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“Fake it till you make it” was the theme of a whole zone conference on my mission 3-4 years ago. It was repeatedly taught by the MP, APs, ZLs, DLs, etc. Is funny you quote elder Holland because it was reading a book he authored on my mission that said “god calls us because of who we are not in spite of it” that made me give up on fake it till you make it. I realized that if it was true god wanted me there then he wanted ME there. Not a carbon copy of someone else. So I focused on bettering who I was instead of changing it. I met many people who I helped because of my unorthodoxy and my life experiences. Not necessarily baptized or reactivated… But helped.
Bds, It’s when someone has taken notice of your inactivity or some other sign you aren’t totally with the program. Sometimes the person who notices tries to fellowship you. Sometimes your name starts coming up in meetings and someone is assigned to fellowship you. Sometimes a group is assigned.
The implication is also that their motives are something other than genuinely carrying about you. They’re doing it because of an assignment or to feel like they did good bringing someone back. Then as in my case once you’re “fixed” they’ve done their part and don’t have to worry about you anymore.
Is not necessarily a sinister motivation, just not genuine. And not many of us like the thought of the Ward Council discussing how to “fix” us in their meeting.
I was repeatedly a project after my family moved from Vegas to Utah when I was 17. I didn’t attend for while and then one day 3 priests showed up. They got me going to activities and I felt great. I had new friends and all was well. .. except after I attended church 3 weeks in a row they stopped calling and inviting me, they didn’t care when they saw me at school…nothing.
So I went inactive again. Sure enough, a month later here they come again. So I went back to church and we hung out and once I was “reactivated” it stopped again. I was very angry and stopped going. They tried again a month later but i told them i was fine not going. And I didn’t go for years after that simply because I was so amazed by how fake it all was.
On the other hand I’m currently a project. My main “fellowshipper” is a great guy. He is just my friend and rarely brings up church. And he’s never pressured me to come back. But he makes me feel like going back. When I do go I feel welcome because of him. It’s easy to see he’s genuine.
Incidentally, when I decided to go on a mission (at 24) those fellowshippers from high school found out from their parents and I got messages like “great! I knew we’d get you on a mission!” It was hilarious. Total jerks and 5 years later they have the gall to try and take credit for me leaving on a mission. Their fellowshipping probably set me back a couple years on leaving but there was the smug self righteousness…
Ugh…
The people that in my experience are good at fellowshipping are good at being real friends. They’re the ones that would be your friend whether or not you become active.
It’s something I tried to stress on my mission when we talked to members about missionary work. I tried to stress that more important than inviting to church or trying to share a testimony was just talking to their neighbors and becoming friends. Invite them over for a BBQ or something…not as a means to an end of converting then…but just because its nice.
I think the same works for less-actives like myself.
I have yet to decide if my FC is responsible for my spotty attendance this year or the 9am start time is… 9am years I’ve always taken a bit of a break haha.
Aside from that I think there’s value in pulling back from the stressful situation, evaluating it from the outside and then choosing if, when, and how to reassociate with it. I’m there right now trying to figure out when and how.
I think it’s family-friendly in some doctrinal aspects such as believing our families continue to be families in the next life. :angel: Or perhaps it’s that church is family-friendly because you can bring your kids to sacrament meeting because everyone is too busy trying to quiet their own kids to get mad at you for bringing your noisy kids to church.
😆 Or maybe it’s like a mafia family in that, as long as you listen to the godfather, they know how to take care of the family?
:think: Hmm…
From my experience it’s about par for family-friendliness. There are certainly others that are more open and make it more fun for kids and easier on parents. There are some that wouldn’t expect you to worry so much about your children’s eternal souls.Then there are others that would require you to cut off communication with your children because they were excommunicated for celebrating their birthday. I don’t see the LDS church at either extreme. Even with homosexuality or divorce or other issues. There are much more lenient churches and much harsher. I think the church has also come a long way in just the last 5-10 years on those issues. And I think a lot of the issues we have with parts of the church are reflective of conservative protestant christianity more than just the LDS church. The only difference is they don’t usually claim to be led directly by God through a living prophet…
AngryMormon, Feel free to suggest all you want! That’s why I start threads after all. It’s not just to write incredibly long posts to amuse myself. That being said, I might not take all of them.
