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I am a BIC Mormon although my convert father was never really that active. My entire family went inactive when I was 15 due to a ward that was full of cliques and there were vicious rumors (lies) spread about some of my family members. I returned when I was 21 and married in the temple when I was 22 and we have been married 16 years. I have never been a follower and question things that seem illogical. Funny thing is that when I would call teachers out on their b.s. (“the church has stated that caffeinated beverages should NOT be consumed) I would get lots of people come up to me afterwards to thank me for speaking out.
My husband’s bishop was a child molester. He molested several boys in scouts and continued after he was called as bishop. When one of the boys stepped forward the church tried to hush it all up. They told the parents that it was being “handled” and basically told to butt out. When he was not released as bishop the families got louder in their protests about the “handling” of things and were brought up before the disciplinary court. Knowing it was going to swing in favor of the bishop and not them, the families brought the media and were excommunicated. The church continued to ignore the allegations (the boys were too embarrassed to press charges) until the bishop was arrested for soliciting males prostitutes. He was finally excommunicated.
How could this happen if his calling came from the Lord? Why would the bishop be given close and personal access to this monster who destroyed their lives? One of the boys never recovered and became a drug addict. He has has a troubled life ever since.
I let this go for many years thinking there were just evil people in life. Later I was doing some church research on RS presidents and came across Zina Huntington Jacobs Smith Young. Is anyone aware that she was married to JS and later to Brigham Young while she was still married to her first husband? This was not a “name only” thing either. B.Y. sent her husband away on a mission and she got pregnant with Young’s child. How can this be? This is NOT what I was told about plural marriage. I have always been fed the lines of widows and abandoned sisters were the 2nd, 3rd, wives NOT someone already married to a righteous brother! BTW this info was found in several places none of which were anti-LDS sites.
Later one of my dear friends called me and told me that her father had molested her growing up and she was calling his stake president because she feared he was currently molesting her youngest sister. Turns out she was right. Not only that but in the 20+ years since he had begun molesting his daughters he had been in stake positions, bishopric and was currently a veil worker. A child molester by proxy as Heavenly Father. “Called” by the lord to numerous positions to then go home and molest his children. You cannot convince me of these “inspired” callings. How can someone work as God at the (supposedly) holiest place on this earth and then go home and fondle his children? No God, NO GOD is going to “call” someone who is doing something as soul destroying as this to be his representative. The final kicker on this is the fact he wasn’t excommunicated. You read that right. He didn’t come forward out of some guilt and need to repent he was turned in by his daughter, arrested and is now a lifer on the sex offender list but not excommunicated? This was pretty much the beginning of the end for me.
After that I tried to reconcile how it could be and went to my bishop (who is amazing and a wonderful man) who finally told me he didn’t have the answers. I quit going to the temple as well.
Right after that we found out my uncle, who had been given ownership of our family compound in the Rockies, had taken this beautiful 4 generation gathering spot, mortgaged it to the eyeballs, and was now selling it to try and gain control of his spiraling finances. This was mid 2007. As the only son of my grandfather, he had been given the option of “buying” this place with many stipulations. He couldn’t put any mortgages on it, we (family) were always allowed there, he needed to pay $500k for it by paying $3k a month until paid and the other $500k+ that the property was worth was his sole inheritance. Instead he used it as an ATM, tried to sell it (but by 2008 no one was buying $2,000,000 properties in the mountains), told us that we would be arrested if we went to retrieve our personal belongings (trespassing), and then let it go into foreclosure after stripping it to the wall. Ovens, propane tank, wood burning stoves were ripped out of our beloved family gathering spot. He still owed my grandfather over $250,000 which he has never paid. He works in the temple and says that his conscience is clear and he IS honest in his business dealings. When this was brought to the attention of the bishop and stake president they said they would contact my mother (still inactive) to get physical evidence that she has of these allegations. She never heard from them and he is still working in the temple.
I just can’t go on pretending these things don’t happen and that they are ok. One I could reconcile but all of them I cannot. I haven’t even written all the things that have caused me to realize this church is not what it claims to be: Led by God.
I will continue to go and support my children. We do have a good ward and I am not going to influence their decision as it is theirs to make. My husband is supportive but is beyond strong in his faith and I support that as well.
Not sure how long I can fake it but I am going to try for 8 years until my second to youngest leaves on his mission.
