Commandments, Sin, and Repentance

[Anonymous]

I find myself in an interesting dilemma. My wife has reached the point where she doesn’t want to go to church at all. I am unsure myself though I still have those desires to be united in our faith. As I have gone through my faith transition I have started to question everything. There are some commandments that I am not keeping and would keep me from entering the temple. I love the temple and the symbolism there. I find the endowment teaches many universal principles on different levels depending on the person. I know that not everyone likes the temple and I have often wondered why would the endowment be necessary to receive all the blessings in the next life. I had the thought that everyone should have the opportunity to participate in the endowment.

In any case, my wife is not happy with my lifestyle changes. It seems that she is ok if I go to church and ok if I don’t, but she does want me to keep the LDS standards. As I distance myself from the church I have a desire to participate in some of those things that were forbidden as I was trying to stay temple worthy. I have talked with my wife about this and really tried to be honest, sometimes she seems to get it, other times she thinks it’s all about her, but it’s not.

I know that if I am active I will strive to keep the commandments, but if I’m not active, I feel a greater responsibility to examine all the commandments and ask why I want to keep them or break them and see if they still fit my world view.

There was a time where I was really doing my best to keep all of the commandments but I would still slip up and immediately talk to the bishop about it. Now, I don’t know what my relationship should be with my bishop. How important is confession? When should I meet with the bishop to repent? Do I need to confess for breaking commandments that I do not intend to start keeping? What about commandments that I do intend to start keeping but know that I will not always keep? Certainly, repentance at this stage is not possible anyway, so why involve the bishop? What kind of sins should I handle myself, and which ones require the help of the bishop to be in good standing?

I don’t know what my activity in the church will be, but I do love the church. I think we are more open to accepting people with varying levels of belief than people with varying levels of obedience to temple qualifying commandments like the WoW. How do I go about making these decisions? If I am not active in church, what rules will I live by? I don’t know. I’m kind of floating around a little right now.

[Anonymous]

Unknown said:

Quote:

I don’t know what my relationship should be with my bishop.

1. How important is confession?

2. When should I meet with the bishop to repent?

3. Do I need to confess for breaking commandments that I do not intend to start keeping?

4. What about commandments that I do intend to start keeping but know that I will not always keep?

5. Certainly, repentance at this stage is not possible anyway, so why involve the bishop?

6. What kind of sins should I handle myself, and which ones require the help of the bishop to be in good standing?

There are a lot of questions, my friend.

Questions 1 & 2: It depends on the relationship you have with your Bishop.

Questions 3 & 4: It depends on the sin & the severity.

Question 5: do you want some insight into your situation? are you willing to accept his counsel & make changes where necessary?

Question 6: internally, don’t you know (spiritually) the answer to this question already?

The key, IMO, is your Bishop & the relationship you have with him.

For example, when I stopped drinking, I went back to my Bishop & basically talked about where I was. I considered him a good friend but he

didn’t have any knowledge about alcoholism or its affects on the average person. At the end of our conversation, he started to gossip about people

we both knew. I didn’t feel comfortable that he was going to keep my story confidential. So, I stayed away for another 10 yrs.

Another Bishop came along, also a friend. We sat down & talked about the situation. This time he said, let me think about it & we’ll talk again.

This time he wrote a long letter saying that he thought my main issue had to do with anger. He gave me examples from his own life. After this exchange I felt

I could trust him & our relationship grew to be more like a friend than a Religious Authority.

I personally wouldn’t reveal anything about myself to anyone that I didn’t want to change. But, that’s me.

If you want to get more specific, this is a good place to reveal yourself anonymously.

Or send a Private Message.

[Anonymous]

I generally advise people who have had a faith crisis not to talk to their bishop. This is because I believe that he will often be unable to help. Even worse, once he knows exactly where you stand he may make you jump through extra hoops to participate or even try to isolate you from the ward.

Unknown wrote:

I think we are more open to accepting people with varying levels of belief than people with varying levels of obedience to temple qualifying commandments like the WoW.

I suppose it depends. I believe that we are willing to give a lot of rope to people that are honestly struggling and are still in a position to change and grow (often by submitting to church authority). When somebody hardens either in belief or behavior and says effectively, “This is who I am and will never change” then the level of acceptance usually plummets.

I have not paid any tithing since the death of my daughter. In a way, losing her makes my faith crisis more approachable for LDS members (only a real jerk would not permit me some iota of soul searching after such a loss). I had paid tithing on the understanding that God would pour out blessings upon my family. I no longer believe that it works that way. Even though I recognize that there can be other good reasons for paying tithing, I just haven’t found them very motivating. In the occasional meeting with my bishop I have framed my faith crisis as a struggle and that while I no longer “know” everything, I still find it beautiful and I hope for it to be true.

Unknown wrote:

In any case, my wife is not happy with my lifestyle changes. It seems that she is ok if I go to church and ok if I don’t, but she does want me to keep the LDS standards. As I distance myself from the church I have a desire to participate in some of those things that were forbidden as I was trying to stay temple worthy. I have talked with my wife about this and really tried to be honest, sometimes she seems to get it, other times she thinks it’s all about her, but it’s not.

