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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.

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There are websites that detail the changes throughout the years, I won’t link them here, but I thought this was an interesting change:

1990 version wrote:

ELOHIM: Adam, here is a woman whom we have formed and whom we give unto you to be a companion and helpmeet for you. What will you call her?

2019 version wrote:

ELOHIM: Adam, here is a woman whom we have formed to be your companion and helpmeet. What will you call her?

2023 version wrote:

ELOHIM: Adam, here is a woman whom we have formed that you may be companions and helpmeets for one another, and you shall cleave unto one another. What will you call her?

There were two rounds of adjustments to bring more equality to the ceremony and ordinances. The first in 2019 and the second in 2023.

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Like I mentioned earlier, I haven’t done an endowment session in over a decade but I have tried to keep informed of all the changes. There have been a flurry of recent changes so I can’t remember them all but I believe one of the more recent changes was standardizing the covenants that both men and women make.

Once upon a time it was men stood up and covenanted to A, then women stood up and covenanted to B. Now I think it’s men and women (seated?) covenanting to A, where the mechanics have both the men and women making the same covenant at the exact same time. No more turn taking.

Edit: I confirmed this. The change occurred in February of 2023.

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Worthiness.

Just this past Sunday the person conducting sacrament meeting said something that I’ve heard many times but this time it really stood out.

“The bishop has interviewed [name] and found him worthy to receive the Aaronic priesthood and be ordained to the office of Priest. All those in favor…”

My wife and I winced. We both agreed that framing it as being “worthy” is toxic. Imagine if we said something like this instead:

“The bishop has interviewed [name] and [name] has decided that he would like to serve the congregation by being a Priest in the Aaronic priesthood. All those in favor…”

Frame it differently. Don’t frame it as being good enough to do something, frame it as being willing to serve.

None of us is perfect. There are plenty of people out there that are “worthy” enough but don’t believe themselves to be and there are plenty of people out there that are extremely flawed individuals that believe they’re “worthy” so what are we accomplishing? I really wish we’d drop all the measuring.

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Didge wrote:

…my own pedigree goes way back, but only because I was able to plug into Anglo-Norman nobility, which then extends to nobility all over Europe and beyond…

It’s possible that us people with nobility in our genealogy truly are related to nobility but I think the further back you go, the more likely it is that someone fudged a connection to nobility in their genealogy. It’s like the peasant version of how some nobility trace their ancestry back to Jesus Christ himself.

Not trying to take wind out of your sails or cast doubt. I’m just a cynic. It’s what I do.

Back to the subject…

I’m not completely sold on the whole idea of vicarious work anyway. Why did we come to earth? To learn from firsthand experiences. Aren’t ordinances the same? Aren’t they personal rites that the participant benefits and learns from? What’s the point of someone coming to earth, dying, going back to the spirit world and saying, “Yeah, I went down. Some stuff was okay, some stuff wasn’t. I did a lot of it on your behalf so you needn’t bother going there. I got you covered.” It doesn’t jive, yet that’s what we’re essentially doing with ordinances.

Doctrines talk about a Millennium that lasts 1000 years where people will be resurrecting. I’ve always thought that would be the time to take care of ordinances. We don’t have to research anyone, here they are. We don’t have to say, “We did it for you so you don’t have to experience it for yourself,” Here they are, they get to make an actual choice and get to experience it firsthand.

I think vicarious ordinances were the solution to a fear people had at the time. Oh no, the priesthood got restored before my dad had a chance to be baptized. His baptism didn’t count. What do I do!?!? Vicarious ordinances. Now you can put those fears to rest. Plus it put a tidy bow on injecting meaning to that verse in the Bible about baptisms for the dead.

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There’s no mention of it in the official policies but it still comes down to leadership and congregation roulette. Here the congregation factors in how AmyJ said, taste preferences and health considerations.

Symbolically you can make anything fit… or not fit.

White bread: The color white is the go-to symbol for purity. It uses refined flour, which could also translate to ridding it of impurities (sinless). It’s bleached for appearances (whited sepulchre) and doesn’t have as many nutrients as whole wheat, so the purification process strips the bread of some of its benefits.

Wheat bread: Includes the whole part of the wheat, not just a portion. It’s more perfect (complete), has more fiber, is better for the heart (symbolic) than white bread. Oh, but it’s not as white so… and the kids in the congregation think it’s icky and complain to their parents, who in turn complain to the bishop.

Unleavened: It’s funny to me that anyone that would be a stickler for using white bread only takes the symbolism/rules partway. If we’re going down the stickler path, shouldn’t we be using unleavened bread?

Sliced bread: Another “I thought we were being sticklers” consideration, the policies lean towards starting with unbroken bread. If we’re using presliced bread from the bag there’s really no point in being sticklers about other points of the unwritten rules. A slice is a break, or not? I can’t say I’ve ever seen the sacrament done with mini-loaves of bread (not sliced at all) being broken but it would be neat if we did it every once in a while.

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The temple is certainly presented as the best thing ever in our culture but that doesn’t necessarily make it so.

