I can’t see how this is Christ’s Church

[Anonymous]

Forgive me, this will be a longer one.

Since going through a faith crisis some five years ago, wondering if God existed and coming to the conclusion that He does, I’ve tried to rebuild a framework of faith that revolves around Christ at the center. There were a lot of things that didn’t make sense to me, or didn’t sit right with me, but I went forward giving them the benefit of the doubt while I figured things out. I placed a heavy emphasis on the scriptures to figure out what should be right. And in my study these past few years, a significant problem has developed. The God I find in the scriptures is not the God I find in this church.

The conclusion I keep coming to is that the Church, as an organization, has lost its way… at best. Originally, my issue was the culture. That’s no longer the issue for me and I’ve been able to live with it because I’ve embraced the fact that people are imperfect. That idea also extended to cover any issues I had with the Church. It is run by imperfect people and I am also imperfect, therefore there will inevitably be some policies and teachings I think are wrong or disagree with. That has helped significantly in staying LDS. But, General Conference and then Stake Conference yesterday, were the straws that broke the camel’s back for me.

What I would hope to find in this church, or any church, are lessons and messages that use the teachings of Christ to help someone live a better life and be a better person. I don’t hear those very often. In GC, Uchtdorf’s was the only talk that was a good example of what I hope for. In my SC yesterday, the talk my SP gave did not mention Christ once. What did he talk about? Keep on the covenant path, pay your tithing, do your ministering, be obedient, “Think Celestial”… The same messages hawked by the bulk of GAs. If someone were viewing it completely from the outside, all they’d hear is “Give us your time and your money. Do what we say and you’ll go to Heaven.” Perhaps it’s harsh to characterize it that way, but strip it down and those are the bones of their message.

Beyond what is taught, my issues with how the Church runs itself have piled up. How tithing is used, the lack of transparency with LDS charities and other things, Ensign Peak Advisors, the missionary program, disciplinary councils, bishop/youth interviews, etc. Those, among many smaller things I’ve encountered throughout my life, paint a picture of an organization that cares more about itself than it does its members.

I’ve thought about giving other churches a try. Sermon’s I’ve heard from other local denominations are much more in line with what I’m looking for. I am also more impressed with their charitable organizations. But, whether I go somewhere that is Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox… I’m going to run into the issue of disagreeing with their theology. The belief in a Triune God alone is enough to turn me off, never mind the rest. So, I find myself between a rock and a hard place. Stay with a church that has the theology I believe, but with teachings and practices I have come to detest. Or, find a church that cannot satisfy me theologically, but teaches what I am craving to hear.

And all of that doesn’t even take into account the issue of family. Being in an entirely LDS family, it doesn’t make it any easier to seriously consider shopping around for a new church.

I guess I say all of that to say that the good is no longer outweighing the bad for me. Finding good reasons to stay are becoming harder. If Christ really is at the head of this church, I do not see it.

If you’ve read all of this, thank you. I’m not sure what question to ask, except to just ask for your thoughts.

[Anonymous]

It’s really interesting. In my YSA ward Christ is mentioned during both sacrament meeting and 2nd hour. However I attended a family ward a few months ago and there was zero mention of Christ.

Fwiw I don’t think there’s anything wrong with checking out other faiths. I think what’s most important is your relationship with Christ.

[Anonymous]

This reply is going to be scattershot and I’m not trying to challenge your points. This is just a haphazard thought dump.

There’s the concept of a universal perfect church; one church that is the right church for everyone. The LDS church derives its entire identity as being the embodiment of this concept.

There’s also the concept of an individual perfect church, which I’ll define as a church that’s a good fit for an individual. It’s certainly not a perfect church for everyone, in fact that same church that’s perfect for one person could be the very worst church of the lot for another person. The idea here is that an individual perfect church meshes particularly well with an individual.

You mentioned theology vs. practice. Not that the two are in any sort of competition but I think I apply more weight to practice these days. How much do the specifics of a theology matter if the theology ultimately inspires adherents to be kind? Not to throw theology completely under the bus… the spirit is said to speak to our hearts and our minds. Practice could be what helps our heart engage with the spirit and theology could be what helps our mind engage with the spirit.

