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I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic, because maintaining authenticity is key to me staying in the Church. If I can’t, then it is time to cut the cord. At the risk of hijacking the topic, perhaps a better question is what things can I do in the Church that allow participation but allow someone like me to maintain authenticity? (this is a rhetorical question). If I’m going to stay, I’ve got to be involved somehow (authentically). The key to maintain authenticity while speaking or teaching is controlling what you teach or speak about, which in many cases may lead to silence or the inability to respond to the call or the request to teach or speak. You can be authentic and still be tactful while teaching or speaking. But, if in order to maintain authenticity you have to be so circumspect that it is painful to maintain authenticity, then maintaining authenticity probably requires silence in order to be respectful.
I practice two things that are really important: 1) take an anthropological stance. Listen and be interested as an observer in what people are saying that you may not agree with. Ask why they think that. You don’t have to swing at every pitch. I find it fascinating. They generally can tell that you don’t necessarily agree, but you also don’t have to be argumentative with them either. I truly try to be interested.
2) keep a sense of humor about yourself and your point of view. Sometimes you can just laugh something off with your disagreement. I remember a lesson in which people were talking about BOM stories they liked and someone said that she liked the story of Ammon chopping off the arms at the waters of Sebus, and I had to laugh about that. I said c’mon she’s a doctor, doesn’t that seem like a campfire story someone has embellished? Nobody died from loss of blood, but their arms were all chopped off?? Gimme a break! I think because I was laughing, she didn’t really mind that I was basically saying the story sounded fabricated.
I try to be authentic. I feel i have enough capital to speak my mind, so I do. I haven given talks about seer stones, figurativeness of the gospel, leader fallibility, being a mormon doesn’t raise your chance of salvation, etc…. I am pretty bold and while a few from the older crowd are rubbed the wrong way a little, most of the younger crowd say how happy they are with what is said. DBMormon wrote:I try to be authentic. I feel i have enough capital to speak my mind, so I do. I haven given talks about seer stones, figurativeness of the gospel, leader fallibility, being a mormon doesn’t raise your chance of salvation, etc…. I am pretty bold and while a few from the older crowd are rubbed the wrong way a little, most of the younger crowd say how happy they are with what is said.
I, too, have been capable of doing this to an extent and have never gotten any pushback. Quoting GAs really helps. That isn’t really the issue. The issue is that I have been assigned a topic that I really don’t believe in, and on top of that I really have some things I’d like to say to the ward I’m speaking to (some have a bit of an issue with being inclusive, IMO). I think I do have enough cred to be able to say “I’ve been assigned this topic and I am going to talk about it but first I’m going to talk about this other thing” (probably stating it much less bluntly and in reality focus on the other thing). Again using the example of prayer (even though that’s not the topic), I could not stand before a ward and say “I know God hears and answers all prayers” because I don’t believe that on multiple levels. Yet the expectation would probably be that I testify of something along that line and many other things about prayer I may or may not believe.
As the time draws closer I will likely post a specific thread asking for input on the actual subject, for now I am just looking for general input because I recognize this is going to happen again. I do appreciate all of you have have shared. I like Nibbler’s idea of an accessible place where we could easily find information on the more sticky subjects.
Is it a talk or a lesson? When there’s no interaction it’s much, much easier to take the message in the direction you want to take it. 😈 Hey, once I got assigned a talk on “using the BoM as a missionary tool.” The assignment came at the worst possible time for me, I wasn’t too keen on either. If they found a way to work the BoA in there they would have pushed three of my buttons at the same time. They had Ctrl and Alt down, they just needed to add the Del to those and… *poof*.
Hopefully there’s some wiggle room in there for you. Good luck.
nibbler wrote:Is it a talk or a lesson? When there’s no interaction it’s much, much easier to take the message in the direction you want to take it.
😈 Hey, once I got assigned a talk on “using the BoM as a missionary tool.” The assignment came at the worst possible time for me, I wasn’t too keen on either. If they found a way to work the BoA in there they would have pushed three of my buttons at the same time. They had Ctrl and Alt down, they just needed to add the Del to those and… *poof*.
Hopefully there’s some wiggle room in there for you. Good luck.
This particular one is a talk, but I do both so the general question is applicable to both.
I couldn’t so I resigned my teaching position. I kept it up for a long time but it became to ridiculous the lengths I had to go to to not offend. I just posted an outline of the talk I gave yesterday in church. It is an example of how I approach being authentic when speaking in church. I hope this isn’t off topic. Yesterday I was asked to give a talk in church. The Bishopric member is friend so I asked if I could pick the topic. He said yes. There is a list of scriptures & topics so he will send me the list. I felt more comfortable
about accepting the assignment. For me, this is a great solution for wanting to be authentic & still willing to fulfill the
assignment. I’m sure all wards are not this willing.
For some reason, our bishopric recently started letting speakers pick their own topics or be assigned one. Almost all have chosen to pick their own. It’s interesting what people have chosen. It’s also nice that we don’t have to hear 3 people speak about the same thing. It’s kept things interesting. This past Sunday for some reason, they derailed a little and asked speakers to talk on 2 GC talks. Urgggggg. SOOOO boring.
:yawn: The last guy practically just read the whole talk and as of right now, I couldn’t tell you which one it was (not one of the ones I found controversial.) Hope they go back to letting speakers choose next week.As far as being authentic when I speak, I’ve found that almost all principles have some wiggle room. Sometimes I’ve even given the assigned topic two sentences and then gone off to talk about something else. Since you get your topic from the SP DJ, that’s probably harder to do.
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