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Hi all, (Disclaimer: I will TRY to minimize cynicism and sarcasm in my posts here. Not always possible to avoid it. Too habitual.)
I’m a male church member who is trying to sort a few things out. I’ve had a hangup of sorts for a number of years that probably will sound ridiculous to most of you.
The church expects members to counsel with priesthood leaders about certain things. (Yes, it’s a worthiness issue in my case. Therefore, I have no credibility, right?) The trouble is that my local leaders made what I consider to be an egregious error in judgment toward someone else on a related issue, ignoring/minimizing something that they absolutely shouldn’t have – something which IMO endangered members in the ward. As a result, I don’t trust them to deal with me with any level of accuracy/fairness/discernment/whatever. Not to mention that I’m still very angry at a few of them.
Most of this will best be dispensed in the forums, I think, but I want to pose some of the questions weighing on me to the site members here. Here’s a general list:
1) Foremost – Is it possible to resolve D&C Section 1 with a leader who erred? Or are YOU always in the wrong?
2) Does forgiveness mean you trust again? Or isn’t that good enough?
3) When you need to get rid of some pride, can you retain any part of yourself? Or is it always a matter of saying “OK Lord, I’m wrong about everything” or something akin to that?
So, thanks in advance for any insights you might have as I gradually dispense this all.
Welcome. I hope you can find a measure of peace here and, most of all, a safe place to share in the sort of free-flowing, solution-oriented approach we take. Quote:Yes, it’s a worthiness issue in my case. Therefore, I have no credibility, right?
Nope, you have just as much cred as anyone else going through life. Your experiences are yours, and they bring a degree of real cred that nobody has in relation to them. We all filter through our own dark glasses, so your view might not be any more “accurate” than someone else – but that doesn’t affect your credibility one bit.
Quote:The trouble is that my local leaders made what I consider to be an egregious error in judgment
Yep, that happens sometimes when we rely on volunteer, lay leaders. It sucks when it happens, but it does happen. I think the lay leadership is both the glory and the thorn of the LDS Church. I wouldn’t change it, but I certainly understand that it can be incredibly painful (even damaging) when it doesn’t work the way it should.
Quote:Is it possible to resolve D&C Section 1 with a leader who erred?
Absolutely. It’s not only possible, but I think it’s quite easy when you look very carefully at the actual wording – and the alternative (infallible leaders) just doesn’t make sense. When you read those verses, there are two things that are said:
1) Everything the Lord has said will happen, whether He said it Himself or whether “his servants” said it. The key is that the passage doesn’t say that everything prophets say is the word of God and will happen; it just says “what I, the Lord, have spoken” – and those are two very, very different things. To me, that passage is like a mathematical given: If (a) = there is a God, and (b) = God says something will happen, then (c) = those things will happen.
2) “whether by my voice (singular) or the voice (singular) of my servants (plural)” – which says that the “servants” (whoever they are) must speak as one if their “voice” has any chance of being God’s voice. Frankly, there are almost no things upon which the prophets and apostles have agreed unanimously since the time of Joseph Smith, and that is even truer if the term “servants” is extended back even further. I really like the concept, but I think it applies very, very rarely about very few things.
Quote:Does forgiveness mean you trust again?
Not necessarily. If I know someone who has sexually abused a child, there is no way I’m forgetting that and trusting the person to take care of my children. That’s not forgiveness; that’s stupidity. Forgiveness means, at the heart, not condemning someone for what they’ve done – being willing to withhold judgment and let go of the need to exact punishment beyond what is necessary. So, in this case, it can be continuing to “sustain and support” by not agitating publicly against someone, while not putting yourself and others into what you consider to be real danger.
Quote:When you need to get rid of some pride, can you retain any part of yourself?
Absolutely. Humility does not mean rejection or denial of one’s self. It just means remaining open-minded, able to learn from others and not placing one’s self above others in intrinsic self-worth – not rejecting and condemning someone as beyond redemption and love, so to speak.
Finally, for what it’s worth, I could say all of that from the pulpit and not have anyone call me on it – as long as I chose my words carefully and framed everything a little differently than I did in this forum.
Thanks for the insights, Ray. They’ve given me plenty to ponder in the short term. I’m still going to split these various topics up in the other forums, but an element of your reply – the part about the sexual abuser – prompted me to say a little more.