PazamaManX wrote:

The conclusion I keep coming to is that the Church, as an organization, has lost its way… at best. Originally, my issue was the culture. That’s no longer the issue for me and I’ve been able to live with it because I’ve embraced the fact that people are imperfect. That idea also extended to cover any issues I had with the Church. It is run by imperfect people and I am also imperfect, therefore there will inevitably be some policies and teachings I think are wrong or disagree with.

I’m just curious… you mention human imperfections. Is there a cutoff point for you where human imperfections cease to cover issues you have with the church? For example, when the cons begin to outweigh the pros?

PazamaManX wrote:

But, General Conference and then Stake Conference yesterday, were the straws that broke the camel’s back for me.

General and stake conferences are the worst. I find them more spiritually draining that spiritually filling. I find it easier to approach general conference with expectations that some talks will be bad and that it’s more than okay to tune them out and recognize those talks as a byproduct/bad fruit of the fruits of the universal perfect church belief.

The last stake conference I attended was two hours of shuffling the leadership of the stake and wards around. The entire conference was calling the exiting and entering bishops and their counselors up to give a brief talks. Two hours of, “He was/is a great guy.” and, “I know the Lord issues these calls.” Meanwhile I’m thinking, “This entire meeting could have been an email.”

The goal of most stake conferences appears to be to give local members a theme to inspire them to pump up whatever key indicator stat is sagging in the stake. Stake stats aren’t my circus, nor my monkeys so I find it easier to take those weeks off.

[Anonymous]

Switching gears a bit… no church out there is perfect. There will be major issues with any church out there.

Me and the LDS church are like an old married couple. We’ve been together long enough to know one another’s faults. We’ve been together long enough to where some things that the other does gets on our very last nerve.

I’ve mentioned this several times before but one thing I did in the past was select a random church to visit on the first Sunday of each month (or whichever Sunday happened to be F&T meeting). Since I was only ever with one church for one week it was like halting the relationship I had with other churches in the honeymoon phase.

I found that visiting other churches had a balancing effect on my experiences with the LDS church. The messages shared in other churches were fresh to me. I’m sure I’d find repetition and staleness had I attended those other churches half as much as I’ve attended the LDS church.

The LDS church really isn’t set up for freshness. General conferences where the talks are largely indistinguishable from any other general conference of the last 20 years. Sacrament meetings and second hour lessons being echoes of general conference. The goal doesn’t appear to be freshness, the goal appears to be to get everyone on the same page with their beliefs.

That’s why, for a time, I found value in balancing my LDS experiences by taking one Sunday out of each month to visit with other faiths. To gain more perspective than the well worn perspective of what I’d get by attending another LDS meeting.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

There’s the concept of a universal perfect church; one church that is the right church for everyone. The LDS church derives its entire identity as being the embodiment of this concept.

There’s also the concept of an individual perfect church, which I’ll define as a church that’s a good fit for an individual. It’s certainly not a perfect church for everyone, in fact that same church that’s perfect for one person could be the very worst church of the lot for another person. The idea here is that an individual perfect church meshes particularly well with an individual.

I had a conversation with my mother about that very topic last night (more or less). She was big on “perfect church, imperfect people” when I pointed out that I had drifted away in part because the church was not built what I feel meaningful accommodations would be for an autistic person. The biggest challenge was that for me, “being a good church member” meant “performing gender properly” [which I don’t do because I don’t think that gender has as much to do with defining the power/authority available to “perform” i.e. I don’t respect authority easily and I respect my authority more then a lot of other people’s authority].

I don’t know what my “individual perfect church” would look like – but I am pretty sure that “Barbara Handler” from “Barbie” would be a key leader 😆

nibbler wrote:

You mentioned theology vs. practice. Not that the two are in any sort of competition but I think I apply more weight to practice these days. How much do the specifics of a theology matter if the theology ultimately inspires adherents to be kind? Not to throw theology completely under the bus… the spirit is said to speak to our hearts and our minds. Practice could be what helps our heart engage with the spirit and theology could be what helps our mind engage with the spirit.

I think for me, I have spent the last few years working on “Practice” – what thoughts and actions are worth sustaining?

I think that for me, I have been working on developing my own “scripture” (important written words that change my life the way scripture does) – and I have a bunch of song lyrics from a variety of sources and “Charity Never Faileth (even when God does)”.

nibbler wrote:

PazamaManX wrote:

The conclusion I keep coming to is that the Church, as an organization, has lost its way… at best. Originally, my issue was the culture. That’s no longer the issue for me and I’ve been able to live with it because I’ve embraced the fact that people are imperfect. That idea also extended to cover any issues I had with the Church. It is run by imperfect people and I am also imperfect, therefore there will inevitably be some policies and teachings I think are wrong or disagree with.

