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Let’s say there was a talk General Conference about how you are either all in, or all out, that middle way Mormonism is not the way to go, and even implies that sites like these are not good for you spiritually… I’m curious, what impact would that have on your participation here? Would it change your willingness to engage in the kinds of discussions we have here? why or why not?
This wouldn’t change anything in the way I interact with the church or this website. I would continue to attend church, and I would continue to be open about being one of those people who isn’t all in, or all out. My relationship with God, and the way I choose to worship, is up to me; not the bishop, not the stake president, not the general authorities, not even the president of the church. My relationship with God is completely independent of the church and its leaders, so what they say in conference really doesn’t register with me anymore. I would think about it a little, but ultimately I don’t think I would stop anything that I’m doing either. I’ve read anti since I was investigating, and I still do, so all I’ve heard about shuning it and staying with the correlated material hasn’t affected me. SilentDawning wrote:
Let’s say there was a talk General Conference about how you are either all in, or all out, that middle way Mormonism is not the way to go, and even implies that sites like these are not good for you spiritually…I’m curious, what impact would that have on your participation here? Would it change your willingness to engage in the kinds of discussions we have here? why or why not?
I would be scooting faster towards the door if not already out of it. There is too much cognitive dissonance right now for me to be “all in”, so my options are limited to being “all out” or finding the middle way. I would also try not to let the door hit me on the way out.
My participation here has taught me the unwritten realities of church membership that no one else honestly talks about in a way I understood. It has taught me how to manage the cognitive dissonance so that it does not overwhelm my life and taught me to go slow. It has taught me how to calculate my interactions within church life so that I can be reasonably authentic to myself, and not lead others astray by accident. The focus is to balance being authentic to yourself and to others in your life through a StayLDS path.
If it brought divorce-level distress to my husband for me to be here, I might leave. I might wander off in the future, that is possible. But until then, this is my support group
:clap: SilentDawning wrote:
Let’s say there was a talk General Conference about how you are either all in, or all out, that middle way Mormonism is not the way to go, and even implies that sites like these are not good for you spiritually…
Followup Question: How is any of this hypothetical? It’s seemed pretty clear to me, on multiple occasions from high authority, that you’re all in our all out, and cafeteria Mormonism is not the way to go. Not to mention ex-ing John Dehlin, founder of this site, for “apostasy”. Heck, I couldn’t have “Stayed LDS” without him.
RMN wrote:I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery.
I’d say hypothetically I’d do exactly what I’ve done. I can’t be “All In”, because I don’t believe the Church is objectively true. Enough evidence has come to light that cannot believe in most the fundamental truth claims of the Church. Even though I really wish with all my heart it was true, I can’t believe in something I know is not. So going “All-in” is impossible.
But, I can’t leave either. I love the Church. I love it’s people. I want to find my place among the saints. I want to support my wife, and have our daughter raised with good values. But this black/white dichotomy the Church teaches makes it very difficult.
dande48 wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:
Let’s say there was a talk General Conference about how you are either all in, or all out, that middle way Mormonism is not the way to go, and even implies that sites like these are not good for you spiritually…
Followup Question: How is any of this hypothetical? It’s seemed pretty clear to me, on multiple occasions from high authority, that you’re all in our all out, and cafeteria Mormonism is not the way to go. Not to mention ex-ing John Dehlin, founder of this site, for “apostasy”. Heck, I couldn’t have “Stayed LDS” without him.
That’s what I was thinking. I guess that the hypothetical was to protect the innocent or the guilty
dande48 wrote:
RMN wrote:I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery.
From the soundbite clip, he is not wrong. It is discouraging to come to a perspective to see the need for picking and choosing no matter how you arrive here (historical evolution, personal decision, etc). It has led to misery. But I feel I have done what I could when I could to grow from the experiences, even if that isn’t in ways that the General Authorities planned on/hoped for.
dande48 wrote:
I’d say hypothetically I’d do exactly what I’ve done. I can’t be “All In”, because I don’t believe the Church is objectively true. Enough evidence has come to light that cannot believe in most the fundamental truth claims of the Church. Even though I really wish with all my heart it was true, I can’t believe in something I know is not. So going “All-in” is impossible.But, I can’t leave either. I love the Church. I love it’s people. I want to find my place among the saints. I want to support my wife, and have our daughter raised with good values. But this black/white dichotomy the Church teaches makes it very difficult.
I don’t know how I feel about the church, or the majority of the people. On my more charitable days, I love the people and honor their contributions to my life. People are gonna human, and they are going to do so differently than me – for both good and ill. I want to know for myself whether there is a place at the table for me, whether there is room in the tent for me and my family. There is also a moment for mourning. These are good people – some of the most caring I have ever met in the church and if I walk away all of them will feel betrayed, and most will not comprehend why because it is outside their frame of reference and I can’t explain it to them.
Right now, I don’t believe there is a place for me anymore, but I don’t want to do anything hastily, and I feel this is a “prove me now herewith” moment between God and myself. I stay to support my husband, and I don’t feel I have found anything worthy of “trading up” in my life. At this point, I don’t feel that church or Achievement Day attendance is doing either the Primary organization or my daughter a service, but again it is a mixture of I might be wrong (hyper-sensitive regarding social interactions with my unconventional and developmentally delayed daughter), and I have nothing better to offer her to “trade up” into.
I don’t take anything one person says automatically as representative of the top leadership collectively, so it wouldn’t change anything for me – except to cringe at what it would do to others who are more vulnerable than I am. Also, there have been quite a few people who have said pretty much the opposite, so I could handle an exception from a hardliner.
Old Timer wrote:
Also, there have been quite a few people who have said pretty much the opposite, so I could handle an exception from a hardliner.