I’ve come full circle on it myself.

I’m a convert, so there was a time where I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a temple. After joining the church and learning of temples I bought in fully. The temple became the best thing in my earthly existence, a little slice of the celestial kingdom here in this life.

I didn’t like the initiatory. To date, my live ordinance initiatory has been the only time I’ve ever done one. I was semi-prepped ahead of time, I wasn’t given specifics, just a warning that there was a portion of the ordinances where I’d be nude under a poncho, that portion of the endowment was short, the rest wasn’t like that, and to just muscle through that bit.

I fully believed the ordinances were necessary for my salvation and I took things very literally so I came out of the temple experience relieved that I had checked a necessary box. I also felt more special. I put that down to the promises made in the temple and me becoming a member of the “in” club.

These days I no longer feel the ordinances in the temple are required for salvation. While I’m there, I also don’t feel baptism is required for salvation. I may go to the temple to help with baptisms from time to time but it’s been …checks watch… over a decade since I’ve done an endowment session. It’s just not my thing and I no longer feel the need to force it to make it my thing.

In my opinion, the temple doesn’t have any intrinsic value. It only has as much value as we give it. Culturally we spend a lot of time talking up temples, so much so that at times it feels as though temples are an object of worship (at least that’s how it comes across to me). Temples are special because we believe they’re special, a self-fulfilled prophecy.

I don’t want to take away from the people that still hold beliefs that temples are at the pinnacle of our worship, I’m just saying that temples no longer do it for me, and that’s okay.

It can complicate things when family is insistent on making attending the temple a family event. In that regard I’m lucky in that being a convert means I only get half as much of that as I might otherwise experience.

While I’m giving my text wall on the mount…

Another thing that has been difficult for me with respect to temples is that our culture can use them as a lever of control. I don’t think that’s the motivation behind temples but in practice it can become that. Once I felt that way it was hard to unfeel and I’m sure that perspective contributed towards the erosion how special I felt temples were in my life.

If there’s no desire to go to the temple, there’s no need to get a temple recommend, and if I don’t need a temple recommend I can free myself of all the trappings associated with temple recommends. For me personally, I’m more orthoprax than orthodox. It’s not about failing to comply with any standard or commandment, it’s more of a desire to not be measured and judged by my community. I hate the concept of “worthiness” in our culture and the temple sits square in the middle of a lot of it.

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AmyJ wrote:

I have struggled for a long time to see how so many people missed that my sister wasn’t getting enough blood circulation for the first few weeks of her life.

One thing that gave me a little hope in your story was the following:

AmyJ wrote:

Doctors literally wrote case studies about my sister’s heart and what they did to fix it.

Your sister’s sacrifice has likely helped others who have or will face similar issues. Hopefully the medical practice has gotten better over time such that things won’t be as bad for others.

I think the rarity of the condition also factored in, that and it went unnoticed because everyone’s guard was down. People just assume things are alright. Those phenomenon occur with matters of the spiritual heart as well.

AmyJ wrote:

In terms of spiritual “heart repair”, I think we can ask general questions to trace the general direction(s) one’s spirituality is going. “Is the fruit good” and “Is this leading me to a healthier, connected, more spiritually balanced person?” – and similar questions.

First thing first, I think it would be helpful to know a healthy spiritual heart functions. At church it feels like the definition of a functioning spiritual heart is one where someone has a testimony of all the “correct” things, in other words when someone believes as we believe. That can lead to a misdiagnosis or even mask spiritual health issues.

To state it explicitly, when someone doesn’t have a testimony of the things we believe they can still be 100% spiritually healthy. Or when someone does have a testimony of the things we believe we can assume things are alright but they really aren’t.

Back to the cottage/palace. I’m sure it’s human nature because it exists in more places than just our church culture, C.S. Lewis gave the analogy and he isn’t a member…

At church there’s a belief that permeates a lot of our faith, hopes, and dreams. This idea that more is better. We strive for stronger testimonies, more baptisms, a better kingdom in the afterlife, a mansion above. If we obtain a “strong” testimony would we even know it or would we continue to chase a testimony that’s even stronger?

Always having something to chase can be motivational but it can also leave people feeling perpetually dissatisfied. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor… in spirit.

Do I need my own planet/universe to feel satisfied, or can I be spiritually content in my broken body in a fallen world?

[nibbler]

Thanks for sharing.

I’m sorry for you and your family’s trials. My family has had our share as well, I suppose we all have. I walked away from my trials slightly different, which is expected, we’re all unique.

One thing I truly struggled (and continue to struggle) with is not letting my trials become my identity… if that makes sense. Well I shouldn’t say that, in a strange way there were times where retreating into my trials brought some comfort. There is a season.

I certainly don’t want to undermine anything you’ve said but I caught myself thinking, which is always dangerous.

It’s a little more obvious in the physical world when things are out of harmony but less so in the spiritual world. Who is to say what a heart looks like in the spiritual world? Could we run the risk of trying to swap someone’s spiritual heart because it looks backwards to our own? I know it’s not that cut and dried, not that simple. Just a thought.