I really have no desire to share all of my problems with her. I don’t think either of us would be helped by me going over individual issues. I don’t even hope to win her over to my view on church and religion in general. I just want to be able to win her over to the idea that it’s OK to agree to disagree about it and try and temper her fears about whether or not we’ll be together for eternity. I’d rather we both could just focus, as you said, on making the best of this existence that we know we can spend together instead of worrying about an unknowable future existence so much.
I think there is a real value in switching our thinking from trying to get into heaven to trying to make heaven. I like the story of Enoch (historicity issues aside…) because it’s an example of making heaven on earth. They didn’t sit around waiting for the next life to make their existence better. They made their city into heaven on earth until God couldn’t deny them his presence. I think there’s a moral in that. This life is so much sadder when we just look at it as a horrible bunch of suffering we have to deal with until we get our reward in the next life. I find it so much better to view it as something we can work to change for the better.
But like has been said a million times on here. My wife has all her scaffolding around her building and she just isn’t at the point where she thinks it’ll stand without it. I have to be careful to let her move past it at her own pace and not tear it down to prove it’ll stand. Because maybe her’s can’t right now. Who knows…
We had another good day today. I’ve been trying to show increased affection and let her know how much I care. In some ways I think after our talk the other night she’s feeling better about a few things–specifically that I really do love HER and I’m not just with her because the church says I need a wife (wives?
:shh: )to get to the celestial kingdom…… Although that doesn’t take away her fear of what happens after this life I think it helps her to feel better about herself in this one. At least it seems that way.Thanks, and like I said, suggest all you want!
As i stated before, I think the standard is just to do what feels right between you and god, be happy with that, and not worry about how the next person wears his or her underwear. There might be 100000 applications of the standard but the standard is the same. I like the “adults of god” concept very much. God didn’t give us agency and reason just so we could ignore reason and turn our agency over to the church. JS and his first vision story are a great example of this. If he’d just turned his agency over to his mom’s church like his pastor would have wanted we wouldn’t have any of this to debate. But he showed that what god told him directly was more important than his church authorities. The church forgets that sometimes. Its always easier to just follow someone you think is inspired from god instead of seeking him yourself. But its not a substitute.
I would assume he just put some pages from the KJV in his hat with the stone. 
I actually don’t have a problem with it so much.
I’m with BDS in that the plates being taken to heaven weakens the while story for me.
But at this point even if it was all made up I still can find value in it. There are too many parts that ring true to me… At least doctrinally… Maybe not historically…
I would just say that there are lots of things in church pamphlets and manuals that aren’t in the actual covenants we made. And that’s true with many things. Ultimately those covenants are between us and God and since the cornerstone of Mormonism is being able to ask God what is right for ourselves I would just do what feels OK between you and God and not worry about pamphlets and manuals so much. If you feel you’re in the right then I’d bet you are. And if anyone at church is overly concerned with how or when you wear your underwear I think that says more about them than you.
In my opinion the overly specific rules are there for those who are slothful servants and must be commanded in all things.
Roy, I always hated that tithing was taught as “fire insurance”. And it’s not just the LDS church that does it… As far as bad thing happening to good people, I have a view I will try to explain:
It really goes back to the council in heaven. I don’t believe that a literal 1/3 didn’t come or whatever but I do think that we were presented with different plans. I think that we were told how horrible and miserable this existence would be and that since it was a time for us to figure things out without our Father there to fix everything for us, that he was going to have to sit back and watch. I think those that chose not to come just didn’t believe that all of the horrible things that happen in this world would be worth it in order to obtain the blessings at the end. Their “rebellion” wasn’t so much that they supported another plan as that they just lacked the faith to even try the one that was presented by our father.