Thank you for listening.
SearchingSoul, thank you for your introduction & welcome to the group. I have come to the conclusion that the Church, the membership & the world is imperfect & always will be until the time of the
2nd coming. I have difficult time with the abuse of children too. I have heard members says that the abuse revealed within the
Catholic church could never happen in the LDS church. It has & does happen even today.
I encourage you to continue to express yourself on this forum. Many people have helped me on this site.
Keep coming back.
Welcome. I have nothing personal to say that can lessen the horror of your experiences, but I can say that I understand evil existing even within the Church. I actually take some degree of comfort in the allegory of the vineyard in Jacob 5, since I read it to say that there will be pruning of the bad out of the vineyard right up until the end – and I am a bit awed by the heart-breaking question, “What more could I have done for my vineyard.” I also take more comfort from the depiction of God in the PofGP where he weeps while viewing the sins of his children.
There is someting deeply moving and personal to me in those depictions – and, for me, they change, in fundamental, important ways, the traditional view of God, as well as our role in the “saving” of our fellow mortals.
I hope, somehow, you can feel at home here and find peace in your own life’s journey. I believe that can happen even with a radically different view of the LDS Church – a more realistic and, inronically, powerful view than the one seen so clearly through rose-colored glasses. Removing those glasses and seeing less clearly means seeing things that we don’t want to see, but seeing them helps gain all kinds of insights that can help make necessary changes within the culture of our faith community.
I am so sorry for all you are going through. I don’t know what to say, other than to say I have been at the place on the journey where you are now. I have asked the questions that you are asking now.
I have never heard an answer that was acceptable to me and maintained my faith in the idea of the church being inspired in the way that people think it is.
My sister was molested frequently in the church, when other people were there. How could it be that with all these supposedly “inspired” people no one was inspired ever to find her?
My sister prayed all the time that God would stop the man from hurting her. Why would God who supposedly answer all prayers not answer that one? If he does, what possible reason could he have for saying no?
I wish I could answer your questions, but there is no good answer.
It could be that God leads the church but doesn’t care about us as individuals.
It could be that God cares, but can’t intervene or inspire as much as we think he can.
It could be that there is no God.
I have found this to be a safe place to work on figuring things out with many wise people to offer advice on the journey. Not so much people with answers as companions to discuss questions with.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to answer a strangers rant. I don’t think I believe any longer and just need to admit it. There are things that I believe were led by Heavenly Father but give it over to man and it will always be screwed up. I have talked to my parents who support me (they have been inactive for 25 years) and although they support me they want me to keep it to myself for the sake of my children and I agree. They go to school with these kids and they are all good kids. It takes a village to raise kids and we have a pretty decent village in a very non-Mormon state. My oldest three would not take it well and I can cover since I don’t currently have a calling so there is no worry in that capacity.
Right now I don’t feel the need to let this be known but a dear friends daughter is getting married in the temple next month. My recommend is expired so not sure what to do there.
Thank you all!
Welcome Searching Soul! When my world came crashing down I found little comfort until I found stayLds. For the first time I felt peace at seeing the world, and the church in a different way…one of color. No longer do I cling to the all or nothing view of the church. My testimony went from Knowing to great uncertainty. I’m learning to live by faith. Like you I used to think that I didn’t believe it anymore, any of it. But slowly I’ve come to understand that belief is just that, belief. It’s not knowledge. While I’m still navigating my way through all of this, I have hope that someday I will feel more comfortable at what I do and don’t believe. However, I realize that what I choose to believe or disbelieve will be a choice I make based on a combination of reasoning things out in my mind and what I feel. I will not, indeed can not, follow blindly others or “trust in the arms of flesh.” I haven’t yet worked out what I believe in all area’s but as others, I feel that the church is at a minimum at least as “true” as any other church and at best the most “true”, but regardless not perfect. Good luck in your journey and I hope you stick around!
Oh and as for the TR interview wayfarer did a series of threads on each question. I highly recommend reading them. search for “TR Question Survey”.
Sorry but what is “TR”? I agree that at worst the church as good as any other. Very grateful to have found this site!