Church can feel that way at times. People convinced that my heart is backwards and me returning the favor. It makes it incredibly hard to come together. Maybe church was meant to be more like a family because the more positive aspects of a family that I’ve seen is when people decide to stick together when the going gets tough. Not every family is like this but I think being a family raises the tolerance level of sticking with it, sharing burdens, and overcoming divides. Essentially this:

AmyJ wrote:

All of us siblings still talk to each other – which is insanely impressive after the trauma and upheaval that happened in our lives.

I’m not sure how I feel about the C.S. Lewis quote. What if I didn’t want a palace? What if I wanted a cottage? There’s always the case for god having plans that we can’t see or don’t understand, like if I had that palace I might discover that I love it more than I could ever love my cottage. Then again, maybe not.

In the spirit of things I’ve read here, it doesn’t have to be an “either or” thing, it’s can be an “and also” thing. In other words I can both cherish my cottage but not be completely closed off to the idea of change. After all, change is how I got here and change is how I’ll go forward.

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We’re people in a fallen world doing the best we can. That’s why I love the idea of a god that brings grace to the table. A fallen world needs grace.

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Long time no see SamBee. It’s good to see you again.

I suspect that after the dust of a new hymnbook settles we’ll do what we’re already doing. Find about three dozen songs we know and like and stick to mostly just those.

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I forgot to mention…

Disclaimer: I listened to all of conference, conference was on in the background while I focused on other things and my focus waxed and waned.

This conference it seemed like there were lots of talks aimed at solving the problem of toxic perfectionism. There were a few talks that took on the subject directly and a few talks that took on the subject indirectly. I think there were even a few talks on mercy.

I’d have to re-review the talks but that’s a big change from my experiences with past conferences.

I remember while I was in the MTC two apostles came to give a talk. Here’s how much you can bank on my memory, I don’t even remember who one of the two apostles was. What I do remember is that they appeared to play good apostle/cop bad apostle/cop. One apostle made me feel like exaltation was completely impossible, something I’d never achieve. The other apostle gave me a glimmer of hope that it was and to quit being so hard on myself.

These days I’m well out of reach of the culturally induced scrupulosity but this general conference felt like it was mostly in good apostle/cop territory.

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AmyJ wrote:

I think it’s more about girls and women being trusted with greater autonomy in the last 20-30 years outside of the church community, and the church culture not adapting to women have more autonomy in how women are led.

I hear lots of women saying that the church is the only entity in their lives that’s still imposing limits on them because they’re women. The church is in stark contrast with the rest of their experiences and it’s highlighting a massive… I’ll call it opportunity… for the restoration.

In the past a church was the community. Now churches compete for time and attention in a marketplace of ideas. They’re not the only game in town. Society at large still has a way to go to make things fully equal but even a less than ideal offering found in the world is more than the church is doing. People will migrate to where they feel valued.

AmyJ wrote:

The “number of women at church” determines the number of women socializing at church (church potlucks and RS activities specifically). The “number of women at church” also is a primary driver for Primary activities (including Cub Scouts replacement activities) from what I tell.

The “number of women at church” also determines the dating pool for active men.

The “number of men at church” is actually less important then the “number of qualified to be counted men” to staff leadership positions to run the organization. I think this requires a temple recommend (which has its own barriers to access), but I am not sure.

I also think that because “women and children” are grouped so closely in our LDS culture, that there is an implied “plus X” variable for every woman that leaves. So that “108” women leaving for every “96” men really is treated like “108+X” women leaving, because for every woman who leaves – she is taking 1-2+ kids with her, and maybe a sister leaves out of solidarity, etc.

Halverson mentioned this in his initial video. Where go the women, so goes the church. I think you’re right.

My prior post was pure hypotheticals. Just a thought exercise to get me thinking about what the report is or isn’t saying.

The church largely relies on the number of TR holding, tithe paying men with the MP to determine when it’s time for a new ward or even determine the health of existing wards. The church has made recent changes to the policies for creating a new ward by setting a minimum number of “participating adults” but technically the policy could be satisfied by all of the adults being men. There’s still no requirement for a minimum number of women. I’d like to see a ward with no women try to get off the ground.

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I haven’t seen that quote from DFU before. It certainly relevant to challenges that the world is facing today.

[nibbler]

It’s hard for me to extrapolate much from the reported numbers. I don’t know the starting point and I don’t know the number of people leaving. Here’s a hypothetical scenario that fits the 54% statistic:

1000 people attend church

600 women

400 men

200 leave church

108 women (54% of 200)

92 men (46% of 200)

108 vs 92; more women are leaving the church than men.

800 people now remain in church

492 women (600 – 180)

308 men (400-92)

So there are still more women in church than men. The starting numbers and the number of people leaving are important. Maybe the study gets into that but the bar graph certainly masks those important details.

Under that exaggerated scenario, the percentage of women leaving the church being higher than the percentage of men leaving the church might indicate that women are starting to catch up to a trend the men experienced in the past. It’s hard to say.

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