So here we are in this horrible, mixed-up, cruel world. Tragedies happen all the time. I used to believe that God just must not value human life like we do but I don’t believe that anymore. It’s something I think I picked up from The God Who Weeps but I think God is pained by every horrible thing that happens here. He just can’t do anything about it. This is a time for us to learn to choose between good and evil on our own. If he was meddling around all the time it would be like the proctor for a test coming in and giving us answers half the time… or changing grades. When the scriptures talk about justice, I think that that’s it. God can’t do anything to stop the suffering because it would violate the very purpose of our test and frustrate the progress on our path of eternal progression we were supposed to make here. After this life I think we will truly understand mercy. I believe God will very clearly understand exactly how hard each of our trials here were and will be far more understanding and forgiving than we can now comprehend.
So in this sense I don’t see a benevolent God being in conflict with our horrible earth. Ultimately his duty is to see us progress. So he must painfully watch as we learn lessons on our own. It’s not that he’s powerless to stop it, it’s that if he did stop it He would be damning us all.
I still haven’t reconciled how hands-off I feel God is with all of the miracles in the scriptures. But I feel that my understanding helps me. Maybe something else helps others.
As far as prayer, I see it as us bringing ourselves into harmony with God’s thoughts. I don’t believe in asking for blessings over and over in a hope to prove to God how much I want it. I do think that prayer is important for us to give thanks for things we have and to ponder things we need. I mainly see it as a way of temporarily pulling ourselves our of this temporal existence and communing with eternal truth. It can help us in so many other ways… I talked a lot more about prayer in my introduction thread.
Anyways, that’s my $.02.
Warning: Novel Ahead… Thanks everyone! I was really helped by your comments. Like many of you I don’t have anyone in my non-internet life that I can really talk to openly. I really am grateful for this site.
Today was a really good day. My wife and I had a great date tonight. We left our baby with her mom and spent time together. We didn’t discuss church or religion at all and I think it was a great thing. We just talked about other things. But talking to her about other things without religion I still think I got some insight.
Wayfarer, It’s very true that opposites attract. She is usually attracted by my constant need for philosophic contemplation. I on the other hand am usually attracted by her ability to just live without worrying about deep things. Sometimes those same things are the source of our problems.
At the same time there’s definite issues in keeping the taijitu together hehe. You know far more than I do. I’m still new at this.
To those who stressed reassuring her, that’s what I’ve been trying really hard to do. After today I think she understands a little better that just because I have differing views on things that it doesn’t mean my feelings for her will go away. I really think she was scared that the church teachings about the need for marriage and all of that were the only reason i married her. We did hurry into it but I’d dated enough that I knew what I wanted when I met her, and she was all that and more.
There are three common and interrelated assumptions: 1) That being temple covenant keeping LDS is a prerequisite for staying together as a family in eternity. 2) That being temple covenant keeping LDS is a prerequisite for returning to live with God and that anything less is a form of exile. 3) That LDS rules and standards are generally what makes LDS people moral and ethical and without the church we may degenerate into outright debauchery.
Nail on the head right there. Almost exactly verbatim what she brought up. And where we have the most disconnect I think. And I agree there is little I can do to help her understand my view on 1 and 2. We talked a little about 3. It was a realization I had on my mission when I met people of other faiths who were good, happy people. And I contrasted it with my miserable mormon self and that got me pondering the whole idea that the church brings happiness. I understand how she feels on that one because I used to be there. I used to think that the church rules were what kept me from doing horrible things. But now I realize I don’t do horrible things because they’re wrong. It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the church’s rules or what anyone tells me. They just seem wrong. It was kind of a mind-blowing thing when I realized that I was actually a moral person apart from the church and I could be a good person without all of the little rules and fear of church punishment or fear of being ostracized to make me be so.
