Mormon church losing members….

[Anonymous]

shoshin wrote:

…

I guess you all are taking the question more personally, which is understandable… “Know your audience” is the first rule of writing…

Haha. Indeed indeed.

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[Anonymous]

shoshin wrote:

I’m wondering how I can contribute to this site so maybe I will just fade out. Best wishes to you all in that case.

Well, don’t let me scare you off. I don’t post here very often. To be honest, this board is kind of boring to me lately. I appreciate the discussion and life this thread had provided.

I’m sure there will be others checking this thread and I’ll get chastised for being abrasive and mean to the new guy. It happens.

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[Anonymous]

Quote:

Shoshin you wrote, I’m wondering how I can contribute to this site so maybe I will just fade out. Best wishes to you all in that case.

I have trouble remembering everyone’s introduction story, but I am wondering what you hoped or thought you would be contributing to the site? This question isn’t a blame question, I really am curious what brought you here and what your understanding of our little corner of the world was focused on? If you can help us understand what you hoped to accomplish or contribute, we may be able to read and comprehend your posts from that point of view.

As you can probably guess from the response elicited, we are a group of people who choose to remain connected the LDS church – our individual journeys to get here are not filled with traditional happy ending stories. Something in us or in the faith are disconnected. Most of us did not choose the experiences that led us down the roads that brought us here. Every one of us gave the full measure of self to the LDS experience. We have great hope in it’s future – but keen eyes and wary hearts as the church moves forward.

I believe every one of us here desires an uplifting, harmonious, fulfilling spiritual/religious experience. When we push back it is from years of lessons learned. We not only know our own stories, but hundreds of others. We have the privilege of knowing a grief we never imagined existed, we bear one another’s burdens and heart aches with a very sacred trust. Our door and heart is open to all who wish to rest, heal, vent, plead, and cry. We will gladly debate because we believe in the divine in every mortal being. We will even debate and fight for you, if we feel that we can honor your need.

So before you slip away, will you take a minute consider what you were looking for when you stopped by. If our corner doesn’t fit your needs, we wish you good luck and godspeed as you find a place to represent your hearts desire. If we are some where you want to hang your hat, just let us know how you plan to hang your hat.

And Cwald – I love you.

[Anonymous]

shoshin wrote:

Thanks for the replies.

I was taking the question more abstractly – “why are people leaving the church now more than in the past?” Elder Jensen said it’s the greatest time of apostasy since Kirtland.

I guess you all are taking the question more personally, which is understandable. I apologize for that. “Know your audience” is the first rule of writing which I guess I failed.

I’m wondering how I can contribute to this site so maybe I will just fade out. Best wishes to you all in that case.

I originally was going to point out how cwald beat me to the punch. So, I’ll say that part anyway – the idea that the church did not and does not hide it’s history won’t fly here and shouldn’t fly anywhere. Until recently much of the history now more readily available was hidden in the vault and available to only a select few who weren’t allowed or were afraid to share it. For those of us who live in the area where much of this history happened, it was more known – but wasn’t shared with us by the church it was available from public sources, some of them anti. Likewise, online sources, until recently, were also for the most part anti with an anti bent. For the vast majority of people, this information was not available and what was available was difficult to discern from anti stuff. I don’t blame the church for not sharing with investigators that Joseph Smith really translated the BoM while looking at a stone in a hat – that sounds weird. However, I think the vast majority of members, even lifelong members who are now senior citizens and have served faithfully all their lives, don’t know about the peep stone and the hat. That should not be the case. I appreciate that the church has posted the essay about translating the BoM and others – but I also think they should draw more attention to them amongst the membership. For the most part they have gone unnoticed.

That said, please don’t let any of us scare you off. Your input is welcome here, but please be aware of who you are talking to. Just as you would not appreciate one of us coming to your testimony meeting and asserting something you believe to be true is false, we generally don’t like to be told we’re wrong. It’s not that we necessarily think we’re right about everything – that’s impossible because there is a huge variety of opinion amongst the members here – but because we value diversity of thought here immensely, and generally it is thought and logic which prevail over testimony. Please remember that our experiences have been far different than yours, and while we can understand yours because many of us were once true believers, it is likely more difficult for you to understand us.

Oh, and go read cwald’s story – I guarantee you will see cwald in a whole different light. Read some others, too.

