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After what has been a tumultuous two years which included my wife’s baptism as a means of helping lead me back to my cultural identity, and culminating in my re-baptism we have reached a place of the reconciliation or our religious iron-roddedness and genuine spiritual liahona-ness. I’d like to update my original introduction from 05/2012.
Exile … of my own making … self imposed.
What has changed for me is the recognition that the testimony lost involves merely and only the Church’s theological policies, procedures, ceremonies and formalities coupled with seriously sanitized mythological history — all of which are rather innocently or blandly masqueraded by well-meaning lay members and mid-level priesthood leaders as divinely decreed laws and ordinances commanded by God and Jesus.
I have never been exiled from Christ or the Spirit -even though for many years I had assumed such to be the case.
The resulting spiritual wound did not heal – principally because I had separated myself from that absolute strongest asset any human being who has spent many years of spiritual interaction with God through prayer and meditation can have.
Mormon men and women, completely outside any lesson book, had taught me that God will reveal His mind and compassion to humans … and that the Spirit is always present and not contingent on worthiness. All you have to do is knock and ask.
I learned such things most forcefully as a missionary and it became commonplace for the rest of my life.
The spiritual interaction – regardless of whether or not we are or have been aware of it – has never been conditional or contingent on our satisfying LDS doctrinal policies, procedures and practices.
The Spirit does not prompt us to conform to policies, procedures and practices because the Church somehow requires and validates our worthiness through attendance, participation, ordinance records or temple covenant making.
Our future welcome into the eternity of God’s presence was never contingent on note-taking angels auditing ward and branch ordinance and attendance records nor on callings held or money donated.
Marriages inside and outside the temple are eternal and based simply on the intentions and actions of the married couple … and not whether or not a man in a white suit in a special room in a special building ever makes it so by priesthood pronouncement.
The Spirit does not wait for anyone or anything before touching your heart with its sweetness and strong assurance of divine love.
Joseph had it right early on when he said, “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.”
Such is the heart of being Mormon, the who-we-really-are.
Being Latter Day Saint does not necessarily equate to being spiritually Mormon so long as the evaluation and validation of “being LDS” is owned and operated by well-meaning but literal-minded religious bureaucrats; church members willing to ascribe to a definition of God as an anal retentive record keeper obsessed with human morality. Most recently there has been essentially a quiet conformity regarding sexual morality – a going along with the implication that God is actually looking over every shoulder on the planet and pleased or offended based on sexual expression.
Critical thinking is required now more than ever.
If you cannot critically weigh and own your spiritual relationship to Christ you do not have proprietorship over your own life.
Someone else will and has defined your reality for you.
… and they – not you – own it.
My writing is not about reaching the mythical Celestial Kingdom beloved of Mormon testimony bearers. Rather, I desire to talk about the eternity that already exists … the eternity that is NOW.
My experience of God is about the fulfillment of all the promises made to those who embrace the teachings of Christ as experienced within the context of Mormon culture, experience, heritage, music, art, creativity and life.
It is not about temple recommends, bishoprics, high councils, ordinations or excommunications.
My experience of God is informed by what my ancestors who joined the church expected and anticipated to see and experience in their lives, the community of believers, common values, self reliant communities where freedom of religion and belief was of highest priority.
As you read this I am prayerful that you understand that my experience of God as interpreted by myself and no one else is what primarily drives my personal spirituality.
We are moving to Spokane this week and will introduce ourselves to a new urban ward that might have significant difference from this rural ward with which we have fallen in love. But … probably not.
In the meantime, TBM-ness is not something we would ever comfortably embrace regardless of its strong presence in my immediate family.
But … and informing our testimonies and participation with a metaphorical perception and understanding that offsets any temptation to literall-mindedness, we are making preparations.
I am about to request restoration of my priesthood and temple blessings while my wife prepares for the endowment. Our metaphorical understanding of scripture, religion and belief coupled with active and prompted communion with the divine, we expect to invite family to her endowment and our sealing ceremony next year.
We aren’t going anywhere.
We are staying.
Thank you, Arthur. It’s important to read stories like yours and Mike’s to maintain some kind of balance and perspective. God bless you on your journey.
Arthur, thank you. I like what you said. Especially: Quote:As you read this I am prayerful that you understand that my experience of God as interpreted by myself and no one else is what primarily drives my personal spirituality.
This is the truth I’ve come to realize over the past few months too.