And I understand the idea that a temple marriage is a means to the end of being in the celestial kingdom. I just have gone from buying into it to thinking it is downright dangerous. Why would you marry someone to check a box so you can go to a kingdom where you’ll have to spend eternity with someone you only married so you could check a box? I used to get it….I don’t anymore.
And that’s what’s hard. I understand her point of view on a lot of things because I was there. But instead of helping me, it frustrates me more. I see how limiting, narrow, and scary it is. I feel bad for her still being afraid of all of these things. And she thinks I’m just ignoring the truth because I don’t want to be scared…oh well, I think time will help. She’s not really a TBM either, I think she, kind of like me at the time, thought that getting married in the temple would somehow change us. Well it has….but not like we thought.
MayB,
I don’t want to throw her down the rabbit hole either. I don’t have a desire to prove anything about the church one way or the other. That’s just not me and I don’t think it’s productive. I don’t like trying to convert people anyways. It made being a missionary hard haha. I just wanted to help people be happier. And I’m pretty sure that bringing up all my issues would make neither of us happier. I feel like we had much of the same experience. My wife isn’t especially TBMish but she can get very much that way when it has anything to do with issues particularly close to her heart. I think even though we haven’t acted like TBMs she was thinking in the back of her head that someday we would get there. And something in what I’ve been doing threatened that future. She doesn’t see that future change happening anymore and it worried her enough to talk to me.
Worrying about your eternal soul and that of your family is certainly OK. But I hate how serious I took the church on it and how serious she still does. About a month after our wedding it broke my heart as she cried about how she was happy that we would be an eternal family but she was so sad she’d never see her family again after this life. That was one of the things that helped push me into my FC. I just didn’t see the way she was feeling as compatible with what a loving heavenly father would want. It seemed like such a messed up situation. I felt what the church would call the spirit, in that moment, testifying that what I was feeling was right and that she certainly would see them again. I tried to comfort her saying she couldn’t know what exactly would happen and god loves her and her family but what I said couldn’t get past the church programming.
😡 Back to not wanting to help her down the rabbit hole…she actually suggested we study more about the church together (thinking it would help rebuild my faith is what I got from her tone) but I said I didn’t think that was the best thing to help our testimonies.
:problem: I think she and I will still read the Book of Mormon. I’m not sure what I believe it is anymore but on some level it’s inspired. At least parts. I have less issues with it that the Old Testament at any rate. I’d prefer reading the new testament–especially the gospels. I’m sure we’ll rotate that in at some point. I also have this dream that someday we’ll be reading the Tao Te Ching and Confucius and other such things together. But eh…
Ray, I would be willing to attend church because she wants to. But there are many other things I have trouble doing just because she wants to or wants me to. I understand the “I am not me, but part of ‘we'” concept but it is very difficult for me sometimes. Specifically right now I am having trouble with the word of wisdom. She is now the only reason that I don’t have a beer now and then. I couldn’t care less what the church thinks and I would be OK answering the WoW question on the TR I think. I wouldn’t feel bad about it. She would. But I’ve had many instances where I prayed about something and the answer to my prayers was basically to not worry about the church rule and just do the right thing. Specifically I had issues before my mission that others would have felt guilty and gone home over. I prayed and prayed and never felt anything other than “It really doesn’t matter, but you need to be on a mission.” I guess I just let my answers to my prayers trump anything from church sources. And I’ve done that forever…maybe I’ve been headed towards this FC longer than I’ve thought… And whenever I’ve ignored those answers to try and follow the church rules more strictly I’ve felt further from God and usually I get pushed into depression. It’s strange…well, I think most here would understand anyways…
I guess with the WoW thing it’s me wanting to have my cake and eat it too. A drink is absolutely not worth it if it will hurt her. She brings infinitely more joy to my life. There’s just that part of me that wants both the incredibly awesome joy of her and the little extra of the drinks I used to enjoy. But I guess we can’t have everything…
At any rate, I think that her bringing it up and us talking about it has helped a little. I was seriously pondering mentioning something to her this week and was trying to figure out what exactly I’d say. She didn’t let me get prepared though hehe. But I think both of us feel better since I don’t feel like I’m hiding as much and she feels like I’m being more honest. So in that sense it was a very good thing.
