- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I see posts touching on this in another thread, but wondered if dwelling on it there would derail the OP. I couldn’t believe it. What a thing to say. I could use some help processing it, because to me, this is very revealing and disappointing.
I think you’re going to have to be a bit more specific in what you’re talking about. Ebowalker mentions it elsewhere: Quote:Your mountains will vary. And yet the answer to each of your challenges is to increase your faith. That takes work .
Lazy learners and lax disciples will always struggle to muster even a particle of faith.
To do anything well requires effort.
So many mixed feelings about this. Are there lazy and lax people? Yes. But what about the people who are the opposite and struggle.
There are a couple of accounts in the Bible: Quote:Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Quote:Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
Maybe this Jesus doesn’t exist in scripture but I prefer the Jesus that takes whatever faith someone has, however small, and magnifies it by making up the difference. I’m not a fan of the Jesus that belittles faith for not being strong enough… even though I’m guilty of the latter far too often.
Gotcha. I do recall hearing that part, but honestly I was trying to ignore Nelson’s talk. But this did pop into my mind when he said it: Quote:One might ask, “If the gospel is so wonderful, why would anyone leave?”
Sometimes we assume it is because they have been offended or lazy or sinful. Actually, it is not that simple. In fact, there is not just one reason that applies to the variety of situations.
(Uchtdorf, Oct. 2013)
None of the Q15 has really beat the drum of doubt the past couple conferences (that I recall anyway), so it was probably time.
Quote:Don’t you dare bail. I’m so furious with people who leave this church. I don’t know whether furious is a good apostolic word. (Crowd laughter). But I am. And I say, what on earth kind of conviction is that? What kind of paddy-cake, taffy-pulled experience is that? As if none of this ever mattered, as if nothing in our contemporary life mattered? As if this is all supposed to be just exactly the way I want it and answered every one of my questions and pursue this and occupy that, decide this, and then maybe I’ll be a Latter-day Saint. Well, there is too much Irish in me for that.
This recent comment from RMN reminds me of the quote above from Elder Holland.
Sorry about my cryptic OP. I was upset, and didn’t give context. This is *the* talk that will be taught in RS/EQ in the coming six months and I feel that Pres. Nelson may have given permission with his example to dismiss and belittle doubters. We aren’t “rehearsing” our doubts “with other doubters.” Many of us are heartbroken and looking for a way to hang on. I wasn’t “hoping to find a flaw in the fabric of a prophet’s life.” I faced waves of disturbing information that gave rise to real questions, real distrust.
Thousands of LDS families have been torn apart by faith crises, and here is a talk saying that the strugglers are just doing it wrong. That’s all, nothing to see. No empathy needed. No curiosity about what troubles them. It’s okay to call them lazy and lax. If their personal journey takes them out of the church, it can’t have been God working in their lives.
It tells me that Nelson doesn’t understand the position of the doubter. Perhaps he’s a lazy learner. :angel: But seriously, I don’t think his perspective allows him to be able to feel the plight of the doubter. I know I wouldn’t have before I had experienced it myself.
I had completely forgotten the rehearsing doubts comment. He’s dead wrong. People are searching for support and are even more hurt when they find that their church leaders have made them out to be an enemy, said things to silence them, or said things that make it harder for them to find the support they need.
It was a bad talk. I’m sure people who have left weren’t his audience but does he think people that “doubt” will come back when they hear a talk like this?
Ann wrote:
Sorry about my cryptic OP. I was upset, and didn’t give context.This is *the* talk that will be taught in RS/EQ in the coming six months and I feel that Pres. Nelson may have given permission with his example to dismiss and belittle doubters. We aren’t “rehearsing” our doubts “with other doubters.” Many of us are heartbroken and looking for a way to hang on. I wasn’t “hoping to find a flaw in the fabric of a prophet’s life.” I faced waves of disturbing information that gave rise to real questions, real distrust.
This. Some of my family members get that I am more agnostic in my belief narrative – but then they are dumb-founded when it comes up that because I am still struggling with believing in God, other figures and teachings like Jesus Christ and the Atonement are also out the window.
