The church is perfect, the people aren’t

I have to take this one step further and say, “The gospel is perfect, the church is not.” I see the gospel of Jesus Christ as very simple. His example was to love one another, serve others, treat others with kindness, be humble, etc. I see Jesus Christ’s gospel as a very simple and perfect way to live. The church then imposes guidelines, doctrines, practices, rituals, covenants, etc. in an effort to keep people together as a community and to keep people dedicated to the church. Some of these doctrines are easy to follow, while others are not. But, I have to look at each teaching individually and decide whether it was part of Christ’s teachings, or an imperfect practice that has been added by well-meaning church leaders. For example, the way I find peace with most teachings that I disagree with (ex. polygamy, priesthood ban, SSM policy, temple covenants, garments, etc.), is to recognize that these are things that have been added by modern church leaders, and have no foundation in Christ’s gospel. As such, I feel no obligation to have a testimony of those things. It makes it easy to just push those things aside as unnecessary. However, if I’m in EQ listening to a lesson about service, watching out for each other, giving thanks, and things like that, I can immediately recognize that those are things that Christ would have encouraged, and I look for ways to do better. So, I try to live the gospel principles, rather than the church doctrines. And if I’m living those core gospel principles, then I’ll already be living most of the church doctrines by default anyway.

I dislike the word perfect.

I previously wrote how I am not certain that Jesus would have necessarily had to be perfect. http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5787&hilit=perfect

The word perfect is so very limiting. If one flaw is found in any aspect then the perfection is null and void. Perfection also precludes growth. If something is perfect than it cannot change organically and still be perfect.

I remember a member of the SP making this statement about the church being perfect in priesthood meeting. I asked him after the class what he meant by that. He said that it had a perfect organization. I did not see how that can be the case since the church no longer has the office of presiding patriarch. Was that office part of the “perfect” organization or wasn’t it? I thought it would be simple to demonstrate to this man that his use of the word “perfect” could not really mean perfect by the definition in the dictionary. Instead, he ended up telling me that he doesn’t know about all that stuff. That he is a simple farmer with a simple faith.

It was a frustrating place to be. Where the definition of the word “perfect” cannot be scrutinized too closely and if you do it is because of your lack of faith that you didn’t just take the word at face value in the first place. :crazy:

I have to take this one step further and say, “The gospel is perfect, the church is not.” I see the gospel of Jesus Christ as very simple. His example was to love one another, serve others, treat others with kindness, be humble, etc. I see Jesus Christ’s gospel as a very simple and perfect way to live. The church then imposes guidelines, doctrines, practices, rituals, covenants, etc. in an effort to keep people together as a community and to keep people dedicated to the church. Some of these doctrines are easy to follow, while others are not. But, I have to look at each teaching individually and decide whether it was part of Christ’s teachings, or an imperfect practice that has been added by well-meaning church leaders. For example, the way I find peace with most teachings that I disagree with (ex. polygamy, priesthood ban, SSM policy, temple covenants, garments, etc.), is to recognize that these are things that have been added by modern church leaders, and have no foundation in Christ’s gospel. As such, I feel no obligation to have a testimony of those things. It makes it easy to just push those things aside as unnecessary. However, if I’m in EQ listening to a lesson about service, watching out for each other, giving thanks, and things like that, I can immediately recognize that those are things that Christ would have encouraged, and I look for ways to do better. So, I try to live the gospel principles, rather than the church doctrines. And if I’m living those core gospel principles, then I’ll already be living most of the church doctrines by default anyway.

And there is a long definition of Stage 5 – looking internally instead of externally for your compass.

Some people have a very real need for something in their lives to be perfect.

Comparing ourselves to others is encoded into the human DNA. Viewing Jesus as the only “perfect” person to have ever lived can do many things; it can level the playing field for all of us, we might be less inclined to look to our imperfect neighbors to define a standard. Of course we might take that and start comparing how well we follow Jesus but having one central figure setting a standard can unify a community.

There’s a catch, until Jesus returns he exists as more of an abstract. The church can serve as a stand in for people that might need something a little more tangible, something they can physically interact with. To them the church might be that something that is both accessible and fills the need for something to be perfect and have order in this life. The defenses go up when something threatens the church, maybe not to preserve the church but to subconsciously preserve the idea that life is not subject to chaos.

The “church” can play the part of being one central figure that sets a standard to unify a community. I guess that’s not the definition of perfect but the church can set a standard that gets us looking less at out neighbors and more at “perfection.”

It helps to remember that the members are the church. For me the pendulum swings both ways. Imperfect people make for an imperfect church, a perfect church makes for perfect people. It’s both.

I have recently come to define perfection as it is seen in nature — I can look at a mess of clouds with a dozen different colors from the sun setting over an uneven horizon of mountains on a warm winter day and think how perfect it is. Perfect can be a beautiful mess of things so long as it gives you that “take my breath away” feeling. I’ve seen many breathtaking sunsets since then, but each is different in its own way. There is no one, true perfect sunset, and their individuality makes them as awe inspiring as they are.

I don’t have much of a testimony in a literal Christ at the present time, but many of the examples and teachings attributed to him seem as perfect as the sunset — not because everything was placed into proper order with no faults whatsoever, but because I appreciate them and feel there could be a lot of good feelings all around if we were better at following his example in appreciating individuals for being individuals rather than conforming them to rigid and strict ideals.

As things are now, the church has built up so many lists of attributes that their version of a one true sunset must have that it’s perfect in the way something manufactured is perfect as it is repeated over and over and over…

Christ didn’t have a long list of perfect sunset attributes to hold up to everyone. Just the basics. And what other people did with those basics determined whether or not they became a beautiful mess.

In that sense, the church is the type of perfect you’d see manufactured at the latest new smartphone showcase. So sure it’s perfect, until the next latest advance in how many pixels and how much battery life you can cram into a reasonably sized and weighted scratch proof body. I’d rather go with people and all their crazy shades of sunsets.

How do you all reconcile this idea in your minds? In conversation and the classroom setting how do you politely respond to the statement?

I simply process what I think they are saying…which I hear them saying:

“The Church is perfect (to me), the people aren’t (to me)”.

I can’t argue that they think it is perfect. That’s what they see when they focus on all the good things they love about it.

I don’t usually see a need for a response in a classroom setting to that.

I don’t want it to become:

“No it isn’t”

“yes it is”

“No it isn’t”

…

Perhaps my wife is not literally Perfect on the level of an exalted godess (yet). But how she is right now is absolutely perfect to me. And no one can argue to me otherwise. She’s perfect to me.

The church can serve as a stand in for people that might need something a little more tangible, something they can physically interact with. To them the church might be that something that is both accessible and fills the need for something to be perfect and have order in this life. The defenses go up when something threatens the church, maybe not to preserve the church but to subconsciously preserve the idea that life is not subject to chaos.

Very well put nibbler. One of the most discomforting parts of my faith crisis and assumptive world collapse was that there are no guarantees. Random chance is quite unsettling. Predictable and fair justice is something firm and immovable – a solid foundation that I can build and rely upon.