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Do you think your bishop would care about your involvement? I don’t think any TBM Bishop would encourage a youth sunday school teacher to challenge established wisdom/principles, as Curt has indicated. I think perhaps he means to help the youth gain ownership of their testimonies. It could be stretched to mean lhelping them find their own way within the parameters of personal conscience granted to members. On issues like Sabbath day, for example, achieving balance in your life and other issues of personal conscience. One might also take stabs at harmful cultural values such as leaving out traditionally disenfranchised groups, gettting down on people who don’t dress according to protocol, things like that — but nothign that is going to make them question core values. Do I have that right Curt? Quote:Do you think your bishop would care about your involvement?
I have been very open about my involvement online – in both my general blogging and my work here. Everyone who knows me knows what I do – at least in general, even if not with all the specifics.
My Bishop’s words were that they need to have their “conventional wisdom challenged” so they can “gain testimonies of their own”.
I think that is the perfect goal.
Old Timer wrote:I have been very open about my involvement online – in both my general blogging and my work here. Everyone who knows me knows what I do – at least in general, even if not with all the specifics.
That’s admirable. I’ve thought about telling my bishop about all my reservations, but I’m just not sure how it would go. Since they are grooming me to go on a mission, it might appear like I was trying to be defiant, which I’m not.
I never said I tell everyone exactly how I think about every issue. 
😆 I just don’t hide the fact that I see things differently than lots of other people.
Old Timer wrote:I never said I tell everyone exactly how I think about every issue.
condor, and there’s stupidity. 😆 I just don’t hide the fact that I see things differently than lots of other people.
Here’s condor for you:
[img]http://www.factzoo.com/sites/all/img/birds/andean/andean-condor-wings-stretched.jpg [/img] Condors see things differently as well…
lol Yeah, I went back and fixed that particular error. Don’t know how I missed it when reading through the comment before hitting “submit”.
😳 Awesome, in following that counsel you will protect them from future faith challenges by strengthen their willingness to see the church in it’s real nuanced reality The lesson today was about Alma 40-42 – Alma’s explanation to Corianton about how Alma viewed the after-life. I started by telling the kids the lesson is a great example of why I was bored stiff in Sunday School so often. I asked them if they could walk up to the chalk board and diagram the Plan of Salvation as we teach it. Everybody nodded, so we very quickly sketched it out on the board. I then asked them if any of them knew how Alma’s description to Corianton was different than the drawing on the board. Nobody knew, so I brought one of them to the board and had him draw what he heard as I read the relevant verses aloud. We then talked about how Alma’s description matched the OT Jewish view of Heaven and Hell – and how that view still was the dominant view held by most Christians in Joseph Smith’s day. I told them that I think it’s important to understand the difference between that view and what we have now – and we then spent another 10-15 minutes talking about the concept of “sola scriptura” and why we don’t believe it about the Bible AND the Book of Mormon. We focused on the verses where Alma says “it mattereth not” and “whether there be” and “some might call it” and, finally, “I give it as my opinion”. We talked about how continuing revelation and evolution of understanding (those exact terms) should mean we view some details differently than Alma did – and how the lack of “as far as it is translated correctly” concerning the Book of Mormon doesn’t mean “inerrant word of God” – that we don’t believe in “sola scripture” about the Book of Mormon, either. We talked about how scriptures are the best understanding of the time and how much we can learn about how people thought back then, how religious understanding evolves over time and how long-term similarities and changes can teach us just as much about ourselves and God as the scriptures themselves – IF we don’t slip into a “sola scriptura” mindset.
I went back to the birth order discussion from last week and talked about the stereotypical youngest child of a religious leader – the kid who knows it all and rebels a bit because he’s heard it all multiple times and thinks he knows better than his old man. I told them about a youngest child I know who has a great memory and constantly throws things at her parents they said months ago whenever they say something different now – how that sort of nit-picking and obsession over detail is common for bright, youngest children. We talked about what “it mattereth not” might have meant in that context – and we modeled Corianton saying, “But, dad . . .” and having Alma interrupt him, knowing what was coming, and saying, “It doesn’t matter, son. Sure, son, that might be, but it mattereth not.” We talked again about how logical the advice was given Corianton’s position in the family and apparent questioning nature (which is pretty obvious in those chapters, when you look for it).
We talked about “restoration” meaning, in the end, the same thing as “atonement” – and I mentioned that we now use “spirit and body” to mean “soul” while Alma used “soul and body” to mean “spirit and body”. We talked about justice and mercy, and I shared my favorite joke about justice:
Quote:I asked God to give me what I deserved, so he slapped me and sent me to Hell.
