- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Loving all the response’s here. It really isn’t black or white. So many factor’s. Keep ’em coming. Amy, I want to sit at your table. We may live inside different heads, but I am loving the conversation. :thumbup: DarkJedi wrote:
I had to ponder a bit before answering this one. There is no doubt that what I experienced was a faith crisis which has evolved into a faith transition. I lost faith in all I had believed, including God. But as I transitioned out of crisis mode I recognized that a major cause of the crisis was actually about trust. I had trusted all the things I had been taught about God and the church and had discovered otherwise. All that said, I can’t say I implicitly trust the leadership, either locally or globally. I don’t believe they’re bad people or they’re out to do evil things, but I do believe the only one I can trust is me.
My faith transition was that I learned information about myself that proved to my personal satisfaction that I could not trust myself to accurately perceive/process everything that came into my world view. I have instituted internal checks to refine my perceptions and analysis track record. I check in with my socially adept husband about conversations sometimes. I have my mom and a few socially adept female friends that I also run ideas past now because I don’t automatically assume that a) I got the correct message and b) that I can respond appropriately. I also make it more clear with new friends that I don’t do non-verbal messages – if they want me to know something, they have to tell me – they have to spell it out.
One of the key struggles that I have in this transition is “How do I know that I am correctly perceiving what God wants me to know – because I am pretty sure I screwed up parts of the non-verbal communication with God too by accident?”I still don’t have an answer.
What I do believe based on my experiences:
1) Recognizing answers from God requires a person to believe that God a) exists, b) has answers tailored for the person, c) is willing to give those answers to the person, d) the person has the capacity to identify those answers.
2) That when I stopped expecting answers, I stopped receiving what I had previously identified as answers. NOTE: This is probably because I removed a self-confirming bias from my reality.
3) That I had to choose to personally believe whether there is a God/God(s) or not – just their existence.
4) I expected/hoped that I would have a moment where I would see how God sends me inspiration in a way that I could clearly and distinctly say, “This is revelation – this is how it works, here is the standard send Amy inspiration protocol” – because that is how I am able to compensate for my communication lacks in my earthly relationships. That has not happened, in fact, if anything, the question comes back to me along the lines of “what are you looking for and what are you doing about it?”
5) If I am not in a position to clearly identify revelation for myself personally, then people receiving revelation through the ages is more suspect to the “telephone effect” and firmly rooted in the biases and traditions of the original culture receiving revelation. I more earnestly question the standard ways we have interpreted scripture outside of the cultural eras they were written in, as well as limiting authority and revelation to 1 church with 15 individuals at the head of the church. I no longer view this as the only path – just a path with good and bad aspects.
6) I still have the problem of evil to mentally resolve.
7) The Big One – I grew up in a very black and white mindset – enhanced by church teachings, and preferred by my brain wiring.
I went to CBT therapy last year briefly – and the counselor taught that one of the ways to increase anxiety is to practice black and white thinking.
So Black and White thinking = Bad (Anxiety Inducing), halts personal growth, and can omit alternative options when applied prematurely.
After communications here on the board and in my personal life, I realized that I had a new rule that seemed to universally apply. For every stance (white thinking), you should look for and expect the seed of the opposite (black thinking) to keep it more balanced. Mostly good people will make bad/questionable choices. Rotten people can bring valid thinking and other positives to the table. That is why I got a yin-yang keychain as a visual reminder in part to look for both sides in any given situation.
FINAL NOTE: I am not unhappy in the tensions I experience in this situation. I recognize that sometimes you have to take things apart to put them back together. You can’t have a beautiful resolving chord without a period of clashing chords in a piece of music. While I am trying not to wallow, I believe in letting things take as long as they take in this faith journey.
Roy wrote:
Amy, I want to sit at your table. We may live inside different heads, but I am loving the conversation.:thumbup:
Feel free to draw up a chair
One of the themes this thread highlights for me is unity in diversity. We are here – united in spending our time reading this board because of a variety of personal circumstances that compelled us to seek a safe harbor for us to think in – but the number of “my circumstances and my conclusions” being in some cases diametrically opposed is interesting. Even when there are similar circumstances, the conclusions that we draw and share look like different parts of the elephant, or are vastly different descriptions of our aspect of an eternal truth.
