At least, we can imagine that some folks would not find a problem with the history if it was the only history they were taught from the beginning. For a validity Mormon, the lack of utility may have been the thing that triggered a deeper examination into validity. Ben has given presentations in China and Cambodia on success in addiction and gives presentations and webinars to people all over the world helping them overcome life’s challenges and creating the life of their dreams. I think what happened is that the internet has made it easier to hear stories of people who’ve left. March 19, 2020 at 9:38 pm ... Ben mcadams and all the rest … send them a message today demanding action. ( Log Out /  This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. I have some recent, real-life experience considering the life to come. On a *practical* level, if you can’t acknowledge the vast divide between the *social* force of God and the social impotence of big foot, then you simply aren’t engaging in the same reality. If we are offended or hurting as a result of some history, and we find an intelligent resolution, the emotional issue may still need to be addressed. The way you keep framing your query seems a fairy tale, or a rhetorical question intended to generate the debate that you want. I am actually really glad you brought up the milk strippings story. I still believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. My point is just that if I don’t even love Mormon Heaven (and I don’t) then I don’t feel compelled to accept the things Mormonism asks me to do that make life on earth Hell. I understand why the church thought that faithful narratives would make its history more palatable. Let’s not get carried away with some seeming anomaly and allow that to undermine a pretty clear picture. Conservative and traditional church members spread that as proof that the leadership was leading the church down a liberal pathway that would destroy what many still believed to be the One True Church with exclusive priesthood authority. I’ve been what I would consider a faithful member of the church my entire life, and I still am. Find messages of Christ to uplift your soul and invite the Spirit. Good stuff!) The Mormon Channel produces new Mormon Messages for Youth every month or so. The nearly 800 people — mostly members or former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — walked to the Utah Capitol on … Reply . I have long felt that saying people left because they were offended gives the Church cover (as an enterprise and the membership) for offensive behavior, as if nothing they do could ever have caused someone to leave. If we’re not interested in a heaven where our husband has multiple wives, then we won’t be there. But the leaders seemed too focused on the fact that I was willing to see the hand of God operating outside of church leadership. But there was another tweet from Ben Park that intrigued me particularly: To be clear—tweets rarely capture nuance—I can see, and have seen, history leading toward disaffiliation. I believe any true commandment should aim to help us live a better life *now*. i understand your wordplay, but because some in the lds church call it subjective is not sufficient reason to even acknowledge the phrase, let alone try to find middle ground when there is none. Our eyes are open and we now allow the spirit to manage our life choices and not a handbook. I can stand up for myself now without feeling like a sinner. A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I’m Often Asked as a Gay Latter-day Saint - Kindle edition by Schilaty, Ben. And it’s clear that the entirety of my experiences and where I currently sit comes down to subjectivity. Rather, it is how learning the history re-contextualized the rationalizations they had previously found in maintaining their faith and loyalty to the church, and how that shift in perspective caused them to reinterpret the ways they found to cope with the other problems they observed with the church.”, For me, rationalizations of things like polygamy, gay marriage opposition, and priesthood denial to women & blacks completely fell apart when I learned the history behind each of those particular problems & more generally. The entire cast from Galaxy Quest? And those who leave believe that one can make it to heaven by either staying or leaving, as long as you are doing what you consider your best with the information you’ve been given. little green men? The LDS Church considers humanitarian work to be an essential part of its mission to bless all humanity in emulation of Jesus Christ "who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed" (Acts 10:38). Given that they spent years testifying, “I know the Church is true,” and given that they now no longer believe that declaration, they call into question everything they ever knew. At local church I hear no railing against democrats or gays, though there is some railing against democrats in some of my private social circles. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. And they definitely are not Seers or Revelators, nor do they really claim to be Seers — except in name only. Totally agreed. I just want to go to heaven, be happy with my family, continue to learn truths, talk to God occasionally, etc., after I die. The same goes for wealth and religiosity. I really appreciated your writing this post. Who would claim that they left for objective reasons and who might be aghast at the idea that subjectivity had anything to do with it. A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I’m Often Asked as a Gay Latter-day Saint invites readers to act upon that counsel by following the journey of Ben Schilaty, a licensed therapist and BYU Honor Code administrator, as he works to reconcile his faith with his sexual orientation. Just as there is often offense behind leaving, like being offended by racism or homophobia (all things we should all be offended by), there is also usually some type of social capital or privilege that eases the way for some people to stay. I could be way off base though…. I believe that the leadership of the church try their best to do what they think God wants. Although I am not currently a member of the church, I would have been glad to stay. There will be a crisis in the next few years that will split the LDS church. It’s the structure that provides them moral