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cwald wrote:
…even if it is a stage 3 “loyalty” to the church dagger.
Screw Fowler’s stages. They are not part of the gospel.Got it. Shawn. I don’t want this to become any more personal. I am not interested in harming your faith. I am really trying to be nice today…deleted my last response…moderated my other response…not going to overract to your last comment…and trying to be compassionate and understanding…
THAT IS THE GOSPEL.
You made your point. Perhaps we should move on?
Fowler’s stages aren’t part of the Gospel – but we are commanded to seek learning out the best books, and Fowler’s work on stages of faith are part of the learning I have chosen to seek out of good books. Let’s keep this focused on the topic and avoid screwing anything in this thread.
🙂 The reason I signed up on this site is because I felt very comfortable with the mood or spirit that seemed to come from reading everyone’s thoughts and opinions. I posted because if I felt cynical at that particular moment I could express it and feel safe and not judged. I like that. I feel cynical at times and it comes from many different sources including the church, GC, leaders and my own moods or thinking. I have noticed that many of the people who post here have been very respectful of other opinions and have shown a lot of support for all us trying to find our own way. I have been wondering this whole week if some of the talks at GC has been having a negative effect on us because it has once again made us question our participation on this and maybe other boards. Because on this site we are trying to stayLDS we are torn for doing this. I have asked myself if I am sinning because I’m not exactly following my leaders like I have tried to do all my church life. My heart tells me I’m doing ok and I need the openness I can have here that I can’t have at church or with most of those I love. I have a HC meeting tomorrow morning and the assignment we have is to discuss GC and how it has effected us and how we can use it to help the stake. I am torn between saying how great it was and wow 18 year olds can now go on missions or telling them that I am a little (maybe a lot) upset with some of the talks and if we want to help the stake and the young people we need to be more Chist like and less church like. Hopefully you know what I’m talking about. That’s the way I’m leaning right now. There seems to be something happening here and I hope we can also more supportive of each other. Nice post church333. Old-Timer wrote:Fowler’s stages aren’t part of the Gospel – but we are commanded to seek learning out the best books, and Fowler’s work on stages of faith are part of the learning I have chosen to seek out of good books.
Let’s keep this focused on the topic and avoid screwing anything in this thread.
🙂
I wonder if Fowler’s Stages can actually contribute to cynicism. Someone may come to this site, read about the stages, determine he/she is in stage 4, and then assume it’s good to work toward stage 5. To me, it makes sense to move toward stage 5 in other aspects of life (politics, etc.). However, it does not make sense to me to approach the Church that way.I can’t find any teachings in the scriptures about re-engaging in a 5th Stage manner.
ThisI am cynical, and I’m not sure whose fault it is. I think most cynicism begins with a loss of trust. This can come from a loss of trust between individuals, or between a person and an organization. Cynicism sets in when a person no longer believes anyone/anything can be trusted. The cure for cynicism is positive thinking, looking for the good, seeing “silver linings”, and putting oneself out there again. (Cue Barry Manilow Ready to Take a Chance Again) Nephite wrote:I wonder if Fowler’s Stages can actually contribute to cynicism. Someone may come to this site, read about the stages, determine he/she is in stage 4, and then assume it’s good to work toward stage 5. To me, it makes sense to move toward stage 5 in other aspects of life (politics, etc.). However, it does not make sense to me to approach the Church that way.
I am currently reading “Stages of Faith”. Fowler’s model seems to account for our spiritual journeys fairly well; however, a potential problem with our use of Fowler’s theory is “reification”. Models are just that–models. They aren’t meant to represent the “real” thing in detail, and often fail to capture crucial characteristics of reality. A good model should reflect reality; models were never meant to be imposed on reality. I think people are going to be cynical whether they read about Fowler, or not. I can see you point about people using Fowler to say “I’m in Stage Four! This is just the way I am!” and not continue to work for spiritual growth.