I like also:
Quote:Critical thinking is required now more than ever.
For me, this is the core of my spiritual journey. It cannot & should not be defined by others.
Only by God as I understand Him.
One of the aspects of our theology is our agreement to assume, if you will, command and control of a mortal life – namely, our own. Along with of course unfolding interactions with other people who have also assumed command and control of their own lives and come to mortality also in our time. Along with that assumption and in line with Joseph’s attitude regarding God’s glory (intelligence) and our mortal lives based on learning good principles and governing ourselves, is the obtaining of knowledge in a process that includes critical thinking.
It is indisputable that God WANTS as to think critically for ourselves, avoiding any temptation to hand our thinking over to someone else’s magic (particularly magic masquerading as divinely appointed/called authority.)
Were our ability to think critically sufficiently and personally developed to its fullest, that thinking would include awareness … SENSITIVITY-based awareness … of the implications of our convictions and the impact of how we express our convictions when we refuse to think critically about how others hear the messages we each proclaim.
In the formal settings of class and meeting it often feels like we are repeatedly forced to face the almost narcissistic smugness many members exude when they endeavor to share what they know with people who – they assume – do not “know” what they know … or in the case of teaching newly baptized, that the newbies do not “know” as much as what veteran members they think they “Know.”
… or, as we actually witnessed in an early Gospel Doctrine class, the almost condescending way the discussion went in terms of new members having lamps that are yet unfilled with Mormon “oil” which is created by accepting mindlessly performance-based formulas of conformity.
Arthur Ruger wrote:…Being Latter Day Saint does not necessarily equate to being spiritually Mormon so long as the evaluation and validation of “being LDS” is owned and operated by well-meaning but literal-minded religious bureaucrats; church members willing to ascribe to a definition of God as an anal retentive record keeper obsessed with human morality…Critical thinking is required now more than ever…TBM-ness is not something we would ever comfortably embrace regardless of its strong presence in my immediate family…We aren’t going anywhere…We are staying.
I’m glad to hear about your progress and that you took the time to post some comments here. I think the Church could definitely use more members like you that end up sticking around or returning to church mostly for reasons other than a traditional testimony about all this supposedly being so true, right, absolutely necessary, etc.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:Arthur Ruger wrote:…Being Latter Day Saint does not necessarily equate to being spiritually Mormon so long as the evaluation and validation of “being LDS” is owned and operated by well-meaning but literal-minded religious bureaucrats; church members willing to ascribe to a definition of God as an anal retentive record keeper obsessed with human morality…Critical thinking is required now more than ever…TBM-ness is not something we would ever comfortably embrace regardless of its strong presence in my immediate family…We aren’t going anywhere…We are staying.
I’m glad to hear about your progress and that you took the time to post some comments here. I think the Church could definitely use more members like you that end up sticking around or returning to church mostly for reasons other than a traditional testimony about all this supposedly being so true, right, absolutely necessary, etc.
It’s the only way to stop the hemorrhaging…the only hope, IMO, that the church has to survive and remain viable for the next generation. I respect those who stay…because for the most part, it just didn’t work out for me
cwald wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:I’m glad to hear about your progress and that you took the time to post some comments here. I think the Church could definitely use more members like you that end up sticking around or returning to church mostly for reasons other than a traditional testimony about all this supposedly being so true, right, absolutely necessary, etc.
It’s the only way to stop the hemorrhaging…the only hope, IMO, that the church has to survive and remain viable for the next generation. I respect those who stay…because for the most part, it just didn’t work out for me
Not only are lost members increasingly likely and significant thanks to the internet, if most members that are inclined to resist accepting some of what the Church teaches become completely inactive or resign that basically leaves behind a high concentration of hardcore TBMs. In fact, I think this is one reason why we now have such an intolerant environment where it is basically not alright to openly question, disagree with, or even ignore what the Church teaches in so many cases because most of the members that don’t readily go along with what the Church asks them to believe and do have generally not lasted long as active members so then the ones that remain typically expect everyone to agree with all this mostly because that’s what they are used to seeing. Not that I blame anyone for leaving or taking an extended break from church but I also like to see some members resist the tendency to feel like they should leave and stay away from church if they don’t believe in the Church’s official story.
What great insights! Thanks for sharing. I finally took the tine to read this. Thank you Arthur. And thank you the others that posted here. You are some of the contributers that I respect very much on this board. Cool journey! Very interesting. :thumbup:
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