Thanks again everyone!
Also, in fairness, I tried to help her understand some of my issues before we got married. She acted like it was no big deal. But I’ve since learned that a lot of times that just means that she’s choosing to ignore what I just said because she doesn’t want to process it haha. Sometimes it’s cute, but on this issue it really isn’t 
She’s the exact opposite of me. I would take any little thing and instead of ignoring it, it’d quickly blow it out of proportion.
So…..new issue. My wife totally surprised me tonight and wanted to talk about what is going on with me. I wasn’t really expecting it. We usually read the BoM together at night but since the baby was born we’ve been slacking. Tonight I suggested we read them and so we read our chapter and then she said the prayer. In it she prayed that I would be helped with my “struggles” and that we’d be able to share them. I thanked her for praying for me and then she unloaded….in a nice way. But still, I was kind of taken by surprise.
She and I have been OK to this point. But I guess she’s become increasingly worried about my lack of attendance the last little while. I’ve kind of temporarily disengaged from activity as I’m working through this. I’ve made a few token appearances at SM but that’s about it. I’m about to the point where I want to start attending regularly again thanks to threads like this.
Anyways, she’s afraid that I’m falling away, that I’m not going to be there to support our son, that I’m not going to be a worthy priesthood holder, that we aren’t keeping our temple covenants, and ultimately that I’m going to leave the church. This is exacerbated by the fact that her father was many of those things. He is inactive, an alcoholic, smokes, and was physically abusive. So in her mind I think inactive father = abusive alcoholic. The funny thing is that my father was just as physically abusive while he was in the EQ presidency and we were all active. Often he was abusive over things like catching me drink caffeine…
I wasn’t really prepared for this conversation right before bed tonight. We talked for a couple hours before she went to sleep. Our son started fussing so I went in the other room. I finally got him calmed down and now I’m just trying to process the conversation.
It’s a really hard conversation to have, but it was harder because our views of church have become so different. The only specific issue we discussed was that the Church isn’t perfect. This is something she agrees with but she doesn’t see the big deal with it. She also wasn’t active until her teenage years and never really thought it was perfect. So she doesn’t understand how hard this realization has been and why it’s taking me so long to process. Especially after years of being in denial about it trying to keep Pandora’s box from opening.
As far as being a worthy priesthood holder or keeping our temple covenants, we are so far apart right now on what that means to us. I’ve disconnected our temple sealing from the Church in my mind, I think. I hold my promises to her and God sacred, but I have no belief that anyone in the church is the arbiter of my salvation or exaltation. My marriage is sacred to me completely apart from the church. Same with the priesthood. I no longer really believe that It’s necessary in the way the Church teaches. I understand the right of the church to authorize only certain people to baptize and confirm new member into the church. But I’m not sure that I believe that my priesthood blessings are any more powerful than a blessing from her would be.
As for being a good example to my son, that’s really hard for me. I want to be a good example. But I think you can be a great example without church or a horrible example with the church. Being a good example for my son has nothing intrinsically to do with the church. The church might help me in some ways but it is not essential to the process. This is how I make sense of a lot of things though. For her these things all still run straight through the church. We didn’t talk to much about this because common ground wasn’t there. Same with other issues. She feels guilty or upset or whatever. I don’t. I’ve let go of these emotions for things surrounding the church. The only thing I feel guilty and upset about is that I’ve somehow hurt her. Of course to her I’m just ignoring the church guilt because I don’t want to be righteous right now. But in reality the church just doesn’t have standing to try and impart guilt to me. So I don’t care. As I’ve discussed on another thread: I don’t NEED the church. She feels like she needs it. It bothers me because it’s as if our relationship somehow means less to her without the church being in the middle of it. Where to me it’s freeing to have my family truly be the center of my life and let the church be a part only as it helps me and family.