I’m just curious… you mention human imperfections. Is there a cutoff point for you where human imperfections cease to cover issues you have with the church? For example, when the cons begin to outweigh the pros?

I’ll answer too. I think there was a year of overlap between when I was in counseling and still going to church (that was not an amazing year, just a distinctive one). My family dynamic (and family “righteous living” or at least more considerate living in line with the “Love at Home” song) started to change faster in counseling then by any family members going to church. Now maybe it’s unfair to someone to run a comparison – but the church has God on their side, right?

I think the biggest con for me ironically was that “I didn’t want to feel like a con artist/imposter despite or because of my agnosticism bordering on atheism”. My value system felt better when I didn’t put myself in places where I felt like I was lying to everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Another thought that comes to me is Uchtdorf’s “Lift where you stand.” or the Dalai Lama’s “Don’t use Buddhism to become a Buddhist. Use Buddhism to become better at whatever else in your life you are doing already.”

This isn’t a criticism of you, in fact I am absolutely terrible at this, but the idea is that when we can’t see Christ in church we have to try extra hard to bring Christ to the church.

This goes back to my thoughts were I feel like all the churches out there have their issues, maybe it’s just that I haven’t been in a deep enough relationship with them and for long enough to be intimately familiar with the issues. If all churches have their issues I could try to bring Christ to the place where I already know the language… so to speak.

That sounds like I’m saying, “Stick it out.” but I do want to acknowledge that staying in the LDS church isn’t always the answer. Sometimes the church just isn’t a good fit. Making it fit is a very universal perfect church answer and we’re in a fallen world with no universal perfect church. The goal is where the path leads. Often at church we get caught up in making the path itself the end goal.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Another thought that comes to me is Uchtdorf’s “Lift where you stand.” or the Dalai Lama’s “Don’t use Buddhism to become a Buddhist. Use Buddhism to become better at whatever else in your life you are doing already.”

This isn’t a criticism of you, in fact I am absolutely terrible at this, but the idea is that when we can’t see Christ in church we have to try extra hard to bring Christ to the church.

Because of how my personal faith transition “went down”, questions about following Christ, being a Christian, Joseph Smith, and church affiliation became a lot less relevant for me personally. I guess, in a sense, I am using “LovingKindess/Compassion/Charity” as a compass to guide me to someplace authentic. I am hopeful that God exists and will “send knowledge and understanding” eventually.

nibbler wrote:

This goes back to my thoughts were I feel like all the churches out there have their issues, maybe it’s just that I haven’t been in a deep enough relationship with them and for long enough to be intimately familiar with the issues. If all churches have their issues I could try to bring Christ to the place where I already know the language… so to speak.

That sounds like I’m saying, “Stick it out.” but I do want to acknowledge that staying in the LDS church isn’t always the answer. Sometimes the church just isn’t a good fit. Making it fit is a very universal perfect church answer and we’re in a fallen world with no universal perfect church. The goal is where the path leads. Often at church we get caught up in making the path itself the end goal.

I don’t think it’s an “in or out question” actually. As I am the most qualified person to make decisions in my life, to set boundaries and priorities about what is valuable in my personal life, then I am obligated to define the terms of engagement with the LDS church. Where I currently sit is that I get the emails and some information about what is going on in the branch and stake, I prioritize attending some activities (mostly service), I get lots of good candy and help with cleanup for Halloween parties, I bring my best wishes and help with cleanup for Christmas parties. I respect and mourn with members that are my friends and try to relate to their experiences with empathy. And actually, that level of engagement scares a lot of people so they make it weird as they ponder whether I am reactivating myself or not.

[Anonymous]

Thank you kotm, nibbler and AmyJ for all of your thoughts.

nibbler wrote:

I’m just curious… you mention human imperfections. Is there a cutoff point for you where human imperfections cease to cover issues you have with the church? For example, when the cons begin to outweigh the pros?

