[nibbler]

I see Utah mentioned in the study quite a bit. That’s understandable because Utah has a high concentration of members. The issue is that by limiting the sample to Utah you get a lot of overlap in the groups they’re measuring. Here are the groups that I saw mentioned:

[list]

[nibbler]

Would you be comfortable changing the subject yourself?

I haven’t been asked to give a talk in a very, very long time, I’m invisible or something, but long ago I decided that the chances of me being asked to talk on a subject I’d like to talk about are slim, so if anyone ever asked me to give a talk I’d accept but then just present the talk on the subject I wanted to talk about.

I wouldn’t announce it in the talk. I wouldn’t say something like, “I was asked to talk about x but I’m going to talk about y.” I’d just start talking about y without announcing the subject. I bet no one would even pick up on the fact I had deviated from the assigned topic.

Besides, the bishopric’s primary concern is filling the available timeslot, not necessarily on the topic.

P.S. I wouldn’t try that on Mother’s Day, Easter, Christmas, etc. I’m just talking about a random topic assigned on a random Sunday.

[nibbler]

That was from Uchtdorf’s talk “Come, Join with Us”. The talk got boiled down to doubt your doubts by many but the talk has a lot more to offer than just that.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2013/10/come-join-with-us?lang=eng

[nibbler]

Roy, would you prefer my reply to keep the gloves on or is it okay if I were to take the gloves off? :angel:

Playing nice for a moment, each one of the five crucial questions assumes fault in the person leaving.

You’re just running away from something.

You have a lack of faith.

You’re listening to people that are using you.

You just want to sin and not feel guilt.

You’re not reading the Book of Mormon enough.

What’s the incentive for people to stay in a community that views them in that light?

I thought we were past most of these things. This from 2013:

Dieter Uchtdorf wrote:

One might ask, “If the gospel is so wonderful, why would anyone leave?”

Sometimes we assume it is because they have been offended or lazy or sinful. Actually, it is not that simple. In fact, there is not just one reason that applies to the variety of situations.

Some of our dear members struggle for years with the question whether they should separate themselves from the Church.

I think my fundamental issue with lists like this is that we’re more interested in telling people why they’re leaving and not interested in listening to what the people that are leaving are saying.

No one is perfect but projecting fault on others for leaving robs us of the opportunity for introspection to see how we as a church can grow. In other words, less guilting and shaming people into coming back and more making the church a place people naturally want to come back to.

That’s my gloves on response.

[nibbler]

I think the concept of grace presents a challenge to the very human sense of fairness. There’s a famousish quote that I’ll start my comment off with, not sure whether it applies but here goes.

“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

In this case the people accustomed to privilege are the people going to church and making all the sacrifices and equality is when all the people that don’t do those things get access to the same blessings. It understandably screams unfair to the people that are making the sacrifices. So much so that many are willing to sacrifice their own access to grace at the altar to prevent the people that haven’t “earned” it from gaining similar access.

I think it’s led to the very paradoxical mindset at church that has people believing that grace must be earned.

There’s also a real worry by many that an increase in grace will lead people down the path of hedonism. After all, why try when you’re covered by grace or could do some quick deathbed repentance or something? This whole idea that people are inherently bad and the only thing keeping humanity from going all Lord of the Flies is threat of hell and damnation.

It strikes me that in both my examples, people are looking outward, not inward. People are worried what someone else is or isn’t getting or worried about what someone else may or may not do. People are looking to be dealt with fairly and comparing what others get or what others have to do factors heavily into determining what’s fair for them.

We could all use some spiritual horse blinders.

[nibbler]

I too have only had very superficial relationships with all the bishops and branch presidents I’ve ever had. Most never going beyond an occasional friendly wave in the hallway.

Minyan Man wrote:

I read somewhere that the purpose of the interview is to ensure that members are spiritually prepared to enter

the temple. If all they do is ask the standardized questions, it seems like opportunities are lost to get to really

know the members on a more personal level.

That could be a double-edged sword. On the one hand it could be an opportunity for a bishop to get to know people better but on the other hand it could be used by some to go out exploring beyond the current boundaries of the interview. Those boundaries are there for a reason.

I’m all for a bishop becoming more acquainted with his flock but I think the setting of a temple recommend interview wouldn’t be the time for it. It’s far too formal a meeting where the power dynamic doesn’t have both parties on equal footing.

I wouldn’t mind seeing the tithing declaration meeting repurposed to do what you describe. Drop the talk about tithing, drop any hint at the meeting being about any kind of evaluation whatsoever, make it a pure meet and greet. I know many bishops already do that as a part of the tithing declaration meeting but I mean make the whole meeting be nothing but that. No talk of tithing or any other motive other than an opportunity for the bishop to get to know people better.

[nibbler]

That sounds like an important distinction Amy.

Doctrinally we tend to pit works against grace and mercy but that’s just the cage that we ourselves have constructed around those concepts. We do that on a lot of subjects. Create a relationship where perhaps none really exist. They’re just two different things that coexist, not competing forces where the presence of one force crowds out the presence of the other.

[nibbler]

Maybe the correlation department didn’t like that first line? “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,”

Maybe they didn’t like the idea of grace inspiring fear? It’s impossible to guess at the reasons.

[nibbler]

Reflecting back on my life…

Having access to an ear that’s willing to listen. The owner of said ear doesn’t necessarily have to do something to address my challenges directly, lending an ear sufficed.

