FAIR Mormon Outreach

[Anonymous]

So the new site looks interesting: http://www.fairmormonoutreach.org/

My take is because it shares the Fair name it is more closely aligned with traditional belief over personal path, and I assume this is probably the main point from which our missions will diverge.

It looks like a well thought out site and I am happy to see a place that will help the broader membership gain a better understanding of the faith crisis phenomenon. My hope has always been that as a church we can grow to a higher level of understanding and charity toward the struggles with history and doctrine.

Thoughts? Questions? It looks like our friend Bill Reel plays a major roll in the site, maybe he can give us the full run-down.

I am wondering how close the ties are to FairLDS.

EDIT: I should clarify that I see personal path and traditional (or community) belief as two ends of the same spectrum where every member of the church lies at some point along that scale. We can think of “community belief” as riding the Mormon church bus, where “personal path” is a car or motorcycle riding alongside or at some other point on the road. Many members will ride the bus some days and go in their own car others, etc. I see personal path as primarily owning your own beliefs and not being motivated by conformity, it in itself has nothing to do with whether your beliefs are or are not aligned with accepted “church” teachings. Obviously at StayLDS we hope to build personal belief systems that are compatible with church membership. I am NOT discounting Fair Mormon Outreach by saying they are more aligned with traditional belief, I am simply recognizing that they appear to be a little more “on the bus” than some of us that may feel our “bus pass” has expired.

[Anonymous]

http://fairmormonoutreach.org/

Podcast on it

http://mormondiscussion.podbean.com/2013/04/23/fair-mormon-outreach/

There was a request to start a separate thread. [Edit: I merged the two threads, thanks Bill!]

The purpose of this site is to help people reduce the pain of a faith Crisis while trying to encourage them meet their desire to have faith in it as the Lord “True and Living” Church

probably has the most in common with StayLDS though (an no offense meant) hopes to be just slightly more towards the orthodoxy end of the spectrum. I don’t see it having the wide range of feelings shared on staylds or MDDB for example.

For instance anyone pushing doubt is out. Anyone trying to debate is out. Also it is less of a place to share daily happening like stay Lds and rather focus on the spiritual hard times. I see the Outreach board having much less active particpants and those that come are looking for immediate help

Hope that offends no one

DB

[Anonymous]

There is nothing offensive in something that strives to help particular people in some way. It might or might not be the right place for other people, but that shouldn’t lead to offense.

I am happy for anything that helps people find peace and personal answers. This looks like a good site for that for many people – and I’d rather have those people find those things in a more traditional setting if it works for them than to be forced here if we aren’t the right fit.

[Anonymous]

Multiple sites with a similar objective if anything demonstrates a need that is out there. I see the efforts to address that need as a very good sign. :thumbup:

[Anonymous]

This is part of FAIR in the sense that 5-7 individuals who are members of FAIR have created the site with FAIR agrreeing to be an umbrella sponsor. The 5-7 individuals are empathetic and have similar experiences as me or have spent a lifetime understanding Faith Crisis

For instance check out the resources

http://www.fairmormonoutreach.org/faith-crisis-101” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.fairmormonoutreach.org/faith-crisis-101

http://www.fairmormonoutreach.org/resources” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.fairmormonoutreach.org/resources

Yes I am one of a handful who created it. It is not connected to my podcast. But both serve the same purpose.

We are looking for Mentors/Moderators if anyone here feels they can empathize with faith crisis and also are not too fragile in their own journey.

[Anonymous]

DBMormon wrote:

The purpose of this site is to help people reduce the pain of a faith Crisis while trying to encourage them meet their desire to have faith in it as the Lord “True and Living” Church

probably has the most in common with StayLDS though (an no offense meant) hopes to be just slightly more towards the orthodoxy end of the spectrum. I don’t see it having the wide range of feelings shared on staylds or MDDB for example.

For instance anyone pushing doubt is out. Anyone trying to debate is out. Also it is less of a place to share daily happening like stay Lds and rather focus on the spiritual hard times. I see the Outreach board having much less active participants and those that come are looking for immediate help

Ok – so this site sounds like a place of refuge for active/mostly happy members that have uncovered some uncomfortable facts and are looking for a way to put those facts into a perspective that still allows for the church to have JC at the head. You offer sympathy, resources for faithful explanations, and hope that the individual can maintain faith (or even develop a deeper faith) in the divinity of the church.