Ann wrote:
Thousands of LDS families have been torn apart by faith crises, and here is a talk saying that the strugglers are just doing it wrong. That’s all, nothing to see. No empathy needed. No curiosity about what troubles them. It’s okay to call them lazy and lax. If their personal journey takes them out of the church, it can’t have been God working in their lives.
I wish that someone had taught me that ALL marriages are “mixed-faith” marriages, even if some are more “mixed” than others because each . I got the memo about “being one” and “being united” and all that jazzy stuff – but I missed the memo (and tips) about how to navigate the marital space, and anything that normalized having a different degree of faith in my marriage. This site is the space that taught me anything about how to navigate being married and having faith period. I have dabbled in podcasts and such since then, but here is where the rubber hit the road as it were.
The first person I heard from after this talk was one of my 20-something kids, a sincere and hard-working person who was devastated by a faith crisis. The gist of her conclusion: I guess I made the right decision to leave. There isn’t a place for me in the Church. Ann wrote:
The first person I heard from after this talk was one of my 20-something kids, a sincere and hard-working person who was devastated by a faith crisis. The gist of her conclusion: I guess I made the right decision to leave. There isn’t a place for me in the Church.
This is something I’m still dealing with. I like many things about the church and would gladly participate if they could accept me as I am, doubts and all, without trying to “rescue” me or blame me for my loss of faith. But hearing things like this from the top leaders of the church really does make me wonder if I might as well leave, since it seems there really isn’t a place for “doubters”. I stopped listening to general authority talks a while ago after some YSA/BYU devotionals on doubt that really upset me.
It seems like a lot of people are taught that any challenge to faith can be overcome by prayer, scripture study, diligence, etc and so if anyone loses their faith or can’t develop a testimony it must be because they didn’t do those things enough. We seem to like to believe in “the formula”. They even taught us in the MTC that testimony is like a math equation, with the right inputs (study, faith, prayer, etc) you always get the same result (testimony of the Book of Mormon, etc). Honestly I used to believe that too to some extent, and in the beginning of my faith crisis I tried to study/pray/temple my way back into a testimony, but discovered it just didn’t work like that. But I can see how people who have never been through a loss of faith could still think that way.
When I grew up in the church it was encouraged to question and get your own confirmation from God. Early leaders like Hugh B. Brown would say things like, “he who has never doubted has never thought.” J. Reuben Clark said the church should be investigated and exposed if wrong. So what changed? bridget_night wrote:
When I grew up in the church it was encouraged to question and get your own confirmation from God. Early leaders like Hugh B. Brown would say things like, “he who has never doubted has never thought.” J. Reuben Clark said the church should be investigated and exposed if wrong. So what changed?
I actually thought this was the premise behind Come Follow Me. Silly me.
bridget_night wrote:
When I grew up in the church it was encouraged to question and get your own confirmation from God. Early leaders like Hugh B. Brown would say things like, “he who has never doubted has never thought.” J. Reuben Clark said the church should be investigated and exposed if wrong. So what changed?
I think 2 things changed.1) correlation happened. There used to be many different flavors of Mormonism. That variability allowed more variation. Unfortunately, that allowed some flavors that we are probably happy to see go – like borderline fundamentalist Mormons or white supremacist Mormons. Correlation was a double edged sword in reducing the “extremes”.
2) I think that Hugh B. Brown and J. Reuben Clark were more outliers themselves. We could find quotes by Elder Uchtdorf and say “What changed?” but that might not capture what is happening. The men of church leadership are not a monolith. They have their different personalities and perspectives. At the end of the day, they are all on the same team and working for the same positive goals despite their differences.
Arrakeen wrote:
We seem to like to believe in “the formula”. They even taught us in the MTC that testimony is like a math equation, with the right inputs (study, faith, prayer, etc) you always get the same result (testimony of the Book of Mormon, etc).
I remember a missionary telling me that the Mission’s smoking cessation program had a 100% success rate for those that really wanted to quit. Even as a TBM, I knew that particular claim would not hold up to scrutiny.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.