guidance and guardrails. As if the experiences, doctrines, and policies about half of God’s children has no bearing on creating a Zion society. Of mourning with those who mourn and comforting those in need of comfort. Really interesting post, Andrew. When we talk of people leaving the church, we’re mostly focusing on those born in the church in the Mormon belt. And I'm sealed to my family. Ben Sowards is the illustrator of many well-loved picture books, including A Christmas Dress for Ellen, Seven Miracles that Saved America, and Christmas Oranges.. Ben Sowards teaches others to paint both traditionally and digitally at Southern Utah University, where has … It’s totally understandable to me to realize that this community is not safe for their family and they don’t owe this community an explanation. In September 2019, the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filed a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit that claims the LDS religion is a “scheme of lies.”. If they look to intellectuals saying that this is nothing to worry about, then often they’ll dismiss it. For example, for a utility Mormon, the Church may no longer be useful if it is discovered not to be valid. If objective knowledge is decisive for disaffection, we might answer “No one would join or stay in the church if they were taught the actual history from the beginning.”. I agree it should be a completely acceptable reason to leave a church because one was offended, either by an individual or by the church in general in terms of policies or doctrines or leaders’ statements. Don’t ask me for a prescription, that’s for sure. But I love the way you’ve reframed “offense” and I totally agree that there are things that maybe SHOULD offend us potentially to the point of leaving. It is absolutely “the history itself” that can cause doubt, and it is not accurate to say ‘the history…need not cause…doubt…” . I am offended by the shifting borders i.e. Medicaid managed care (non-duals, non-disabled) Fee-for-service (traditional) Medicaid (non-duals, non-disabled) The survey was conducted by CMS in four waves starting in the fall of 2014 and was based on a nationwide sample of roughly 29,000 adult Medicaid enrollees from each of the 46 participating states and the District of Columbia. My main point here is: there seem to be elements on both sides that want to reduce subjectivity. In other words, it may be that people will still leave because they are offended. Mormons rejected Trump as blasphemous. The pittance of actual doctrine we have doesn’t begin to address such a paradigm shift as death must be. If we don’t want to obliterate things that we consider integral to our personality and identity, then we will be in a place where that doesn’t happen with others who feel the same way. In this case, we might say that if people were taught the “actual history” first and consistently, then there would be some population of people who would not have disaffected (because they would no longer have the incongruency or betrayal as a factor.). If I were a leader who was concerned about keeping nuanced people in the Church, I would do everything I could to make meetings Christ-centered rather than Church-leadership-centered. 2020 Elections. obviously, every religious denomination will think you can achieve those things in *their* denomination. “For me, rationalizations of things like polygamy, gay marriage opposition, and priesthood denial to women & blacks completely fell apart when I learned the history behind each of those particular problems & more generally. Someone who doesn’t like Church but thinks it’s the One True Church may feel liberated when they find history that allows them to let go of that belief / fear and leave. I quit attending church just over a year ago, and am barely coming to accept that a lot of my reasons would be classified as “choosing to get offended”. Nancy is about to receive her college degree and she has a special request for Dr. McFarland about the commencement proceedings, where parents are always given special honor. I think most who stay believe that staying is the only way to make it to heaven, or perhaps not the only way but the preferred way. And it set off a massive research project. We know so little (well, nothing) about the afterlife and I don’t necessarily trust that our Church leaders have any better idea than anyone else (given how much else they are wrong about) so I think it’s a terrible thing to sacrifice relationships and happiness here for some version of heaven that may or may not be remotely accurate. who would disaffect or fail to join, but instead of putting that on the bare knowledge of history — we would pay attention to their subjective assessment about whether that history is a deal breaker. I don’t really even hang out with active members outside of church-related stuff. @bwbarnett I agree that my comment about hierarchical heaven was an oversimplification (but my comment about eternal polygamy sure wasn’t!). But it’s also possible to contextualize prophets in a different way and to teach people about the flaws and imperfections upfront. The methodological naturalism of history cannot decide on theological claims. For one it has BYU and the thick Mormon culture of Utah. And the brambly hedge of folk beliefs grown up around it makes it doubly obscure, not to mention confused and contradictory. This is certainly not true of all believing members. While an interesting theoretical argument, in practicality, very few will be willing to entertain the level of acceptance this would require. My instinct, to respect those who stay close as much as I want my choice to seek distance respected, is correct and I simply shouldn’t judge their personal reasons. There have been different attempts to try to reconcile this phenomenon — the informed faithful believer. Members are trained to always always question any negative feelings about the church and always attribute them to a lack of understanding on their part. What Are You Doing With Your Life? Jesus said “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” – and he didn’t mean “the second coming / some separate heaven is coming soon”, he meant RIGHT HERE. If we don’t want to be in constant denial of who we are at a fundamental level, as Andrew says, then we will be in a place where that doesn’t happen and with others who feel the same way. Now