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This was the subject of EQ today. His talk on reconciliation. I had to keep my mouth shut, although I ended up making comments that could be taken two ways.
Here they are:
1. After you’ve been deeply wronged, the relationship is normally different than in the past. You wouldn’t voluntarily jump back into an intense relationship with the person.
2. Distancing yourself from those people situations that disturb you inner peace is a good strategy for dulling the pain.
They thought I was talking about people who’d wronged me, but I was talking about the church too.
I did have a few thoughts — things I couldn’t say.
JRH made the comment that your pain/lack of forgiveness hurts others. It also seemed that he implied the only way to go forward is to forget the past and get fully active again. In his story, someone was offended for 15 years and then, after being prodded by his family, got active, and became a branch president and grew a branch of 25 people to a unit of 100.
My question, which I would have liked to have given, but didn’t, was this. If the experience has you feeling very unsettled about the church, and the experiences therein, why does nothing short of full activity qualify as reconciliation? Why not simply redefine the relationship and seek joy in other ways, while still maintaining a lighter involvement in the church?
I’m sure there would have been a lot of eyebrows raised, and standard Mormon answers given, so I kept it to myself.
But in my view, I have reconciled with the church. It is still part of my life, but on different terms…
I think this is a form of reconciliation that respects both my own needs, while not completely neglecting the church either — who, I believe, rarely thinks about my situation anymore anyway…
SilentDawning wrote:
1. After you’ve been deeply wronged, the relationship is normally different than in the past. You wouldn’t voluntarily jump back into an intense relationship with the person.
I couldn’t agree more. Took me a long time to get to the point That I realized I could forgive someone or even an institution, and still not trust that person or Institution.
I had to give up long relationships with close people, namely some members of my DW’s extended family. They were toxic, hand I kept forgiving and reconciling with them, until finally it got too much. It shouldn’t have taken so long for me.
One of my favorite quotes over the last year has been forgiveness does not equate to a relationship. I would now extend that and say forgiveness and Reconciliation does not mean you have to trust and have an open relationship.
There’s a big distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. Reconciliation, by definition, means a restoration of the relationship. Scriptures talk about reconciliation to God, but never mentions reconciling to others (except 1 Cor 7). While it is important to forgive all those who have wronged us, and as much as we can, live peaceably with all men, not all relationships are meant to be reconciled. Especially if the relationship would continue to perpetuate harm. The church never reconciles with anyone. It waits for them to do it, presumably on its terms. If they don’t, they’re in the wrong. Trust is a bundle of expectations. It usually goes like this: I trust you because I expect (based on experience, a good recommendation, etc.) that you’ll deal honestly with me and treat me with respect, and if you lose my trust you’ll try to earn it back. Expectations are often added or removed depending on the nature of the relationship, but the basic ones are usually the same.
With the church, it goes like this: I trust you because I expect (based on spiritual knowledge) that you’re always right.
That expectation flows downward via priesthood keys. This is what makes Elder Zwick’s admission last conference that he had wronged one if his missionaries so rare and courageous. Normally, men in the Mormon hierarchy are stopped from admitting wrongdoing – and this is a guess but I think it’s solid – by fear of losing trust and shame over not measuring up.
I don’t think Elder Holland could give a talk in which a priesthood leader makes a move to reconcile with someone any more than he could give a talk wearing a leotard and a tutu.
I simply will say individual experiences and perspectives can be very different. In that light, I will say that I have heard Elder Holland preach reconciliation by leaders on more than one occasion. If I made a list of the current top leadership and the likelihood of each individual giving such a talk, he would be in the group I would expect to give it. Elder Uchtdorf would head the list, but Elder Holland would be on it.
I also have seen and heard multiple local leaders admit wrong and seek reconciliation. I have been part of local leadership in one way or another for most of the last 30 years. It has not been uncommon.
Old Timer wrote:
I simply will say individual experiences and perspectives can be very different.In that light, I will say that I have heard Elder Holland preach reconciliation by leaders on more than one occasion. If I made a list of the current top leadership and the likelihood of each individual giving such a talk, he would be in the group I would expect to give it. Elder Uchtdorf would head the list, but Elder Holland would be on it.
I also have seen and heard multiple local leaders admit wrong and seek reconciliation. I have been part of local leadership in one way or another for most of the last 30 years. It has not been uncommon.
I’m glad there are a few good experiences out there — I did see one local leader apologize to me after I forced a meeting and held people to account. The sad part is that the abuse was so widespread that it wasn’t enough, as multiple people were involved. But it helped in my relationship with that leader. I still have a good relationship with him today.
An apology goes a long way, and it costs nothing but a bit of humility, which is a virtue developed anyway.
To me, “Reconciliation” is to “Reconcile” – which has accounting connotations. When you reconcile accounts, you compare them and look for where they don’t match up. It can be a form of “taking stock” of the situation. I guess when we “reconcile” with people, we compare our expectations of them with what their actions have delivered so far and figure out what we are going to do about it going forward. To me, this includes setting up and maintaining boundaries and expectations. There is also a mourning process associated with reconciliation – adjusting our perception with what the reality of the situation is. The common usage connotation is the happiness from being able to adjust expectations/perception upwards because the reality is better and more united then the present.
