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Had a few issues with church today and now I am ditching PH because I couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe it is just me being too critical, but it was making me angry to be there. First, we had a 15 minute session of sustaining all the church leaders from the top to the bottom. I didn’t “vote” because how do I know if any of these guys are qualified to lead? And besides, what if I voted no? They’d still be in their calling and I’d lose my TR. It also strikes me as strange to take a vote if these people are called of god as is often preached.
Second, the bishop specifically talked about how one of his friends called himself a “Cafeteria Mormon” and couldn’t agree with all the church’s teachings, but still wanted to participate because he believed enough. Of course he continued by saying how his friend can never achieve happiness this way because you literally have to believe it all or nothing. There is no gray area. You believe or you don’t. So again, like what cwald just went though, if you aren’t 100% for us, you are against us. Our way or the highway. So pretty much if I won’t say I believe in it all, I should stay home.
Third, spiritual comments about coming unto Christ and turning your life over to Christ are always tempered by the implication that Christ = the LDS church. Or sometimes even just attending church. So submitting to the will of the father means do what your priesthood leaders say without question.
Anyway, sorry if this seems like a big rant, I just had a hard time with it today and nobody else will let me complain about it but my StayLDS pals.
Boy, I have often felt this way at Church, too! Personally, I will always disagree with your average member’s take on “Cafeteria Mormonism.” But then again, hasn’t there always been this sort of Us vs. Them mentality?
I hate that the equation is often made, indirectly or not, that Jesus = The Church. But why shouldn’t they have that attitude? Marion Romney said, “This Church is the ensign on the mountain spoken of by the Old Testament prophets. It is the way, the truth, and the life” (Conference Report, April, 1961, pg. 119). Perhaps that’s where the notion comes from..
I also dislike the way submitting to the will of the Father is made equivalent to doing as you are told without question.
Perhaps we both have just had one of those days.
I hear you. I ran into a similar problem today, but used my coping mechanisms. One is to skip PH opening exercises. The lessons aren’t always that bad — it’s in the opening exercises where you hear all the rants about home teaching, requests for onerous service, etcetera, and in our case, a 10 minute mini-lesson on missionary dinner appointment rules that could have been handled with a write-up distributed to the membership at large to read. I got up and left to arrange the room where I was going to be teaching and sat and prepared my lesson instead of listening to the rants. That helped. We had a talented singer in Sacrament, and it was phenomenal. That covered the poorly prepared talks etcetera. My whole family also attended a different Ward than we normally do simply to break the monotony of the whole thing. A new building, new people, a more lively and intelligent group of people than we normally associate — all combined to make Church a much more tolerable experience than I normally get at Church.
And then, to make matters even more interesting, I taught a PH lesson on talents, with bedrock principles being “you can do anything you want to do with God’s help”, the story about the woman with polio who went on to be an butterfly swimmer, and how Moses became a great leader in spite of his speech problem. “That which is of God is light, he that receiveth light can go on to perfection etcetra — implying that nothing is to hard to master with God on your side.
Here is where it got interestesting. I then threw in a bit of man-made philosophy from a book I’ve been reading for everyone to evaluate again what we had learned. I gave its assertions:
“You CAN’T be anything you want to be, but you can be much more than what you already are”.
“Trying to fix your weaknesses is the path of greatest resistance”
Here is where it got interesting. EVERYONE agreed with the two statements above, even though it was at direct odds with the entire lesson!!!!! I tried to get them to see that these limits on mankind’s abilities weren’t consistent with the lesson, and they simply affirmed how correct the two man-made ideas were anyway!!!
At the end, I spoke to a friend about the lesson, exposed the inconsistency with the gospel, to which he replied. “Yes, I saw the inconsistency, but discussing that inconsistency is like discussing whether angels have belly-buttons”.
Oh how idealistic I am to believe the gospel wholesale like I have throughout my life when ex-SP’s and HC’s in our group seem so willing to shuck its impolications for personal opinion…This is what I got out of my lesson.
Our lesson was on tithes and offerings. I liked it because the teacher just got up and didn’t even open the book. He just said what the lesson was about, spoke of some personal experience, and everybody just gave personal examples of paying tithes and offerings, whether monetary offerings or just giving up extra time in service to others. It was nice. I cannot stand word-for-word-from-the-book lessons. Sunday school was a whole other story. Evidently, not everyone understands that many, if not most, are in financial downturns right now, and when you say we can all easily do better than we are now by simply giving a more generous donation for fast offering, a lot of people are made to feel bad or like they don’t measure up. To those people I say, “Please, do not talk ever again.”
