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Everyone, please be careful. Emotions are starting to rise a bit, and, while there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it can lead to some wording that wouldn’t be used otherwise. GBSmith wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:This policy currently results in a significant number of members feeling like they just don’t fit in to the point that they no longer identify themselves as LDS and basically don’t want anything to do with the Church anymore in large part over this purely human Pharisee-style opinion that has really taken hold as a time-honored TBM tradition. The ends don’t justify the means at all in this case, it is simply not right the way this went down in such a haphazard way and it should definitely be changed back to a suggestion for that reason alone.
…I have a hard time seeing the WoW as the only reason that someone would leave the LDS church or feel that they don’t fit it anymore and I’m not talking about someone being offended. Nobody that I know has ever been excommunicated for drinking coffee, smoking or drinking but it shouldn’t surprise you if you don’t get called to be bishop or EQ president and if you don’t get to attend your daughters temple wedding or baptize your son. It’s just part of the deal, no hard feelings, it’s our choice.
Sure some people don’t have the level of commitment to even go to church because they think it’s boring or a waste of time and changing the WoW back to a suggestion probably wouldn’t make any difference in retaining some apathetic members like this. However, my point is that I just don’t think it is the best possible situation for many members to be given the impression that this is what the LDS Church is all about to the point that they mostly associate it with their parents, bishop, or other self-righteous busybody members trying to give them a massive guilt-trip over things that if they are even a sin at all are almost certainly not nearly as serious as many members try to make them out to be.
As soon as some of my old friends that never went on missions, cousins, and in-laws left home it seems like one of the very first things they wanted to do was to go completely overboard breaking all these rules they grew up with. I honestly think that some of them started smoking mostly because this is one of the things they were specifically told that they should not do so that just made them want to do it even more. It’s almost like they felt repressed for so long that they wanted to make up for lost time. I felt that way myself to some extent when I went to college after my mission. Even though I still believed in the Church more than ever my stumbling block at that point was that I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it to the Celestial Kingdom anyway so I figured there was no point in even bothering to try anymore.
Even after people grow out of this rebellious stage and settle down some of them can’t completely break these habits even if they want to. I can’t imagine that it would be an easy thing for them to just go back to church the way many TBMs frown on these habits and make it such a point of emphasis; in fact I think it is extremely unlikely that this will ever happen in most cases. Sure the Church isn’t specifically telling them they aren’t welcome but I certainly think some of them would feel very uncomfortable about the idea of going back to church mostly because of these habits. One of my relatives specifically said that he basically felt abandoned by the Church because when he was at his lowest point other Church members didn’t want anything to do with him and acted like they just wanted him to go away mostly because he wasn’t living the WoW. So now he basically hates the Church and religion in general and will probably pass this cynical attitude on to his children too.
GBSmith wrote:Cwald, it wasn’t for lack of guts that I didn’t answer the pink suit question. It wasn’t a serious question and isn’t something that would happen. Whether or not you believe the LDS church is “true” with a capital “T”, I don’t think you can make an argument that the leadership are not good decent people trying to lead the church in a way that they see is best. You may compare being asked to keep the WoW to wearing a pink suit and if that’s how you see it, fine. But answer me this. If you were told that for you, today, the WoW was a matter of personal choice and would not affect your fellowship, would it make you a believer?
I do understand and I do get it and I’d like to just leave it at that.
Fine. I apologize for my wordage. I didn’t mean it to sound so harsh. I should not have used the word – “guts.”
It was a serious question and I am not sure the would not ask it of it’s members. I compare it to not drinking tea. It makes NO SENSE! Why are we being asked to do it, unless it is ecclesiastical leaders attempting to control behavior and just a test to see if we will obey. It makes no sense to me, and, if there are members of this church who feel like the WoW is NOT a DEAL BREAKER for many many people, than they do not get the issue. It is. People leave the church because of the word of wisdom commandment. Either they don’t believe it could possible be a factor in their salvation so the church must be false, or they simple don’t want to follow it and feel like a 2nd class citizen.
I know I’ve heard some say that they do it to help others around them who might be weaker. I was even called out as perhaps being the weakest of the weak.
No lie, at church yesterday I had a 15 year old guest girl guest speaker who talked about Nephi being commanded to kill Laban – and she stated that is was okay because god told him to do it. After sacrament meeting, I had her in youth sunday school and she was talking about her talk, and I asked the question, “would you kill me if god told you to?” Her response, without hesitation, was “yes.”
I told her, “no you would not.” And then I explain the difference between kill and murder, and how the Bible should be translated to read, “thou shalt not murder.” and speculated that what Nephi did was not considered murder in the sense that he was protecting his property, family, and that Laban would have killed etc. etc.
My point is – I think MANY MANY members would wear that pink suit if they were asked to by the prophet – for no other reason than it comes from the President of the church so it must come from God.
No disrespect meant GB/MH
GBSmith wrote:But answer me this. If you were told that for you, today, the WoW was a matter of personal choice and would not affect your fellowship, would it make you a believer?
A believer in what? The church? The prophet? The WoW?
I already do believe the church is one viable pathway to find spiritual enlightenment. I don’t think it is the “one and only” and changing the WofW requirement would not change that. I already do believe the prophet is a spiritual man who gets revelation from god, and does what is best for 85% of the active members. And I already do believe the WoW is a great health code the way it was written. excercise, eat healthy, avoid tobacco products and…moderation. moderation. moderation.