I think that Forgiveness has at best a casual relationship with Reconciliation – that reconciling with someone can lead to Forgiveness and vice versa. I don’t think that you have to forgive someone in order to reconcile the situation. I think that Forgiveness can lead to having a mind and heart in a more peaceful place to more accurately evaluate and act on expectations involved in reconciliation.
I guess at the end of the day, reconciliation is where you personally take stock and adjust your actions in and about the situation. This is solely an individual effort. Forgiveness is in part finishing a phase of the mourning process and letting go of hurt. Full forgiveness is portrayed as including at least 1 (though more are possible) conversation where both parties/all parties involved “make peace”, apologize, and move on. NOTE: I am aware that an individual forgiving someone else without the apology is a form of normal – which makes the previous example moot.
It could also be that reconciliation is inward facing, while forgiveness is outward facing. In reality, you need both.
I think of both forgiving and reconciling as ideally involving both parties. Forgiving can in principle always be done by one party without the other, but can be really hard in practice, and maybe should be delayed sometimes. (If it would make you let your guard down around a predator, then get some distance first.) Reconciling, though… it depends on what you think your expectations
should become. I can never reconcile with the church, for example, if I’m holding out for being dealt with honestly and with dignity. It just won’t happen anytime soon. I think I can manage it if these become my expectations:
1. It will deal honestly with everyone unless the topic deals with its claims to truth and authority. Then for counterevidence it will deny, ignore, dismiss, downplay, absolve, excuse, blame-shift, and palter, much more than is necessary to maintain faith or an image of decency. In this, it must appear perfect.
2. It will treat believers with the same dignity a parent affords a young teenager.
3. Top leaders will rarely treat an unbelieving member with much dignity at all, at least in a devotional context. Dealing with local leaders, and I assume top leaders one-on-one, is a crapshoot.
4. Reconciling will always be my job alone.
I think these expectations are reasonably accurate.
As I wrote in the thread about “continuing restoration”, I am hopeful that the church will on day get to the point of being able to classify certain historical issues as errors that we admit were mistakes and that we put off the table to ever return to again (even if we were sitting at the head of an all powerful world government for 1000 years). Roy wrote:
As I wrote in the thread about “continuing restoration”, I am hopeful that the church will on day get to the point of being able to classify certain historical issues as errors that we admit were mistakes and that we put off the table to ever return to again (even if we were sitting at the head of an all powerful world government for 1000 years).
Because that’s
exactlywhat all powerful governments do… :silent: Old Timer wrote:
I simply will say individual experiences and perspectives can be very different.In that light, I will say that I have heard Elder Holland preach reconciliation by leaders on more than one occasion. If I made a list of the current top leadership and the likelihood of each individual giving such a talk, he would be in the group I would expect to give it. Elder Uchtdorf would head the list, but Elder Holland would be on it.
Now that I think about it, I suspect you’re right about Elder Holland.
I would like some of this grown-up talk to reach the rest of the church.
Anyone who knows my history probably will already be aware that I didn’t love JRH’s talk. Yes, I agree with the sentiment:
Old Timer wrote:
individual experiences and perspectives can be very different.
That is one of the main reasons I didn’t like the talk; the talk presented one view – people who have been offended may leave the Church, but they are hurting themselves and need to come back in. Unfortunately, that reinforces the stereotype about people like us: 1) that offense is the dominating reason people leave and 2) that to be offended indicates some form of error on the part of the offended – it is partly, if not entirely their fault.In the story that JRH used, the Bishop was clearly in the wrong (according the Church’s own policies), yet the offended/inactive one was where the burden lay to return… the Bishop was never mentioned again.
Should we forgive others? Yes, absolutely. But we are also taught that those who seek forgiveness, in order to fully repent, should seek “restitution” of some form… not done here. It is still our mandate as Christians to forgive, whether the other party desires it or not, but this story is just very very one-sided in its directives. A little bit of “The Church and its leaders are not infallible and they do make mistakes – we ask you to be patient and not let your sometimes justified anger get in the way of your desire to remain in the Church” would have gone a long way. The closest JRH could muster was “I don’t know which of these men had the more accurate facts that day, but… Brother B walked out with an anger that would take him away from the Church for 15 years.” Ouch.
I’m with OON on this one. I also didn’t like the talk and for the same reason. DarkJedi wrote:
I’m with OON on this one. I also didn’t like the talk and for the same reason.
Yep — the focus was on the guy who was offended. And I understand it. It’s between the person and the Lord….so if the guy said he was a full tithe payer, however calculated, shouldn’t the BP have granted the recommend? Anyway, we don’t know the facts, but I too didn’t like the focus of the story. The part I didn’t like was how they tried to motivate the guy by saying he was hurting everyone around him. What about the fact the guy was hurting as well???
There’s no empathy for it — the burden rests ALL on the person who has been injured to come back. And guilt was used to motivate the guy. Another bad thing to do.
I also agree with OON’s assessment of the talk itself.
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