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I have also found that respecting them and their position is key. They do not want to be told they are wrong, apostate, or sinful. This is particularly true when their concerns come from historicity concerns, which many of them stumbled upon while trying to strengthen their understanding of the gospel. John Dehlin has a great youtube video linked on this site about why people leave the church and how to deal with them constructively. I highly recommend it. I watched it just after learning of DWs disaffection. For me, I also recognized that I highly respect DW’s discernment and judgement, so I decided that I would also investigate historicity of the church. I think this was highly validating for her. However, it is definately not a method of keeping a fragile testimony intact, as my own path to disaffection attests.
I think reading about Fowler’s Stages of Faith was most helpful to me in understanding where people are at on their own faith journeys and recognizing that it doesn’t all have to follow the “Plan of Happiness” laid out at church.
Rix wrote:Assume you are as you are (I assume you are “attracted” to females?), and you are told by your church leaders that you should not act on your “urges,” ever in your life, to have sex with a woman. EVER. And you could never marry a woman.
Would you feel that YOU are wrong to have that desire? Even if the “scriptures” told you it was wrong?
I think this is a great comparison. Essentially the church is requiring lifelong celibacy for these individuals. Furthermore the church condemns any form of “release” for these “urges” and accuses some of these people for making themselves gay (through masturbation, etc.).
I agree that this talk is a step backwards for the church. DW is up in arms over this talk and is planning a point-by-point refutation of it on her blog soon.
I just finished RSR today. I started reading it after my wife told me of her disaffection a month ago. I decided that I needed a lighter and “faithful” introduction to the messiness of Church History that my wife warned me about. I found that Bushman seemed to give light treatment to many disturbing subjects, but would maintain his academic integrity by giving disclaimers such as “while complicated . . .” or “some outside the church have disagreed” before giving the apologetic/faith-building response. Overall a good read. I am going to have to listen to the podcasts and see how they expand my understanding of the book. However, given the statements of others about the translation process (e.g. that he read the exact translation off of a stone), and the fact that the BOM manuscripts support the oral transmission of directly read statements, it makes some of these issues much more difficult . . . 1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3. Liberal Quakers (90%)
4. Secular Humanism (87%)
5. Reform Judaism (86%)
6. Neo-Pagan (78%)
7. Baha’i Faith (76%)
8. Sikhism (68%)
9. New Thought (65%)
10. New Age (65%)
11. Scientology (64%)
12. Theravada Buddhism (64%)
13. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (61%)
14. Nontheist (60%)
15. Mahayana Buddhism (56%)
16. Taoism (56%)
17. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (50%)
18. Islam (45%)
19. Orthodox Judaism (45%)
20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (44%)
21. Orthodox Quaker (44%)
22. Jainism (42%)
23. Hinduism (36%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (34%)
25. Roman Catholic (34%)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (25%)
27. Jehovah’s Witness (23%)
I think it is important to note that Fowler’s Stages of Faith are a scientist’s description of a process he observed in thousands of people from many differentfaith traditions. There is nothing in particular to say that progression through the Stages of Faith is “God’s Plan” for us, or that it is even necessarily what God wants for us. However, they do seem to provide some direction and comfort to those who feel that God is calling them on a faith journey while their former faith tradition is labeling them as apostate. Fowler, as far as I know, did not claim to speak for God or present his stages as faith as Divinely inspired, he is simply describing a natural process that he observed. Also, as far as I can tell, Stage 5 is not defined as returning to the “true church” with an acceptance of its paradoxes (it is also not even about accepting Chrisitianity). It also doesn’t seem to mean that one has to return to their Stage 3 faith tradition to attain Stage 5. So there is nothing in attaining Stage 5 that is dependent on staying LDS (although that is the purpose of this forum), and I have to accept that DW’s journey will at least as likely lead her back to Catholicism (where she began her faith journey from Stage 3) as it will to the LDS faith. And she may end up somewhere else entirely.
Of course these are just the observations of someone still struggling to hold onto Stage 3 while being dragged kicking and screaming into Stage 4 . . . so my perspective may not be correct.
hawkgrrrl wrote:
The FV, IMO, doesn’t serve to make it clear what the nature of God is (that he has an actual physical body).’I suppose that is true. Even if we take the church-sanctioned version of the FV, there is no indication that JS shook their hands to determine if they had bodies as resurrected personages.
We just had a talk in Sacrament Meeting yesterday from the High Councilor about tithes and offerings. Frankly it sounded like a plea for more money rather than discussing eternal principles. Old-Timer wrote:
If fast offering assistance wasn’t available, or if individual Bishops aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing, then this becomes a serious issueThis is one of the difficulties with including imperfect men in charge of administrating God’s laws. My parents must have paid $100,000s in tithing over their lifetime and have always been generous with other offerings as far as I know. However, when my father was laid off from his job and my parents used up all of their savings and humbled themselves to the point that they asked for help from the church, the Bishop refused them aid and they felt shamed for asking for help. They were made to grovel for help and still refused aid. 2 1/2 years later my dad is still out of a job and my parents don’t feel comfortable asking for church aid because of how they were treated.