AmyJ wrote:
What I do believe based on my experiences:1) Recognizing answers from God requires a person to believe that God a) exists, b) has answers tailored for the person, c) is willing to give those answers to the person, d) the person has the capacity to identify those answers.
2) That when I stopped expecting answers, I stopped receiving what I had previously identified as answers. NOTE: This is probably because I removed a self-confirming bias from my reality.
3) That I had to choose to personally believe whether there is a God/God(s) or not – just their existence.
4) I expected/hoped that I would have a moment where I would see how God sends me inspiration in a way that I could clearly and distinctly say, “This is revelation – this is how it works, here is the standard send Amy inspiration protocol” – because that is how I am able to compensate for my communication lacks in my earthly relationships. That has not happened, in fact, if anything, the question comes back to me along the lines of “what are you looking for and what are you doing about it?”
5) If I am not in a position to clearly identify revelation for myself personally, then people receiving revelation through the ages is more suspect to the “telephone effect” and firmly rooted in the biases and traditions of the original culture receiving revelation. I more earnestly question the standard ways we have interpreted scripture outside of the cultural eras they were written in, as well as limiting authority and revelation to 1 church with 15 individuals at the head of the church. I no longer view this as the only path – just a path with good and bad aspects.
6) I still have the problem of evil to mentally resolve.
7) The Big One – I grew up in a very black and white mindset – enhanced by church teachings, and preferred by my brain wiring.
I went to CBT therapy last year briefly – and the counselor taught that one of the ways to increase anxiety is to practice black and white thinking.
So Black and White thinking = Bad (Anxiety Inducing), halts personal growth, and can omit alternative options when applied prematurely.
After communications here on the board and in my personal life, I realized that I had a new rule that seemed to universally apply. For every stance (white thinking), you should look for and expect the seed of the opposite (black thinking) to keep it more balanced. Mostly good people will make bad/questionable choices. Rotten people can bring valid thinking and other positives to the table. That is why I got a yin-yang keychain as a visual reminder in part to look for both sides in any given situation.
FINAL NOTE: I am not unhappy in the tensions I experience in this situation. I recognize that sometimes you have to take things apart to put them back together. You can’t have a beautiful resolving chord without a period of clashing chords in a piece of music. While I am trying not to wallow, I believe in letting things take as long as they take in this faith journey.
Of course we all experience things a bit differently (or at least perceive our experiences differently). No two people have exactly the same experiences in life, and any two given people really only experience a small fraction of things together.
1) a) – yes, I believe God exists, and that belief is the first part of my faith transition. b) – pretty much a no go in my experience, I do not believe God has individual answers for people and I’m not sure the capacity exists for God to convey those answers if God has them at all, nor do I believe God even cares to answer. This is the Deist in me coming to the surface. That leaves d) moot.
2) I also stopped receiving what I had previously thought were answers and there is little doubt trying to eliminate confirmation bias contributed to that.
3) I used to sort of bristle at the idea we can choose to believe – until I figured out that my belief in God is a choice and nothing more. I believe that in some cases the idea of “choose to believe” is misinterpreted or misused.
4) I have not had such a moment where I can say “Yeah, now I get it, this is how God talks to me.” The closest I have come is a feeling of peace, but even then I don’t know what other factors are at play (confirmation bias, actual peace, etc.). Throw in the Deist leaning again, and there’s no expectation of God communicating with me – problem solved.
5) I also don’t view this is the only path. We each find our own way. I’m not sure scripture is anything more than human thoughts. Some of them are very good human thoughts.
6) I believe evil exists, I do not believe in an individual Satan and I especially don;t believe any demon has supernatural powers to be able to influence our thoughts. I very much believe in the natural man.
7) I also was very black and white, now I believe there is neither black nor white but only shades of gray. Black and white thinking was a major contributor to my faith crisis.
And I am also not unhappy in the paradoxes. In many ways my faith is stronger than it was before, and that’s a good thing for me.
