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SilentDawning wrote:
one’s homegrown reasons for staying in the Church
For some reason, I really love this phrase, and your entire post, especially as you wound it up at the end, really makes good sense to me.
One thing I like about the Stayer POV is that it is to me organic Mormonism. The difference bteween Stayers an say NOMs is that there is belief in something predominately that still works within Mormonism. Maybe I’m over generalizing but I just can’t call BS to ALL of Mormonism, even though I see a lot I can equate to myth, legend, or some as just BS. I think the Stayer position is also more positive and reconcilliatory. I’m not saying and, I’m sure most of us agree that ther is no right way bu there is a different more general direction of the Stayer. I’m not one for labels necessarily but I think there are tremendous differences in the non-traditonal or less orthodox Mormons.
I site my parents for example. They are a prime example of Stayers. Dad is totally inactive and doesn’t follow many of the TBM rules. He’d love to wear garments but has no reccomend. My mom is a spiritual TBM very very orthodox toward the Gospel and the bretheren. However she can’t stand the church socially in many ways. Both are conservavtive libertarians but almost discard belief in most non-moral commandments.
I guess this was ingrained in me from an early age although we were pretty active during our teen years in my family, we had very strict rules in many ways but very theologically liberal principals at the same time.
I guess to sum it up paradoxically we were liberal fundamentalists liek some crazy form of Unitarian Mormons. Despite my struggles I think I came out a better person for it, and in a strange way it seems to have prepared me for this undefined mission to encourage others faith by sharing my own. I feel as though God created me to preach to the choir of unique and eccentric Mormons.
Quote:He’d love to wear garments but has no reccomend.
Has he been endowed in the past? If so, he can wear garments even if he doesn’t have a recommend. There is NOTHING that says someone has to stop wearing garments if they don’t hold a current recommend.
If he hasn’t been endowed in the past, ignore me. (No comments, everyone else.
FenixDown wrote:They are a prime example of Stayers.
I love the label you’ve coined here. Kinda rolls off the tongue.
Tom Haws wrote:FenixDown wrote:They are a prime example of Stayers.
I love the label you’ve coined here. Kinda rolls off the tongue.
I like the phrase but I think I heard it somewhere else and just stuck for me .
I actually did come up with ‘Stayer’ but by inspiration from Brain’s post title “True Confessions of a StayLDS’er”. I just came up with ‘Stayer’. I post a lot. On NOM but I just don’t fit the NOM profile anymore and kind of resent being thrown into the TBM bracket because I believe but I’m not an agnostic/athiest/humanist NOM. I still buy Mormonism after soooo many trials, hurts, and uncomfortable facts, but my strange testimony of Mormonism says it still just feels right. Frankly, I’d love for ‘Stayer’ to stick, I think we are so much more than Cultural or New Order Mormons.
My thoughts on the topic are probably best framed in the context of Fowler. You can’t push people into another stage of faith development. If they don’t have some internal motivator to move out of the stage they are in — they most likely won’t. IF however, they have that internal whatever-it-is, and are looking to move on, I think a few words of guidance can be invaluable to making a smooth-ish transition.
The StayLDS way
canand doeswork for some people. It works for me. To anyone who may be discouraged from some of the comments at the source of this thread — hang in there! Only YOU determine what will work for you. The way I see it I am only in the church because I wanted to find a way that would honestly work for myself. I found it. It’s not easy but it’s doable. The longer you travel a road the more you acclimate to it. With enough time things become second nature. You begin to forget that you were ever concerned with what others might think about your personal thoughts and beliefs. The church is a community rich in tradition, symbolism, growth, service, truth & life (from at least one perspective) I will encourage any and all to join with me in staying. But I will also understand when personal situations make the task too difficult to be worthwhile. Old-Timer wrote:If he hasn’t been endowed in the past, ignore me.
Please let me know if he hasn’t been endowed so I can ignore Ray the rest of the month.
couldn’t help myself – even though you specifically said not to comment.
Orson wrote:To anyone who may be discouraged from some of the comments at the source of this thread — hang in there! Only YOU determine what will work for you.
This was my thought exactly. Even if the founder and visionary doesn’t believe in the vision or approach of this site, then it doesn’t bother me. The goal is to learn one’s own way of staying in the Church. I also think some of the culture and the few common beliefs we share here have evolved through the participation of the visitors, so I don’t look at this place as John Dehlin’s philosophy. The STayLDS article was written by someone other than the site’s founder as well, so this is an assortment of ideas, not from any one source.
I think it’s to John’s credit that he’s created something that can survive without him, idealogically.
For me this is just such a tough situation. I don’t want to leave and its such a part of me. I have to say it is equally as hard to stay sometimes. FenixDown wrote:One thing I like about the Stayer POV is that it is to me organic Mormonism. The difference bteween Stayers an say NOMs is that there is belief in something predominately that still works within Mormonism. Maybe I’m over generalizing but I just can’t call BS to ALL of Mormonism, even though I see a lot I can equate to myth, legend, or some as just BS. I think the Stayer position is also more positive and reconcilliatory.
I’m not saying and, I’m sure most of us agree that ther is no right way bu there is a different more general direction of the Stayer. I’m not one for labels necessarily but I think there are tremendous differences in the non-traditonal or less orthodox Mormons.
Fenix, I agree with what you’re saying, but I’d be careful not to make it look like you’re trying to pit stayers against NOMs. Although I consider this my primary home for now, I along with several others read and post on both sites.
Quote:I’d be careful not to make it look like you’re trying to pit stayers against NOMs.
Amen. We aren’t set up here in opposition to anything or anyone; we are set up for what we are. That’s an important distinction to me.
Okay Ray and Steve and any NOMs ( I participate at NOM more than here too.), I will tone down my posts and use a little less sodium. There are a few on the board over there who recently have felt that it has become quite negative even hostile with more conservative views toward church and politcs. There has also been a somewhat dominance of agnostic/athiest/humanistic views as opposed to more liberal or tradional christian viewpoints in regards to the “middle way”. Some of us want that middle way and are truely seeking it and are not doing it simply out of circumstance. Frequently when a new poster has come to the board the responses have been quite negative. There also has been a lot of posting there by some calling for harm to the church. For me that steps out of bounds in regards to a middle way.
Again I post there also and do not wish to cause any contention or division, however I would prefer that more people would recognize that just because some of us are middle way or cafeteria mormons, we do have some faith in the church as force for good and there are great distinctions between all of us.
With that said I respectfully drop the subject and will use better discretion in regards to my opinions and post relating to the subject.
It’s cool FenixDown. I don’t disagree strongly with anything you said, necessarily. It’s the main reason I don’t participate there, honestly. It’s just that we established this site with the specific intent to focus on our own experiences and finding ways for people here to adapt and adopt, if you will.
It really is cool.
SilentDawning wrote:The STayLDS article was written by someone other than the site’s founder as well, so this is an assortment of ideas, not from any one source.
While I know the article has been customized considerably, I do believe it was originally written by John, just to give appropriate credit. But I may be wrong.
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