Old-Timer wrote:
– and, frankly, the inclusion of fast offerings into this discussion (the phrase is “tithes and offerings” after all) changes it from a “regressive tax” to a true “progressive tax”.This is hardly a “progressive tax” because it is a goodwill offering and there is not a set amount you are expected to contribute if you have higher income. Additionally, if you give enough tithes and offerings, you are then able to claim them as deductions on your government taxes and reclaim some of that money.
Old-Timer wrote:
ss, a sincere, non-combative question:How would you propose to finance the Church and all it does differently than through a “progressive tax” system like tithes and offerings?
I don’t have an answer to this question, but it seems like 10% is a little steep to just finance church programs, considering a single middle-class family likely pays enough in tithing to finance the entire ward budget for the full year (let alone all of the other middle class families in the ward paying tithing).
swimordie wrote:
Sorry for the tone, I’m feeling randy tonight. (I’m not sure what that means, but it sounded funny😆 )As a translation, in Britain, randy = horny
I also find the differing accounts troubling, but everyone has suggested some reasonable explanations to reconcile them. I also find it troubling that the Book of Mormon has a very trinitarian view of God (such as in Abinidi’s sermon), rather than our current LDS Godhead understanding of three distinct personages. Despite hearing many lectures on “Divine investiture of authority” etc., I think the internal evidence of the Book of Mormon suggests a more trinitarian view of God, rather than an LDS Godhead. Also, it appears that our current theological understanding of the Godhead wasn’t actually cannonized until the early 20th century, making it a certainly dubious claim by the church that our “accurate” understanding of the Godhead is one of the “fruits of the first vision” restored by Joseph Smith. curt wrote:Is it possible to remain a believer in the LDS church if the First Vision is a fraud?
As for your question, I’m pretty new to disaffection with the church, so I am struggling with this as well.
My wife has been reading the Mormon Hierarchy books and also owns Magical World view, although she hasn’t read it yet. Her perception of the books is that they are the least biased books she has read and that they largely simply lay out the facts without drawing specific conclusions. Perhaps she will have something to add about them . . . The books certainly do have a very large section of references and notes, suggesting they are the product of scholarly research.
Bruce in Montana wrote:
This is a link to a letter from F. Collier to “Dr.” Quinn. It certainly opened my eyes.
This letter seems to mostly try and damage Quinn’s reputation with the focus on his homosexual status and lay out the case that Quinn has a personal vendetta against the church. I’m not sure it is itself the most unbiased letter I’ve ever read. Some of Collier’s “facts” seem to correspond more with the LDS “scrubbed” version of history than “factual” history. It is interesting that many people also label Quinn as an apologist as he made lots of references to salamanders in the magical world view during the Hoffman affair.
Bruce, who is F. Collier? Is this the same Fred Collier that Timpanogas wrote about in his introduction who ended up going polygamist/fundamentalist?
hawkgrrrl wrote:If the question is “do facts lead to truth?” I would say “not necessarily.” Facts lead to conclusions. Conclusions are related to one kind of “truth,” but have little to do with spiritual direction (which is the concept of “truth” generally meant by the gospel). We misapply the word “truth” in the church as well as in places like this – we refer to the kind of “truth” that is referenced in a court of law, but it’s not even truth in that case, just a set of conclusions based on facts and opinions and the testimony of witnesses. We use these words to describe spiritual truth, but in both cases, they only refer to our conclusions and feelings about things we have seen and experienced.
Can “truth” be reached without facts? I am currently struggling with the differences between the church version of history and what appear to be the historical facts. Could they both be “true”? If facts are required to arrive at truth, does the church keep us from finding truth by not giving us the facts? I understand the frustration of the OP, I am also struggling with how the “only true and living church on the face of the earth” can have a side they are trying to hide. It seems that God’s “true” church should be able to withstand scrutiny, but the more I read the more it seems to whither.
Regarding Carthage, I have known about the shootings, etc. To me it seems that if there is a cover-up regarding Carthage in the church, its neglecting to mention the multiple reasons Joseph may have been incarcerated in the first place and by using “Lamb to the slaughter” they are bringing up Christ-like imagery of the sinless Christ being crucified, when JS captors may have had perfectly acceptable grounds upon which to incarcerate him (this does not excuse the attack of the mob). Additionally, it appears that JS initially thought the mob may have been his own brethren, because he had given a command for them to come as a mob and rescue him from Carthage. Finally, it disturbs me that the church uses his last words “O Lord My God” as a faith-promoting moment of how close he was to God as Prophet, when in fact he was giving a Mason call of help to any of his fellow Masons that may have been in the mob.
Perhaps Fowler’s Stages of Faith would be helpful for you husband to understand that this is not a phase. I know that it has been helpful for me with DW’s difficulties with the church. Additionally, your spouse may find support at FacesEast.com, which is for spouses of disaffected members, where they can give the perspective that this is not a phase (most of the diasffected spouses have not returned to the church, and those that have returned to activity admit that things can never be the same as they were before they learned the historical facts.)
