thosw details (at least she’s said that before).
Just for clarification, I’m not an unbeliever at this point… I don’t know where I stand. I’m trying to reconcile all my thoughts, emotions and experiences.
On Own Now wrote:ktmxr,
Welcome to the forum. I’m sorry that you are going through this. Your story is one of the most common here. It’s very similar to my own. Here you will find people who have suffered the same fall from grace that you have, yet are happily married to a spouse who remains all in with the Church. There are many who have raised children in the Church, even sending them out on missions.
One thing that has helped me tremendously is to think of the Church as an environment, rather than a godly institution. In this environment, there are faithful people trying to live god-centered lives. They believe some things I don’t, I believe some things they don’t, but I identify with them, I associate with them, I celebrate with them, and I mourn with them. Within this environment, I am at liberty to pursue my own brand of spirituality. It is sometimes very similar to theirs, it is sometimes very different. Either way, I own it as mine. I try to recognize the power of spirituality without the need to get wrapped around the axle about specific and minute points of doctrine. For example, I don’t care one iota about the Three Nephites, but I do find myself being spiritually uplifted by the concepts of putting away the natural man and walking in a new life, intentionally striving to be better. The Church is not a perfect environment, but it is the best one I know, and it works fine for me.
My own faith transition began many, many years ago, yet I have a believing spouse, I have children who have served missions and been married in the temple. I have Utah-mormon in-laws, yet I get along with them just fine.
I do want to address the spouse comment, briefly, because it is a situation that so many experience and this site is a great resource for discussion about what has worked and what hasn’t for so many.
For every couple where one spouse loses faith in the Church and the other spouse still believes, there are two heartbroken people. It is pretty common for each one to think that their own trials are extreme and that the other person doesn’t understand. Neither is more ‘enlightened’ than the other, though they both think they are. They typically both feel hurt, afraid, unsure, and even misunderstood by the other. Yet, there is one person in every such situation who is the one who changed. In my own case, I am the one who changed, not her. I feel that I have the greater obligation to be supportive, patient, forgiving, and caring. It’s not up to me to convince her about the Church, but to convince her that I love her more than anything else. It’s not for me to make her understand me, but for me to understand her. When we walked out of the temple all those years ago, we set out on a path together. We fully expected our lives to conform to the ideal that we both had. Now we find ourselves in a much different situation than we thought we would. My wife is still on the path, and I am not. I owe it to her to support her and accept her for remaining on the same path that we both agreed upon. I love her for who she is and part of who she is is the Church.
My advice is to go out of your way… to ridiculous levels… to show her that you love her more now than when you were married, and that while you are no longer a believer (or however who decide to describe yourself) that you support her wholeheartedly in the Church… that you don’t want to do anything to create dividing lines. My advice is never to talk doctrine. We all have a natural desire to explain why our logic is sound; to show that it isn’t US, but the CHURCH that has caused our faith crisis. We often find ourselves in situations where we are willing to verbally or emotionally confront the people that we love most in order to ‘win’ an argument. This is all part of that ‘natural man’ that we must let go of, if we want to live god-centered lives, IMO. My wife knows I am no longer a believer. If she ever wants to explore for herself and get my take on it, she knows where to find me. Until then, I accept her and the faith that she has. One mental aid is to imagine that your wife is Catholic. Would you tell her how weird transubstantiation is or trot out the Bad Popes or the selling of indulgences? Of course not, because it would serve no purpose other than to undermine what she believes in.
Finally, as has already been said by DJ on this thread, there is one very common piece of advice on this forum that I love and I think it is apropos for your relationship with others as well as the voice inside your own head: focus on what you do believe, rather than on what you don’t.
Thats great advice, thanks for taking the time to responsd. Your comments about loving my wife with more earnestness has proven to be wise, thank you! I appreciate you sharing some of your experience, I can definitely relate. I think I need to take a deep breath from time to time… especially wheb I visit my in-laws. They’re wonderful to me. I just get tired of the relentless obsession with the church and how perfect it is. I just want to tell them some of the facts they’re privileged not to be acquainted with…. but I wouldn’t feel right about it. I
scthomas34 wrote:Hi ktmxr,
I have myself in similar position where my whole mission I defended the ban on the priesthood to African Americans as God’s doctrine, and recently found out it was really just Brigham Young’s biasness. I know that God always the human influence into the decision that have been made by GAs, but it has been a shock of how much that has been. I just want to make a few suggestions though. Though church history is not black and white as you and I were lead to believe or even close, you think you can still have somewhat of a good intellectual testimony of the church as well as a spiritual testimony of the church. It would really be worth your time to read objective author’s books who have done their homework on the issues that bother you to get full context. I do not think that Fair or farms would hurt either but of course these mostly focus on what supports their case, though they make some strong arguments.
