Taking a break from the Haters

I think there are a group of people who finally reach a point where they decide to either jump in and stay or completely walk away. For myself I hope I will be someone who can stay. Not because it’s “the one true” but because I cut my spiritual teeth on it and I feel a sense of allegiance to it’s potential. I’m learning though, that not everybody has the same feeling. The disappointment, the hurt, the shock become too much. They need to leave if they want to make something out of life.

I also see some people who are angry and never leave or move on. For some reason it is important to them to keep fighting. I’m not sure why. I suppose they may have connections through family and are not able to completely walk away – but others do have the choice and select to keep re hashing the issues, adding new ones and building a faith they can claim as their own. To me it doesn’t appear like an uplifting faith, but maybe it is. It is purposeful to them.

This is going to sound like a testimony – but I really am glad for the forums on the internet. It gives me a place to sort out my feelings, find up lift, and work toward my dream of creating the Zion I imagine. I can’t always take a break from people who disagree with me or who find my version of faith objectionable, but online I can find some soothing, some additional ways of looking at things or maybe comfort when the Haters hurt too much.

I’ve always admired my wife’s transition. She has moved on, spends no time in the ‘bloggernacle’ and is in no way trying to undermine the faith of others.

She’s a good woman

DA, I have no problem with what you just said and actually agree completely. However, when a site does nothing but encourage continual, eternal venting and unchecked negativism (which is how I define the term “haters””) . . . that is a site I choose not to frequent.

Yes, there is bad in the Church that needs to be discussed and addressed, but there is lots of good, as well. “Haters” miss the duality of reality – like the opposite side of the eternal sunshine and roses apologetic sites (“Lovers”, if you will). I avoid both type of sites, since I neither want nor need either.

Do you ever feel that sometimes all the negativity towards the church can just get a bit tiring and ‘old’?

All of us here have had some issues somewhere with the church, and so have more members elsewhere than I’d care to mention. There are also issues about equal rights for various groups…

But, yes, some of the negativity is a bit old.

Mormon history is less bloody than many other churches and religions.

Mormon doctrine is no more weird than that of Roman Catholicism, or Hinduism.

The only negativity that I am exposed to is the constant negativity I hear at church. The World is an evil place, Satan is out to get you, Gays are bad, your not doing enough for the church, the world is getting too tolerant etc…. .

Oh, I find fast and testimony meetings pretty negative too for the most part. Lots of woe is me!

The negativity I witness at church is hurting me negatively. After all, I’m now on a website being negative when the OP obviously wanted some positivity. Sorry! I didn’t mean to contaminate others on here with my negativity.

just to clarify I was not calling anyone out on this site!

I was thinking of the general ‘grrr lets destroy the church brigade, that gets a bit too much sometimes

I world like to see the church change an improve in a few areas, but destroying something that could be a force for good.

I think an interesting analogy would be to marriage. After a time, we find out that our mate is not perfect (banish the thought) and the honeymoon period is now over. We now have to decide our next course of action. Do we find a way to try and make our marriage work and accept the flaws or do we get out. During that process, we often find ourselves engaging in husband (or wife) bashing. It’s fun. It can be cathartic to talk with others about the universal problems with men (or women). Misery loves company. But in the end if you want to try and make your marriage work, that interaction doesn’t really help. For some, the way to peace is making the marriage work (staying LDS). For others, divorce is the best course. Those that are most angry tend to be the ones who want out, but for various reasons can’t walk away.

Great analogy Martha. Wendy Ulrich also explores this comparison in her article: “Believest thou…?”: Faith, Cognitive Dissonance, and the Psychology of Religious Experience.

the full article can be found here: http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2005-fair-conference/2005-believest-thou-faith-cognitive-dissonance-and-the-psychology-of-religious-experience

The portion that directly applies to the analogy is near the end. I have copied it below:

And so we say with the father of the lunatic child, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” We recognize that our beliefs matter more than our doubts, though we will have some of both. We recognize the need for commitment despite uncertainty, frustration, and disillusionment. In fact, people who study long-term marriage relationships tell us that they go through four predictable stages that include both high hopes and deep discouragement. Psychologist Allen Bergin proposes that these stages are equally applicable in all long-term, committed relationships, including relationships with children, parents, the Church, and God.