Fowler mentions that most religions need a core of Stage 3 people to make things work. Does a person have to remain in a Stage 3 outlook to stay in the Church? I think people will go through times of lessening commitment in Stage 4, but eventually a person can be quite happy in Stage 5 in the Church. Perhaps Stage 5 and 6 lack of literal belief in certain aspects of the Church is offensive to those in Stage 3, but it in no way prevents a person from being “orthoprax”, becoming like Christ, or giving Christlike service.
Nephite wrote:I can’t find any teachings in the scriptures about re-engaging in a 5th Stage manner.
ThisAs I am reading, I will see if I can scare up some scriptural language that supports Stage 5. I am confident it exists. Stage Six seems to be the end goal of faith, and I see it reflected in Paul’s and Mormon’s discussion of charity, and John’s discussion of love in his epistles, and in his account of the Last Supper.
William Perry also developed a theory of intellectual and moral development that posits that college students often begin with “black and white” thinking, and develop by passing through relativism. That relativism only becomes useful as each person, knowing that there is paradox and a multiplicity of approaches to morality, commits him/herself to one or more approaches. This is the kind of commitment in the Gospel that I’m sure we should strive for.
Shawn, I don’t think that describes anyone here, and it certainly isn’t what we advocate. However, it is a really good example of cynicism at work – and I mean that to be constructive in nature, since I think it goes to the heart of the title question.
This site helps a lot of people in a very real way. I am comfortable saying I know that, based on all of the messages we’ve received saying it. However, it doesn’t help a lot of people and isn’t meant for them. So, the title question applies – and my answer is, again:
There tends to be plenty of “fault” to go around, and it is important to look at ourselves and see what portion of the cynicism lies with us. Are we matched properly with the things we do? If not, what can we do about it? Can we work on understanding and seeing things differently, or do we need to look at separating ourselves from the irritants that make us cynical? etc.
That is the heart of the mission of this site – recognizing what makes us cynical and working to lessen that cynicism in whatever ways make sense to each of us individually. Our hope is that everyone can do that within the LDS Church, but it just isn’t possible for some. We understand that, but our goal still is to tackle what we can control in a constructive way – including our cynicism. Blaming it all on others, even when there is some blame to be distributed fairly, simply isn’t constructive.
Quote:however, a potential problem with our use of Fowler’s theory is “reification”. Models are just that–models. They aren’t meant to represent the “real” thing in detail, and often fail to capture crucial characteristics of reality. A good model should reflect reality; models were never meant to be imposed on reality, throwing out anything real that doesn’t fit the model.
Exactly.
Nephite wrote:This
I feel like this a lot lately.I think it was Tolle in
The Power of Nowthat mentions something similar – that at this point, one will either give in to bitterness, or transcend it. I’m just not sure how to transcend it… I think it takes a lot of creative imagination, which I haven’t exercised for a while.
Everything we think (& related emotions) are based on limited, subjective awareness, & thus are illusional – hand picked. We might as well pick well.
“The great art of life is having as many pleasant thoughts as possible.”
Maybe transcending it is about picking “functional illusions” (as SPG coined the phrase).
That article is pure hogwash. The church is definitely true because too many people would have to have lied for it not to be? I’m pretty sure that logic makes every religion on the entire planet the “One True Church.” In a way, the church is %100 responsible for my cynicism, but in all reality, it’s no worse than any other belief system anywhere. Just like any other religion, it’s going to work for some people and not for others. No matter which religion I might have been raised in (or lack of), I feel that I would have gone through the same disillusionments and cynicism at one point or another. So I’m going to stick with this one, even if I feel cynical because to me questioning everything that I hear is just a part of growing up.
I’ve always enjoyed this site, but it’s gotten a bit contentious. I really get uplifted with a lot of the comments. I just pray that [some participants] will resolve their differences. I think we need to remember that being contentious about anything (this applies especially to [some participants]) that contention hurts a person spiritually. I believe contention is Satan’s plan and I believe peace, charity, and love are Christ’s plan. [Specific names were removed by admin.]
Quote:cwald wrote:
Question: Is the church to blame for it’s members cynicism? And if so, does it need to acknowledge and accept any of the blame or credit for making me cynical and skeptical?
Well, a Catholic put it nicely to me, about his faith. He’d been brought up with Latin mass, and certain beliefs, and then was told it was all trash. It was a bit too much of a shift for him.