Anyways, i”m kind of tired right now. Hope that makes sense. I just don’t know what I can do to help her. I love my wife and son and it kills me that I’ve put her in this spot. I need to be able to reassure her. And I could use advice on what I could do to try and help my situation with her. I know we need to compromise. I’m just not sure how we get there when we talk about the same things but understand them in entirely different ways. I know she wants me to become an active, calling-holding, temple-attending, home-teaching TBM. But I never really was and I certainly can’t get everything back into Pandora’s box now anyways. And it’s not that I don’t want to do those things, I just don’t want my worth as a husband/father/person to be based on how often or well I do them. And I really want to teach my son that he has worth and can be a good person apart from the criteria set at church–although the church could help him achieve that if used as the tool it is.
Anyways, thanks for reading. I’m grateful for this place!
Thanks Wayfarer! I chose my name specifically because I see God as the embodiment of the principle of wuwei. I am certainly not great at practicing it. But it is such a beautiful thing and I hope to be there someday.
But the God preached on Sundays is so different from this. He is apparently concerned with what I eat, drink, watch, and even how i wear my underwear…
I really doubt that he would concern himself with such trivial things. Drinking tea doesn’t make me bad. But judging those who do as not worthy of my company would… And yet I was taught that.
And yet I feel drawn to Mormonism. There’s a kernel of truth hidden in it that I can’t find elsewhere. It’s just surrounded by so much “stuff”.
AngryMormon,
Yes his kids did all serve… Though they had issues. I feel especially bad for my friend. Since his mission he hasn’t and probably never will live up to temple standards. But he’s afraid to marry outside the church because his parents would freak. He has siblings that did and later came back but he won’t. He’s been disfellowshipped twice and is afraid that confessing would get him exed.
I think he would be so much happier if he’d just find someone and be happy. But he doesn’t feel outside the temple is an option. I haven’t talked much about my feelings to him. His family is like my second family at this point and I don’t really want to be the catalyst for a fight. But I feel like something’s got to change. I’ve been at a loss.
Heber13, I really like what you said about church. That’s something I haven’t really thought about but I think it sums up a lot of why I’ve been struggling to attend regularly. I’ve just never said it so simply:
I don’t need the church.With how I believe, I really don’t. That being said, just because I don’t NEED it, does that mean there isn’t a place for it in my life? No.
For example: I don’t NEED to drink soda. I would survive just fine without it. But drinking soda is enjoyable and I like it. That doesn’t mean I have to drink every kind, or drink them all the time. But there are a few kinds I like that enhance my life in some small way.
Same with church. I don’t need it, but there are aspects that I like. I don’t have to accept all of it, or participate every week or in every activity. But there are some things about church that I like and that enhance my life in many ways.
I think with me it’s about the locus of control. When I feel that the locus of control lies with the church, it makes me want to run from it. But if I can engage with the church in a way where the locus of control lies with me, then church could be a valuable tool in helping to enhance my life. If I don’t worry about whether or not I fit in, or believe the same as everyone else, or if I’ll get in trouble for speaking up, or not being 100% “obedient” to commandments I don’t necessarily believe in, and just focus on the aspects I like then perhaps I’ll be able to reengage with the church in a meaningful way. Rather than self-disfellowship myself I should just go and be myself and if the church doesn’t like me…well, not a whole lot I could do about that.
That to me seems like a much healthier approach than I’ve had in the past. I think I’ve had a very adolescent view of church. It’s like the parent that seems overly strict and sets rules I don’t like and punishes me when I don’t do what it says. And I complain about the rules and “it’s not fair” and “you can’t tell me what to do” and all that. But the same as I’ve moved on from that relationship with my parents perhaps I can do that with the church.
I’m very glad I started this thread. Thanks everyone for the great comments!