The plan is for these concerns to be mitigated/resolved/put into context and then the individual may continue to function in their ward and family largely as they had in the past.

Does this description sound correct to you?

I for one am not offended. I believe that there are many individuals out there with differing levels of faith crisis. It makes sense that some may just need a shot in the arm to re-engage. Does that sound like a fair analogy?

Keep up the good work! :thumbup:

[Anonymous]

For the most part yes Roy, Though I hope we may get a few or are even closer to the edge of the cliff.

We also realize we will fail much of the time. It will be hard, but we know and have already seen it happen a little. Some Faith Struggles have no easy answer, and some don’t even have a hard answer without divine intervention

[Anonymous]

Quote:

For instance anyone pushing doubt is out. Anyone trying to debate is out. Also it is less of a place to share daily happening like stay Lds and rather focus on the spiritual hard times. I see the Outreach board having much less active particpants and those that come are looking for immediate help

I have review this site and after reading Bill’s comment this site made me feel a little uncomfortable in truth, too controlling and too much like the church makes me feel at times. They don’t want debate, just get on board and feel good about it.

[Anonymous]

church0333 wrote:

I have review this site and after reading Bill’s comment this site made me feel a little uncomfortable in truth, too controlling and too much like the church makes me feel at times. They don’t want debate, just get on board and feel good about it.

I don’t disagree with you “church.”

I reason that for every 100 people having a faith crisis there is probably a spectrum of reactions. Lets just assume that most (55%) will drift into inactivity. Perhaps 4% end up on the Ex-mo boards, 3% on NOM, and 2% visit StayLDS. That leaves 36% unaccounted for. Let’s suppose that of that 36% there is 1% that is largely happy being LDS and just want some understanding and an alternative explanation for some incongruent historical fact so that they can continue with their LDS lives. StayLDS might not be a good fit because the breadth of opinions expressed here might be frightening and heretical to these individuals. I remember early in my FC reading that Todd Compton believed in some sort of universal priesthood of all mankind and I was horrified.

So let’s go back to that 1%. If they come here they may be exposed to too much. Perhaps their family and ward are too rigid to deal with a simple doubt and instead are pushing this person away by implying that it is their fault that they have this doubt – when all along they just want it to be resolved so that they can get back on “the bus.”

My percentages are totally made up – but the point is that some people might be looking for just what FAIR Mormon Outreach is offering. This group will self select. If they don’t find the site helpful then they will move on. But if FAIR Mormon Outreach’s recipe is just the ticket (bus ticket) for even a small group of individuals then I reckon the whole enterprise will have been worth the effort.

[Anonymous]

It’s really awesome if people can be prevented from entering into a full-blown crisis.

[Anonymous]

church0333 wrote:

Quote:

For instance anyone pushing doubt is out. Anyone trying to debate is out. Also it is less of a place to share daily happening like stay Lds and rather focus on the spiritual hard times. I see the Outreach board having much less active particpants and those that come are looking for immediate help

I have review this site and after reading Bill’s comment this site made me feel a little uncomfortable in truth, too controlling and too much like the church makes me feel at times. They don’t want debate, just get on board and feel good about it.

I guess it depends on what the goal is. I see faith-promoting Mormon apologetic style sites as being mostly about telling TBMs what they want to hear, namely that the Church is still true almost exactly as advertised no matter what. However, that’s not what you will typically get in any fairly open discussion because there are so many things that don’t make sense to so many people vaguely familiar with these issues that the doubts typically expressed and often validated on sites like RfM, NOM, or even here can sound overwhelming and/or painfully threatening to the average TBM. So I think that’s one reason for the strictly controlled environment; the idea is basically to keep the doubts somewhat isolated and in check so they will be easier to deal with. Personally, I prefer to explore different possibilities to see which ones sound best to me so I see open discussions as one way to test out different ideas to see if there is anything obviously wrong with them or if there are new ideas I hadn’t heard about or thought of before.