[nibbler]

Leadership and member roulette.

A local leader can choose whether or not to make it an issue and a local member can choose whether or not to ignore the local leader. It feels like the rules have relaxed a bit because back in the day more local leaders were choosing to make it an issue and a local member choosing to ignore them would have been an extreme outlier.

Just a guess… I think fewer local leaders make it an issue because more and more local members started to ignore them.

I’m not sure where the soft line is. I’ve seen many bishopric members with beards but I have yet to see a member of the stake presidency with a beard. That’s probably the soft line.

The hard line is temple workers, the tabernacle at temple square choir members of the choir at temple square temple choir square choir members, missionaries, GAs, and anything above GAs can’t have beards.

[nibbler]

I remember placing more emphasis on the “after all we can do” portion of that verse. I can’t say that the lessons I received pushed me in that direction, I think I was just wired to place emphasis on that portion by default. The trap was that people generally feel that there’s always something more that they could be doing, so grace felt forever out of reach.

It’s the same phenomenon as the blessings trap. If you don’t feel blessed it must mean you’re not living righteously enough to be blessed, leading some to spiral in scrupulosity.

I have been hearing more messages on grace lately. I think it’s for a few reasons.

The one Amy mentioned, to bring the church more in line with wider Christianity. Maybe as a response to criticisms that the church isn’t Christian.

A direct response to criticism that the church culture produces scrupulosity.

I think back to that BYU study mentioned in another thread where they found that Mormons that understood the teachings of the church properly were the least scrupulous and people that left the church were the most scrupulous. I think they were compensating for something and that something was criticism that the church culture had issues with toxic perfectionism.

We’re mentioning grace and scrupulosity more in an effort to address a very real issue with church culture.

Of course I’d like to see more grace but I have to extend grace to receive it.

What I see is the church taking its first baby steps towards grace. When an actual baby takes its first steps I don’t criticize the baby for not being able to take strides, I celebrate the event and encourage them to keep going.

[nibbler]

The Fairview town council has approved the temple plans. In the end they were only able to get the church to modify plans for a 170 foot steeple down to a 120 foot steeple. There were many other asks, concessions, and non-concessions other than just the steeple height.

One more recent development was that the church did make concessions for the Yerba Linda temple and Fairview legitimately wondered why the church was willing to work within the limitations in Yerba Linda but not in Fairview. It’s left a very sour taste in the mouths of non-member residents in Fairview. As one would expect.

The way the church bullied the town and made themselves out to be the ones that were persecuted absolutely sickens me. There are no words… or at least no words that would fly on this site. I’ll leave it at Christ not being found anywhere in the church’s actions in Fairview.

[nibbler]

To echo others, for now we see through a glass, darkly.

That goes for everyone that’s written a verse, copied a verse, translated a verse, interpreted a verse. Everything that we call scripture is processed through an imperfect filter. Both when creating scripture and when consuming scripture.

I also wanted to revisit the idea that we don’t read scripture, scripture reads us. There are enough contradictions, nuance, and wiggle room found in scripture such that we can use it to justify just about any position. What I mean when I say that scripture reads us is that the positions we choose to justify through use of the scripture reveal our nature more than it reveals the scripture’s nature.

[nibbler]

I can truly say that I appreciate your perspective. It helps keep me grounded.

[nibbler]

To me scripture is anything that I feel is enlightening or inspiring. That can come from any source. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, something a neighbor says, the breeze rustling through the leaves out in nature, anything.

It’s also not an all or nothing thing for me. I might find one sentence in Harry Potter that speaks to me but I don’t then consider the entire work to be scripture. The same goes with LDS canon. I might find one verse in the Book of Mormon that speaks to me but I don’t then feel obliged to find ways to make every single verse in the book speak to me.

All that said, there’s the LDS canon, books that the church body largely accepts as “gospel truth.” The average member gets selective like I do, for example many don’t consider the Song of Solomon to be scripture even though it’s a part of the canon. I just take that same principle and apply it much more granularly.

Didge wrote:

I’m also bothered by the condition the Article of Faith sets on the Bible: the word of God “insofar as it is translated correctly.” As a serious student of languages, I heartily endorse suspicion of translations and advocation referencing original languages as much as possible. So, you would think that since we have the caveat about possibly incorrect translation of the Bible, the Church would therefore have many enthusiastically learning Greek and Hebrew.

I think the ultra orthodox member would argue that the translation (or transcription while making copies) errors occurred before whatever source document you start with. In other words we might get a more accurate Greek translation but the errors were already in the Greek document we were translating.

I don’t see people using that AoF to argue to move from the KJV to an updated translation, it’s almost exclusively to give an apologetic for why LDS doctrines don’t align with something the Bible says. It’s used as a thought stopper.

I mentioned this in a different post recently but I think “translation” errors can occur in the same language. I have an idea. I write it down. Something is going to get lost in translation when moving from idea to words on the paper. Someone else that speaks the same language as I do reads what I wrote. Their interpretation of what I wrote might not match the idea that I intended to convey. Everything in that transaction happens in the same language, yet some meaning is lost or even altered during the process.

Of course the Book of Mormon, D&C, and PoGP aren’t immune from this phenomenon. I’m just saying that I broaden my “insofar as it is translated correctly” disclaimer to a lot more things that just the Bible. I guess I’m just describing how things are always open to interpretation.

[Author]

Posts