Forsake the Gospel and Lose Your Job

I haven’t directly heard the lose your job thing, either, but indirectly I think many orthodox people believe that. I think there is an element of the membership who will blame such hardships on not being faithful enough, not fully living the gospel, etc. – even if there is no evidence the person isn’t being faithful or not living the gospel. I think Pres. Uchtdorf directly addressed that element when he talked about being sinful, lazy or offended as being reasons for leaving the church – when in reality “It is not that simple.” I do believe the majority of the active membership sees things like a job and financial security as “blessings,” when I am not so sure that’s what the scriptures mean when they talk about blessings.

Nibbler – Why would we do that?

Maybe we could dedicate a year of SS to the book of Job (pun)

I also haven’t heard it said exactly like that, but yeah, I’ve definitely gotten the impression throughout my life in the church that good things will happen if you’re faithful, and if bad things are happening, then it’s likely you aren’t just faithful enough, and you just need to change something and try harder at being a good person. I think that just like with superstitions, something correlated with something else enough times that people start believing one causes the other and the coincidences were indicative with something more.

I say that, though, from the standpoint of coming from a family with experiences like Heber’s uncle — there are things that happened to our family that we cannot logically explain, the type of blessings and even some miracles that came consistently after following certain counsels from the church, such as tithing and mission attendance. The formula, as Heber describes it, works incredibly well for my family, and those experiences are one of the reasons why I believe the Church is “true” for certain people. I’ve stated before in other threads that I don’t believe coincidences are just coincidences.

On the other hand, I know in particular one couple who were each individually miserable and each in abusive, manipulative marriages before leaving the church and meeting each other. And now they are insanely successful and happy and some of my dearest, kindest friends.

As part of my FC, I had to reteach myself that the “forsaking the Gospel and losing your job” belief wasn’t going to fly with my beliefs. Not everyone can become who they are meant to be within the church. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be what a lot of TBM feel.

Maybe he works in a heavily LDS area, with LDS administrators, bosses, co-workers, and he was worried he would be “let go” once he stepped back from the church. I’m not saying it happens a lot, but I’m sure it happens some. An employer finds a PC way to do it, even if the motivation isn’t.

I have seen this in my family. Just a divorce was reason enough to lose a very high profile job – and he knew it before hand. So sad.

Hmm. This reminds me of something one of my sisters once said to me. She was apologizing that she had said some unkind things about me to another sister. She said that she was complaining that even though she’s much more righteous than me, it was unfair that I was so much more financially successful when she & her family have struggled. Her reason for saying I was less righteous? Because I have a career, and she doesn’t work. I pointed out that there’s a direct relationship between me working and our financial success and her not working and their struggling. I really don’t think she even still believes my point is valid or that my working could result in anything other than our ruin or that her refusal to work (even though her adult kids have been out of the home for years) could make their finances tight, particularly since her husband was out of work for several years.

Faith is easy. Math is hard.

Honestly, I’ve never heard that. But I’ve heard of people who leave the church and still live happy, good-natured lives.

I’ve also heard of people who leave the church, but have an empty feeling inside. They didn’t realize that it was there, until they rejoined.

But I’ve never heard of losing your job, or losing money due to not paying tithing. I haven’t paid tithing in several months, almost a year, and I’m doing fine financially. However, many people I know have seen the blessings of tithing in their lives.

Very sad story, though. It’s so sad to hear people who leave the church because of its members. That should never, ever happen.