Trust and Faith are related. Very hard to have faith in an entity or organization or person you don’t trust. I don’t trust the LDS church to be there for me when the chips are down and the mission of the church, as frustrated by non-financial circumstances beyond my control in my own life, is at stake. They have failed me repeatedly on these kinds of non-financial matters. People say “yours was a highly unusual situation” — but when you get three or more of these “unusual situations”, as I have it becomes a pattern you can’t ignore. I have every expectation that leaders and members will behave in the same way again. When the leaders easily abandon you with no encouragment, or take you for granted as a volunteer, and then offer no moral or other support when you are suffering as you try to serve a mission, build an eternal family, be a leader or volunteer — and its within their power to do something significant and reasonable — that hurts the trust.
It’s also hard to trust an organization that claims to have the most truth, and makes it clear who your spiritual advisers are. And when you go to them they have either no applicable advise, or lame counsel. You start realizing they aren’t counselors — they have almost no training in that regard — and are simply shooting from the hip. They are managers. As my one ex-Bishop friend said — as long as the financials are in order, the reports and records are given, etcetera, the other stuff can be in a shambles due to the members not doing their callings, etcetera and the church will survive.
I think that if we didn’t have a full time missionary force, we wouldn’t see nearly the growth we see – we’d be a dying church.
For me, I started with a commitment crisis — I just didn’t feel engaged any longer due to repeated leadership and member behavior that was shocking. Faith was not a big issue, although somewhat affected — it was the commitment that crumbled first. Then this led to support seeking on StayLDS, then to lack of faith. This was as I found I could manufacture my happiness in a much easier and more powerful way by assessing the efficacy of ‘the gospel’ or ‘the church’, and then putting it in its rightful place in my life. And as I rubbed shoulders with people who were willing to say things I’d kind of always knew but never allowed myself to think or express openly.
At least I’m still here!!!
SilentDawning wrote:
As my one ex-Bishop friend said — as long as the financials are in order, the reports and records are given, etcetera, the other stuff can be in a shambles due to the members not doing their callings, etcetera and the church will survive.
Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but do you think that’s why Church Corp is making so many non-religious business investments? I have no doubt they will always command us to pay our tithes, but with the increasing inactivity and slow growth, I wonder if they are trying to set up their finances against a “tithing famine”. Because, of course, the financial prosperity of a church is closely linked with God’s favor.
I’ve seen this a lot in business. Once a business has reached a certain size, and achieved a certain level of financial stability, they start hedging their bets by diversifying. And once they’ve diversified enough they become too big to fail. They can intact all sorts of anti-consumer practices, harm employees, and even break the law. They’re free to do roughly whatever they want, and the organization (not the workers) will still thrive. I think the Church, too, is striving to become more and more independent from the support of its membership, as it loses the support of its membership. Our voices matter less and less…
dande48 wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:
As my one ex-Bishop friend said — as long as the financials are in order, the reports and records are given, etcetera, the other stuff can be in a shambles due to the members not doing their callings, etcetera and the church will survive.
Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but do you think that’s why Church Corp is making so many non-religious business investments? I have no doubt they will always command us to pay our tithes, but with the increasing inactivity and slow growth, I wonder if they are trying to set up their finances against a “tithing famine”. Because, of course, the financial prosperity of a church is closely linked with God’s favor.
I’ve seen this a lot in business. Once a business has reached a certain size, and achieved a certain level of financial stability, they start hedging their bets by diversifying. And once they’ve diversified enough they become too big to fail. They can intact all sorts of anti-consumer practices, harm employees, and even break the law. They’re free to do roughly whatever they want, and the organization (not the workers) will still thrive. I think the Church, too, is striving to become more and more independent from the support of its membership, as it loses the support of its membership. Our voices matter less and less…
Ghandi, in his book that has ‘My experiments with truth in it’ said he felt that charitable organizations should not have business interests that sustain them. They should get all of their money from their membership — otherwise, they are not accountable to anyone. Imagine a world where the church had only tithing to sustain them, and people stopped paying due to things like the policy that excludes children of gay married couples, and other objectionables. They would HAVE to figure something out or die. Temporal matters are a big deal to the church, and I don’t buy into the “all things are spiritual” approach I hear at church. To me, that is simply justification of a temporal focus by the church, sometimes at the expense of purely spiritual matters.
