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I’ve been dealing with my FC for so long know that it is hard to pinpoint what exactly kicked it all off. My inner turmoil still seems to jumble many things together. It may have been finding out that Joseph Smith was a treasure hunter, using his stones to search for lost treasure and other things. This smacked of scrying or witchcraft to me and I had grown up believing that the Bible prohibited such things. And if the Bible prohibited those things, why would God use him to restore the Gospel? That may sound silly or too simplistic, but it is one of the things that kicked it off. The other thing was finding out the things that Brigham Young taught that are no longer taught today and wondering why I should believe in a prophet’s declarations when at any point in the future the current leaders can simply declare that previous teachings were just someone’s opinion? Not that I agree with those doctrines that BY taught (I wouldn’t have joined the church if those things had still been taught when I was an investigator) but just the idea that what one generation believed to be the word of god can be changed by subsequent generations, that rubbed me wrong. I know, I know, continuing revelation…
DarkJedi wrote:Working alongside someone for a few hours is going to tell me a lot more about what they believe than sitting on the couch talking about something I’m probably not really interested in.
I have been telling my wife for years that the missionary program should switch to service missions rather than proselytizing. I think filling the soup kitchens, Habitat for Humanity, and other organizations rosters with volunteer help would do wonders for both the image of the church and for the missionaries themselves. And when they are asked why they are there, simply stating that they are on a mission for their church would open a lot of doors.
Back to the topic at hand though, I’ve been opposed to “challenges” for years. I never really enjoyed the handing out of a BoM during priesthood with the missionary challenge of returning and reporting on how you placed it next week. I am truly grateful that practice seems to have trailed off in my ward. Currently, when we have the missionaries over, they have been pretty good about keeping the challenges to be about family history or something else not directly related to missionary work and they have been okay with vague answers from me. The absolute worst challenge that I have been extended was by my bishop during a tithing interview where he challenged my spouse and I to attend the temple more often than we had the prior year. My declining that challenge in front of my children had both my bishop and myself feeling a bit uncomfortable!
In my experience, the difference between a question and a doubt, from the TBM’s point of view, is that a question means that you don’t have all of the answers but your are sure that the answer will toe the party line while a doubt means that you believe the answer to your question may lie outside of the standard framework. For example:
Question – “I don’t understand why God implemented polygamy, but I am sure that he had his reasons”
Doubt – “I am not sure that polygamy was ordained of God; could Joseph have been going off on his own?”
As one of the long time lurkers, I figured I would come out of the shadows and answer a couple of these too. – What brought you here at first?
I honestly don’t remember how I found the site. I know that when my questioning / doubting started, I spent a lot of time reading apologetics on the internet. I felt like there absolutely had to be answers to my questions that would show me the TBM way was correct and that my questions were easily answerable and completely blown out of proportion. But most apologetic answers left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a feeling of “you’ve got to be kidding me”. During one of my searches, I happened across StayLDS and started reading. Over 5 years later, I’m still lurking and reading (almost every day).
– What keeps you coming back?
I keep coming back because of all of you (regular posters and fellow lurkers alike).
You are my tribe. We share things in common. We question. We doubt. We hope. We can empathize with each others suffering. We know that we are not alone in that which we have in the past or are currently going through. Knowing that I am not alone in my situation is incredibly important to me. Probably the most important thing that keeps me coming back is the non-judgmental tone of everyone here. It’s hard to imagine expressing doubts to anyone at all close to me and not feeling as if I would be judged, shunned or, worse still, viewed as a project. This is the only place that I have found that questions and doubts posed to the group are usually met with love, compassion and understanding. Kind of how I like to think the Savior would have responded.
– Why do you like to blog online?
Obviously, I don’t!
And I’ll add an additional question here that might have interesting responses if more lurkers are willing to answer it:
– Why do you lurk instead of actively participate in the conversation?
For me the answer to my question changes from time to time.
There are times that I feel like someone else will answer the question or add to the conversation better than I can.