TR = temple recommend. Hi ! Welcome to the community. Welome to the family. It sounds like you have some very frustration issues to deal with and you may not find all the answers you might need but you will find those that will listen and not judge you and that can relate to many of your thoughts. I know that I can. You mentioned that you hope to be able to Fake it for the next 8 years and that doesn’t sound fun at all to me. I have found that this site has helped me to be comfortable and even happy with this new found knowledge. Realizing that I don’t have all the answers and that the truth really can set us free,it has really made this journey easier. It’s still a roller coaster ride but I feel like I survived the first hill and I can now set back and try to enjoy the rest of the ride. Holy cow! What aweful experiences. There is no doubt these examples make one question things. How could it not? I like Ray’s response. I think these things make one realize there is no other way to view the church other than it being run and populated by imperfect people. The church is imperfect.
It makes one wonder what God really does and how, if at all, He intervenes. To me, it seems obvious it is very little and only in indirect ways. A limited God who is bound by rules to not mess with Free Agency and poor choices as horrific as our history has given us make me ponder a lot about the spiritual promptings I feel I have has in life.
For sure, to StayLDS, I have had to accept the flawed, temporal nature of the church, and let to of so many things taught and said on Sunday about the Church. I have had to use my own thought and reasoning and personal revelation to keep a perspective about church, and build and own my own testimony.
There are many things I cannot deny are good about the church, and religion as a whole. I have also witnessed abuse in my own family from church members. We pressed charges and felt it was appropriate. Then we had to learn to forgive and move forward. But forgiving is not about keeping it quiet or not takng action that makes the church look bad. The church is imperfect, so when people do things bad it should be appropriately dealt with. That is the responsible thing to do.
But I don’t believe isolated incidents determine for me if the church is all good or all bad. People in the church don’t like to believe things are not black and white, but reality shows me things in life are a spectrum of colors including gray, black, white and a spectrum of colors. I am better off acknowledging that and choosing for myself what I believe.
I choose, despite the abuse our family has experienced, to see all the good the church has to offer me. To be a part if the fellowship of imperfect saints and build relationships with good people. And I have consistently taken action and called police when bad saints do awful things. That is just the right thing to do, IMO.
For me, truth claims are not dependent on what other people choose to do with this religion. It is what the religion does for me. I believe the church is true for what it is supposed to do. I give it no more authority than that.
searchingsoul, thanks for your thoughtful introduction. The things you brought up, here, especially about the systematic excommunication of members who objected to a child-molesting bishop, are not trivial matters. Such things should be brought to light rather than hidden, because such abuse is absolutely not in harmony with the gospel. No church or institution today should be exempt from the highest degree of scrutiny and accountability for child abuse. As I am unaware of the specifics of your husband’s bishop’s case, I would ask you to provide whatever public information is available on that case.
As for belief, I have come to a position where I do not believe, but I do have faith, and in some cases, knowledge of the normative value of the church in my life. To me, ‘belief’ is the drug of emotional certainty towards things we don’t know to be true, and are often unwilling to critically evaluate. For example, I once believed with a degree of certainty that blacks could not have the priesthood by virtue of their ancestors cain and egyptus. As well, I believed the words of church leaders who said that blacks were neutrals in the war in heaven. My certainty was misplaced, as often belief leads us to do.
Instead, Alma encourages us to test the things we hold in faith, taking the Middle Way between belief and disbelief to see if a given teaching, doctrine, or principle edifies us. If it does, then we know something: that the teaching edifies. If it does not edify, or if it is something that proves out to be not true, then we are perfectly justified in casting aside such beliefs. When we find something that works for us, something we find to be ‘true’, we do not know that the teaching is true in all of its particulars, but we know something about it. Alma teaches us that we’re not done when we get a witness of some particular thing, because there are many things to test — and our lives are made up of tests of our faith. Belief presumes to know, and that is dangerous. Faith is a journey, a Middle Way of truth and life.
At some point, we need to establish a new pattern of faith. We will come to an acceptance of some things as tenable while recognizing that we don’t know, so that we can live amongst others who equally don’t know, and we can edify each other through the spirit. This is really what the gospel is all about — learning through our own experience, and helping one another on the Way.
Once we realize that all aspects of the church are part of our humanity, then we can come to understand that as humans, we need to work together for a greater good. Never, ever supressing our stand against injustice and abuse, we can also forgive the church’s humanity on lesser matters, and come to a community of faith in love.
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