[Anonymous]

mom3, thanks for your kindness. If I reply I’m really going to be going off-thread but I guess I will anyway. Of course, anyone is free to send me a personal message to continue the conversation that way.

My impressions of the site are based on the intro which says, “StayLDS.com exists to help people find a positive experience as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The information provided and discussed is primarily geared towards members of the Church who have questions, concerns, problems and issues that led them to change their views about their faith.”

Also, John Dehlin’s interview on KUER RadioWest, May 7, 2014, where he said the difference between staylds.com and the NOM site is that the people here want to stay and the NOMs want to leave but don’t feel they can for various reasons.

So as I tried to explain in my intro, if people here want to hear the perspective of a believing member then I’m happy to provide that. But I guess it’s been hard for me to sometimes find the balance between understanding people here and defending my beliefs. So I guess I’ll keep trying on that, if I am still welcome.

My personal experience has been of many periods of “dry” spells where I didn’t particularly feel the “magic” of the gospel – “die Alte Kinderglaube” (the old belief of childhood) if I remember how Thomas Mann said it, with probably also bad German grammar.

My response has been to hold on anyway. During times when I didn’t feel the Spirit, I reminded myself of the times when I did, and how I knew during those times it was from God. I think the gospel is a lot like love – it’s more of a decision and action and a commitment, than it is a feeling.

I have found that if I kept pressing forward holding on the iron rod, as the Book of Mormon says it, I eventually come out again from the darkness and the mists. Then I will probably go back into the dark later.

When I look back at the dark times, they were often (not always) times when I wasn’t being obedient to the amount of light that I had, so that hurt me too.

The gospel makes a lot of sense to me. It’s the most rational religion I have found, and the most optimistic worldview. Buddhism is also great, but they have no real answers to the Big Questions. This Mormon doctrine tastes good, as Joseph Smith said. I love his writings – they seem like the are spot on and are exactly true. The same thing with the official pronouncements from the prophet, such as the proclamation on the family.

The quotes in my intro and in my signature give a lot of my understanding and where I’m coming from. “My ways are not your ways” says the Lord. If we don’t understand everything all at once, then that’s to be expected from church and gospel that is more than just an invention of humans.

I could go on, but I guess what I’m saying is that it’s hard for me to understand sometimes when people want to leave the church. “If you have trials, you just hang on and press forward, and sometimes it requires stepping into the darkness trusting there will be ground in front of you.” That’s my philosophy. But I also wanted to join this site to try to understand. I do believe we all take our own path. Plenty of people around me don’t seem to understand my path either. If they had been through what I have, they would understand me. So that applies to everyone here too, I’m sure.

I am certain that growing up in the Book of Mormon Belt would have made it harder for me to separate the gospel from the culture, so I’m lucky I guess that I have lived in the “mission field” all my life. I think it’s easier to focus on the essentials when you don’t hear day to day details about what’s going on in Salt Lake.

DarkJedi, since I wrote this I see you have also replied – I will try to address what you wrote later – I need to sign off for the night.

[Anonymous]

Thanks mom3

This is probably the best post I have ever read on this site and I would ask Brian or Ray to put this in the home page or pin it, as this one statement capsules and defines everything right about the staylds website, and perhaps the entire church itself.

It literally brought tears to my eyes. Makes me want to call home and mend bridges. It gives me faith in the mormon people.

Thanks. Glad I checked in tonight.

Here is the quote that should be pinned to the top of the forum.

mom3 wrote:

… we are a group of people who choose to remain connected the LDS church – our individual journeys to get here are not filled with traditional happy ending stories. Something in us or in the faith are disconnected. Most of us did not choose the experiences that led us down the roads that brought us here. Every one of us gave the full measure of self to the LDS experience. We have great hope in it’s future – but keen eyes and wary hearts as the church moves forward.

I believe every one of us here desires an uplifting, harmonious, fulfilling spiritual/religious experience. When we push back it is from years of lessons learned. We not only know our own stories, but hundreds of others. We have the privilege of knowing a grief we never imagined existed, we bear one another’s burdens and heart aches with a very sacred trust. Our door and heart is open to all who wish to rest, heal, vent, plead, and cry. We will gladly debate because we believe in the divine in every mortal being. We will even debate and fight for you, if we feel that we can honor your need.

