Kirby on why church is OK despite its flaws

[Anonymous]

Kirby’s column yesterday was about the lawsuit against the church but the end isn’t about that directly and resonated with me.

Quote:

What I do know is that there is enough good in the congregation I attend, that I keep going. I don’t let picky things like screwy doctrine, historical inconsistencies, outright fairy tales, and overwrought testifying get in the way of participating in the truths I find.

I understand the vagaries of faith. I don’t blame someone else if I get fooled by what I later determine to be nonsense. It just meant that I wasn’t thinking hard enough in the first place.

Church is a lot like marriage. Once the novelty wears off, so much of the “truth” in it consists of finding personal benefit in putting someone else before yourself.

I concur.

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/kirby/2020/05/03/robert-kirby-sue-my/” class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/kirby/2020/05/03/robert-kirby-sue-my/

[Anonymous]

I usually like Kirby’s articles but this particular one didn’t do much for me.

I’ll try to stay away from the subject of suing to reclaim tithing paid. Maybe a wealthy church could be charitable and give people some percentage of their money back in some circumstances?

But where I depart:

I don’t believe anyone “deserves” to be misled, that it’s somehow the person’s fault for being misled, or that they weren’t thinking hard enough not to be duped. That’s also a dangerous precedent.

The rest of the article is mostly explaining why Kirby wouldn’t sue the church. He likes church. Not everyone has had similar experiences and not everyone has reached similar a conclusion.

Using Kirby’s, “Church is a lot like marriage.” analogy… if church is like marriage and someone wants a divorce, then perhaps returning some percentage of tithing could be considered a part of the divorce settlement? Should people get a prenup when they’re baptized? :angel:

[Anonymous]

Yes, Nibbler, the column was really titled as being about suing the church, an idea Kirby is trying to point out is futile. The court dismissed the case because it cannot make a ruling about church teachings/doctrine. I get it, I went through that phase of feeling duped – but at the same time knew trying to recoup anything was pointless. Now I only give what I truly want to with no expectation of anything in return.

And I agree, the end part that resonated with me was basically Kirby stating that he likes the church at that’s why he goes and not everybody has that same experience. Many people here do express some of those same sentiments, though. That the church is good in that it teaches good principles, helps them to be better people, the congregants are nice/good people, etc. The majority of us who are in even moderately decent marriages have experienced the whole benefit (blessing?) of putting someone else first (and the someone else might not be the spouse, it could be the children). I think his only analogy with marriage was that idea, I don’t think the idea was to make a total tit for tat analogy with every aspect of the church and marriage. I think almost all analogies are limited in that way (I’d say all, but that would be a sweeping generalization and someone would likely come along and prove it wrong). The parables are much the same, they tend to break down when we start to examine other aspects carefully.

I think one of the interesting parts about the marriage analogy is that Jesus used marriage and the church as an analogy as well, in a different way. But that’s deeper than I want to get. As you point out, the church is not really the same as marriage because there’s no such thing as prenups, alimony, child support, etc. when we divorce from the church and no church is like that. When I stopped being a Catholic there was no asking for money back or other compensation from them either – that whole idea is ridiculous. And I didn’t even choose to be Catholic, I was baptized as a baby and sort of confirmed as an 8 year old (I recall the classes, I don’t recall the event).

I think Kirby’s point in the end was that he reached the same conclusion many of us have and goes despite that like many of us do. Like he has, I’ve learned to tune much of it out. I recognize not everyone can do that.

[Anonymous]

I understand going for social reasons, or reasons other than the doctrine. However i do not think you can brush aside all the nonsense the church has been pushing. That does cause real damage in lives.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Anonymous]

Yeah, my last comment was tongue-in-cheek, too many of my comments are.

I think what makes it tough is that I know a few people that genuinely would like to sue to reclaim some of their tithing. Listening to them, I’d say that their perspective boils down to:

If the church leaders are learning new information as the members are learning new information, there’s no case. It’s just people preaching what they genuinely believe.

vs.

The case wasn’t to determine whether the beliefs were correct, it was whether leaders knowingly misled people with false information that they themselves didn’t believe in order to [fill in the blank]. Of course the basis for a case is lost because it’s impossible to really know what someone else believes. It can be hard to tell that for ourselves sometimes.

Gah! That wasn’t why you shared the article. Sorry for going on a tangent.

Reeling it back in…

I’ve often said that if you’re going to stay LDS you have to find a personal reason that works for you. The pros should outweigh the cons. Generally it’s not sustainable to force yourself to accept a specific outcome that goes against your heart.

[Anonymous]

Oh boy.

Yes, let’s ignore the hate, discrimination, outright lies, abandonment and hypocrisy led by, supported by and taught by the prophets and apostles of the church.

This is hilarious. And terrifying to know that intelligent and functioning adults will read this and other things and nod their head in agreement without question.

Thankfully this guy isn’t important enough in the church yet to be considered doctrine-speak.

Ugh.

[Anonymous]

grobert93 wrote:

Oh boy.

Yes, let’s ignore the hate, discrimination, outright lies, abandonment and hypocrisy led by, supported by and taught by the prophets and apostles of the church.

This is hilarious. And terrifying to know that intelligent and functioning adults will read this and other things and nod their head in agreement without question.

Thankfully this guy isn’t important enough in the church yet to be considered doctrine-speak.

Ugh.

I don’t think Kirby is advocating that we ignore anything, nor do I. I think he’s just stating how he deals with weird doctrine, weird historicity, things we think or know aren’t true, and overbearing members. It happens to be the same way many of us deal with going to church every Sunday (when that was actually a thing ) – just read through the posts here and that becomes abundantly clear. Many of us do find the good in the church, even among those overbearing members and leaders who are really only doing what they believe is good and right. That doesn’t mean we ignore the stuff, we just have our ways of dealing with it.

Putting on my moderator hat, which seems to be something I’m doing more of lately, this post is pushing the envelope a bit grobert.

[Anonymous]

I’m fine with the church having weird doctrine and teachings, but what I don’t like is the enormous pressure I feel to conform and believe the official, orthodox interpretation. I would be fine if I could just show up and be myself.

I envy people who are able to find enough good in their local congregations and are able to happily stay and contribute. I don’t have a single friend at church and I’m pretty much invisible and cut off from the community. It probably doesn’t help that I’m a student who moves around and changes wards every few months.

It’s comforting to know that others have found ways to deal with issues and like the church in spite of its flaws, but honestly I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to that point.

[Anonymous]

I agree, Arrakeen. For some of us it does work, for others it doesn’t or at least they haven’t yet found the way to make it work. Nibbler can jump inhere and speak for himself, but I think that’s what he was trying to say – just because it works for Kirby and me doesn’t mean it works for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Fwiw, Kirby is good for the church.

It takes reading more of his stuff to see that, but he is nowhere near a traditional member.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Fwiw, Kirby is good for the church.

It takes reading more of his stuff to see that, but he is nowhere near a traditional member.

I think that’s most important because of where he lives – Salt Lake metro area. Many people could not live as he lives there, and he’s been doing it for a long time.

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