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I grew up in the Catholic church and very loving family. I love the traditions of the Catholic church and still do. I totally believe in God and Jesus Christ! And I know that He sends people into our lives when we need them. I was married to a non Catholic for four years. He had problems like everyone and tore me down constantly. During that time I was working for a Mormon owned company in Seattle. I had left my husband when a new woman started working there. We became instant friends and she invited me to church singles activities. I couldn’t believe there were so many single, young people that did not swear or drink to have fun. My new mormon friend called me a dry mormon because I didn’t do any of those things. I was always the designated driver at the parties growing up. Anyway, my husband was sending me flowers wanting me to come back and saying he would change but I didn’t love him and really didn’t want to go back but felt this pull to go back to him. I was so torn up inside. My friend taught me about fasting and praying so I prayed and fasted for two days and woke up the next morning with complete peace and knew I would not be going back to him. It took me about 6 months to join the church. I actually fasted and prayed before joining the church but did not get any answers. I still joined because I loved the church for it’s simpleness, goodness and focus on family. Then I went to the temple and married a wonderful and kind man from Utah and moved here. The simpleness of the church just went out the window! I thought I had gotten away from the rituals from the Catholic church but here I was again in the temple with rituals. I did not like the temple at all. I continue to struggle with it. Over the years I have had doubts especially about polygamy and blacks not holding the priesthood and the temple. But I was busy raising a family so I would pray and just believe and move on. This happened every few months. Last summer I decided this is it and read the Book of Mormon in the space of two weeks. I was so excited about receiving an answer. I knew I would. I fasted the last day of reading, waited until I was the only one in the house. I read the last page and prayed of it’s truthfulness. Nothing! Bummer! But I still went on thinking that I would receive that answer at sometime and decided for some reason this was not the time.
About five months ago, I was praying just to know the truth. Whatever that truth is. I just wanted to do the right thing! I just wanted to know the truth!!! That is when I had this desire to read all the things that all of you have read on the internet, in books (Fawn Brodie) etc. Oh my gosh, what the heck is all this stuff!!! I couldn’t believe it! Then I read Section 132 of the Book of Mormon. Verses 15 thru 17 were crazy and then the one that made me nuts was verse 54. If Emma doesn’t live the law of polygamy she will be destroyed????? That is when I decided I don’t even want it to be true! It goes against everything I have ever been taught in my lifetime even in the church! So immoral!!! Why was Joseph bringing something back from the Old Testament. Christ said to do away with the old. Christ is LOVE!!! My husband said you have to have faith. But what do I have faith in??? I want to have faith in the right thing. There are a lot of religions that say they have the right thing.
But, I have now been a member for 33 years and I have three married daughters and one daughter in high school and two grandchildren. They are all good people and very active in the church as is my husband. I am very blessed to have a wonderful, supportive husband. I have talked to my married children about my struggles. I want to go to the temple with my youngest daughter when and if she gets married. But I haven’t gone to the temple in six months and really have no desire to. I read the essay and I’m not sure I can answer yes to all the temple questions. My calling is actually 2nd counselor in the Stake Relief Society and nursery. I haven’t talked to the Bishop or the Stake President. I’m afraid when they release me from my Stake calling and call me to something else that I won’t be able to accept a calling where I have to teach the gospel. I don’t believe it so how can I teach it? I go to church but cringe when anyone says anything I don’t believe in. Anyway, that is it. I am very weary and am searching for peace and joy in my life spiritually.
Hi PeaceandJoy, Welcome to our community. Your experience is not unusual. That is why we exist and have a site dedicated to issues like your experience. This is an open place to discuss the problems you found with other members of the Church that are “safe.” By safe, I mean we already know about the controversies you found. We aren’t going to freak out. We are comfortable talking about it. That isn’t always the case in our normal circle of family and Church friends, the ones we normally rely on for support.
We don’t have the one correct answer to tell you. You don’t have to just shut your eyes and pretend the problem isn’t there (although that is one way to deal with it). We all have our own ideas and ways we personally adapted to our crisis of faith. You will have your own way too, as you completely own your beliefs.
I would like to highlight two things I picked up from your life story.
1. You have been in the Church for 33 years and really enjoyed your experience. It has been an enlightening and uplifting experience (for the most part, that’s what I see). You had some beautiful, spiritual experiences. Some things didn’t quite work for you like other members claim too. But for the most part, it sounds like you’ve had a good experience.
Your firsthand experience *IS* the most reliable you can have. It is as true as anything can be. The Church to you is what you experience on a day to day basis.
2. You don’t like formalized religious ritual that much. You also now have a more realistic view of how our doctrines, teachings and practices have developed and evolved over time. That in itself is a shock to many members, who think nothing has every changed at all from the beginning of time (God does not change, so religion never changes).
There are kind of two broad paths to take at this point. The first is an all-or-nothing style of dealing with the problem. You decide that you must accept it all or reject it all, what we call binary thinking. Some people do that. I am not a fan of it, but we are frankly a minority. You could leave the Church. You could also stay and ignore all you learned and pretend it doesn’t exist. Both of those cause a lot of problems and heartache for people.
