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I would raise your hand and say “Poppycock! Matthew 5:45 says “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” The entire book of Job is about a just man who is punished in every way imaginable. People who believe that God punishes the wicked during this lifetime just want to believe that they are going to be safe because they are supposedly righteous. That’s utterly ridiculous and disproven all over the place. Were the missionaries who’ve been killed unrighteous? We are mortal. People have agency. Troubled individuals will mass murder good people and bad people. Larry Flynt made a nice living off porn. God didn’t punish him. That GD teacher guy’s an idiot.
I love the Job analogy! I’ll have to keep that one in my back pocket for future reference. The difficult part in this particular case was trying to find the right timing to interject a comment, while simultaneously trying to figure out exactly what the ambiguous statements she was making meant.
I sometimes “heckle” when someone says something that’s kind of silly. A teacher once commented that Nephi cut off Laban’s head because he was obedient, and it ended up being a big blessing for everyone. I called out “Except for Laban!” and everyone laughed. I mean, come on people. Hi azguy, I haven’t been on this forum much lately but saw your thread on this topic – it’s a tough one but I felt like my approach might help you.
I, like others here, opt for the Gospel Essentials class with my wife when I don’t have an opportunity to teach a somewhat nuanced lesson to the youth (I’m in the Sunday School presidency) and for the most part, that works well. Gospel Doctrine can be so judgemental and terse in my neck of the woods (Utah, of course). High Priests Group can be difficult too and while I let some things slide, sometimes something comes up that is so out of whack, I have to offer a differing viewpoint. I am way lured into doing that when there is a focus on the old “us versus them” mentality and the lesson you had sounds like it was straight out of that mold.
I have found that generally if I share something of a personal experience and preface it by saying something like “In the experiences I have had throughout my life,
“. How can somebody argue with your personal experiences and how you are learning to be Christlike from them? The last time it happened the teacher was hinting about how hard it is for those of the world to care since they don’t have an eternal perspective on things. I promptly shared an experience about an extremely caring man I knew who was not Mormon and what an excellent example he was to me in trying to develop my own compassion toward others. After the lesson, a couple of High Priests in our group approached me and thanked me for my comments. One even spoke of his atheist business partner who is one of the most caring people he knows. Hi everyone, I wanted to follow up and give you some more information on this situation. If you’ve been following my other thread, you will have noticed that we just moved into a new ward. I took the opportunity to go meet with my new bishop last night. I opened up to him a bit about my thoughts and feelings. I told him I have lots of doubts, but that I am doing my best to stay in the church. He did a lot of listening, which was really nice. He really seems like a decent human being, and it was really nice to be able to just open up to him. One of the things that I brought up with him was this Sunday School lesson. I mentioned that the teacher had made some statements that could be construed as suggesting that the Orlando shooting happened because God was punishing Gay people. He shared with me some details that helped me to understand that this is very likely not what the instructor was actually trying to say at all.
It made me think a bit, and realize that many of us will often project our own thoughts, feelings and emotions on to a situation, or ambiguous statement. It helped me realize that I am sometimes judgmental of other people, and that I have been projecting my own insecurities on to various situations and ideas.
azguy wrote:It made me think a bit, and realize that many of us will often project our own thoughts, feelings and emotions on to a situation, or ambiguous statement. It helped me realize that I am sometimes judgmental of other people, and that I have been projecting my own insecurities on to various situations and ideas.
That’s a good update, and it is good to hear you get a good feeling on your bishop there.Even still…I think it is valid to raise the issue with the bishop, and it is likely others took it the same way or were thinking about it, and if nothing else, good feedback to teachers in the ward that people are listening and should always keep comments in line with gospel teachings of charity and love.
I’m sure your bishop got a good feel about your heart and your thoughts on trying to work through doubts, not just giving up and leaving.
Thanks again for the update.
I used to sit through crazed lessons as a youth. As an adult, I tend to speak up. “He .. sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” is a quote I use a lot.
Then I make it personal. I raise my hand and ask, “Are you trying to say that when something terrible happens to any of us, it is because God is punishing us?” Big pause .. ” Like a cancer diagnosis is punishment, or someone robbing my house and shooting me on the way out is really God just trying to make sure I stay on the straight and narrow path?”
I don’t think I have changed anyone’s mind over the years. I have just made them uncomfortable. People who feel that way are not going to change .. But I cannot sit there and listen to them spew forth hate and throw the entire doctrine of Christ and the Sermon on the Mount under the bus.
A sister in the local ward was a huge believer in the theory that God punished us by giving us health problems, employement issues, etc. She used to make comments to me that made it quite obvious that she felt my 3 kids had died due to some moral/spiritual weakness in my character. She had a heart attack a few months back and has had a ton of complications post surgery. It has been weird to see her viewpoint change as she has gone through this terrible experience. For the first time in her life, the bad things were happening to her. Her perspective is changing as she emotionally processes these events in her life. It is fun to watch her heal physically and change religiously.
ap, I wish you lived in my ward. We would have a lot to talk about. Maybe JS died early because of something he did wrong?
Or, JC & the cross?
It is interesting how people think & justify situation until they experience the same situation in their own life.
I’m sure I’ve done similar things too.
Minyan Man: We have all been stupid and/or clueless. It is part of the human experience. Some learning we can get vicariously .. Other learning we need to experience personally in order to figure out empathy, sympathy, kindness, and service.
I’m apparently a slow learner .. I keep ending up in the remedial class of personal trials.
I think it’s worthwhile to point out that the concept of God punishing those who stray or do wrong is not an LDS-only belief, nor would I say it’s particularly strong historically within the LDS faith compared to others. I’m not saying that justifies the teaching, but just keeping it real. From Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Speech, etched in stone on the wall of the north chamber of the Lincoln Memorial:
Quote:The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
There are significant, influential Chriaitan theologies that teach God punishes people who have NOT done anything wrong. We certainly go overboard in the punishment-for-wrongdoing category, but we are in the little league compared to many.
Is the opposite view also true within the Church? By this I mean, if you are well to do, if you don’t have any real problems that are visible, if your children do well in school & sports, etc
then you must be living a righteous life & blessed by God.
In poor wards, wealth is sometimes seen as a sign that people are chosing Mammon instead of God. In wealthy wards, wealth is a sign of God’s blessings for righteous living.
I am amused by the different religious slant that is given about wealth by various wards.
And Calvinism creeps too often into LDS doctrine.
Amen, AP. It is fascinating now “natural” we can be.
Quote:What to do about crazy lessons
Like anybody in this Church needs lessons in being crazy.
:wtf:
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