However, when I asked some perfectly honest questions on MADB several years ago about apparent inconsistencies between scientific evidence and dubious Old Testament stories also reinforced by LDS scriptures and Church leaders they acted like there was something wrong with me for being so troubled by this to begin with and the topic was locked before I could even respond or follow up. I quit reading the apologetic boards after that and thought these reactions were strange at the time but now I think some of them act this way mostly because there really aren’t any very good pro-LDS answers to some of these questions but if you already believe or want to believe something then sometimes remotely plausible explanations or excuses, minimizing the seriousness of these issues, trying to discredit the sources of criticism, etc. are all it takes to put your mind at ease and defend your original preference.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

church0333 wrote:

I have review this site and after reading Bill’s comment this site made me feel a little uncomfortable in truth, too controlling and too much like the church makes me feel at times. They don’t want debate, just get on board and feel good about it.

I don’t disagree with you “church.”

I reason that for every 100 people having a faith crisis there is probably a spectrum of reactions. Lets just assume that most (55%) will drift into inactivity. Perhaps 4% end up on the Ex-mo boards, 3% on NOM, and 2% visit StayLDS. That leaves 36% unaccounted for. Let’s suppose that of that 36% there is 1% that is largely happy being LDS and just want some understanding and an alternative explanation for some incongruent historical fact so that they can continue with their LDS lives. StayLDS might not be a good fit because the breadth of opinions expressed here might be frightening and heretical to these individuals. I remember early in my FC reading that Todd Compton believed in some sort of universal priesthood of all mankind and I was horrified.

So let’s go back to that 1%. If they come here they may be exposed to too much. Perhaps their family and ward are too rigid to deal with a simple doubt and instead are pushing this person away by implying that it is their fault that they have this doubt – when all along they just want it to be resolved so that they can get back on “the bus.”

My percentages are totally made up – but the point is that some people might be looking for just what FAIR Mormon Outreach is offering. This group will self select. If they don’t find the site helpful then they will move on. But if FAIR Mormon Outreach’s recipe is just the ticket (bus ticket) for even a small group of individuals then I reckon the whole enterprise will have been worth the effort.

Roy, I think what you wrote is a good reason for Fair Mormon Outreach. I have no problem with this site at all. It might be very useful for many people and I support that but it is a little to heavy handed for my taste. I might look at it and read more but I want to be able to have an honest, respectful conversation about issues with the church and if people don’t agree with me or my views then I am ok with that as long as they are respectful. StayLDS works very well for me for those reasons. NOM works too for the most part and I like that they are more on the fringe than here but at times they do get too negative and I get tired of that. Some of the apologetic explanations for some issues are just too far out there for me to accept. I would rather accept that mistakes were made and move on. Any way I do appreciate all the work that goes into creating and maintaining site like this and kudos to Bill for his work and kudos for all the monitors that maintain StayLDS.

[Anonymous]

church0333 wrote:

Quote:

For instance anyone pushing doubt is out. Anyone trying to debate is out. Also it is less of a place to share daily happening like stay Lds and rather focus on the spiritual hard times. I see the Outreach board having much less active particpants and those that come are looking for immediate help

I have review this site and after reading Bill’s comment this site made me feel a little uncomfortable in truth, too controlling and too much like the church makes me feel at times. They don’t want debate, just get on board and feel good about it.

Maybe I should clarify. by pushing doubt , I mean those that come with an agenda to destroy faith. And by those who want to debate I mean the apologists who simply want to win an argument at the expense of those struggling.

The site will give the benefit of the doubt to those struggling. They can vent and get things off their chest. I think if you read the threads on the board it is very supportive of those who come on to comment. That said we can’t help everyone and realize any approach will fall short with some.

[Anonymous]

Bill, thanks for the clarification. I did sign up today but didn’t post an introduction yet. I did want to check it out a little more.

[Anonymous]

Forgot to add as well as I left out the support for family.

It main purpose and niche is to concern oneself less with the answers and rather to empathize with the struggle of one who doubts while encouraging them towards faith and the Family members and others affected by these faith struggles while answering difficult questions plays a secondary role..

It is also a support community for family and friends of those who are affected and need support.

– Whether you are struggling your self or perhaps affected by a spouse, child, parent, or friend this is a place for you

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