Another thing with rejecting or accepting everything is that isn’t really necessary. The Church has quietly rejected a lot of what most people have problems with. The LDS Church does not teach these anymore (a rejection): Adam-God, Polygamy, Blood Atonement, problematic parts of the temple ceremonies, racial ideas of valiance in the pre-existence, and others, just to name a few. Some form of rejecting those ideas is already incorporated into the Church we participate in every day.
Our site is all about the second path — a more nuanced approach. We don’t want to throw out and lose all the good, even though we see some bad.
Welcome! First of all, welcome to the site. Secondly, I could not say it any better than Valoel did. I would only add: -you are very fortunate to have had such a positive firsthand experience, and the way you describe it is spiritual. There are many so-called stalwart members with far less to go on!
-while the church doesn’t often repudiate things from the past, it does de-emphasize, white-wash and exclude things that are not useful or relevant or part of the gospel. To me, that ability to reinvent itself is a huge plus.
-Lastly, not everything you read of history is equally true. While the church white-washes, there are many sources (both contemporary and from JS’s time period) who sensationalized events for their own purposes (or because they honestly viewed things that negatively in some cases). Any way you slice it, there are simply many conflicting views on JS and the foundational stories. It’s often not clear what actually happened and when, let alone the motives of participants in the events. There are multiple possible interpretations. At the end of the day, your own view is the only one that matters. It’s simply enigmatic at times, so as the saying goes, “believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.” (By that, I only mean retain healthy skepticism).
I look forward to more of your contributions here.
Peaceandjoy wrote:I still joined because I loved the church for it’s simpleness, goodness and focus on family.
(snip)
I don’t believe it so how can I teach it?
Welcome! I really enjoyed reading your story. Sounds like you are on a great journey!! Good things are to come. Hopefully, peace that you can feel ok with yourself for who you are and how you believe, and how you choose to interpret truth.
Your statement about how you originally felt about the church because of its simpleness is interesting. Life would be nice if it all stayed simple and easy, but we must grow. There can be ways to avoid making it more complicated than it needs to be, but God doesn’t want us to stay stagnant with just simple. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became [an adult], I put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:11)
I’ve read a lot of those things you mentioned as well, and was shocked at first I wasn’t given more of this information before, since I grew up in the church. But ultimately, I find things aren’t always what they seem and I have reconciled a lot of it in my mind to how I currently believe. I am currently a primary teacher and have no troubles teaching the lessons (primary is great for focusing on the simple and beautiful teachings of the gospel), and keeping my doubts out of the classroom (I save them all for this forum
I look forward to hearing from your perspectives! I’d suggest you look at those resources on the home page, especially Fowler’s Stages of Faith. We quickly find out our situation is not so unique after all, and yet, we don’t need to throw out the simple beauties of the church for some of the other stuff we don’t understand.
Welcome!
Hello and welcome. I hope you feel that it is ok to voice the concerns you have. I am new to this site too and have been more than impressed by the way this community seems to receive these concerns. So different than other sites where I see members jump right to the defensive or attack a persons righteousness. I know that there is a lot out on the internet that is alarming. I know that there are parts to our history that seems alarming too. My testimony has been twisting and turning as I try to make sense out of it and come to the kind of understanding that is what I hope Father in Heaven has. There have been moments as I have grappled with polygamy where I didn’t even want to believe in God even if He was the most powerful being in the universe if this was indeed how he saw women …. as something to be rewarded unto men (as vs. 55 seems to say). I think I would rather be an atheist.
As I have read section 132, I sometimes see progressive scripture and sometimes see flashbacks to the OT. I don’t know if I have made sense out of all of it. Sometimes I try to understand by referring to other times when he commanded his servants to do things that seemed immoral such as Abraham and Isaac or Nephi and Laban. I could prolly sift thru the OT and find a few more as the Israelites had “permission” to take out a few enemies.
I suppose God and I are going to have to continue having more conversations so that I can understand the context of 132 and his communications to those two specific people and then the context of polygamy as it relates to the whole eternal picture of things.
And with regards to Fawn Brodie…… when did she become unbiased? I mean, can you really trust her evaluations of things? I think it is clear she had an agenda.
Much Love.
p.s. And with regards to evaluating history, I am reminded of a line from the musical “Wicked” and I try not to take it all so seriously. Remember when the Wizard says “Elphaba, where I’m from, we believe all sorts of things that aren’t true. We call it — “history”.”
I was a history teacher, so I don’t obsess over historicity issues. It’s ALL subjective once it moves past those involved. We all see what we believe – rather than believing what we see. That’s why eye-witness accounts are so unreliable – which is a fascinating part of historical analysis. Thanks for welcoming me. I’m enjoying reading responses and also other’s stories! I love that it is positive here. Right now I’m planning on staying as active as I can unless I feel otherwise. The church has so many good things.
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