Let me try to share my thoughts one by one. Am I cynical (or trusting, anxious, confident, …)? Sure ((shrug)). Whose fault is it? Everyone’s and nobody’s. I am a unique cocktail of variables including everything from my DNA, to the culture, to my upbringing – family dynamic – birth order, to everyone that has made a contributing impact for good or ill, and YES to the decisions that I might make as I process all these inputs. But these decisions are not necessarily free – they are limited by all the inputs and decisions that have come before.
Also I think a certain amount of cynicism is part of development and part of having varied life experiences (I’ve heard the term “sacrament of defeat” used). So in this sense, I have grown into the man that I am today – how can someone be to blame for that? Why do we need to attempt to pinpoint (and erroneously simplify) the cause of things? They are. I am. And that is OK.
Nephite wrote:I wonder if Fowler’s Stages can actually contribute to cynicism. Someone may come to this site, read about the stages, determine he/she is in stage 4, and then assume it’s good to work toward stage 5. To me, it makes sense to move toward stage 5 in other aspects of life (politics, etc.). However, it does not make sense to me to approach the Church that way.
I can’t find any teachings in the scriptures about re-engaging in a 5th Stage manner. This says of stage 5: “Its danger lies in the direction of a paralyzing passivity or inaction, giving rise to complacency or cynical withdrawal, due to its paradoxical understanding of truth.”
In thinking about how this site has helped me I must recognize that it might not help for everyone. We advocate acceptance of whatever individual path (within reason) one needs to take to keep us in the church but there are some overall themes. Fowler is one of those. But for the growth that I have made towards stage 5 thinking – the scriptures for me would be rejected wholesale. Some of my life experiences have painfully shown me that some of the promises that I had inferred from our classic interpretations of the scriptures were not necessarily accurate. Without a more stage 5 approach the major temptation would be to label the scriptures as the delusions of well meaning men or even worse as grasps to control and manipulate the behavior of others. That would be to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I’m pretty sure that I could cobble enough scriptures together to defend my approach. It seems that the scriptures used as proof texts can defend almost anything. But I am not interested in that. I love the scriptures for their beauty and their wonder not because they authorize or affirm my path. Some verses fill my soul, others I firmly disagree with. I am aware of both and I acknowledge both and that is ok too.
Does that make me complacent? Yes, I think so. In recognizing the validity of so many viewpoints, what then should be appropriate to sacrifice to defend any one of them? Money, time, liberty, one’s life, the life of others? Even if I can come to those conclusions for myself, can I expect that others should be willing to give as much as I? Hard questions that make my position porous and malleable and from certain perspectives cynical and complacent. I’m ok with that.
Roy wrote:Also I think a certain amount of cynicism is
part of developmentand part of having varied life experiences (I’ve heard the term “sacrament of defeat” used). So in this sense, I have grown into the man that I am today – how can someone be to blame for that? It seems that cynicism works in opposition with trust, hope, and gratitude. The doctrine of “opposition in all things” seems to demand the presence of at least
somecynicism in our lives, that we may know its opposite. Getting stuck in cynicism–not a happy or healthy place to be. From a little bit of reading on Fowler’s Stage 5, it seems that “re-engagement” is one of the primary tasks. A person in Stage 5 has had his/her symbols “broken”, had gone through the process of demythologizing his/her own faith, and is prepared to engage with the greater truths behind the symbols of his/her religion. There seems to be a point where the symbols, parables, etc., break down, or reveal only limited dimensions of the truths they represent. Once symbols have been “broken” (Fowler’s language), a person can soar beyond the surface of the symbols into the richness of the mysteries of godliness that lie behind them. A Stage 5 Mormon is the perfect person to build relationships with other faith communities, and to bring enormous spiritual strength and power to his/her own faith community–if he/she overcomes the paralysis of analysis… There are numerous references in the scriptures to change of heart and re-committment. E Cook’s recent talk on Alma 5
http://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/can-ye-feel-so-now?lang=eng http://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/the-first-great-commandment?lang=eng
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