The thing that finally made it to where I couldn’t ignore everything that was bothering me was my SP’s talk. Quite honestly, he comes across as a creep when he speaks and he isn’t someone I’d trust my child with alone if I had one. As I mentioned earlier, his talk was devoid of anything resembling a teaching of Jesus’, and instead he gave a talk pushing tithing and ministering (I presume because those numbers are down). As he spoke I could not shake the feeling that this is why people think we are a cult. I already didn’t care for Nelson’s talk for similar reasons. But hearing the same stuff come from a guy who weirds me out put new lenses on the glasses I view the church with. Now, all of the aspects that are cultish about our church are just standing out glaringly.

nibbler wrote:

I found that visiting other churches had a balancing effect on my experiences with the LDS church. The messages shared in other churches were fresh to me. I’m sure I’d find repetition and staleness had I attended those other churches half as much as I’ve attended the LDS church.

…

That’s why, for a time, I found value in balancing my LDS experiences by taking one Sunday out of each month to visit with other faiths. To gain more perspective than the well worn perspective of what I’d get by attending another LDS meeting.

I’ve given more thought to the idea of shopping around for new churches and I’ve come to conclusion that it wouldn’t be the solution for me… at least not yet. I really like your idea of visiting a new church on fast Sunday though. I’d like to try that. I just have to convince the wife since she’s afraid that I might find a church I actually like.

nibbler wrote:

This isn’t a criticism of you, in fact I am absolutely terrible at this, but the idea is that when we can’t see Christ in church we have to try extra hard to bring Christ to the church.

This is likely what I will be trying to do for the time being. I imagine the effect will be similar to trying to change the course of a river with a pebble. But at the very least, maybe I can make a few positive ripples before I sink.

[Anonymous]

PazamaManX wrote:

I’ve given more thought to the idea of shopping around for new churches and I’ve come to conclusion that it wouldn’t be the solution for me… at least not yet. I really like your idea of visiting a new church on fast Sunday though. I’d like to try that. I just have to convince the wife since she’s afraid that I might find a church I actually like.

When I did that I was clear with myself and family that I wasn’t visiting with other churches to find one that I’d want to join, the only goal was to gain new perspectives.

In fact, one thing I learned from that activity was that I’m simply not a joiner. I prefer the lone wolf lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

I find it interesting that we (as a church) send our young missionaries out into the world to spread the gospel & they

don’t know very much about other religions. We are so involved with ourselves, within our faith, that we don’t appreciate

or understand what other religions believe. I grew up in a town of about 20,000+ people. Our population was composed of

(maybe) 4 Jewish families, 3 Black families & the balance seemed to be divided between 50% Protestant & 50% Catholic.

There were few Hispanics, LDS or other minorities. It wasn’t until I graduated college, moved to a big city where I was

exposed to other people of different beliefs, backgrounds, religions or financial inequalities.

My daughter came home from a friends house, when she was in middle school, and asked “why does Mindy’s dad have numbers

tattooed on his wrist?” If any of you are asking the same question, it was because he was in a concentration camp during WWII.

It seems to me, that there could be a benefit to having our YW & YM exposed to other races, religions, etc at an earlier age

than 18.

PazamaManX, you said:

Quote:

I’ve thought about giving other churches a try.

I think you should “give other churches a try”.

It doesn’t mean that you have to join. Everyone should learn more about other faiths & make new friends & contacts. I personally

would like to learn more about religions, beliefs & faiths.

[Anonymous]

P:

You’re going to find a lot of imperfection in just about any church you go to. I took a break from church service and threw myself into community service. Twice now — there are imperfect people everywhere, and they bring all kinds of different imperfections to the scene. It was actually worse than in the church in two communities I belonged to, and served with all my heart.

I would consider sticking with the LDS set of imperfections, while minimizing the sacrifices that don’t contribute directly to living a better life — that seems to be what you are looking for. For me, this means distinguishing service that enobles the soul, and uses my strengths, rather than service that simply builds up the church singlemindedly. There is a lot of the latter in the church, and it can be very draining, frustrating, and time consuming. Distinguish between service that makes you better and service that is naked service to the church as a wealthy organization, which by JS’s own admission, will thrive and move forward without you!

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

I found that visiting other churches had a balancing effect on my experiences with the LDS church. The messages shared in other churches were fresh to me. I’m sure I’d find repetition and staleness had I attended those other churches half as much as I’ve attended the LDS church.

…

That’s why, for a time, I found value in balancing my LDS experiences by taking one Sunday out of each month to visit with other faiths. To gain more perspective than the well worn perspective of what I’d get by attending another LDS meeting.