The error I think my leaders made is ignoring a pedophile – a member in his late teens who assaulted the 3-year-old daughter of another member family. The guy was
supposedlyexcommunicated – apparently the church does it summarily in some cases. I guess I wouldn’t know for sure, but the way the leadership has acted, the guy got a free pass. Some don’t believe the assault happened at all. (I know about it because the girl’s mother vented the whole thing to my wife shortly afterward. This mother wasn’t near her daughter at that moment, but she paid heed to some instinctive “alarm bells” and returned, catching the perp in the act. She isn’t a good enough actress to make up a story like this.) A former bishop claims a Melchizedek Priesthood bearer was watching him while in the church. One may have been assigned, but the guy had the run of the building. Last I heard, his EQP was wanting to make the guy a home teacher, but you and I know how slapdash that can be. Plenty of households with young kids to whom he could be randomly assigned. Which brings me to my worthiness issue, which is an internet pornography addiction. You’re supposed to confess to and counsel with the bishop about this sort of thing, but his credibility – and that of other priesthood leaders who are/were involved – is lacking in my opinion. By the church’s definition, I’m prideful to an unhealthy level if I don’t submit to it. But all trust is broken. I certainly deserve some chastisement, but I can’t take it from hypocrites. This is the sort of thing spiritual inspiration is supposed to prevent, but only the girl’s mother heeded any in this case – and they’ve rejected it.
I’ve told some family and acquaintances (who don’t know the people involved) about the first part to try to get some perspective. They always say, “Just get over it.” It’s killing me to carry the anger, but I can’t just shrug it off. I can’t come to any other conclusion here that says I’m wrong and they’re right. But in so doing, I’m fighting the Lord (per D&C 1).
One of the 12 steps in my addiction program talks about forgiveness and restitution. The program info claims that unless an addict can take care of all that, he’ll probably keep relapsing. Thus … I can’t heal.
Quote:But in so doing, I’m fighting the Lord (per D&C 1).
No, that is not what D&C says – or, at least, it is only what the most possible extreme interpretation would say. I don’t care who gave you that interpretation; it isn’t correct. In fact, it’s twisted and reminiscent of how we describe Lucifer’s plan. I can like and respect people who believe it, if I know they are sincere and just doing the best they can, but I can’t agree with them – and, again, I can phrase it in such a way that nobody but those at the most extreme edge would argue with me if I said it from the pulpit.
Seriously, you aren’t fighting the Lord in anything you just described.I gotta say I agree with 100% of what Ray’s said on this thread. D&C 1 does not indicate that church leaders are infallible. If you wonder whether even the prophets are infallible, look at how many times in the D&C JS is rebuked by the Lord for one error or another. I’ve read the humorous line that the Catholics are taught that the Pope is infallible but none of them believe it, while the Mormons are taught that the Prophet is not infallible, but none of them believe it. Bishops, stake presidents, area authorities, seventies, apostles and prophets are just men. They are not semi-divine. I had a recent experience that might illustrate this point: I sat in on a stake disciplinary council. Of course I won’t discuss anything about it other than to say that the decision that was reached by the stake presidency was not the decision I would have made if I were the one making the decision. But when it came time to sustain the SP’s decision, I raised my hand. Not because I agreed with what he’d decided, but because I know him to be a good man and I sustain him in his calling.
Your ward and stake leadership may have erred in how they handled this case. Does that mean they’ll err in how they minister to you? I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s axiomatic that since they made a mistake in the past they’ll make a similar mistake with you. Having said that, trust is a huge issue when working through issues with a bishop, and if you absolutely cannot trust the man then you’re definitely between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Good luck, mate. It doesn’t sound like an easy row to hoe.
Ray, I wish all bishops were like you. ray IS the bishop of the StayLDS ward… insomniac wrote:Which brings me to my worthiness issue, which is an internet pornography addiction. You’re supposed to confess to and counsel with the bishop about this sort of thing, but his credibility – and that of other priesthood leaders who are/were involved – is lacking in my opinion. By the church’s definition, I’m prideful to an unhealthy level if I don’t submit to it. But all trust is broken. I certainly deserve some chastisement, but I can’t take it from hypocrites.
I personally would not go to my bishop with any worthiness issue.My reasoning is as follows: I don’t think it would help me.
