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My studies lately have made me reflect some on how I feel about being obedient to rules in the church. Should I commit to the church and just be obedient to everything, even if I disagree with some things? Should I pick and choose buffet style what I will comply with based on my own intellect and reasoning and experience, even if that makes me appear uncommitted to members of the church? I recognize that if I choose what to be obedient to, the risk is that I may experience negative things in my life I could have avoided if I had listened to and obeyed the warnings from older, wiser, more spiritual, and more experienced people that have already learned, from various ways, what is best for achieving happiness, and I would have been better off trusting them rather than going through my own experiences trial and error. Perhaps even God is involved in helping guide church leaders, and I would be better off seeking God’s guidance through authorized leaders.
On the other hand, don’t I get experience by experiencing things myself, which becomes more valuable to me than just blindly obeying rules without understanding why or what the rules mean to me?
If every time I was obedient to rules, it produced better results in my specific situation, and in my life…obedience would be easy for me to justify. It is when there are rules that don’t seem to apply to me, but I feel obligated to obey that seem to cause me to question things.
I have been thinking lately that the rules in the church are often made for the general good of most members, even if not for me specifically. I wonder if that works effectively. One set of rules for everyone, and everyone covenant to obey those one set of rules, regardless of specific circumstance or personal meaning in hopes that in general, we’ll be better off as a group by doing this, even if it requires personal sacrifice.
Let me just share with you something that was brought back to my remembrance about how I think some rules are made in the church.
In my mission, there was a missionary companionship that lived with a single male member of the ward for housing, which was common as the church was looking for ways to reduce costs and ask members to support by providing housing when possible. I was AP at the time when one missionary came to me and said the environment they lived in was unfit for missionaries, and the spirit was not in the member’s home. In getting details, what I really found out was that this missionary had a problem with porn, and the member had cable TV, and at night he would sneak into the TV room and flip to a certain channel that had scrambled porn channels (not any porn channels the member paid for…these were standard on all cable at the time), but he could make out squiggly images well enough that it aroused him and he felt unworthy to be a missionary. Of course, I told him to speak to the mission Pres on worthiness issues, and sure enough, the missionaries were yanked out of the home that week. Now, there had been several companionships for months that lived there with no problem, and it was thought of as a great place because the member often provided groceries and dinners and would go on splits with missionaries when needed.
In my opinion, there was nothing wrong with the environment…it was this missionary that was being a bonehead and doing things he shouldn’t have. But this one guy made it so the Miss. Pres. felt he had to do something to change the situation because the Elder needed help and couldn’t take care of his problems himself.
Actually, it did help this Elder by getting him away from his problem, and he served successfully the rest of his mission. In my opinion, this could have been done another way (transfer the Elder without changing the living situation in that ward), but this was the way this mission president decided to deal with it. He made it a policy to not put missionaries in homes with single members anymore, only families or couples from then on. This impacted the member who became offended when the missionaries were yanked, and all other missionaries were impacted by not being in this great apartment gig any longer, and the mission had to pay extra money to have an apartment lease in that area with no member TV….all because one guy had a problem.
A rule was set, and from then on, members and missionaries had to obey it.
Sometimes I think this happens. The rules get made to apply to EVERYONE, only because the minority of people need it. Perhaps that is the price we pay to belong to a group. The rules are not perfect, but they are the safest for everyone.
Quote:The kingdom of heaven is governed by law, and when we receive any blessing, it is by obedience to the law upon which that blessing is based (see D&C 130:20–21; 132:5). The Lord has told us that through our obedience and diligence we may gain knowledge and intelligence (see D&C 130:18–19).
What do you all think? Do some rules in the church come out of good intentions, but individually they don’t apply to many people? Should we tolerate them because the weakest of saints need these rules? Is that Christ-like, and therefore it inadvertently does benefit us through humility and willingness to sacrifice? Or do you think we should challenge these kinds of rules, or just choose to obey the ones we want?Thoughts or experiences on how you navigate through this?
Yes. I approach rules something like this — unless I have a different way that presents a clear advantage to me, I go along with the rules for the good of the group. Organizational things always get messy. I think it was J. Bonner Ritchie that said ALL organizations are abusive — to somebody in some way. I think we need to realize this as we deal with things in the best way that we know how. Quote:What do you all think? Do some rules in the church come out of good intentions, but individually they don’t apply to many people? Should we tolerate them because the weakest of saints need these rules? Is that Christ-like, and therefore it inadvertently does benefit us through humility and willingness to sacrifice?
I reject this notion, thoroughly and utterly. I will probably be in the minority here, but I don’t see how this really fits into progression and the gospel, as I understand it. To me, this is a tether and a huge stumbling block to my spirituality. Yes, sacrifice is a fine principle – but it has to mean more to me than what you described in your post. I guess I don’t see a lot of value in “sacrificing” a good portion of my spiritual journey, just for the good of the community. I’m not a community guy, and would just as well go it on my own. I do like to have a community to come back to and visit occasionally, so I’m glad there are those who DO FEEL like they need to do what’s best for the group, rather than what is best for the individual.