Sometimes, I feel like all I could do is say “Ditto” (and that’s Nibbler’s job
Some times, I don’t post out of fear. Not necessarily fear of giving the wrong answer or that someone will disagree with me, but rather fear that my response would be personal enough that someone reading it that knew me would be able to point me out at the next Sacrament meeting and report my apostasy to the bishop. I know that it is an irrational fear, but being irrational doesn’t make it less real! As an aside, that irrational fear / desire for anonymity has been along for the ride ever since I started reading here. My account handle is SMiLe. SML are my initials. I wanted to remain anonymous but still feel like I owned what I had to say the few times that I’ve said it.
I’ll end by saying, thanks for being here. From the admins to the regulars and all of the rest who contribute in any way at all, you are what makes this a great community.
Quote:Because we are dynamic beings and truth is received line by line, precept by precept,
because revelation is continuing and not always infallible, we must be willing to accommodate new understanding. Otherwise, as Joseph feared, we will “fall apart like shattered glass” rather than make the subtle adjustments to our paradigms induced by new understandings. I understand the point that Bro Givens is trying to make with this statement, but the comment that “revelation is not always infallible” is something that I have difficulty with. In my mind, revelation has to be infallible in order to be revelation. Our understanding of revelation is fallible, but the revelation itself can’t be otherwise I don’t believe that it can have come from God.
This is part of what kicked off my FC to begin with. When you find out the things that Brigham Young was teaching in his day (Adam-God doctrine, blood atonement, etc) and then get told “oh, we don’t teach those things any more” or “that was just his opinion”, that flies in the face of my understanding. He was either teaching revelation or he was teaching false doctrine. The saints in those days sure didn’t see those things as Brigham Young’s opinion, this was the prophet teaching from the pulpit after all. I believe they must have thought that what they were being taught was revelation.
And that leads me to question, what things are being taught now as “revelation” that future generations will simply have to accept as “that must have just been his opinion”? And questions like that are what began to undermine my confidence in the authority of the church and its leaders.
Sorry for the rant, it just touched on what I see now as something that is still a sore point for me…
Started in earnest in my late 30’s and continues on into my 40’s. When I first read the thread title, I thought you were asking how long our FC/transition has lasted. I have always had a hard time reconciling the story of the angel with the sword: Quote:During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully.
and D&C 121:41
Quote:41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
In my mind, this hardly seems like the same God. I’m sure that there are some who would tell me that God can except himself from how he expects us to behave, but that feels pretty hollow here. In fact, this particular dichotomy is a primary contributor to my questioning / FC / falling out with the church / whatever you want to call it.
I guess I am with others here when I say that I think it is good the church is addressing this publicly but I find no answers in the article.
I read this and immediately thought, “Who, us lurkers?” I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I check in to read the board about once a day and usually don’t respond or post – and I have wondered at times why that is. I think that some times it is because I am not sure that what I have to say is worth hearing. Some times it is because I am not sure what to say at all. But most of the time it is because I am constantly feeling like I am walking a tightrope. I am getting to the point that I am starting to become more comfortable with myself and my struggles but I still don’t like to dwell on them. It is easier to ignore them. Playing ostrich and sticking my head in the sand doesn’t solve anything, but it sure feels comfortable! And engaging in the conversation here can be uncomfortable. I’m not saying that the people make me uncomfortable, that’s not it at all. It is the conversation itself that makes me uncomfortable. It is the taking my head out of the sand and reflecting on how I actually feel about many of the topics here that leaves me feeling like I am scratching a wound that hasn’t completely healed yet and if I worry it too long, I will reopen it.
So, there you go, you got me to respond!
I also feel that God takes a fairly hands off approach to our daily existence. I don’t view everything that goes wrong in life as necessarily a test and not everything that goes right is divine intervention. After all, some things that go wrong are simply the consequences of someone else exercising their agency and even criminals have things go right for them on occasion. I do believe that God may decide to directly intervene on someone’s behalf but it probably happens rarely and would fit in with miracles in my mind. Roadrunner wrote:However, I do ask him to bless my bean burrito for dinner, which is similar to giving him credit for helping us find a boat. It’s probably more tradition and trying to be grateful than anything. If I don’t get food poisoning and if I sleep safely through the night, it’s not my wife’s excellent cooking and it’s not the policeman who get the credit, but god. Probably not a bad thing, but others should at least share the credit.