I do not feel like the church mediates my relationship to the divine. I like perhaps 50% of stuff in the church and dislike the other 50%. Right now I am active and attend mostly in support of DW and kids. I believe my bishop is a good man but I fear that the tools that he would have in his toolkit to deal with a worthiness issue would not be effective for me. If he disfellowshipped me or tried some other shaming method – my toehold on the church might suddenly become untenable. He might also look to outward professions of testimony for signs of repentance. If I am unable to honestly provide those then I may be seen as irredeemable. I feel that these possible outcomes would only cause more problems. Now a particular bishop might just surprise me and be uber-inspired but I’m just not willing to gamble my family’s tranquility on it.
If I were in your shoes, I would cut the internet. Not because I am necessarily broken in my nature to be tempted, but because the action is causing havoc on my relationships with others. It would make sense to remove the easy access to the temptation. Am I being prideful of pragmatic? Maybe both. I know that I’m a hypocrite and a sinner but I also know I’m just doing the best that I know how for those that love and depend on me – just like everyone else.
Except of course that cutting the Internet also cuts off the chance to ask this question. I already know the canned answer that very active devoted members will give, and I know the answer that disgruntled members or non-members will give. The net is the one place that somebody ever would admit ambivalence. An aside here … I don’t quite follow how you mean the strict interpretation of D&C 1 parallels Lucifer’s plan. It doesn’t seem like coercion – you’re free to ignore the Lord’s word if you accept the consequences.
Quote:I don’t quite follow how you mean the strict interpretation of D&C 1 parallels Lucifer’s plan.
I didn’t say the “strict” interpretation parallels Lucifer’s plan. I said that about the “most possible extreme interpretation” – which is that whatever any leader says is God’s will that must be obeyed without question. THAT (“Set aside your agency and do what I tell you to do for no reason other than that I am your leader and command you to obey me.”) is exactly how we describe Lucifer’s plan, and it isn’t at all what D&C actually says.
You are new here, so I am saying this with a huge smile on my face
Finally, we have a few threads in our archives about porn, one of which is fairly recent. I would recommend reading them, if you want to see how we see that issue – and see a good example of how we often disagree with each other but try to be respectful as we do so.
One if the major things most here have in common is that we don’t accept the infallibility of the church or its leaders. So in that vein I would say…be sorry for the poor person in the position to judge that case. The judge should have been a legal judge. If the bishop didn’t report the abuse he may be in violation of the law. The mom should report the abuse in my opinion. I believe the big 15 would agree with me.
As far a the porn addiction? Try to give yourself permission. From a moral perspective it is not something the bishop needs to know. Even conference talks don’t tell you that you need to talk to leaders about. They just say “get help”. I have had better luck eliminating the urges just talking it over on some of these forums than from church leaders. Men like boobs..it is that simple.I think you will find the urge diminish a lot once you rid yourself of the shame. That was my experience and many others have shared the same experience. It is also backed up by current psych theory. End the shame cycle then see if you have a problem.
Once you have a healthy perspective then you will see clearly. I found then my desire decreased further as I started being able to think about the girls involved and how bad some of their lives may be…doing it off compassion works better than off shame that God hates you.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2
I did read through that recent porn thread. I wrote a long post, too – but the site said I had to be logged in to post it. I had been. But it got nuked in the end. I may re-add it, but not right this moment. Maybe the insomnia is finally losing out tonight. (It’s 4 AM.) Oh, at least the state punished the jerk who got to the little girl. He pleaded guilty to “injury to a child”, got probation, and stayed off the list. Wonderful. At least he was dumb enough to do a little time for violating his probation. The church didn’t have to turn him in – which of course leaves a number of leaders in the clear and allows them to count their own polyps rather than deal with a still-present danger.
I did hear an interesting bit of information from a very knowledgeable member this week. Did you know pornography addictions always lead to either pedophilia or homosexuality? I guess I have no choice but to start hitting on many of you and your children in the near future …
Quote:Did you know pornography addictions always lead to either pedophilia or homosexuality?
I hate those unscientific rumors. This one, especially, is egregious and wrong.
:thumbdown: Even addicts know egregious when they see it. Nevertheless, Ray, better either ban me from the board or change the profile pic. You don’t want to argue with an expert, do you? 
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 Good thing I don’t need to do either.
:thumbup:
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