It’s a nice thought – and I have no problem if others want to live this way – follow a bunch of goofy rules because “the weakest of the saints” need them. Hmmm? I choose to not to follow this path and i have chosen not to feel guilty about it either.
I think this philosophy you describe is pretty accurate of the church leaders mindset. It’s why the middle way in the church is the only possible way for me to have any chance to remain.
I agree with the way you present the idea in your post, but I also agree with cwald that it can’t be the default for ALL communal, group rules. It’s hard, especially, on the explorers. Quote:I guess I don’t see a lot of value in “sacrificing” a good portion of my spiritual journey, just for the good of the community.
I won’t sacrifice part of my spiritual journey, but I absolutely will sacrifice part of my non-spiritual journey – especially since I view that sacrifice as part of my spiritual journey. It’s determining the difference, I believe, that is the difficulty.
Heber13 wrote:Sometimes I think this happens. The rules get made to apply to EVERYONE, only because the minority of people need it. Perhaps that is the price we pay to belong to a group. The rules are not perfect, but they are the safest for everyone.
Quote:The kingdom of heaven is governed by law, and when we receive any blessing, it is by obedience to the law upon which that blessing is based (see D&C 130:20–21; 132:5). The Lord has told us that through our obedience and diligence we may gain knowledge and intelligence (see D&C 130:18–19).
I have a real hard time with that scripture because it seems to imply that the only way you can get a blessing is by following a specific law and that God only follows a specific checklist. We all know people that have been blessed significantly while not obeying church “rules”. So how can that be true? We also know that blessings and trials come at random even though we may have been living all of the LDS church’s laws for a long time.
I guess what I hate is that all the rules that the church is so adamant about, have little to do with the message of Christ in the scriptures. Church attendance, tithing, word of wisdom, home teaching numbers, wearing temple garmets, rated-r movies – the list goes on. What does that have to do with love, charity and peace? It’s especially hard when you know most were rules made by a committee of people in suits and not directly from the Lord. Perhaps that is one of god’s tests, my wife says. Will we submit to rules even when we know they are asinine? Personally, I don’t know if I can and it seems to put my conscience in disarray when I do.
Another thing to think about is whether you are obeying the rules of the church for yourself and God, or so you don’t look ‘bad’ to others. If it is the latter, then what is the point anyway?
Brown wrote:Another thing to think about is whether you are obeying the rules of the church for yourself and God, or so you don’t look ‘bad’ to others. If it is the latter, then what is the point anyway?
I find value both for myself and for my family to be part of a community. There are probably certain norms that I must follow to continue to be a part of the community. As I experience life in the community, my life is fuller, richer, and more rewarding than I imagine it would be without a community. As everyone (or most everyone) in the group sacifices individual things for the good of the group, each individual is able to partake in what they could not achieve on their own.
If you need the support of that community you most likely will need to follow their rules. ON the other hand if you are more of an individual there is less value in following rules that have little benefit to you. Personally I think it would be a great day if the church did not associate behavior in minor areas so much with being righteous. So I must make the conclusion it is more about control than it is providing a benefit. It comes out of notion of older men who are trying to make the world into what it was when they were young. There is always this false belief the the world use to be so much better. So lets get back to the way things use to be. I perceive the belief is if we can just get everyone to obey my set of rules and conform to my way of thinking then all is well in Zion. This is human nature. Most people think their way is best. It is just that leaders of the church have the ability to enforce it.
Cadence wrote:If you need the support of that community you most likely will need to follow their rules. ON the other hand if you are more of an individual there is less value in following rules that have little benefit to you.Personally I think it would be a great day if the church did not associate behavior in minor areas so much with being righteous. So I must make the conclusion it is more about control than it is providing a benefit. It comes out of notion of older men who are trying to make the world into what it was when they were young.
There is always this false belief the the world use to be so much better. So lets get back to the way things use to be. I perceive the belief is if we can just get everyone to obey my set of rules and conform to my way of thinking then all is well in Zion. This is human nature. Most people think their way is best. It is just that leaders of the church have the ability to enforce it.Yes and yes. My sentiment exactly.
As for the community thing – I have no problem with those who choose to live that way. It doesn’t work for me. After my mission, I lived 3 days at home and then packed my bags. I moved out of the morcor, a week after graduating college, to Oregon — and I never looked back. My closest living relative is 700 miles a way, and I like it that way. Some folks are just “explorers” by nature – it’s not even a church thing – it just over-laps into that area because the LDS church is such a community focus and culture/traditional institution.
Early in life, I always felt sorry for the poor SOBs who were not members of the church. It took me leaving the morcor to realize most folks are pretty happy folks and just at peace with their religions and lifestyles as I ever was with mine as a TBM. There are just a lot of good people out there who don’t follow the LDS pathway, who are doing just fine. Good people.
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