Was I really like that? Yes.

[Anonymous]

There’s also a fear of change. If we openly embrace these issues I think that means we’d have to adapt to become a less narcissistic church. It would be hard to maintain the narrative that dominates every single one of my Sunday experiences (look at us, we’re True, and here’s the proof) if we acknowledged that our omelette wasn’t made without breaking a few eggs.

It would be difficult for people to deal with the implications of stepping away from the “here’s proof we’re True” identity but we’d also have to figure out a new identity. Currently we spend a great deal of time worshiping the narratives. We’ve got to replace that with something else.

They were very small steps but the ‘ministering’ and combined PH change shows that we’re at least willing to try a few new things. I think having regular changes like those would go a long way towards helping the church develop a culture of change. Only having small changes occur once every few decades creates a culture where we think we must have already arrived, that things are perfect the way they are, but frequent changes could help create a culture where we’re always looking for ways to improve. They could be small changes to help calm worries of the outcomes of larger changes, but increasing the frequency might help the church get used to change, and then once we get used to change we can shift the focus of our meetings away from how great the church is and towards other more productive things.

IMO the question we need to answer with what direction we want to go as a church is, “Okay, the church is true. We’ve established that. Now what?”

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

IMO the question we need to answer with what direction we want to go as a church is, “Okay, the church is true. We’ve established that. Now what?”

Bishop’s answer: “Perfect the saints, redeem the dead, and preach the gospel.”

This is why I love the paradigm shift that a “continuing restoration” makes possible. With a full restoration to a perfectly organized primitive church there is nothing to be done but reemphasize the basics. It is looking backwards rather than forwards. It is fundamentalist.

Admittedly, the word restoration itself implies returning to a former state. At least adding the word “continuing” indicates that the church isn’t done evolving. That it is not all about resting on our laurels and defending the status quo.

[Anonymous]

We had an interesting situation in Church that seems relevant to this thread. A woman was giving a talk about the Proclamation to the Family in sacrament meeting and at one point said something to the effect, “I struggle with the Proclamation’s conception of gender. I believe in the Proclamation but I don’t understand it completely. I’m still working towards that understanding.” Essentially, she was being honest in saying that there were some gaps in her understanding of that document but that she still believed. Afterwards, I overheard a couple discussing her talk and being a bit critical of her “lack of testimony” regarding the Proclamation. One of them even used the word “apostasy” at one point.

I was struck how a fairly honest and heartfelt confession (if that’s the right word) of someone’s struggle to believe could be interpreted as a sign of disbelief. (This was NOT the majority opinion however. There were far more people praising her candor than criticizing it.) But it does reflect that attitude described in the original post. We have to be 100% or we are somehow less than faithful. I’m not sure that fear is behind it (though it could be). I think it is just an attitude of unquestioning belief that is so all encompassing that it is beyond comprehension that there could be a position that is halfway between full belief and full unbelief.

(By the way, this isn’t a comment on the Proclamation per se. It just happened to be the topic of this sister’s talk).

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