Brown, I sympathize. Today I played Anthropologist and that really helped. I marvelled at how our church does things and how people react etc. I actually enjoyed listening to the new primary presidency express their love for the children and bare testimony. I saw the stories of the aaronic priesthood restoration as great tribal stories. One thing that I found interesting today was that in SM the HC read a letter from our stake president asking the membership to refrain from wearing strong perfumes and lotions so that those who are sensitive to those things would be able to attend meetings and feel comfortable. I hoped that one day we might hear a similar letter expressing how important it was for members to allow “cafeteria mormons” to feel comfortable at church as well. Seems like your experience today shows us that this will be a long time coming.
The angst I feel at church ebbs and flows. Today not so bad next week…..?
CG
Today was a pretty good day for me. I taught RS and the lesson went much better than I expected. SS covered one of my favorite chapters in the NT. Sacrament mtg was kind of long but the kiddos all behaved well and the topic was one I personally struggle with so it was a good reminder for me. Oh and a speaker read one of my favorite quotes. Loved that. I spoke in Sacrament Meeting about the Atonement, so it was a good day. 😆 My son spoke before me about the same topic, with a focus on how others see the overall concept of relying on God’s grace. He mentioned at the beginning that he was going to address the Atonement from a view “a little outside the box”. He spoke about a class he’s taking this semester called “Religion in America” and about how people of almost all religions strive to serve God to the best of their ability – that they rely on God to forgive their weaknesses. Then he spoke about the Five Pillars of Islam and how those same Pillars are important to us as Mormons. (Faith, Prayer, Fasting, Giving of Alms & Pilgrimage) He mentioned that the temple is supposed to serve as a place of pilgimage where we symbolically can sacrifice to a lesser extent more often than Muslims do to visit Mecca and the Saints used to have to do to attend the temple. He mentioned that we need to be as diligent in doing what we believe is of God as most Muslims are in doing what they believe is of God.
He prepared the talk completely on his own – and I was VERY proud of him.
I then spoke about the difference between “returning to God” (the classic focus of grace within Christianity) and “becoming like God” (the focus of the Atonement within Mormonism). I focused on what the grace of God has done for all of us already (“redeemed” us from the Fall and its effects and “saved” us from needing to be redeemed again) and the difference between the “redemptive” aspect of the Atonemnet (the Garden of Gethsemane and Golgotha) and the “enabling” aspect of the Atonement (the teachings and example of Jesus’ mortal life and ministry). I talked about how we often restrict the atonement artificially when we focus so much on the redemptive aspects (as important as they are) to the exclusion of the enabling aspects – when we lose sight of his life in our obsession over the Garden and the Cross.
My son had to get back to college right after Sacrament Meeting, so that was the only meeting I attended today.
I’m impressed with your son’s use of the five pillars of Islam, and how they relate to Mormonism. He sounds quite intelligent and I too would be proud of a son like that! Glad some of you had a better church day that I did and thanks for your comments. This evening I went and visited family and we played games and laughed and it felt great, so at least I had some uplifting on the sabbath, even if it wasn’t at church. It’s nice to have a place where you can speak your mind without being deeming a sinner, so thanks everyone.
Quote:Second, the bishop specifically talked about how one of his friends called himself a “Cafeteria Mormon” and couldn’t agree with all the church’s teachings, but still wanted to participate because he believed enough. Of course he continued by saying how his friend can never achieve happiness this way because you literally have to believe it all or nothing. There is no gray area. You believe or you don’t. So again, like what cwald just went though, if you aren’t 100% for us, you are against us. Our way or the highway. So pretty much if I won’t say I believe in it all, I should stay home.
Sorry, but bollocks to this! This is just wrong-headed vilification of the other. I don’t hear this in my wards either – people are very open to anyone who wants to come. Visitors welcome, like the sign says – don’t we believe that?