People who have lived through famine or heard stories from their parents and/or grandparents who lived through famine tend to work to ensure they never have to live through famine again. The current senior church leaders were called just as the Church was moving out of famine (serious financial issues), and their grandparents told stories of much, much worse. Add the Biblical analogy of preparing for famine . . .
I am not condoning or condemning anyone’s actions in saying that. It just helps to keep the historical perspective in mind, particularly with a religion that invests so heavily in member-support “infrastructure”, including theological and educational support (temples, meetinghouses, universities, etc.) and is growing the fastest in relatively poor areas. I hate to sound crass, but low activity rates in poorer countries don’t have the same financial impact as low activity rates in the US, especially since US tithing and donations fund so much of what occurs in those other countries.
I need to read all of the replies, but the first few replies brought this to mind… One of our recent First Sunday lessons in RS was on faith.
The RSP said that many members are having a crisis of faith. Intriguing that she would broach this subject.
She went on to tell us that we needed to build our faith in the church/JS/BOM so that when chaos ensues in our minds, we already have our foundation.
😮 My hand shot up.
I said that our foundation of faith should first be based on the Savior. Period. That way, when people are offended and jump ship, they aren’t abandoning the Lord. They are abandoning the social interactions with members of our Church Organization.
I reminded the class that the Church and the Savior’s gospel are two different things. Understanding how both play into our lives is very important.
This poor RSP is trying to hard to do a good job, and I feel for her since she obviously didn’t understand what she was trying to address.
Perhaps there are more leaders like her who haven’t taken the time to understand where many FC members are in their journey?
Way to go QuestionAbound! Good response. QuestionAbound wrote:
This poor RSP is trying to hard to do a good job, and I feel for her since she obviously didn’t understand what she was trying to address.Perhaps there are more leaders like her who haven’t taken the time to understand where many FC members are in their journey?
Perhaps? [sarcasm] While I think more leaders are becoming more aware of FC and how to deal with it, I also think the vast majority are still in the dark and/or in denial. That’s why we get the “pray more, read the BoM more” answers when we seek help.
Good job with pointing it back to Christ. I don’t get how so many in what they consider to be the one and only true church of Christ pretty much ignore Jesus Christ. I don’t think it’s always purposeful, I think it’s cultural to some extent. And it’s sad. Also, good job at pointing out the difference in the gospel and the church.
I agree SD. I really like this from a guy named David Ostler. Very much a TBM, but very open to trying to understand those that leave (and educate those that are leaders).
Podcast Helping Leaders Understand Faith CrisisArticle Do Leaders Understand Members Who Are in a Faith Crisis?He did a bit of surveying himself and this one slide says, “Houston, we have a problem!”
[img]https://leadinglds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Chart1-Larger-e131a8fe-795×442.jpg [/img] LookingHard wrote:
I really like this from a guy named David Ostler. Very much a TBM, but very open to trying to understand those that leave (and educate those that are leaders).
He used to be my neighbor, many years ago. He’s a good man. He served as Stake President, and later mission president. His kids are all over the LDS spectrum. One of his daughters is a lesbian; SS-married, with children, and later divorced. He’s got the hard life experience necessary for being a good leader.
As a leader, it is just too easy to pigeon hole other people into our own narrative. Did they have a negative experience? They were offended.
Where they mistreated when they presented questions? Conflict with members or leaders.
After they stopped attending/left the church, did they continue to live all the LDS lifestyle standards? They just wanted to sin.
I believe that a belief in one true narrative automatically discredits and dismisses other narratives. I imagine that if most leaders spent significant time trying to understand members with faith crises, a number of them might develop faith crises themselves.
Early on in my faith crisis my EQ pres. visited and said he had heard I was struggling. I told him that I would not describe it as struggling exactly. I was looking at everything with new eyes and in some ways it is an exciting journey. He told me a story of a delivery driver that drove on mountain roads and that succeeded at his job by staying as far away from the line as possible. He then told me that he could see that I was “struggling”, and that perhaps I was not thinking clearly enough to recognize the fact.
😯
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.