he likely can’t win without them. To you who are reading this, I do not know you, but I deeply care about you and love you as a person no matter what you have done in the past or continue to do in the future. This presentation is from our 2019 conference held in August. It’s usually not a greater understanding of the gospel or a nuanced inoculated response to church history. Awhile ago I asked Bishop Bill if he considered himself an active member of the church because if he did, I didn’t understand why he could make what I thought were disparaging remarks about the GAs. 2. I’m simply not familiar enough with the current LDS situation to offer any counsel, just questions. Jar-jar? Just to be clear, since my tweet can easily imply something I didn’t intend: I’m not saying history doesn’t play a role. If you’re raised to believe prophets are larger than life, better than ordinary folks, etc., and then are not taught about Joseph Smith’s polygamy, then that polygamy can become a real issue. Some others joined the LDS church. *And* we will feel comfortable there. Ben Spackman, A Paradoxical Preservation of Faith: LDS Creation Accounts and the Composite Nature of Revelation Transcript … As if the nature of one’s identity and eternal destiny is a fun theological thought exercise and isn’t fundamental to the gospel. Nik_S Hierarchical heaven sucks. 1. That they continue this obfuscation with the gospel topics essays and conference talks and endless digital publications means to me, subjectively, that I can’t trust them. I think admitting the primary role of subjectivity goes beyond just explaining feeling “offended.” It also helps to explain the power of feeling “called” to remain in this church or a different denomination in spite of intellectual disagreements. Is the faith community the same as the institutional church? So it’s a crapshoot? But what I *am* saying is there is not a defined point of knowledge one acquires that inevitably results in disbelief. See more ideas about missionary, missionary lds, missionary mom. It has a significantly nuanced approach to this topic, which appealed to me. big foot? But, yeah, I take major offense at having been taught untruths about historical events. He essentially says that after we die, we will be with like-minded people. If everyone in the church was raised with an accurate understanding of the basic facts of church history (however we want to define that), would anyone still stay? So, too, with one’s religion. ( Log Out /  Love of the Lord—in Language and Living. I later learned that their son had endured years of cruelty by another young man in the ward whose parents had tremendous social power. But when the bad starts to outweigh the good, however one balances the two, the individual begins to experience considerable discomfort, e.g., they feel as if they don’t fit in or their perspective is no longer welcome. Rather, let’s consider instead that the subjective response is decisive. “if missionaries taught investigators that prophets are more like the nice guy next door than fundamentalist views of Moses and Paul.”. Something I’ve noticed in disaffected Mormon discourse is a trend to emphasize that one’s disaffection and disaffiliation with the LDS church is because of objective reasons (e.g., people leave because they learned the “truth” about the history or they “followed the facts to their conclusions”.) Etc. It’s ludicrous to imagine they are equivalent. A few years ago I was asked to go visit with a family in the ward who had suddenly decided to leave the church. It would seem the church experience varies widely not only from person to person, but from place to place. I wasn’t huffy offended; I was devastated. The Church came much less useful when so many of its claims lost their validity to me. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church), which is designated as a cult and extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is one of the largest of the fundamentalist Mormon cults and one of the largest organizations in the United States having members who practice polygamy. It is completely subjective: the way I was treated as a missionary and suppressed when trying to have a voice in Baseball baptisms, they way my kids were bullied at church, my observations how others are treated at church, how I do not belong in the ward clique (although I follow all the rules and programs), how my spirit feels the way many past leaders treated other members on a personal and an institutional level, how we talk about other churches, how we gossip….and on and on……. I’ve made assumptions on this forum in the past that have led to poorly worded posts on my part. I think they celebrating too early. But I see this lack of compassion for those who are offended as an absolute failure to love your neighbor as yourself. We can then start to explain that nuanced believing members who remain in the church may not have these same reactions. “Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ remains a sacred priority for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even in the current circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic. I used to think I knew all about what the doctrines teach about the next life we enter into when we die. But so what – does it justify the little and gigantic lies? Even if it were, it would not resolve English ambiguities in at least some of those three words. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. That was a nice point buried in all the others. I so much feel this too. And I rather dislike debate as entertainment. Your logic implies that anything that can be imagined cannot be disproved, and therefore such beliefs should hold equal weight with nonbelief in discussions. What do you make of Bruce McConkie’s teaching: ““I do not know all of the providences of the Lord, but I do know that he permits false doctrine to be taught in and out of the Church and that such teaching is part of the sifting process of mortality. Change ). But what can be seen to be important to groups of people within a society or social group, such that those concepts move them to act in particular ways, or to change their lives should they decide to align themselves with a particular religion. An epeeist. (This has gone over about as well with thoughtful believers as the believers’ “left to sin” narrative has gone over with exmos.).