July Ensign article: When He Stops Believing

I read it too and thought it was very good. Too bad it came too little to late for alot of members I know who were told to leave their mates over this by some bishops. Bridget

I hate to sound soooo nieve, were there really Bishops that told members

…to leave their mates over this…

The Stake, etc, went along with it?

Mike from Milton.

I’ve heard this before, too, and it doesn’t jive with my experience with bishops and stake presidents (including those within my own family) however, given the conversations about this issue I’ve participated in on apologetic message boards and the claims to positions of authority which some of the posters make, I’m left to wonder…

I thought it was good. And I echo what Bridget said. After I lesssened my commitment to the local Ward and refused a calling, the priesthood leadership went behind my back to my wife and tried to pump her for information. The Bishopric member doing this commented about how he was in a similar state as myself, and that his wife said she’d leave him if he didn’t straighten up. Whether it was simply an empathetic statement or not, priesthood leaders should not be putting those bees in the bonnets of spouses in the Church.

And they should have the intestinal fortitude to speak to the disengaged member directly — not go behing their backs and encourage spousal mutiny.

This article shows that members who are active, and have spouses who are lacking commitment need to buck up and apply our own principles — patience, love, charity, and hope — not pull out the big guns.

My hope is every priesthood leader is aware of the power the Church can have over certain people and NOT use it to risk marriages in the hopes it will make spouses “straighten up”.

When I was going through the dark portion of my dark night of the soul, my Bishop had a talk with DW. He told her that she needed to exert her influence as a strong woman in the gospel to get me to pony up to my priesthood responsibilities. DW told him that I wasn’t the one he should be worrying about. That for all her belief in the church, she vacilated between hating God (for not stepping in when we needed him) and hating herself (because she felt responsible on multiple levels for not preventing the tradgedy). 😳

It’s funny in a darkly ironic sort of way – that he thought that what we really needed was guilt/pressure to perform.

I liked the article enough to recommend it to DW. I told her that I didn’t appreciate the repeated references to the husband’s “choice” to not believe, but other than that it was a pretty good attempt at inclusiveness.

I think the article is excellent and gives the right solution should one find one’s self in such a situation: love.

I too have been perplexed when I’ve heard disaffected Mormons complain about being ostracized from their families, often at the recommendation or insistence of Church leaders. My own experience has been 180 degrees away from that. My father was ostentatiously outside the Church for many years following a temple marriage, with the visible WoW habits to puncuate the point. My sister left the Church not long after leaving the nest following high school. Not once have I felt, either overtly or covertly, any pressure to disassociate myself from either of them. My father eventually came back to Church – my sister hasn’t. I’ve heard enough stories of ostracism to beleive it must exist; but I’ve never seen it. Not myself, and not through a number of callings that have put me in the “THEM” category. Maybe I’ve just been lucky.

Like some of you, I’m midly surprised to see the Ensign publish something so forthright and direct on this topic. Perhaps as noted in another thread here re: Elder Marlin Jensen, the Church is starting to grasp the size and complexity of the phenomenon of former TBMs leaving the Church. The Church may be left with no alternative but to soften its doctrinal positions in order to hold onto a few more of us Liahonas.

Super excellent Ensign article this month dealing with advice for faithful members to deal with a spouse that loses their testimony…I am very happy about the tone and direction of this article. It seems to deal with the situation in a compassionate and tolerant way. I did find it odd that the author had to be “Name Withheld” because it’s still such a sensitive topic in Church culture. But hey! At least this got published in the official Church magazine, which makes it scripture and official doctrine now, right?…Do you guys think this is realistic advice? Happy about the tone? Critiques?

It’s definitely a step in the right direction; to be honest I’m surprised they actually published this without the story showing more hope that the husband would eventually come around and regain his testimony. Personally I think they should have entire lessons and conference talks about being nice to members that have lost faith in the Church especially if they are your spouse or children. Basically I was not impressed at all by my wife’s reaction to my doubts about the Church because that’s when I really started to think there could actually be more to all the cult accusations surrounding the LDS Church than undeserved name calling. I honestly felt like my wife was not acting like she was really Christian at all but instead it reminded me more of the Pharisees the way she acted like all these Mormon traditions were more important than the way you treat people. After that I made a conscious effort to resist any pressure about doing callings or getting a temple recommend again because I thought the level of control the Church had over most active members’ everyday lives was inappropriate and the thought of doing anything to directly encourage or contribute to this bothered me.

I think it’s positive.

I was talking about inactives in Elder’s Quorum today, saying that many people have hidden problems*, and mentioned that George Albert Smith had problems with depression and that it should have appeared in the book. (Thanks for that bit of info guys!)

* In our ward, we have, amongst others… couples unable to conceive, depressives, bipolars, at least one schizophrenic, people trying to recover from drugs and drink, possible homosexuals (at least one obviously gay missionary back in the past), divorced and divorcing etc etc. You’re not going to know about all of these straight away. Even a spouse can be unaware of certain issues.