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Heber13 wrote:
I am more skeptical than I used to be. You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. And LDS.org is on the Internet.
Which apostle was it that said the internet doesn’t have a truth filter? Well, nothing and nobody has a truth filter. There’s only “to the best of our knowledge”.In terms of religion, I find I value usefulness and goodness much higher than “Truth”. If it’s useful and makes you a better person, keep it. If it bears bad fruit for you, toss it out. By their fruits ye shall know them. Not know whether or not they’re “true”, but whether or not they are useful.
The Bible Dictionary contains some straight up false and/or inaccurate historical information. It’s just an imperfect reference guide. On Own Now wrote:
I believe it is critical to avoid using the term “Christ’s teachings” to represent a common and universally accepted set of assertions, upon which we can judge the actions of others.
I should have been more clear. I was talking about myself, not others. In I discovered some of what the Church teaches in terms of how I personally should act and view myself is in direct conflict with my understanding of the gospel and who I am as a child of God.The Church’s definition of “Come unto Christ” is conflated with “Follow the leaders of the Church,” and I found that, for me at least, they are not 100% compatible. I’ve seen a lot of members and leaders criticize those they call “cafeteria mormons” and claim they don’t want to listen to Christ, and only want to do “What feels good.” But sometimes the Church’s vision of coming unto Christ can be the perfect way to damnation for someone else. The Spirit will confirm something as “Truth” to one person and say the same thing is hell itself to another. We must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.
“Come unto Christ” worked well to harmonize individual vs institution until I found some of the demands of the institution contradict Christ’s teachings. Here’s the right link to the website: http://www.humanjourney.com/forgiveness/http://www.humanjourney.com/forgiveness/” class=”bbcode_url”> Some of the quotes I liked were
Quote:“Renewing a relationship is a creative act. We make a new relationship. It is possible to build a new relationship regardless of the realities of the old relationship.”
It’s not about recreating the old relationship, it’s about making a new one. The new relationship might look very different from the old one.
Quote:“We are always at our best when compassion enables us to recognize the unique pressures and singular stories of the people on the other side of our conflicts.”
Quote:“The way to understand any enemy is to realize that, from his perspective, he is not a villain but a hero.”
Properly understanding their point of view is necessary to forgive.This is why it’s easier for me to forgive the homophobic attitudes of those I interact with regularly. I understand where it comes from and why they act that way. But the homophobia from those a generation or three up looks very different from that of millennials, and it’s hard to not cast them as villains when I can’t understand how anyone could view me as cursed or willfully rebelling.
mom3 wrote:You are here and expressed a view you feel and see and I wrote a rebuttal. I have done just what you said gets done.
On the contrary, you reminded me that this kind of problem has happened before in the church (it’s funny how uncomfortable many people get when you compare the current situation of queers in the church with blacks and the priesthood), that there are people out there who care, and that we can’t stop being an example and educating people. You didn’t compare queers to disabled people, judge those in same-sex relationships, or indicate that there is anything unnatural or unclean about us. You didn’t say that we will be “fixed” in the next life while cishet people were made “correctly”. That’s (sadly) a minority among members of the church. I wish people like you were the rule, rather than the exception.Advice on forgiving bigots in church leadership is still appreciated though.
🙂 mom3 wrote:
I believe many more people than we know really do want LGBT members to find home in our faith. I have watched and listened in my ward. The whispering’s are there. I also believe that the top team isn’t all of one mind on this.
Luke 23:34 wrote:Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
I’m still learning to forgive. I haven’t yet figured out how to forgive people who will continue to harm me and others, who see their behavior as acceptable, and who think that the harm they do is an expression of love. Yes, they know not what they do, but the intention doesn’t have any effect on the results. If anything, it makes it worse because you have hope that their well-meaning means you can trust them, and it takes longer to learn that opening up and trusting just results in getting stung. Many of those who profess to want us here don’t really; they want an “idealized” version of us. But the reality is different from their ideal. They could change and understand and grow to actually want us to stay, but I can’t hope that that will happen anytime soon. That kind of thing takes time. And so I’m here trying to emotionally forgive them as they are, and I’m failing miserably. Not caring about what they have to say is easy; being able to gain from talks/messages without getting triggered is hard. It’s hardest with those in a leadership role. Most of the homophobia (non-antagonistic homophobia is VERY prevalent in the church) I see on the lower level I can get over, maybe with a small rant about it to my family, but coming from higher up, it’s hard to get over it continuing to be institutionalized. Any tips on forgiveness would be appreciated.