Objective author’s are even better. This is especially true for the polygamy issues because this is the one that most, including those who leave the church over doctrinal issues, bring up the most. As far race issues, though it does not justify it, I would look at other Christian churches and even Abraham Lincoln’s attitude of race and mix black and white relationship to get a full idea of the general mentally of the 1850’s and 60’s. I know that in the restored gospel as taught every Sunday, you would expect some Heavenly intervention to prevent the course of racial exclusion in the church, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen.
Lastly, look for the truthfulness of the gospel not in the history or the current or past policies, even there are policy that would just urk me to no end if I dwelt on them and the lack of response to changing them at the top, but look for the truthfulness in the ordinances that were restored because that is really why the authority is so important. Restored ordinances are evident of course in the sacrament, temple ordinances, prayer, scriptures, helping others find joy and satisfaction in their life, etc. Even when I have been the angriest with the demands of church or some of the inflexibilities of Church policy, I have never been able to deny the spirit I feel in participating in the ordinances. I hope my two cents are of some worth. I loved BYU-Idaho. The spirit is so strong up their.
Thanks for your comments. I can’t deny there’s tremendous good. I’m glad I was raised the way I was, but at the same time I feel like I strived so hard to live some ideal that God never expected me to live…
sanders31105 wrote:On Own Now wrote:ktmxr,
Welcome to the forum. I’m sorry that you are going through this. Your story is one of the most common here. It’s very similar to my own. Here you will find people who have suffered the same fall from grace that you have, yet are happily married to a spouse who remains all in with the Church. There are many who have raised children in the Church, even sending them out on missions.
One thing that has helped me tremendously is to think of the Church as an environment, rather than a godly institution. In this environment, there are faithful people trying to live god-centered lives. They believe some things I don’t, I believe some things they don’t, but I identify with them, I associate with them, I celebrate with them, and I mourn with them. Within this environment, I am at liberty to pursue my own brand of spirituality. It is sometimes very similar to theirs, it is sometimes very different. Either way, I own it as mine. I try to recognize the power of spirituality without the need to get wrapped around the axle about specific and minute points of doctrine. For example, I don’t care one iota about the Three Nephites, but I do find myself being spiritually uplifted by the concepts of putting away the natural man and walking in a new life, intentionally striving to be better. The Church is not a perfect environment, but it is the best one I know, and it works fine for me.
My own faith transition began many, many years ago, yet I have a believing spouse, I have children who have served missions and been married in the temple. I have Utah-mormon in-laws, yet I get along with them just fine.
I do want to address the spouse comment, briefly, because it is a situation that so many experience and this site is a great resource for discussion about what has worked and what hasn’t for so many.
For every couple where one spouse loses faith in the Church and the other spouse still believes, there are two heartbroken people. It is pretty common for each one to think that their own trials are extreme and that the other person doesn’t understand. Neither is more ‘enlightened’ than the other, though they both think they are. They typically both feel hurt, afraid, unsure, and even misunderstood by the other. Yet, there is one person in every such situation who is the one who changed. In my own case, I am the one who changed, not her. I feel that I have the greater obligation to be supportive, patient, forgiving, and caring. It’s not up to me to convince her about the Church, but to convince her that I love her more than anything else. It’s not for me to make her understand me, but for me to understand her. When we walked out of the temple all those years ago, we set out on a path together. We fully expected our lives to conform to the ideal that we both had. Now we find ourselves in a much different situation than we thought we would. My wife is still on the path, and I am not. I owe it to her to support her and accept her for remaining on the same path that we both agreed upon. I love her for who she is and part of who she is is the Church.