So before you slip away, will you take a minute consider what you were looking for when you stopped by. If our corner doesn’t fit your needs, we wish you good luck and godspeed as you find a place to represent your hearts desire. If we are some where you want to hang your hat, just let us know how you plan to hang your hat.

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[Anonymous]

Shoshin. I think that is a pretty good post. Fair. And I respect it, your path, and your faith.

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[Anonymous]

mom3, as usual, is brilliantly and compassionately articulate.

I just wanted to add something I recently read from B.H. Roberts:

Quote:

“[Mormonism] call for thoughtful disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of the truths, but will develop its truths…[and] will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the Church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas; cooperating in the works of the Spirit, until they help to give to the truths received a more forceful expression….”

B. H. Roberts, Improvement Era Volume 9.9 (July 1906)

Letter dated June 1, 1906, in “Book of Mormon Translation: Interesting Correspondence on the Subject of the Manual Theory,”

https://archive.org/details/improvementera0909unse

https://archive.org/stream/improvementera0909unse/improvementera0909unse_djvu.txt

Quoted by Robert A. Rees in “The Midrashic Imagination and the Book of Mormon,” Dialog 44, Fall 2011

Here’s the full quote in context:

Quote:

These latter reflections bring to mind some observations I re- member to have read some time ago in the philosophical works of John Fiske respecting two classes of disciples or partisans in the world of religious and philosophical opinion, which I think with profit may be reproduced here. By the way, I see the passage occurs in the introduction to Fiske’s Work, written by Josiah Boyce, and is as follows:

Quote:

“Disciples and partisans, in the world of religious and of philosophical opinion, are of two sorts. There are, first, the disciples pure and simple, — people who fall under the spell of a person or of a doctrine, and whose whole intellectual life thenceforth consists in their partisanship. They expound, and defend, and ward off foes, and live and die faithful to the one formula. Such disciples may be indispensable at first in helping a new teaching to get a popular hearing, but in the long run they rather hinder than help the wholesome growth of the very ideas that they defend : for great ideas live by growing, and a doctrine that has merely to be preached, over and over, in the same terms, cannot possibly be the whole truth. No man ought to be merely a faithful disciple of any other man. Yes, no man ought to be a mere disciple even of himself. We live spiritually by outliving our formulas , and by thus enriching our sense of their deeper meaning. Now the disciples of the first sort do not live in this larger and more spiritual sense. They repeat. And true life is never mere repetition.

On the other hand, there are disciples of a second sort. They are men who- have been attracted to a new doctrine by the fact that it. gave expression, in a novel way, to some large and deep interest which had already grown up in them- selves, and which had already come, more or less independently, to their own consciousness. They thus bring to the new teaching, from the first, their own personal contribution. The truth that they gain is changed as it enters their souls. The seed that the sower strews upon their fields springs up in their soil, and bears fruit, —thirty, sixty, an hundred fold. They return to their master his own with usury. Such men are the disciples that it is worthwhile for a master to have. Disciples of the first sort often become, as Schopenhauer said, mere magnifying mirrors wherein one sees enlarged, all the defects of a doctrine. Disciples of the second sort co-operate in the works of the Spirit; and even if they always remain rather disciples than originators, they help to lead the thought that they accept to a truer expression. They force it beyond its earlier and cruder stages of development.”

I believe “Mormonism” affords opportunity for disciples of the second sort; nay, that its crying need is for such disciples. It calls for thoughtful disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of its truths, but will develop its truths; and en- large it by that development. Not half — not one- hundredth part — not a thousandth part of that which Joseph Smith revealed to the Church has yet been unfolded, either to the Church or to the world. The work of the expounder has scarcely begun. The Prophet planted by teaching the germ-truths of the great dispensation of the fulness of times. The watering and the weeding is going on, and God is giving the increase, and will give it more abundantly in the future as more intelligent discipleship shall obtain. The disciples of “Mormonism,” growing discontented with the necessarily primitive methods which have hitherto prevailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the Church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas; co-operating in the works of the Spirit, until they help to give to the truths received a more forceful expression, and carry it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its development.

(Emphasis added)

[Anonymous]

Shoshin:

Quote:

“if people here want to hear the perspective of a believing member then I’m happy to provide that”

That’s probably not a gap this group suffers. People here already know very well the perspective of believing members, as everyone here was one at some time, and many are still at least partly believing, some are hoping, some are doubting but used to be believing, but all are here intentionally under the name “Stay”LDS. Many simply refined what or how they believe what they believe as they gained new perspective. A great reason to participate here is because you want to gain something, not because you want to give something. In the process of listening, you’ll gain empathy and insight that will allow you to give back to the community.