I also recognize that there is a growing number of members who genuinely do love and accept us. They keep me sane. I doubt I would be sticking around without them. It feels like I’m in a
“Goldilocks Zone”Sorry, it looks like I’ve been hijacking the thread
In helping them empathize, please don’t paint being queer as inherently being a “trial”. Yes, some people deal with internalized homophobia, but for me, at least, being bisexual isn’t a trial. It’s just part of who I am. Dealing with rejection, homophobia, and identity erasure, however, IS a trial, and is where all the mental health issues that are so prevalent among queer youth comes from. And dealing with homophobic people who insist that they have charity towards you while simultaneously doing and saying hurtful things is especially frustrating. This is what sparked my belief crisis, actually: Church leaders making homophobic statements and implementing homophobic policies while claiming it’s all revelation from God. All this right when I’m finally coming to terms with myself and learning to be more authentic and seeing the light it’s bringing into my life. The mental gymnastics required to keep thinking that the Q15 are special oracles didn’t work out at all.
This is positive, though not very flattering of the Church. Quote:“It’s good to see this historic property lovingly restored and used to serve people in the LGBT community.”
What kind of response is this? A resource to help your own youth understand and feel that they are children of God, that they are valued, and all you can say is that a historic building will be used to serve the LGBT community? We aren’t some foreign community. We are a part of the wards and stakes of the church.If cisgender heterosexual youth were at such a high risk for self loathing, depression, and suicide as we are and this kind of resource was being made available, the church spokesperson would have more to say than some comment about a historic building.
If it helps to have a different perspective on temple ceremonies, the covenants in the endowment can be completely divorced from the Church and seen only in context of the gospel itself. With the exception of the women’s version of the law of obedience, the covenants involved, sacrificing and dedicating our life to God, doing our best to serve our fellow man, etc, are all natural extensions of Christ’s Gospel. It helps to remember that Zion is not the Church. So when we covenant to “consecrate ourselves, our time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed us, … for the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion,” ultimately, we’re covenanting to consecrate ourselves to building a loving society, which can be done outside of the Church just as well as inside. So long as what we do in the Church contributes to this goal, doing those things is in fulfillment of the covenant, but if it makes no such contribution, then whether or not we do it has no relation to the law of consecration. TLDR; If it helps, from the right perspective, the covenants in the temple don’t tie us to the Church at all, but do tie us closer to God and our neighbor.
A key point in the essay is that harrassing others (or harming others) based on your religious views is wrong. I’ve seen many members express views not in harmony with this statement. For example, the idea that it’s ok to discriminate against people in same sex marriages, while in direct conflict with the first paragraph of the essay, is something that I’ve seen church members claim as part of their free exercise of religion. Earlier in the year, the church even made a complaint against a report that claimed that people use religion as an excuse to discriminate.
*sigh* It’s a step in the right direction, but we still have a long ways to go.
nibbler wrote:… in their choice of religion, political views, sexual orientation, etc. .
I certainly didn’t choose my sexual orientation, just like I didn’t choose my gender or ethnic background. But yes, this kind of tribalism is not specific to religion, and everything to do with people fearing those who are different.
You’d think exposure would help people get used to differences, but it doesn’t. I grew up in a California town with an ever present and growing non-white middle class, and as liberal as the culture is there, my mom has been told multiple times to “go back to her country.”
Even minority groups that you’d think would know better from being on the receiving end of this kind of treatment act the same way. Many gays say quite nasty things and perpetuate stereotypes about bisexuals, for example.
So long as people maintain an us vs them attitude or insist that others follow the “right” way to do things, this kind of hostile tribalism will stick around.
For a church that professes to believe that there are many important things that we don’t know (9th article of faith), we sure like to claim that we have all the answers. And that’s where most of the problems all start. When LGBTQ youth discover that the dominant church teachings about sexuality are false and harmful, the majority leave. When people discover that the dominant church narrative is covering up a lot of troubling history, many hit a crisis. The same thing happens with the church’s teachings on gender roles and feminists. It seems like SilentDawning’s first theory to me as well. The church realizes they can’t completely ignore the issue, so they make the smallest “change” possible so that they don’t have to actually change anything and rock the boat, but still have somewhere to point to if someone complains. It’s like the so-called changes to BYU policy regarding ex-mormons. The university can claim that exmos can apply for an honor code exemption, while rarely actually granting that exception.
Then again, when does an emotional/intellectual experience end and a spiritual experience begin? I find that I can’t fully separate the two. In my experience, “spiritual” experiences are more about making sure emotional and intellectual reasons for doing things are correct than about tuning in to some mystical force. QuestionAbound wrote:jacobnagle wrote:How do I worship in the House of the Lord with his supporters?
Many, many of us (at least in my area) felt the
exact. same. way. each time Obama was elected. 
We were crushed and we felt betrayed.
It was hard to see their gloating faces when they walked into church. It was hard to hear them speak over the pulpit.
We were disgusted.
:sick:
The difference is that Obama didn’t threaten to take away your human rights. Obama didn’t pledge to sign a bill that makes it explicitly legal to discriminate against you. Trump did.
