Sunday School: March 21-27

[Anonymous]

I’m my usual combination of lazy and bored so this will be a mess. I just thought I’d check out what was in the Come, Follow Me manual and maybe make a Sunday School post from time to time.

Exodus 1-6

Quote:

The invitation to live in Egypt literally saved Jacob’s family. But after hundreds of years, their descendants were enslaved and terrorized by a new pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:. It would have been natural for the Israelites to wonder why God allowed this to happen to them, His covenant people. Did He remember the covenant He had made with them? Were they still His people? Could He see how much they were suffering?

I found the questions interesting, the focus on being a covenant people. My initial gut reaction was to rephrase the question, why would god allow anyone to suffer? Covenant or no.

The “covenant path” is the soup du jour, it’s shoehorned into many church discussions these days, and if we’re talking about ancient Israel it’s going to come up.

Of course those questions in the manual weren’t really meant to be answered. I get a real D&C 121:1-10 vibe from the quoted portion of the manual. I believe the implication is that questions came from an improper state of mind or limited perspective. They’re something humans would ask, not a true reflection of god’s mind.

With that in mind, this human would ask different questions. How much of a role does being under covenant play in securing relief from suffering? How much of a role does being a chosen people factor into securing relief from suffering?

I think the answer to that question has more to do with our nature than it does with god’s nature. In other words, I believe we’re the ones that introduce limiting factors, not god.

I know the lesson material didn’t imply only helping people in our tribe or only helping people under certain conditions. It’s just something that came to mind with the rhetorical questions asked in the manual.

[Anonymous]

We are watching the 10 Commandments as part of our Home Church Sunday School lesson. DW felt VERY strongly that she wanted to share this experience with the kids (it was part of her own childhood growing up.)

We are watching it in parts because of the length. I was surprised by how overt the cold war propaganda is. A guy comes from behind a curtain right at the beginning and gives the theme of the movie as the cause of freedom gaining victory over oppression and the freedom to obey God’s law rather than tyrants and dictators. He states that his unusual appearance before the movie is justified because the that same struggle is still playing out.

Later in the movie an old slave man says to his slave overseer that he and his fellow slaves are men, created by God to be equal in His sight. I have been studying American History and the theory of Natural Rights (We hold these truths to be self evident… ) and I couldn’t help but notice that the movie makers had put concepts from the declaration of independence into the mouth of a 13th century BCE Egyptian Slave.

It is fascinating really, the parallels that are drawn between the struggle of the Israelites and the American Revolutionaries. I suppose the idea that the US is a continuation/realization of the covenant people is a well worn path that is, of course, stated rather explicitly in the BOM.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

With that in mind, this human would ask different questions.

[Anonymous]

This past Sunday, a former Bishop of our ward gave one of the sacrament talks. He talked

about being a full tithe payer or making it to church every sunday or accepting every calling

that is offered you doesn’t protect you from the challenges of life or the hardships that come

to all of us. It may however help us to face & endure them. Pain comes to all of us.

This includes Jesus Christ.

nibbler wrote:

.How much of a role does being under covenant play in securing relief from suffering?

.How much of a role does being a chosen people factor into securing relief from suffering?

Whenever I reflect on these questions, I think of the Jewish people during the holocaust (WWII).

I can’t imagine experiencing or witnessing what they endured. It seems that this can be

compared to the “prosperity” gospel a lot denominations are preaching. The more you give, the

more God will is going to bless you. In some cases our church will preach that going to the temple,

receiving your endowments or doing as much work for the dead as possible, more will be revealed.

[Anonymous]

I’ve thought of a different way to phrase what I was trying to say in the original post.

Believing things will be okay because we have a covenant with god or believing things will be okay because we’re god’s chosen people.

vs.

Believing things will be okay because god is good and god is just.

I think covenants get shoehorned into the equation because ordinances and covenants feel like the only answer to the question, “What’s the point of going to church?” Gatekeeping ordinances and covenants makes the church relevant.

Of course church has more value outside of just covenants, I’m just looking for a reason why covenants have become an obsession in the last few years.

Minyan Man wrote:

Whenever I reflect on these questions, I think of the Jewish people during the holocaust (WWII).

I can’t imagine experiencing or witnessing what they endured. It seems that this can be

compared to the “prosperity” gospel a lot denominations are preaching. The more you give, the

more God will is going to bless you. In some cases our church will preach that going to the temple,

receiving your endowments or doing as much work for the dead as possible, more will be revealed.

That’s rough. I’ve experienced trials in life that I feel have broken me. I remember thinking very similar thoughts while mid-trial. Jewish people during the holocaust suffered much worse than anything I’ve experienced. If ever there was a time to intervene and alleviate suffering, it was then. If so many suffered so much. Why would my comparatively small suffering merit any attention?

I think it’s more about being at peace with our circumstances than it is being rescued from our circumstances. At least in this life. If remembering a covenant can help someone be at peace it can’t be a bad thing.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Believing things will be okay because we have a covenant with god or believing things will be okay because we’re god’s chosen people.

vs.

Believing things will be okay because god is good and god is just.

I have thought about this as part of my faith stuff.

The only absolute conclusion that I have about humanity’s relationship with a “good” or “just” God is that God is not interested in exterminating us (a very low bar, I know) – and that is because we have been around for a very long time.