[Anonymous]

shoshin wrote:

The quotes in my intro and in my signature give a lot of my understanding and where I’m coming from. “My ways are not your ways” says the Lord. If we don’t understand everything all at once, then that’s to be expected from church and gospel that is more than just an invention of humans.

Hi, shoshin – Glad you’re here. This paragraph caught my eye, because I do second-guess myself often. “My ways are not your ways” is profound and poetic. “Our way or the highway” isn’t. I think the church is more than just an invention of humans, but, to my mind, that doesn’t mean it’s not also the invention of humans. I recently saw a Lowell Bennion quote: “God is what He is. To the extent that our ideas about God correspond to what He really is, to that extent we have the truth about God.” Many of us here (some without even a belief in God, which I think makes their effort even more commendable) are just trying to be patient and loving with our own selves and each other.

mackay, that is the “Useful Quote of the Decade!”

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the additional replies, everyone.

hawkgrrrl wrote:

A great reason to participate here is because you want to gain something, not because you want to give something.

I guess I need time to digest what you all have been saying and figure out if I can contribute in a meaningful way. I have thought of my contribution as being a giving one. I not really struggling with why I should stay LDS, but I thought maybe I could help here by explaining why that is.

My initial read on this site, after reading a few Intros from new people, was for example, that they were hurting after finding out the church was a big lie, or that they disagreed with ward members or leaders.

My response to those specific things is that the church is not a big lie, even though it may not be what you thought it was.

And if you find yourself surrounded by the first kind of disciples in that quote mackay11 gave, the parroting partisans, then that is OK. Every one is at a different stage of development – and in many areas. The nonquestioning believer next to me in Sunday School almost certainly is far ahead of me in other ways that matter, such as charity or humility.

See, I’m a compulsive preacher

But as I see it, the intellectual aspect of the gospel is only part of what matters, and not necessarily the most important part, as much as it appeals to me as a lover of ideas and learning. See that Nibley quote in my signature – the thing that matters in this life is forgiving and repenting, which I think is an amazing thing for a life-time scholar like Nibley to say. We will learn and understand everything later, in the next life and also some of it later in this life as we are obedient to the light we have gained so far.

I think the key concept is submission to God.

Even when I don’t understand him and his program doesn’t seem work for me very well. The church doesn’t work for me very well. Absolutely, it doesn’t work for me. It asks me to do and to be things that are very uncomfortable and not at all how I would live if I did what the world tells me, to “follow my dreams” and to find “self-fulfillment.” I am an introvert in an extroverted church. I am a left-leaning independent in a church (to my mind) with mostly reactionary membership. I need to quietly ponder and contemplate in a church filled with noisy Americans. The only thing I want to be in this life is a novelist, in a church that asks me as a father to provide for my family.

But I believe the church is God’s school for my spirit. Looking back, it has made me more than I ever planned to be in the ways that really matter. (I have a long way to go yet.)

I have found what C. S. Lewis said to be true:

Quote:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.

“But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

[Anonymous]

Hey Shoshin. Thanks for clarifying some of your thoughts and why you’re here. I repeat that I do think there is room here for you. You have apparently had an experience similar to what many of us have gone through. I’ve got to think about this some more because I think you come here sincerely, I don’t perceive that you’re here to try to “fix” us. I want so much to say you’re input is welcome because I think this group of misfit toys is really a pretty loving and accepting group – really, there are people who I consider close friends even though we have never met. We are sometimes brutally honest with each other and I am not above chastisement from the group, and I don’t think any of us are.

My wife and I went through a period where we didn’t talk about things gospel related because she felt like she always had to respond to something I would say and defend the church, when most of the time I only wanted her to listen and try to understand my point of view. I’m not asking anyone to agree with me, probably especially her – but I already know what she believes because I used to believe it too and there are tons of people at church who can and will parrot the same beliefs constantly. After all these years she still doesn’t know what I believe because she has never listened to me, she has only tried to defend. (I might throw in here that she has been more humbled than I with my recent calling.) I think what I’m trying to say here is, we all have people in our lives who will present the orthodox view of things and do so all the time – that’s why some of us don’t go to church. If that’s the only input you have it’s just not going anywhere for any of us. On the other hand, some of us know people (here and in real life) who are willing to listen and try to understand and try to see things from our points of view without spouting the party line back at us. That doesn’t mean they don’t talk to us.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi,

That is very helpful. And I am very sorry your wife won’t really listen, as you have shared.

