The Church and Christ, A Personal Struggle.

…I’ve gone back and forth between believing in the time following Proposition 8. My reasons being that I struggled to be active my whole life because of the way the church presents itself. Long story short, I took a leap of faith, started to believe the church was led by revelation and then they did something that I believed ran contrary to the nature of Christ…In my times of cynicism, I started to notice this, (cultural prejudices being presented through the institution of the church as revelation), was something that happened frequently in church history and I started to doubt truly the divine leadership of the church. SInce then I’ve developed this half-way reconciliation that Christ and Church are different but I can come to Christ through the institution. However, this isn’t easy to do because the church asks a lot of its members and I can’t necessarily donate my Sundays to home teaching, 10% of my income, and multiple other hours to various callings in a church that I, on so many levels, disagree with. In short, I struggle to reconcile my more liberal faith in Christ with the strict orthodoxy and legalistic structure of the church. How do I reconcile this without driving myself crazy?

These are some of the main problems I’ve had with the Church for a long time as well. Now I look at it as basically just a social club that thinks it is much more than that. Just because they say it doesn’t mean you need to believe it. Christianity and what the LDS Church likes to call the “gospel” are two completely different things. My advice would be to not be afraid to say no to any demands you aren’t really comfortable with whether that means turning down callings, paying less/no tithing, etc. If you like to attend the meetings you can probably still participate to some extent (depending on how reasonable your bishop or other local Church leaders are) without the level of commitment the Church asks for and expects out of members.

Like others have mentioned, maybe sometimes the Church is just plain wrong. I suppose to put it in a nicer way, sometimes the general membership and even the leaders fall short of their ideal potential. But isn’t that a more realistic view that matches the messiness of life? I think it is. I get lots of things wrong too. It’s how I learn and grow. I pray that I do as little damage to others along my journey, but I am flawed.

So seeing it that way eliminates part of the problem, or at least the part where our expectation of an ideal church doesn’t match our experience.

It’s all about managing our expectations. The world is at it is …

The fact that religion isn’t perfect doesn’t mean there is no value in it. It’s about the process, the path, the journey, the progress and the experiences. We make meaning and must form a view of how our life works as best we can.

if church doctrine states that the prophet will never lead you astray, how does that follow the reality that prophets are fallible?

Well … that statement was made by a “prophet, seer and revelator.” It’s wrong. Prophets can be wrong, and can lead people astray. So the fact that it was said by a “prophet,” and it is wrong, is a great example of prophets being fallible.

There is far more evidence in our own history of prophets needing to be corrected later, than evidence that things never change and that prophets are never wrong. I could list dozens of other quotes from modern-day LDS “prophets” who also declared that they are fallible, and that we should never rely on them without question. They in fact stated that this is the worst danger imaginable. So there you have another example: some prophets telling us they are never wrong, and some prophets telling us they are never to be trusted without question because they might be wrong. So which LDS modern “prophets” were “True?” 😈

Don’t get me wrong though. I still find prophets very valuable, even if they are wrong.

I personally am waiting for someone to say “The church is perfect but the membership isn’t.” I have heard this a fair amount before my faith metamorphasis and probably said it myself a few times.

But the church isn’t perfect, not in the doctrine, scripture, structure, organization, revelation, or any other way that could be considered perfect.

Unless maybe it is meant to be perfect in the same way that we are to be “perfect in Christ”. That despite the mangled jumble of good intentioned programs, service projects, and ward temple nights – Jesus will accept our paltry contribution and make up the difference. Perhaps the righteousness of the entire church is as “filthy rags” before Him, but that doesn’t stop Him doing His work through it. I hope so, and that He may also work through me – Flawed as I am.

You won’t find anyone here saying the Church is perfect…I don’t think it can be or was meant to be.

…nor do I think it really needs to be, which is why I think a Perfect God allows it to continue imperfectly…it can still meet the mission and purposes designed by allowing us to work with imperfection (it builds character, right?).