I’ve given more thought to the idea of shopping around for new churches and I’ve come to conclusion that it wouldn’t be the solution for me… at least not yet. I really like your idea of visiting a new church on fast Sunday though. I’d like to try that. I just have to convince the wife since she’s afraid that I might find a church I actually like.

nibbler wrote:

I have visited other churches pretty consistently for about a decade. I tell people that I enjoy supplementing my spirituality. I make it clear that we ATTEND the lds church but VISIT other churches. IOW, the LDS church is our HOME church. Most non-LDS will be pretty chill with this arrangement. I do find that some LDS are suspicious. They assume that there is nothing of value that isn’t already in the LDS church.

I also LOVE the different perspectives that I encounter around some well known scriptures. We tend to interpret scriptures in an LDS way and we assume that it says what we think it says. I am sometimes quite surprised to learn what the bible actually says on a given topic.

I have also encountered sermons from pastors that I did not love. I remember an entire sermon preaching against the society destroying craziness of gay marriage. It can be a mixed bag.

[Anonymous]

Two thoughts have helped me in my quest to manage my expectations regarding the LDS church:

1) We are just like every other church – even in our insistence that we are unique. We are not so special. Even our insistence that we are special is more common than uncommon among religious movements. Humans are gonna human and churches are gonna church. Our church is a subculture or subset or schism when we like to think that we are the original.

In summary, we can be Christ’s Church. Maybe he works through most churches to achieve his purposes. A pastor once told me, “You can be Mormon and saved but it won’t be the Mormonism that saved you.”

2) One way to look at the imperfections of the church is to believe that the job of perfecting the saints includes perfecting the church and it is not yet there yet. In this context, ceasing polygamy was actually removing a cancer from the church. Removing the priesthood and temple ban also was a huge step forward. Elder Uchtdorf has referred to this as the “continuing restoration” (I cannot claim the Elder Uchdorf and I see this exactly the same way). We are still learning and growing and every generation is more “perfect” than the generation before. I find this helpful in part because it allows me to have lots of grace and forgiveness on early church members that did some pretty awful things because they didn’t know any better. Also that we continue to do boneheaded things because we don’t know any better but some day our children or our children’s children will come to themselves and receive a revelation that “this is not the way” and the church will change and grow yet again.

In summary, we can be Christ’s Church but maybe like a piece of clay that he isn’t done forming and molding yet. Maybe we are a work in progress.

[Anonymous]

The approach I’ve decided to take for now in regards to activity in the church is putting extra effort into focusing on what is good. An example: SM this past Sunday was completely dedicated to beating the ministering drum, since that seems to be my stake’s new project. The talks were all a waste of time to listen to, and my bishop even said something that I think borders on heretical.

But, I’m not focusing on that. I got to take the sacrament, and we sang one of my favorite hymns, ‘I Know That My Redeemer Lives’. So it was a good Sunday.

SilentDawning wrote:

I would consider sticking with the LDS set of imperfections, while minimizing the sacrifices that don’t contribute directly to living a better life — that seems to be what you are looking for. For me, this means distinguishing service that enobles the soul, and uses my strengths, rather than service that simply builds up the church singlemindedly. There is a lot of the latter in the church, and it can be very draining, frustrating, and time consuming.

This is good advice. I’ve spent a good amount of thought this past week figuring out what aspects of church I can cut out of my life. My calling, ministering (not that I did it anyway) and temple attendance are all on the chopping block. My wife and I have also decided to decrease the amount we tithe, going from paying on net income to whatever is left after monthly expenses. My thoughts are now turning to what I will do with the extra time and money that will do more good and be more rewarding.

Roy wrote:

In summary, we can be Christ’s Church but maybe like a piece of clay that he isn’t done forming and molding yet. Maybe we are a work in progress.

I would certainly agree that we are a church that is still in the works. It would also make sense that our progress would not be a linear line upward, but be filled with ups and downs. The scriptures are filled will examples of God’s people going astray, even when they were well-meaning. Perhaps we are getting off course by devolving into worship of priesthood leaders.

[Anonymous]

PazamaManX wrote:

My thoughts are now turning to what I will do with the extra time and money that will do more good and be more rewarding.

“Trade up” is a longtime piece of advice here on StayLDS. It sounds like you are already on that path. Congratulations!

[Author]

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