Can you give an example Curt?
I was thinking I wouldn’t change my habits here if it was a general talk — we already have talks that are hard to accept, and each person needs to run their own filters.
DHO mentioned all they can teach are general principles, so if we feel we have an exception, we have to work it out with the Lord (maybe that’s what you meant Curtis?)….and I feel I have an exception. Most people, when they hear what has happened to me in the church, wonder why I’m still even bothering…so I feel I need this place, and my own way is something God will likely look at as having been resilient….maybe even congratulate me on having found a “way to stay…”
No change for SD!
SilentDawning wrote:
Let’s say there was a talk General Conference about how you are either all in, or all out, that middle way Mormonism is not the way to go, and even implies that sites like these are not good for you spiritually…
I suppose I would shrug my shoulders and mentally say, “Whatever.”
It is just an influential person stating their opinion based upon their experience and their objective.
If however, there was more of an effort to detect and root out less committed members that would be pretty damaging.
It would sadden me but it wouldn’t change my participation here. It would, however, make me even more scared than I already am to be authentic with fellow LDS about my unorthodox views.
Holy Cow wrote:
This wouldn’t change anything in the way I interact with the church or this website. I would continue to attend church, and I would continue to be open about being one of those people who isn’t all in, or all out. My relationship with God, and the way I choose to worship, is up to me; not the bishop, not the stake president, not the general authorities, not even the president of the church. My relationship with God is completely independent of the church and its leaders, so what they say in conference really doesn’t register with me anymore.
I agree with this.
The freedom that comes with the middle-way is that it doesn’t matter what is said in one conference talk or another. There are lots of conference talks. I’ll digest the ones that please my palate. Why not?
I’m happy to sit in church with others that rehash the wonderful talks that they get something out of. I try to listen to what hey are trying to express in ideas, regardless of the limitations in the language they use to express it.
There are no absolutes in what we choose to believe.
By the way…since you are bringing up conference…I wanted to share how proud I am of myself and my new strategy. You see…the church curriculum is heavily emphasizing conference talks. We should use them in our SM talks and our class lessons so much now. And … so … you see, I don’t listen to any conference (apart from the Prophet’s Sunday morning talk). I skip all general conference…because…well…I like keeping it fresh when it is time for sacrament meeting talks and class lessons.
SilentDawning wrote:
Let’s say there was a talk General Conference about how you are either all in, or all out, that middle way Mormonism is not the way to go, and even implies that sites like these are not good for you spiritually…I gotta admit, when I first read this I thought you were setting us up. You’re going to get a few of us to say that they’d never do that and at the end you’d give us links to a few dozen talks.
:angel: SilentDawning wrote:
I’m curious, what impact would that have on your participation here? Would it change your willingness to engage in the kinds of discussions we have here? why or why not?I’ll paraphrase the people that paraphrased Jesus. “Whoever drinks my water (parenthetical: before people start adding the kool-aid) will never thirst.” What happens if you dare to drink the water? That’s the benefit of “stage 4,” you don’t need authority figures to validate your decisions. You can begin to explore what you need to do for your own salvation independent of what someone else insists that you do/don’t do.
AmyJ wrote:
dande48 wrote:
RMN wrote:I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery.
From the soundbite clip, he is not wrong. It is discouraging to come to a perspective to see the need for picking and choosing no matter how you arrive here (historical evolution, personal decision, etc). It has led to misery. But I feel I have done what I could when I could to grow from the experiences, even if that isn’t in ways that the General Authorities planned on/hoped for.
But is opting for the middle way inherently miserable or does the surrounding culture create misery for people that chose that path? I think that one camp would like to believe that the other camp brought the misery upon themselves without being able to see how their behaviors contribute to another person’s misery.
But I’m not trying to play the blame game. Walking
anypath brings pain. It is what it is. I just wanted to point out that merely experiencing misery does not imply that someone has done something wrong. Quote:Old Timer said: “Also, there have been quite a few people who have said pretty much the opposite, so I could handle an exception from a hardliner.”
Can you give an example Curt?
Elder Wirthlin’s “Concern for the One” is an obvious one, as well as quite a few from Elder Uchtdorf and some from Elder Holland. I also believe the “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign was designed for members as much as for non-members.
The LDS Church right now is radically different than the Church of my youth in some important ways.
nibbler wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:
Let’s say there was a talk General Conference about how you are either all in, or all out, that middle way Mormonism is not the way to go, and even implies that sites like these are not good for you spiritually…I gotta admit, when I first read this I thought you were setting us up. You’re going to get a few of us to say that they’d never do that and at the end you’d give us links to a few dozen talks.
:angel: Nope — I think there are a few talks that take pot shots at us, like the buffet mormon one, but I wasn’t going to set anyone up. I don’t want to discourage posting here as it does a world of good for us fringe players.
nibbler wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:
I’m curious, what impact would that have on your participation here? Would it change your willingness to engage in the kinds of discussions we have here? why or why not?I’ll paraphrase the people that paraphrased Jesus. “Whoever drinks my water (parenthetical: before people start adding the kool-aid) will never thirst.” What happens if you dare to drink the water? That’s the benefit of “stage 4,” you don’t need authority figures to validate your decisions. You can begin to explore what you need to do for your own salvation independent of what someone else insists that you do/don’t do.
Interesting how many of the scriptures used by orthodox people apply equally well to people like us. I have long felt that I have “eaten from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” in my own journey within Mormonism. My eating from this tree revealed all sides of the church, and in a sense, put me in the lone and dreary world. Assuming my marriage holds together, I think it will be very good for me in the long run. My happiness quotient has gone way up as a result.
Another unusual way of looking at traditional scripture.
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