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Greetings all, I get the impression that a “standard” reaction from “The Church” to people expressing doubts or non-traditional views on things is a very swift strong condemnation of that individual, shunning of their family, and so forth. That is so foreign from my experience, albeit a short one only a member for 4 years, that I first assumed such claims were exaggerated or just lies by people with an axe to grind. However, I’ve seen it said enough, and by people who seem to actively care about making our Church a better place that I wonder.
Any thoughts on how prevalent love is offered to people who are wandering vice discipline formal or otherwise? I’m on the East Coast, is it a cultural thing that leads to the extreme reactions and not any real unwritten policy in the Church?
As an example: Our Gospel Doctrine teacher routinely teaches Church History in a very open manner. We talked openly and often as part of the normal 2nd hour’s session on all sorts of things, Mountain Meadows, Joseph Smiths confusing history on polygamy and polyandry, seer stones and divining rods. No condemnation of him, he has continued in that position for a long time, his wife has important callings, his kids are active members in events.
And really some of things that seem like they are treated as taboo, I find faith affirming. We are taught that the prophet won’t lead the church astray, but that prophets are men and infallible like the rest of us. What better example than all the wacky stuff Brigham Young taught? (e.g. Adam-God) The Prophet taught these things, in some cases at General Conference, and yet the Church was not led astray … we do not practice those things
loon810 wrote:Greetings all,
I get the impression that a “standard” reaction from “The Church” to people expressing doubts or non-traditional views on things is a
very swift strong condemnation of that individual, shunning of their family, and so forth. … that I first assumed such claims were exaggerated or just liesby people with an axe to grind. However, I’ve seen it said enough, and by people who seem to actively care about making our Church a better place that I wonder… You have no idea of the hell I went through.
It all boils down to the local leadership and the actions they take, unforunately. Those actions run the entire spectrum, from allowing openly gay members (for example) to serve in callings to disciplinary actions for theological differnces of opinion. “The Global Church” is more and more lenient than it was, but “the local church” is all over the map.
If you’ve never been openly doubtful or even express concerns about the Church to people who are traditional and their beliefs, you’d see what we mean. Check out my post here: http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3174 As well as cwald’s story
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2456&hilit=ominous And yet another one
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2819&p=34626&hilit=ominous#p34626 There are probablyh 10 more.
Nope, they’ve created an environment where you are taking a big risk to be open with your feelings if they don’t align with the orthodox, literal views of the church. Maybe your ward is inspired. My experience is that most wards do not react positively.
I think someone should write an article directed at people who look at doubts with so little compassion. it would be entitled “I’m Christian, unless you are having doubts”.
That is just so crazy. I can understand why a church might need to be hard on someone who not only doesn’t believe but is actively working to bring others to his viewpoint of unbelief. It doesn’t make sense for an orginization to formally support someone who is trying to bring the orginization down.
But I’ll never understand why you’d bash someone who is struggling with faith, or perhaps even has lost that struggle, but wants to stay in membership and continue to work it out. Heck, if someone in my ward came to me about that I’d be excited. The vast majority of inactives I speak too just don’t care enough anymore to want to even try. At least someone trying to stick around still has some kernel of faith.
I find that I’ve come to grips with the church past. I accept we’ll never know exactly what the truth is in the past, and that leaves me room to hope for good. But church present has its own share of troubles that are much harder to reconcile.
Imo, the global Church leadership wants to keep members who aren’t fighting it actively and doesn’t want those who are struggling to believe or simply don’t believe to leave – if for no other reason with some leaders than they believe many will reconcile their struggles and “return to activity”. It’s the local leadership who want everyone to pitch in and do lots of things to support their leadership (to lesson the burden, in a very real way) and who tend to be more judgmental who give members the most “improper” grief about doubts and commitment struggles. What saddens me the most is that so many of us treat investigators and non-member spouses FAR better than we treat inactive members – due almost entirely, imo, to differing expectations. “You only hurt the ones you love” isn’t completely true; you also hurt the ones of whom you unrealistically expect the most and whom you understand the least.
That’s not just a Mormon issue. It’s a human issue – but I still wish it wasn’t a Mormon issue.
I might add that as a Church, we tend to take our active, committed members for granted, often treating them worse than less actives or non-members. Once there is a feeling you are committed, the leadership expects you to do everything on the Church’s often ego-centric terms much of the time. Be less active, or a non-member, then they are kinder and more respectful — provided they think you will reactivate or join the church. But if anyone in any of these groups (active, less active) expresses doubts or dissafection, you risk shunning and loss of interest in you as a member from the leadership and often the rank and file members — particularly if you are a project.
I don’t think we can hold the global Church blameless though…the local leadership has a strong orientation toward getting things done, and when you are not contributing as they would like, you can easily find yourself in the out-group. And this is consistent across most of the Ward’s I’ve lived in (14 if you include my mission). If you’ve ever sat in on meetings with the SP and Regional Reps you will know what I mean…
My father, a non-member, and I were talking once about what I was experiencing during a very frustrating and difficult time in the Church 15 years ago…and he concluded “See…when you are doing what they want, they like you, when when you are not…they don’t”.
The reactions to people who question or are more liberal in their beliefs varies dramatically on the local level in the Church, and with family relationships. I am overtly “different,” and pretty much always have been. I have been VERY fortunate in the past many years to have lived in tolerant and accepting wards, and to have had tolerant and loving friends in those wards. I have never lived in a high-density Mormon area though except for the 1 year I attended BYU. So my Mormon experience has almost always been as a religious minority in a culturally diverse region. cwald wrote:You have no idea of the hell I went through.
True story from Cwald… I can’t emphasize enough how wildly different local wards can be. Cwald’s experience just breaks my heart. He tried
SOhard to make it work, but was constantly sabotaged by Stake-level leadership and his own uber-zealous extended family. They simply would not give him a moments peace until they forced him out and away. Then on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, there are the most kind and loving wards here in my area. I know of wards that openly embrace gay members of the Church here in the Wash DC area. And you there’s a unusual concentration of Mormon “intellectuals” and social activists around here who have no problem being welcomed and active in the Church.
If there’s a pattern that I can see from experience, I have noticed two indicators:
1. The local ward seems to follow the local culture.
Washington DC and north into Maryland is culturally very liberal. It gets dramatically more conservative just crossing the Potomac south into Virginia. I’ve heard more people having trouble down that way. So there you go, dramatic shifts even in a small local region. I’ve noticed this in all areas, having moved around a lot in my life. Local ward cultures and functionality varies dramatically.
2. Wards with more diversity are more tolerant.
Wards with more diversity tend to be more diverse and tolerant. I know that’s sort of obvious when I write it, but it makes a huge difference. My ward in Georgia was made up of 70% or more part-member families. That created a *MUCH* more tolerant atmosphere for diverse family situations. Can’t keep up the impossible image of the perfect family? Well, there wasn’t much room to throw stones in that glass chapel. People said fewer stupid comments about families not being together forever, or wishing their child were dead instead of doubting the gospel, and crap like that. Why? Because almost everyone sitting in every classroom had a parent, spouse or child in that situation.
Where I live now is racially and ethnically very diverse. You just aren’t going to hear stupid racial comments or crap about fence sitting in the pre-existence. Never. And if it every came up, that person would be the one getting in trouble, not the people calling it inappropriate. There was even a brother once who ranted in EQ about the end times and Pres. Obama being the anti-Christ a couple years ago. The room got really quiet when he was done, and someone said “you probably should just leave that alone in class, some of us in here voted for the guy…” He got the message to keep the party politics out of it.
In my opinion, our church really works much much better on a local functional level when there’s some resistance and reality check going on.
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