How Do You Promote Diversity in Your Ward?

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

Diversity in the grey areas of our doctrine, diversity in dress among people of similar national heritages, diversity in our beliefs in general within Mormonism.

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Sorry SD, I don’t think this is going to happen on the Macro side for the following reasons:

1) Church culture is very strong. There is even a prominent belief that church culture is divine.

For this one, I would rely on the idea that you aren’t going to create sweeping changes in the church, but you are going to increase your own engagement when expected to teach and speak, and in the process, perhaps influence a few people. For me, there are several people who I now recognize are New Order Mormons or at least, unorthodox believers. They come up to me after the lessons and share how they thought my comments were bang on when I de-emphasize traditional thought in favor of tempered interpretations of words from the prophets.

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“If ye are not one ye are not mine.” Scriptures like this are interpreted that we should be homogeneous. That if we act, dress, look, think, feel like typical latter-day saint then we are on the right path.

See, for me, I don’t interpret this as a presciption for homogeneity. For me, its a commandment to be united, getting along, and working together successfully. Accepting others who are differnt or who even see our religion differently is part of being “one”.

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3) Follow the crowd is seen as a virtue. For any schism that has happened in the church – stay with the main body – there is safety and truth and right in the main body.

But let’s draw on psychological thought here — (also from sociology)…there have been studies on conformity which show that all it takes is ONE PERSON to speak up against something a lot of people are already thinking for the rest of the crowd to speak up and get behind the thought. Some people are just timid. provided you aren’t grandstanding totally apostate beliefs, then you can have such influence on the people who are thinking the same way you are, but are afraid to speak. You will be surprised, there will be times when you share a divergent thought (such as ‘all leaders are not always inspired and you have to run everything we learn at church through your own life experience and situation before deciding what to believe or do’) and surprisingly, half the people in the room will start nodding their head. In one case, they were the main body — they’d never heard that at church, I’m sure, but they agreed with it. I only exposed it.

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4) Personality – Those that find the LDS church most appealing are usually not the explorer types. The benefits of the LDS church are that we have all the answers to the critical questions, not that we have a diversity of opinions about the answers to the critical questions.

I leave central ideas alone and focus on the non-dyed-in-the wool concepts. This is the only way you will maintain influence. If you start attacking the first vision, prophets, modern day scripture etcetera, none of this works. And frankly, I have no desire to attack these things anyway. They are the structure in which one does their work, but are not the targets for change, in my view.

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5) Even topics that are relatively diverse such as how we view the atonement in our lives, how does grace work, and does the HG ever tell people who they should marry? I would love to get a discussion going to compare and contrast the differing opinions/experiences but it just doesn’t work. Remember that even DBmormon has been censured for his well defended and relatively tame ideas on “grace” (a fairly ethereal concept that would seem to lend itself to personal interpretation).

Church is not for debate. I accept that cultural value for now, and simply throw out my divergent thoughts as questions, and use Socratic method to push people down to hopefully divergent opinions — without every forcing them on people. I leave the discussion hanging. Also, I talk about the Shaman exercise where a group of people come together in a circle, and all react to an issue or question. Each person gives what they think, and everyone leaves with their own impressions — there is no closure demanded. If the discussion leads to contention, then you have to quelch it…make the goal getting people to leave questioning their errorneous beliefs — at least, some of the people.

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This is not to say that teachers like yourself can’t hold thought provoking lessons – but even if you can back an unorthodox opinion with quotes from church leaders – people are not reassured, they are not comforted finding that there has been significant diversity of thought between church leaders past and present. “Who is right? Why doesn’t the current Prophet clarify such things?” People want to be uplifted and I think for some the “upliftment” they seek is to be told that they are on the right path, they are doing the right….

I teach High Priests. These men are long in the tooth in the Church. Some are bored, some are tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. Some are like me and no longer agree with certain time honored myths. Many have divergent ideas they are afraid to share. Others have never explored whether certain principles apply only in a narrow range of circumstances, and rarely hear people say “Loss of faith DOES come by not keeping commandments, but there are other reasons which deserve far more compassion than blaming lack of commandment-keeping”…and then discussing those reasons. You are not disagreeing with the prophet, only qualifying what he said, and backing it up with other scriptures — almost like a literature review like we do in doctoral studies. Out comes a broader understanding and a greater sense of just how complex the gospel really is when you try to apply it to a wide range of circumstances.

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I also like what Ray said – diversify by being yourself.

I think that’s good. And I wouldn’t underestimate the power of one person to touch the hear of one other person, or more, and change their perspective. Check out his lesson to the youth on blue shirts and white shirts. He picked a cultural value, respected it within its boundaries, but liberated everyone by pointing out the times when a white shirt does NOT apply. This is the essence of what I’m saying here. It makes a difference. And I’ll bet Ray was really into his own lesson today — far more than if he felt he had to teach “always wear a white shirt because it’s the uniform of the priesthood”

[Anonymous]

I’ve honestly stopped trying to promote anything anymore in my ward. I just be myself, and smile and be nice. I have a list of things I am working on and things I’m trying to do to help my family. Until I get that in order, promoting diversity in the ward or the community is too far down on my list.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

I’ve honestly stopped trying to promote anything anymore in my ward. I just be myself, and smile and be nice. I have a list of things I am working on and things I’m trying to do to help my family. Until I get that in order, promoting diversity in the ward or the community is too far down on my list.

Everything starts with the “root”, the family Where we can inspire the most.

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