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Sorry for the late notice, I would have started my search earlier but I only recently got invited to give the lesson. Some of you know how that goes. I’m looking for a list of things that are church culture that, over time, have been interpreted to be commandments. I’d like to ease people into the idea of introspection; determine for yourself what is a commandment and what is not and ultimately have them see the spirit behind the commandments they keep. I think people would get more out of keeping commandments or even be more likely to keep a commandment they aren’t currently keeping if they knew the spirit behind keeping them. Also, (obviously) one goal is to get them focusing on actual, factual commandments
I’m still preparing the particulars of the lesson, plus I’m going to need time today to gather the materials I need for the object lesson that goes along with this. With all that I haven’t got much time for my little list but so far I’ve got:
Soft drinks are against the Word of Wisdom
- You can only pass sacrament with your right hand
- etc.
I know the group very well, so I’ll be very selective about which ones I share. For instance, I think the soft drinks one would get a chuckle out of the group, so I’ll share that one. I’m fairly certain that one member of the group has strong feelings about passing the sacrament with the right hand, so I won’t share that one. I don’t want to tear any personal beliefs down or anything, I just want to get them thinking.
Feel free to share anything that comes to you, we have a small and interesting group so you’d be surprised by what would “fly.” I’ll let you know how it goes, thanks in advance.
You could talk about needing to stand for intermediate hymn, though not really ever considered doctrine. Women not praying in sacrament meeting?
You could bring up the sacrament right hand thing by reading the instruction on how to administer the sacrament. Ask something about which things need to be done with exactness and which things are matters of personal preference.
Men being clean shaven
Men wearing a white shirt
Needing to use white bread for sacrament (one bishop used to insist when I was a youth)
I also like this quote: Quote:
“There’s no office in the Church that qualifies the holder to give the official interpretation of the Church. We’re to read the scriptures for ourselves, as guided by the Spirit.Joseph Smith himself often disagreed with various of his brethren on different points, yet he never cracked down on them, saying they’d better change this or that, or else. He disagreed with Parley P. Pratt on a number of things, and also with Brigham Young on various things.”
Hugh Nibley
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=103&chapid=1154 Thanks. I’ll add the one about beards and the one about white bread to my list. Several people in the group are very insistent on white shirts so I’ll leave that off… since the focus is to get people to think, not to provide a list of incorrect beliefs we hold.
I’ll start searching the forums in earnest. I have a hard time coming up with stuff because “Mormon” culture doesn’t exist where I live.
You could also distinguish between administrative procedure and doctrine as well… but be careful and stick to innocuous topics. I was going to list my pet peeves (one year penalty for civil weddings, etcetera, but that would be too controversial). You could mention
1) Taking sacrament with right hand
2) Anything in the Unwritten Order of Things by Boyd K. Packer (never say No to a calling, don’t asked to be released, etcetera).
Know I’m kinda late to the party. I think that my favorite example was when I was growing up we had a rule that only the priests would touch the sheet over the bread and water. I thought that there was something doctinal about it. When we moved to a different ward with a different sacrament table the deacons had to help to pull back the sheet because the table was connected to the wall (in my ward growing up we had had a freestanding table) and it would be very difficult for the priests to reach the front of the table. Somewhat related to this. There is no doctrinal reason why we can’t have the young women pass tha sacrament just as the deacons do. True the CHI says that this is for deacons but the CHI is only policy, not doctrine.
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