Quote:“And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:50)
I really enjoyed reading this thread and the different experiences. It shows me that the church and people are truly a mixed bag. Separating our personal beliefs from what others (including GA’s) say must be done in order to not loose faith. People are humans with different experiences and so we are going to hear alot of stuff that may not always appeal to us. I like how people like SD, Ray and his son use their abilities to bring about greater thinking in the church. I just sent my husband these two quotes someone posted on this group once that shows me this is more likely how the church leaders think or what it should think:
“… If someone can find something in the Book of Mormon, anything that they love or respond to or find dear, I applaud that and say more power to you. That’s what I find, too. And that should not in any way discount somebody’s liking a passage here or a passage there or the whole idea of the book, but not agreeing to its origin, its divinity. …“I think you’d be as aware as I am that that we have many people who are members of the church who do not have some burning conviction as to its origins, who have some other feeling about it that is not as committed to foundational statements and the premises of Mormonism. But we’re not going to invite somebody out of the church over that any more than we would anything else about degrees of belief or steps of hope or steps of conviction. … We would say: “This is the way I see it, and this is the faith I have; this is the foundation on which I’m going forward. If I can help you work toward that I’d be glad to, but I don’t love you less; I don’t distance you more; I don’t say you’re unacceptable to me as a person or even as a Latter-day Saint if you can’t make that step or move to the beat of that drum.” … We really don’t want to sound smug. We don’t want to seem uncompromising and insensitive”. –Jeffrey Holland
Suppose there are some who do not do exactly right in some places, what of that? There are many things that are not right. Never mind; everything that is wrong will in due time be righted. Permit me to bring a figure before you. A year ago last winter there was a very severe frost, and it injured the fruit trees. Some who professed to be judges thought it best to cut down the peach trees; some thought that if left alone they would still grow, and therefore they left them alone to see how many would live. There was quite a difference of opinion upon the subject, and some adopted one plan, and some another. The general impression was, I believe, that it would be best to cut off those limbs that were frost-bitten and that did not appear to have much sap in them.
Now, my doctrine is, Prune the trees, or, in other words, the branches of the great tree to which we are connected, just at the time when it will do the least injury. It requires great wisdom, however, to prune and regulate the Church of Christ. There were a great many of our people got frost-bitten—a kind of dead in their spirits, and some were for going right to work and pruning; but hold on. Said Jesus, “The wheat and tares must grow together until harvest.” Perhaps you would pull up the wheat with the tares, if you were to do it when you think best. If there is nothing good in a man, he will by-and-by develop the evil that is in him, and then everybody will agree that the pruning ought to be done, and the branch ought to be cut off; but if the good preponderates, it would be wrong, because of prejudice or ignorance, to destroy the good. It is best to leave it to the husbandman, and then all the congregation will say Amen.
Sometimes … you just gotta bail out. There’s nothing wrong with it. Follow the Spirit 
I should have bailed out several months ago one time. I stayed in the class though knowing I was getting more and more agitated about the topic. That doesn’t happen so much anymore, but it still happens. I ended up TOTALLY putting my foot in my mouth. I have no problem making controversial comments when I feel it’s appropriate, but it can’t be done from a place of anger or anxiety. I didn’t follow my own advice and blurted out a rant. To make it worse, my agitation caused me to read a quote in a talk the wrong way. I felt a little foolish afterwards.
Anyway, bail when you need to. Stay in the class when you can. It does get a lot easier over time, at least that’s my experience. Stuff that really doesn’t matter to you? It really shouldn’t matter. It’s fine for other people to go off on their own trip sometimes, even ones I don’t agree with. Church is a group full of people with different ideas.
Here’s one suggestion of a way to “stay” but get yourself away from some of those frustrating situations… Ask the Primary President or Sunday School President if they need any substitute teachers, and to call you if they need someone.
I have done that, and love teaching the kids about the gospel and the church teachings at a primary level, and it keeps me away from some of the adults that make sweeping statements that I don’t agree with.
Just one suggestion.
I played church approved hookey this past Sunday. I live in a ward (and stake) in constant flux. We have people moving in (mostly) and out all the time. I spend a few hours every month updating the Fast Offering routes, so I bring my laptop to church quite a bit. Apparently, our high councilman noted my laptop and had an idea. Our stake is surveying every ward in the stake asking about employment needs and people who are willing to help others find a job. A programmer in the stake designed a database to collect the information, and they installed it on about 4 laptops. I spent about 6 hours at the stake center assisting the wards there.
It felt nice to not feel guilty about missing Sunday School and Priesthood.
😈 Piper Alpha’s suggestion is genius – subbing in Primary or even the nursery is a terrific suggestion for those who struggle with the 2nd and 3rd hours.
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