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About a year ago I met an old gay couple, and they seemed like wonderful, kind people. It got me thinking about how negatively I had thought about gays, and how the church portrays them. I find it sad that many in the church find gays as “diseased” or as “them”, when really gays should be a more part of “us”. I found through the wonderful videos on “mormon: it gets better” and mormon stories that tolerance, love, and really letting God be the judge of things is the best way to go. I have asked many questions to my Bishop and young men’s leaders about the issue, and most of lovingly provided answers, but I find that their answers do not sit well with me. They say that legalizing gay marriage threatens the ability of LDS couples to marry in the temple, but I don’t find that the case. Most stright couples can’t even marry in the temple. I have also had issues about the origins of the Book of Mormon and archaeological integrity of it. However, I do feel the Spirit when I read the religious passages of the book.
Another thing that peeves me is why women are not allowed to hold the priesthood, be in top leadership positions, and perform priesthood ordinances. I find many more women are much willing to do them, and I find many of them capable of being outstanding church leaders.
The reasons why I have found the Church worth my effort is that I feel the Spirit each I go. The Spirit testifies to me that I am in the right place when I make the effort to go each Sunday and when I do go to Seminary. But I just want to know. Will I ever feel that my issues will be resolved with the Church? How do you deal with these problems?
Hi seeker, Welcome to the forum! You’ve touched on some very sensitive issues that many people here have issues with, myself included. I think it’s good that you are able to see the problems with these issues. I know for many years I didn’t have a problem with any of the issues you listed simply because everything I heard at church and at home suggested that these were not problems at all, but simply “the truth” or “God’s plan”.
I also think it’s good that you can also see many good things in the church. So I think you’re in a good place, and I look forward to your comments.
Welcome, seeker. People here can relate. Quote:Will I ever feel that my issues will be resolved with the Church?
Probably not, since there probably always will be something that consittutes a similar issue –
but that’s fine. The Church is not a perfect organization, since it’s made up of imperfect people doing their best to figure out life within a communal structure. Given that reality, expecting all of our individual issues to disappear somehow probably is the ultimate unrealistic expectation. I believe the key is finding internal peace and joy – and that’s something that you can pursue that, when gained, largely can “resolve” much of the core issues with which you struggle.
First off, welcome to the community. Glad to have you with us. seeker wrote:How do you deal with these problems?
Short answer: you get comfortable with a messy world that lacks perfectly elegant solutions, with ambiguity and uncertainty, with a spectrum of possibilities instead of just right or wrong answers, and with the wonderfully rich world of paradox and logical tension in religion.
The universe is not a completely rational and systematic experience.
All that and …
We work together to try and make it a better place than we found it. That is the activity that gives me hope and purpose. Maybe we can’t know for sure what heaven is like in the future, but we can make the world a little bit better right now. We can try to help stop the damage or injury you mentioned.
How do you work through the problems? For me, I listen, read, talk to others and certain things they say “stick”. Sometimes the ideas come on my own, but most often it’s a synthesis of what I have experienced and read, and what the intelligent people here say.
It reminds me of “The Shaman Exercise” — an exercise a coworker told me about once. When someone has a problem, they stand in the middle of the circle and present the problem to the circle. The circle is composed of people from all walks of life and status in the world. Each person in the outer circle gives their analysis of the problem and a proposed solution, while the person in the center listens.
At the end, there is no resolution expected from the person in the center — but that person walks away with far more information, a broader view of the world, and far more perspectives and angles than they could generate on their own. And ultimately decides on the answer that is right — for them. And it may be none of the answers given in the circle. But the circle had influence….
That is how I see the problems being “dealt with”, so to speak. Welcome!
SD, that is a perfect example of how councils should function. Welcome Seeker, My first thought is that I personally don’t trust the spirit and “testimony” as a good indicators of truth. At a high level the reason is very simple – members of many differing religions have the same spiritual experience you are having and I have had. A Jew and a Muslim and a Jehovah’s Witness can all have a testimony of their faith that feels just like yours. So a spiritual witness certainly means something very important at a personal level, but as a litmus test for the truth, it isn’t very useful. I’ve seen people with just as strong of personal spiritual testimonies of magnetic fields as health promoting, Noni-juice, and Amway.
Even within LDS scripture the truth is supposed to be known by your heart & mind agreeing. You should study it out and then feel that it fits both in your mind and your heart. So that fact that things don’t “add up” is a pretty strong indication that even by Mormon standards, Mormonism isn’t passing the test of truthfulness for you.
You also mention in your post that you are glad to find a place to learn more. I don’t see that learning more is the purpose of this website and forum. This is more of a support forum. I think there is a lot more you could learn about Mormonism elsewhere online if you decide to look.
It sounds like you are young enough that you haven not been through the temple yet. One thing that fits in with your concerns that you may not be aware of is that in the temple a woman promises to obey her husband (wording was added in 1990 that she only has to obey him if he is following the Lord) and the husband promises to obey the Lord. So the inequality between men and women in the church is perhaps even greater than you realize. Historically it is even more problematic – for example once you get past the Mormon spin on polygamy and understand what was really going on and how damaging it was to the women involved it becomes more clear that women were vastly inferior to men.
There are a few approaches you can take:
1) Rely on the spiritual feelings you have had. Put the rest on the shelf of faith and have humility that you don’t understand everything and that is OK.
2) Research and conclude that the LDS church is not “true” or that some aspects are true and others aren’t. However use it as a mechanism for your spiritual development. So the feelings of spirituality, etc. have meaning in your life. That is good. Try to focus on that aspect of the church that helps you to grow. This is the path that this website is primarily tailored to help you achieve.
3) Go through the motions. Keep going for familial and social reasons but distance yourself spiritually.
4) Reduce your involvement.
I’ve done all 4 of these at different times.
Quote:You also mention in your post that you are glad to find a place to learn more. I don’t see that learning more is the purpose of this website and forum.
Actually, learning is one of the main purposes of this site – not learning doctrine in a traditional way but rather learning how others find reason and meaning in staying LDS, and even strengthening testimonies in some ways (although not traditional ways, in most cases).
I know you meant the more traditional learning, but I wanted to make the point that we really do try to learn here in a very real way.
Quote:Actually, learning is one of the main purposes of this site – not learning doctrine in a traditional way but rather learning how others find reason and meaning in staying LDS, and even strengthening testimonies in some ways (although not traditional ways, in most cases).
I know you meant the more traditional learning, but I wanted to make the point that we really do try to learn here in a very real way.
Yes, framed in that way I agree with you.
Seeker, thank you for your introduction & welcome. Your comments about meeting an “old gay couple, and and they seemed like wonderful, kind people.”
I like moments like that in my life where my perceptions & ideas change for the better.
Again, Welcome.
I hope to hear more.
Mike from Milton.
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