The first of these stages is a honeymoon stage of blinding idealism, in which we delight in our new partner and are sure that the problems faced by other couples, other parents, other believers will not bother us. We are in love, full of hope, enthusiastic about our new relationship. We relish being loved and cherished, but even more we relish being someone who is easily loving and good. We are sure we have found a wonderful spouse, child, church, relationship with God, and we are also sure that this will last. We finally know how to be in a relationship, or how to get answers to prayers, or how to be part of a community. We are happy, sure that little problems that come up will be readily resolved. This stage lasts weeks and sometimes years, but it intermittently gives way to the second stage of committed relationships, the power struggle.

As the power struggle gradually takes over more and more of the relationship we begin to wrestle for control. We may try any of a number of old or new tactics to try to coerce, cajole, reason, manipulate, blackmail, convince, bribe, punish, or flatter our partner in the relationship into changing to give us what we want, whether what we want is a spouse who does the laundry or a God who explains Himself to our satisfaction. While some of these tactics may work with spouses or children or parents, they do not work with God. He invites us to change instead, and this is often very painful. We want the world back the way it was when we were innocent and full of hope and before we had discovered the snakes in the grass, but He evicts us from the garden and tells us to keep walking. Much of our behavior is about trying to get safe, and much of His is about trying to help us see that our safety lies in our submission to and trust in Him despite pain and struggle, not in our freedom from physical or emotional discomfort. We keep thinking that there are answers and solutions to all difficulties if we can just get someone else to see our point of view and give us what we know we need. And that someone else keeps holding out on us, keeping us guessing as to what to try next. We are sure that if we could just change them we could get things back to the honeymoon, not realizing that this is not only impossible, but unhelpful.

The third stage of committed relationships, which usually comes after years of vacillating between lingering idealism and the increasing futility of the power struggle, is withdrawal. At this stage we essentially give up, although we may not leave. We resign ourselves to not really getting what we want, not really changing the other party, and not really being happy. We are tired of fighting, but we can’t recoup our lost idealism. We go through the motions of relationship but we are frustrated and we feel more or less betrayed and misunderstood. This period of withdrawal allows us to regain some independence, pursue other sources of satisfaction, and develop other talents and interests. If we are lucky we begin to work on ourselves–whom we can change–instead of working on our partner whom we cannot change. With the Church or with God, this means we begin to face that there are some questions we will not get answered, some differences that will not be worked out, some losses that will not be prevented. This is a risky stage, a stage when some people decide there is nothing to hold onto because they are no longer in love (stage 1) and no longer have hope for change (stage 2). But as we continue to work on ourselves, see reality more clearly, and resolve our own issues we have a chance of moving toward stage 4.

The fourth and final stage of committed relationships is about renewal. Not exactly a renewal of the honeymoon, but a more mature, realistic, and truly loving renewal. We come to accept our spouse or our parents or the Church, and we come to accept ourselves. We allow God to run the universe, and we become more content to let go of things we cannot change. A deeper, more mature love begins to emerge, with fewer power struggles and less disengagement. We do not need to see all the answers, and we do not need perfection by our standards in order to not be embarrassed or ashamed of our Church, our partner, or our God. We reinvest in the relationship, not because we have decided to risk yet one more time that we will not get hurt only to have the rug pulled out yet one more time from under us, but because we have learned that hurt can be survived, that this is a risk worth taking, and that it does not mean we cannot be happy or that we are irrational suckers or that we are doomed to failure because we take another chance on trust or because we fail or are failed again. We see ourselves and our partner more realistically, and we do not run from either vision. We recognize that we can be hurt by being betrayed or we can be hurt by not trusting, but we don’t get the no-hurt choice because there isn’t one, at least not until we simply choose not to read betrayal into every ecclesiastical failure, or abandonment into every unanswered prayer.