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Hey y’all :wave: I’m a longtime lurker of the online LDS forums but have recently decided to give more active participation a try. I’m not experiencing a crisis of faith at the moment, well, at least nothing out of the ordinary. I guess it might be more accurate to say I live in a perpetual crisis of faith and have just gotten used to it and made myself at home. I love what this forum offers. The support, acceptance, and encouragement found here matches my conception of Christ-like. I hope I can contribute on a similar level.
A very little bit about myself, I am from the most Mormon of heritages imaginable, my forbearers all joined the church in the times of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. If your membership traces back to the same time, nice to meet you cousin! – with double digit polygamists in my family tree odds are pretty good that we’re related. I am grateful for my ancestors, not because it has anything to do with righteousness or standing or anything silly like that of course, but because many of the troubling or difficult parts of church history were taught to me early, often coming up in family stories about some great-great-great grandpa. As result, I never experienced the rude awakening and sudden doubt so many do when encountered with unsavory facts or blatantly incorrect teachings. Instead, my faith has been shaped with most of the larger issues many take with the church built in and accounted for. I’ll continue to search but aside from a few details here and there the story of the church has been as it was told me by my family growing up. Notably, as I’m sure many have experienced, my classes at church/seminary/MTC/university were often lacking or incorrect. I have always found this frustrating.
I believe that early and reasonably accurate knowledge of church origins has affected my faith in many ways. There have always been things about the church I believed to be in error; polygamy/polyandry, the priesthood ban, sexism, etc. As result, I never formed a conception of the church as a perfect entity or its leaders as perfect men or women. I came to believe the church to be simply a sum of its parts, a group of mostly good people seeking inspiration on God’s will. I suspect that such inspiration comes as Joseph Smith described it to Oliver Cowdery when Oliver tried to translate: study it out in the mind, ask if it’s right, feel a burning in the bosom if it is. When I have felt inspired, whether by scripture, Shakespeare, science, or Star Trek that is how it works for me, I study it and it feels right. But, obviously this is not a sufficient test for knowledge, I can and have been wrong even when something feels right to me. I believe church leaders are likely in the same boat when seeking inspiration. I know I am limited by my weaknesses, I suspect most are, and that is OK.
I value many teachings of the church; a personal god desiring to give all, an eternal connection with those I love, eternal progression, a loving Savior, and the importance of kindness (though this one is sometimes a bit uneven) being the first to come to mind. Yet there are many teachings, traditions, and taboos in the church that I do not agree with or even find to be harmful, I have seen that many on this board feel the same way. When I first stumbled on StayLDS.com it was very refreshing to find so many other faithful people refusing to accept falsehoods or feeling a need to distort history or excuse facts. Outside of my family growing up and my wife and son, opportunities for open and non-judgmental conversations have been few and far between. At the same time, I love the even-handedness with which so many of you recognize the good things in the gospel and strive after those rather than rejecting the whole package out of hand. Thank you all for the spirit of this forum.
I will try and maintain username consistency across forums, so if you frequent any others, I’ll see you around!
Welcome cousin! I thought I recognized you. First, the important thing – love the avatar. Sounds like you have a lot to offer and I look forward to hearing more from you. It’s nice you’re somewhat immune to the surprises that come with delving into church history. My own family has a branch that still doesn’t talk to the rest of us. Has something to do with great great grandpa marrying great great grandmas sister without telling either one. Go figure. Bet you have some stories to tell.
I’d be interested sometime in hearing more about how you “keep the faith” knowing all you do. For me the more I know the more I think it’s all made up.
Welcome. We need more like you (us).
Welcome. Hi, glad you could join us. Look forward to your contributions. I think it’s a really good example of what could be done more widely. I intend to do so with my children. I’m not going to do so in a negative way, but also want to share things more reasonably and realistically.
Bullfighter, I like your spirit. Healthy sceptisim that respects others views is a good thing to have. You will fit right in with this group. Welcome.
Be careful at MDDB. It is full of people who are beyond feeling. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
Thanks all! You are just as welcoming and positive as I’d hoped. I look forward to our future discussions. Roadrunner wrote:
It’s nice you’re somewhat immune to the surprises that come with delving into church history. My own family has a branch that still doesn’t talk to the rest of us. Has something to do with great great grandpa marrying great great grandmas sister without telling either one. Go figure. Bet you have some stories to tell.I’d be interested sometime in hearing more about how you “keep the faith” knowing all you do. For me the more I know the more I think it’s all made up.
Hi cousin Roadrunner, thank you for the welcome. Your comment reminded me of an interesting Polygamy anecdote from a great great great grandpa: IIRC, grandpa was a local church leader in the last half of the 1800s. He was also a practicing polygamist with somewhere around a dozen wives. Now for the most part, things went about as smoothly as such a situation could be expected, each wife and children had a home to herself (I can’t imagine how an all-under-one-roof situation could ever be tolerable) and the distance kept inter-family drama to a minimum. However, at some point, my grandpa fell for a younger woman described as more free-spirited. Complicating matters, she was not exactly an active member, if memory serves she was known to frequent dance halls (or something like that) which I suppose must have been frowned on. Understandably, the other wives were less than pleased and all sorts of drama ensued when grandpa insisted on taking her as a polygamous wife. I’d have to dig out the family book to remember the details of what went on, but eventually I think a truce was reached and peace restored, though I do know my grandma resented the new woman for a long time afterwards. All I can do is thank God I don’t live in such times.I have read through many of the threads on here discussing how we keep the faith and I look forward to participating. For myself, I have taken a bit by bit approach to gospel topics and history trying to determine by study or prayer what is true or of value and what is to one extent or another made up or at least uncertain. Imo, even if I don’t accept the literal or official version of many things, the precious parts retain their value to me. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
I think if I had to expect divinity from every aspect of the church, early morning seminary and 1pm ward blocks would have been my undoing a long time ago. There’s no way God’s a sadist.
cwald wrote:Be careful at MDDB. It is full of people who are beyond feeling.
Sage advice! I don’t know about beyond feeling but the prevalent binary view of the church does certainly result in a rigidity I know I couldn’t maintain. Thanks for both the welcome and the warning. I’ll try and keep my head down.“Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.”
Welcome, Bullfighter. I have almost no time to comment right now, but I enjoyed your introduction and hope you enjoy being here with us. Bullfighter wrote:Imo, even if I don’t accept the literal or official version of many things, the precious parts retain their value to me. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
I think if I had to expect divinity from every aspect of the church, early morning seminary and 1pm ward blocks would have been my undoing a long time ago. There’s no way God’s a sadist.
Thanks for that. It sounds like a healthy approach and a nice way to keep a positive outlook. We started 1PM church yesterday, and I was at church from 10 AM – 8 PM with a 1 hour break for dinner. I need to keep reminding myself “God is not a sadist, God is not a sadist, God is not a sadist.” We did have a nice testimony meeting though.
Hi! Welcome. Welcome to the Middle Way. I see you’ve landed at a stable place, understanding that it’s not ‘all true or all false’. I look forward to hearing your stories.
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