I told them that, in the end, “mercy” means the same thing at heart as “atonement” and “grace”. I told them that, to me, “it mattereth not” exactly what words different people use to say something as long as they are communicating and understanding what they are saying.
We ended by talking about judgment – again comparing how we generally hear the final judgment described in church – a legal process involving a lawyer (or two competing lawyers) and a judge, with the lawyer who makes the best argument winning – to how Alma described it (“they shall be their own judges”). We talked about what that means in practical terms and how “our desires” have such a huge impact. I told them that I believe, generally, we do what we really want to do – that the desires of our hearts make us who we become – that “judgment” is more an official recognition of becoming than a decision by someone else.
I really love this calling and this group of kids.
Last week covered the initial war chapters in Alma – and we focused most of the lesson on war rhetoric and our own “battles” in our personal lives. We talked about which things really are inherently “war-like” and how many of them don’t need to be battles if we don’t use war rhetoric in describing them. We talked about cultural “wars” and political “wars” – for example, how “The War on Poverty” and “The War on Drugs” ended up, in many practical ways, being focused on poor people and those who use drugs NOT the causes of poverty and drug use. We talked about how often we use attacking language about those who are different and then blame them for attacking us when they really are doing nothing but defending themselves against our “war rhetoric”.We also talked about why Mormon would spend so much time discussing war – as a “historian”, a military general and a prophet.
Today, the lesson was about the Sons of Helaman. We talked about the back story (the reason why the parents couldn’t fight due to their specific covenants –
and about all three of those covenants, even the two that get ignored all the time), why it was the words of their mothers that they remembered ( probably many of their fathers had been killed by the Lamanites in the initial slaughter), what it means that “the Lord would deliver them” (especially since their mothers knew that complete obedience is no guarantee of not being killed – and how we need to avoid judging people’s faith by what happens to them, since even the highly faithful Anti-Nephi-Lehis were killed and only “delivered” when viewed eternally), the context of “obey every word of command with exactness” (since the commands were in times of war coming from a military “commander” – and using football as an example of the need to “follow the game plan” to avoid defeat when engaged in actual combat) and the difference between “command”, “counsel” and “advice” outside the context of war. I wore a non-white shirt and used it explicitly as an object lesson at the end of the class. The Bishop attended the class, and I told everyone to look at all the males in the room and tell me how I was obviously different. They quickly identified the color of my shirt. I asked them why everyone else was wearing a white shirt, and they mentioned the connection to administering the sacrament and the Bishop’s calling – as the one who presides over the administration of the sacrament. (
that came from one of the students) I asked them all if there was a “commandment” that anyone wear a white shirt to church meetings, and they said there isn’t. I explained that I like the symbolism of tying the sacrament to baptism by use of white clothing. I said that I generally wear a white shirt to church specifically because I like that symbolism and want to be a part of it if I am asked to help with the sacrament – but that there is no commandment to do so or explicit counsel that everyone should do so, and, therefore, I wasn’t doing anything wrong in wearing a non-white shirt to church that day or in the future. Iow, I told them there is nothing wrong with a man wearing a non-white shirt to church meetings, especially if he has no reason to expect to participate in the administration of the sacrament, no matter how some individual members might feel about it. I explained that I wore a white shirt to all public meetings when I was on the High Council, since I was asked to do so by my Stake President as someone representing him, but that I wore whatever I wore to work when I attended High Council and Stake Executive Leadership meetings – since I drove straight from work to those meetings and didn’t want to detour to my house just to change clothes that weren’t commanded to be worn. I told them that they need to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences when it comes to understanding what is command, counsel, advice, encouragement, etc. – and that I personally follow almost all communal expectations when there is no conflict with my conscience.
I ended, with the Bishop in the room, telling them that they need to follow their own consciences if there ever is a conflict between those consciences and what a leader is asking, counseling, advising, encouraging, etc. – that “God will deliver them” in some real way if they end up in a battle of some kind because of it, which might very well happen with some leaders.My Bishop thanked me after the lesson and said it had made him think of at least one thing he’d never considered previously.
too cool This sounds great — just the way I would like to see myself teach a lesson. Mine didn’t go quite as well as that this time, but one thing I have in common is that someone always tells me I made them think and challenge the way they normally view things. I think it was great you tackedl the white shirt misnomer. I’m finding that to get through these lessons as a faithful member without agreeing with everything, you can simply draw boundaries around the cultural norms, and talk about exceptions, as you did. I think it’s a good principle for people who want to teach at Church without feeling they are buying into the whole objectionable cultural values that have grown out of policies that were meant to address a specific situation.
That’s a class I would enjoy attending Curt. Curt, I absolutely love the way you presented that lesson to your young students. It’s a great FHE idea too! Will have to borrow! Thanks, everyone. I really love teaching this class.
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