This made me smile. A few years back I ran into the joke about how Mormons were some of the only people who would bless donuts and soda to “strengthen and nourish” their bodies. After reflecting on the validity of that joke, I changed how I say grace. I still say grace but no longer ask God to bless the food. Instead, I try to simply thank God for the fact that I have a meal to eat and try to remember those who don’t have that blessing in their lives.
Having decided to complete the survey, I feel like the study should have been titled, “Are Mormons more likely to be OCD?” Hi Jacob84, I am a long time lurker here and rarely post. I think I made a few comments 3 years or so ago and then went back to reading posts only. Something that you said sounded so familiar to me that I wanted to put in my two cents worth.
jaboc84 wrote:I have serious emotional conflict when Sundays come around because I want to be honest with the deacons I am teaching, but I also want to help them have faith and be better young men.
There is absolutely nothing that says that you can’t be honest with the Deacons and yet still not tell them all of your doubts and worries.
I says this from the heart and from experience. My own doubts peaked while I was called in the YM presidency and teaching the Teacher’s Quorum. I slowly began to refine my teaching style to move from teaching verbatim what the lesson said to teaching the principles behind the lesson. I looked for every opportunity to teach Christ, love and forgiveness. And when a lesson came around that I simply did not feel comfortable teaching, I didn’t. I either conveniently switched to a different lesson or had the other adviser teach the lesson that week (you do have two deep leadership, right?).
I am not advocating that you stay in your calling or ask to be released. That is a personal decision that only you can make (as everyone else has told you already). I simply wanted to let you know that if you really want to continue to be an influence in the boys’ lives, you definitely can continue to do so. Personally, my time in the YM program was the best calling I have ever had in the church.
Good luck in your walk.
My favorite hymn is “Nearer My God To Thee”. I can’t sing, and I still pour my heart into this one (much to the detriment of those around me, I’m sure! “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum, also later redone by other various groups.
Amen and turn the amp to 11!
SMiLe
I can sympathize with your position. The one thing that always gets me about FoS is that it is always presented as “this is your share for your kids”. In fact, there have been times when it has been presented in such a way that parents feel like it is a fundraiser for their kids. The fact that the troop sees none of this money and it all goes to the local council to pay professional scouters salaries and operating expenses is never brought up. I understand why this money is needed, I just wish it was made more clear where the money was going when the FoS pitch is given.
We had our FoS drive and a month later held a fundraiser for camp. We had ward members asking us why we were asking for more money. When we explained it to them we actually had some members mention that if they had known, they would have just given their donation to the boys.
SMiLe
Quote:I would be lying if I got up next Fast Sunday and said ” I KNOW THIS CHURCH IS TRUE.”
Honestly I do not “KNOW” I have a great deal of faith about certain things.
I guess I do feel somewhat bothered by the phrasing.
I understand how you feel about that phrase. The time that we most often hear this phrase is during the bearing of testimony. It has become part of a rote litany for many. I feel that it has come to be expected by many as part of the closing words to a testimony. However, I have found that I can choose to still bare my testimony and I do not have to use the expected phrases. When I get up to bare my testimony, I chose to focus on principles and ideals. Those life changing admonitions and characteristics of Christ that have most recently influenced me. I use phrases like “I believe” and “I have faith in”. For that matter, I have specifically stated before in my testimony that I have problems with the phrase “I know”. And here is what I have discovered, people are okay with it. I have never had the Bishop pull me aside for using “I believe” or “I think”. I still have members come up to me and tell me that they appreciate my testimony. So, please, even though you have problems with the phrase “I know”, don’t let that prevent you from sharing your testimony of those things that you ARE comfortable with.
Oh, and welcome aboard, I have enjoyed reading your story in your introduction here.
SMiLe
I listen to Christian radio on the commute to and from work and there is a pastor I listen to (Gino Geraci) that always says, ” Legalism is when your opinion becomes my obligation”. Obviously, he is against legalism. This discussion of the “unwritten rules” very much brought this quote to my mind.
Sure, we remind the young men that they should wear white shirts in order to show respect while passing the Sacrament, but telling them that they aren’t worthy to serve because they have a colored shirt on, that irks me. I’ve seen it happen multiple times. We remind the YM that they should tuck their shirts in and look sharp, but I have never seen an un-tucked shirt or messy hair keep a Deacon from serving. Only the color of the shirt. Talk about an instance of someone’s opinion becoming obligation.
SMiLe