What I think is really the pivot point here is how much “Security” is God offering through the covenant and/or to “God’s people” and how much of that “Security” can the individual actually believe in and/or need.

But “Good” and “Just” are really subjective things – and what is usually “good” for someone is “bad” for someone else, “Justice” for an individual for a group may or may not be at the expense of another individual or group.

nibbler wrote:

I think covenants get shoehorned into the equation because ordinances and covenants feel like the only answer to the question, “What’s the point of going to church?” Gatekeeping ordinances and covenants makes the church relevant.

Of course church has more value outside of just covenants, I’m just looking for a reason why covenants have become an obsession in the last few years.

In my faith transition, I have come to view a lot of concepts and objects as “security blankets”, with “covenants” being the prime example.

On the big picture level, I view the expansion of [and/or the fierce request for the] rights/authority/power/the franchise to less empowered groups (Women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA, etc.) as eroding the “security” of church leadership – and that is driving (consciously or subconsciously) the return to “security” to “covenants”. NOTE: This is just one of the big picture drivers – I can’t list them all.

On the individual level, “security” in the sense of “confidence of knowing something” is being eroded by the whitewashed historical narrative being replaced by/supplemented with actual data and additional perceptions from other viewpoints (due to the internet and social media), and the restructuring of church activities in everyday life (usually decreased as organized activities and work are becoming more relevant and/or people are finding more joy in other activities elsewhere).

There isn’t a lot of security available anymore (not that there was necessarily), it just wasn’t talked about or dealt with very well.

nibbler wrote:

I think it’s more about being at peace with our circumstances than it is being rescued from our circumstances. At least in this life. If remembering a covenant can help someone be at peace it can’t be a bad thing.

I agree about the peace deal.

The problem I see is that if you need a covenant to be “at peace” and you require others to have that covenant as well for your “peace of mind” – that becomes problematic.

The conversation needs to turn from “you need to follow this path” to “what does this path look like for you?” – and that may be a very challenging mindset (as well as a costly one from the church corporation perspective).

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Believing things will be okay because we have a covenant with god or believing things will be okay because we’re god’s chosen people.

vs.

Believing things will be okay because god is good and god is just.

I very much believed that things would be ok because of my covenants. “For I the Lord am bound when you do as I say.” We also teach rather explicitly that blessings (including tangible blessings) will result from full tithing compliance. This inclusion of tangible blessings is in writing from the most current and official church sources. I have gently pushed back on this assertion a few times and found that this is a firm stance and belief.

AmyJ wrote:

“Under Covenant”

I think that it has an implicit understanding that being under covenant secures us from suffering because “we followed the rules”. It also fuels the opposite – “you suffer, so you much have broken a rule.. somewhere… unless you are claiming innocence like Job did”.

Yes. In some recent research I did on the situation between Jacob’s wives Rachel and Leah it was brought up that in those times children were seen as literal blessings from God and indications of God’s favor and one’s own righteousness. Thankfully we have grown and evolved in this area. How foreign it would seem to suggest a struggle with infertility was due to some secret sin. I think that this change is mostly due to advances in medical science. We all know at this point that sins preventing conception (or causing a failure to carry the fetus to term) is simply not how sexual reproduction works.

As a total aside a few years ago there was a lawmaker that made the claim that one cannot get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” I speculate that such a horribly uninformed conclusion might be an outgrowth of the ideas of sin and infertility expressed above. “If children are blessings from God, then why would God bestow his blessing upon such terrible circumstances?” Using such logic a person could convince themselves that this doesn’t and can’t happen. (As an aside to the aside, this is not all that different from Elder Packer asking rhetorically in conference why a loving God would make some of his children to be born homosexual).

Minyan Man wrote:

This past Sunday, a former Bishop of our ward gave one of the sacrament talks. He talked

about being a full tithe payer or making it to church every sunday or accepting every calling

that is offered you doesn’t protect you from the challenges of life or the hardships that come

to all of us. It may however help us to face & endure them. Pain comes to all of us.

This includes Jesus Christ.

I really like when these types of messages are shared. I do wonder what it might mean to “help us to face & endure them.” In my own experience, my upbringing in the church gave me the expectation of being able to avoid the biggest hardships in life. After my assumptive world collapse, it felt like my previous LDS based assumptive world had been built with brittle and inflexible materials that could not withstand or bend when the shockwaves came. I suppose he could mean that this life is a test and the test will contain hardships but keeping your covenants and doing all the church things will “help us to face & endure” the hardships and ultimately to pass the test.

nibbler wrote:

Jewish people during the holocaust suffered much worse than anything I’ve experienced. If ever there was a time to intervene and alleviate suffering, it was then. If so many suffered so much. Why would my comparatively small suffering merit any attention?

I think that many Christian people had felt (for the many hardships that the Jewish people endured from the time of Jesus up until the Holocaust) that the Jewish people had brought their hardships upon themselves. The bible seems to have stories where the covenant people are sorely afflicted when they go off track. The BoM calls upon Christians to repent for their disrespect and mistreatment of Jewish peoples and I think that this has helped to temper any LDS inclinations to blame the Jewish people for their own suffering.

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