My advice is to go out of your way… to ridiculous levels… to show her that you love her more now than when you were married, and that while you are no longer a believer (or however who decide to describe yourself) that you support her wholeheartedly in the Church… that you don’t want to do anything to create dividing lines. My advice is never to talk doctrine. We all have a natural desire to explain why our logic is sound; to show that it isn’t US, but the CHURCH that has caused our faith crisis. We often find ourselves in situations where we are willing to verbally or emotionally confront the people that we love most in order to ‘win’ an argument. This is all part of that ‘natural man’ that we must let go of, if we want to live god-centered lives, IMO. My wife knows I am no longer a believer. If she ever wants to explore for herself and get my take on it, she knows where to find me. Until then, I accept her and the faith that she has. One mental aid is to imagine that your wife is Catholic. Would you tell her how weird transubstantiation is or trot out the Bad Popes or the selling of indulgences? Of course not, because it would serve no purpose other than to undermine what she believes in.
Finally, as has already been said by DJ on this thread, there is one very common piece of advice on this forum that I love and I think it is apropos for your relationship with others as well as the voice inside your own head: focus on what you do believe, rather than on what you don’t.
Welcome to the Ward. I love what On Own Now wrote here. Beautiful advice.
I wrote this in a previous post, but I think a faith crisis can be a huge blessing. Instead of just going through the same old spiritual motions, maybe God wants to connect with you in a deeper way without the filter of Mormon culture. Maybe you’ve attached your spirituality and identity too much to the church, its rules and its culture, that this faith crisis is the Lord’s way of helping you awaken and truly analyze your relationship with Him.
What I have found is that once you’re at peace with your relationship with God and yourself, it really doesn’t matter where you choose to practice your spirituality or fellowship. You are at peace and happy wherever you are. Through this awakening process, you will also discover that your spiritual journey is intensely personal. Your spiritual identity (foundation) cannot be built on the church, it’s history, or its members. It can only be built on the Savior, and how that relationship works is only between you and Him, and no one else.
I’m still very active in the church, so this may seem funny to say, but I’m excited for you. Not for the hurt or anguish that you and your wife are going through, but for the awakening that is on the other side of your faith crisis.
Like others have mentioned. Focus on your relationship with your wife, love her unconditionally, and open your heart to the unknown.
Let us know how we can help.
Thank you, your very kind. I find that I’ve been more at peace with my relationship with God since my testimony crisis than almost ever before. I don’t constantly feel guilty. I don’t constantly feel like I should be doing better, that I’m always falling short. Where I am now resembles peace (as far as constant guilt goes) more than before in my life.
Thank you everyone for your responses! I appreciate what everyone has said, all of it has helped me feel like I’m amongst people who can relate, and that makes a world of difference. Especially here at BYU-I where your hard set to find anyone who doesn’t have the mainstream view of the church and what it means to live as a Mormon. The suggestion to take it slow with my wife was spot on. I’ve been very careful about what I say and how I say it, and I think it some degree things are better. She let me express a few of my concerns, which was great but there’s never been a back and forth discussion where I’m really able to talk openly without trying to be “converted” back to my old ways of thinking.
Silentdawning, thats a good idea about the patriarchal blessing. I don’t think it’ll fly, but worth a try! Haha.
I’ve talked to my bishop about my concerns, and hes said that a lot of RMs have come to him and feel like theyve been “hoodwinked”, or played the fool. My bishop is extremely caring, but I feel bad bcuz I know he feels helpless to answer any questions (bcuz there are no real answers). I can tell he isn’t convinced himself about some of the apologetic responses he offers.
I’m also in a tough spot bcuz my current calling is a clerk in the stake. The stake presidency are wonderful men but everything is so black and white in their view. I really feel like I don’t fit in at church, byui, or with my in-laws. After learning the truth that I was ignorant of, I realize that so many aspects of the church are more likely cultural than 100% divinely inspired. Ive dedicated so much time, energy and pain to something that isn’t what I always thought. For example, on my mission I believed all the mission rules were straight from Gods mouth. I felt miserable often bcuz I could never live it entirely. But I was taught by all my leaders it was the “book of blessings” and would give me power. Now I think a lot of the rules we’re just to prevent the church from being sued. Thinking back on what I believed, How zealous I was while being so ignorant of the facts hurts.
Question for everyone, is it possible to be active and be able to bite your tongue? I still love many aspects of the church, but there’s times where whats being taught simply isn’t accurate (for instance last Sundays lesson JS) and I feel so disingenuous….
Anyways, I have more to say ans want to respond more of your posts, and will do so later when I have more time!