I believe this is the important part. Who cares about the bishop as long as you have your wife by your side. Even if your wife doesn’t want to go to church it is likely that she has fear about you not living LDS standards. I remember getting a party invite that said “BYOB.” My wife was terrified. She told me, “With so much changing about you lately, how am I supposed to know what will go next?” It made me aware that she is afraid that the man that she loved and married could very well degenerate into an abusive and hurtful person – addicted to drugs, alcohol, and sexual permissiveness.

I had to reassure her that I do not live certain standards just because the church tells me to. Many of them are just a part of me through habit. Also I am a husband and father participating in an LDS community and therefore live certain standards out of respect for the relationships that I have with these individuals. I have told her that I would probably drink an iced mocha drink if I was reasonably sure that no ward community members would find out. I have also let her know that I do not have any desire for alcohol. We agreed that if I were to ever have an alcoholic beverage that I would need to inform her first. I know that anything sexual would strike my DW to the core. That would be considered a breach of trust that would be very difficult to come back from. OTOH, we have reached a point of honesty where “M” is permissible – particularly when it is not really practical for us to come together intimately (due to distance, medical conditions, etc.). In summary, I have needed to prove to my wife that I am not going to change my life just because I no longer believe that God is keeping a running tally.

That really is my advice to you. Many things may be in a state of flux right now. Marriages are built on commitment and stability. What standards are you willing to live just to let your wife know what she can count and depend on?

We have a fantastic older thread on finding your own moral compass here: http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4072&hilit=guardrails

[Anonymous]

My wife and I are in a very similar position. Neither she nor I are literal believers, and she wants to stop all church attendance. I still attend church with all of our kids. We are both not terribly strict with church ‘rules’, however, the WoW is something that is very important to me. If I was a pharisee, D&C 89 would be in the little prayer box on my forehead. My wife on the other hand can’t stand the WoW. This is probably the single biggest thing that we struggle with together. For some time she has been hiding alcohol and secretly consuming it. She’ll also make an occoasional starbucks run. I have slowly opened up about the possibility of her drinking in front of me when we go out to dinner. This has been VERY difficult for me, but I have been slowly accepting of it. It was real rough the other day when she told me she had been hiding e-cigaretts for the last two years. I kind of blew up… it wasn’t pretty…

Anyway, I think the most important thing you can do it to be honest with your wife. Don’t hide things from eachother. Your spouse should be the one person in this world with whom you can have completely open, honest and non-judgemental communcation. Of course, this takes two to make this work.

unknown wrote:

I know that if I am active I will strive to keep the commandments, but if I’m not active, I feel a greater responsibility to examine all the commandments and ask why I want to keep them or break them and see if they still fit my world view.

I really like that you said this. As an active member, I feel that it is absolutely necessary to understand why we do what we do. I refuse to do something just because someone says to. When you understand why a rule or commandment is in place, and then you choose to follow it, because you believe it will be good for you and bless you in this life, the rule/commandment is much easier to follow. When you resentfully follow a rule/commandment because someone tell you to, you are destined to have problems with it.

Last thing here. When it comes to ‘confessing’ things to your bishop, the handbook says that ‘serious transgressions’ need to be confessed. This is left somewhat open-ended. It specifically states that adultery (heavy petting, fornication, homosexuality) and serious violations of the law constitute ‘serious transgressions’, but then it also leavs it open to the possibility that other things could be considered ‘serious transgressions’. The handbook does say that violations of the WoW do not warrant a disciplinary council, so to me, that means that they are NOT ‘serious transgressions’. For me personally, the only thing that I would feel compelled to confess to my bishop would be if I comitted adultury, or broke the law in a serious and significant way (i.e. porn, alochol and masturbation don’t require confession in my book). Anything else, I would feel comfortable working out between me and God. That being said, if you have a good relationship with your bishop, and feel it would be helpful, by all means seek his counsel. Just know that once the cat is out of the bag, it’s not going back in.

I believe pure LDS policy/doctine says that only ‘serious transgressions’ need to be confessed to a bishop. WoW issues, and pornography (in my opinion at least) are not things that MUST be confessed to a bishop.

[Anonymous]

Unknown wrote:

There was a time where I was really doing my best to keep all of the commandments but I would still slip up and immediately talk to the bishop about it. Now, I don’t know what my relationship should be with my bishop. How important is confession? When should I meet with the bishop to repent? Do I need to confess for breaking commandments that I do not intend to start keeping? What about commandments that I do intend to start keeping but know that I will not always keep? Certainly, repentance at this stage is not possible anyway, so why involve the bishop? What kind of sins should I handle myself, and which ones require the help of the bishop to be in good standing?

From my view point, confession is required by the church for serious transgressions. The church defines serious transgression as a deliberate and major offense against morality. This is defined as, but not limited to:

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