I don’t think people here need to be fixed, but I have seen some things that I perceive as profound misunderstandings about the church and the gospel, which I can’t help wanting to counteract. This is important stuff – we’re talking about the eternal destiny of all of us. I certainly don’t know everything but I feel I have learned some very important things over the years, mostly the hard way.

So I will have to decide whether I can reign in my compulsive preaching.

But absolutely – down with the party line. God wants us to think for ourselves. I strongly believe that. We don’t need this in the church:

Quote:

Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else.

Politics and the English Language, George Orwell

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

[Anonymous]

shoshin wrote:

My initial read on this site, after reading a few Intros from new people, was for example, that they were hurting after finding out the church was a big lie, or that they disagreed with ward members or leaders.

My response to those specific things is that the church is not a big lie, even though it may not be what you thought it was.

If there is a disconnect I think that this might be a part of it.

Some people come here looking for help after struggling for years to fight off the belief that the faith that they once had was, as you say, a lie. That’s an important aspect, that people have truly gone to battle against the notion that aspects of their faith were not based on truth. They fought hard for it because they didn’t want to lose that part of their system of beliefs. They’ve spent countless hours telling themselves that the church is not a big lie, that it might not be what they thought it was but still somehow, somewhere deep down it must still be true. They wanted so desperately for the church to be what it once was in their lives but the relentless nagging doubts wore them down until they broke, like wave after wave after wave breaking upon a shore slowly eroding it away until it is gone. They did not ask for this. To them it was an external force that, like the waves, could not be held back.

That said it can be a bit difficult when a person in that dire situation comes looking for support and finds another voice that tells them the same things that they’ve already told themselves too many times to count. That your feelings that the church is a lie are incorrect, that you just thought that the church was something that it wasn’t but it’s still true; you just can’t see it yet. I think a lot of people that have had a faith crisis have already beat themselves up telling themselves that for years and years and years. Those words cease to be of any comfort.

shoshin wrote:

I think the key concept is submission to God. Even when I don’t understand him and his program doesn’t seem work for me very well. The church doesn’t work for me very well. Absolutely, it doesn’t work for me. It asks me to do and to be things that are very uncomfortable and not at all how I would live if I did what the world tells me, to “follow my dreams” and to find “self-fulfillment.”

That’s a big problem for some people. Some do not believe in god. Some believe but question whether any given program is truly god’s program or whether it is a program invented by man but attributed to god. Some can follow their dreams because their dreams are not sin. Some need to find self-fulfillment because they have not found fulfillment from any other source, and again, their self-fulfillment may very well help them reach their divine potential. Who’s to say?

Like others, I’m not trying to shoo you away. I was more hoping to help you see where some people are coming from.

[Anonymous]

shoshin wrote:

DarkJedi,

That is very helpful. And I am very sorry your wife won’t really listen, as you have shared.

I don’t think people here need to be fixed, but I have seen some things that I perceive as profound misunderstandings about the church and the gospel, which I can’t help wanting to counteract. This is important stuff – we’re talking about the eternal destiny of all of us. I certainly don’t know everything but I feel I have learned some very important things over the years, mostly the hard way.

So I will have to decide whether I can reign in my compulsive preaching.

But absolutely – down with the party line. God wants us to think for ourselves. I strongly believe that. We don’t need this in the church:

Quote:

Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else.

Politics and the English Language, George Orwell

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

Very interesting – the shoe is on the other foot as it were. Thanks for helping me understand this – I think I get it! While we are each constantly fighting an internal battle regarding that which we hear at church and other places that we believe are not true or correct yet can’t necessarily openly correct for fear of offense, your battle seems to be seeing that we misunderstand and you want to correct that but also fear offending. At this point I can only say this: I don’t generally offer my thoughts on a given subject unless I’m asked – although I do sometimes have a very difficult time biting my tongue and wonder if the observer see the blood trickling from the corner of my mouth. On the other hand, most of us here are asking, which is why I feel free to chime in with my opinion and why I can see that you would also. You’re between a rock and a hard place, my friend.

[Author]

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