So, I guess GB – the answer is, no, I would not. HOWEVER, I would be able to contribute much much more service to the church and be a lot more comfortable around members, including my own family. I’ve never turn down a calling – but the Stake has turned me down after getting called by the BP because of the whole TR thing.
Such is life in this fallen sphere.
Quote:Such is life in this fallen sphere.
Amen, brother. Amen.
mormonheretic wrote:From Cadence, CWald, and DevilsAdvocate, I sense there is a nostalgia for “fundamental” beliefs when the WoW wasn’t enforced, or tithing, etc….Are you sure these early church days are “the good ole days”?
So, I understand, and sympathize with you. Puritanism has entered the church, and yes we are just like the Pharisees in many ways. I too would like to see a relaxing of things like the WoW restrictions, but for any organization to avoid chaos, there must be rules…Yes, I grumble about stupid things at church…I’d rather work on my own spiritual side than complain about some of these “control freak” commandments.
No, in my case it’s not so much nostalgia for the good ole days because to me that would mostly be more of the same authoritarianism where the prophet always knows best and supposedly will never lead the Church astray. My solution would be to look forward to the future and re-define “prophets” as mere mortals that are nowhere near infallible; they are not God or Jesus. Listen to the following answer Gordon B. Hinckley gave in an interview about how they go about making decisions:
Gordon B. Hinckley wrote:Now we don’t need a lot of continuing revelation. We have a great, basic reservoir of revelation. But if a problem arises, as it does occasionally, a vexatious thing with which we have to deal, we go to the Lord in prayer. We discuss it as a First Presidency and as a Council of the Twelve Apostles. We pray about it and then comes the whisperings of a still small voice. And we know the direction we should take and we proceed accordingly.
Personally, I don’t have much confidence in that approach based on their track record. It looks like they have been mostly riding the coattails of Joseph Smith. Even if Joseph Smith had some legitimate mystical experiences it doesn’t mean everything he said or did is above reproach. To me many of these demands are unreasonable based on their own merits as soon as you think they came from men rather than God; that’s the main reason I think they should be lightened by the Church or rejected by more members.
CWald, comparing a pink suit to the WoW seems like apples and oranges to me. I just don’t think the comparison is appropriate. To me a more appropriate comparison are the Jewish dietary restrictions about pork. If the church asked us to abstain from pork, well I guess I would (but I would miss bacon like crazy!) Muslims still refuse to eat pork and abstain from alcohol too, so I’m not seeing dietary restrictions in religious organizations as weird. Muslims fast during Ramadan. Catholics don’t eat certain foods during Lent. Dietary sacrifices have been seen as godly in lots of religions. Is anything inherently wrong with wine, tea (hot or iced)? No. Is anything really wrong with pork (the other white meat)? No. But if sacrificing a beer, bacon, food for a day, etc. to show God that we really want a certain blessing (answer to prayer, temple worship, Ramadan, etc), I don’t see this as an insidious problem. (I do think tobacco is a serious public health issue, and I do think it is inherently wrong.)
Yes, I agree that the WoW can be a deal breaker for some. It does prevent certain people from joining the church. Celibacy prevents many from becoming a nun or a monk too. Is it appropriate for us to tell the Catholics that this whole celibacy thing is wrong? I don’t think so. It’s a cultural practice, and Catholics feel blessings arise from sacrificing sex, and they’re probably right. But it can be a real cross to bear, and contribute to some of the sexual problems with priests too. I suppose you feel different than I do, and that’s fine. I suppose celibacy can be considered a control freak commandment too, but I wouldn’t characterize it that way.
GB/MH — I’m good, I think we have hashed this WoW topic to death, AGAIN! 
Out.
mormonheretic wrote:CWald, comparing a pink suit to the WoW seems like apples and oranges to me. I just don’t think the comparison is appropriate. To me a more appropriate comparison are the Jewish dietary restrictions about pork. If the church asked us to abstain from pork, well I guess I would…Muslims still refuse to eat pork and abstain from alcohol too, so
I’m not seeing dietary restrictions in religious organizations as weird…Dietary sacrifices have been seen as godly in lots of religions. Is anything inherently wrong with wine, tea (hot or iced)? No. Is anything really wrong with pork (the other white meat)? No. But if sacrificing a beer, bacon, food for a day, etc. to show God that we really want a certain blessing …I don’t see this as an insidious problem.
(I do think tobacco is a serious public health issue, and I do think it is inherently wrong.)…Yes, I agree that the WoW can be a deal breaker for some….Is it appropriate for us to tell the Catholics that this whole celibacy thing is wrong? I don’t think so. It’s a cultural practice I guess cwald has taken the high road here but these are some interesting ideas you brought up that I still want to address. I think the pink suit comparison was perfectly valid, basically we have something that makes no sense by itself (coffee=sin) but simply because it came down from the Church presidency members have taken it seriously all this time as if it came directly from God. Rules like this do extend to clothing sometimes too because we see Muslim women that wear burqas and Jews that wear yamakas and of course we have garments.
The fact that there is a fairly common tendency toward thinking that some special clothing, strict asceticism, dietary restrictions, etc. are important in different religions doesn’t really justify these practices at all in my opinion. If they want to do that then that’s their problem as far as I’m concerned and I don’t want to get caught up in all that just because it’s a familiar tradition. It seems like this kind of thinking is one of the things that Jesus, Paul, etc. were originally trying to fix that had gone wrong with Judaism (Matthew 15:11), but now we have reverted back to the same exact kind of thing all over again.
The objection is not really that these things seem “weird” to outsiders as much as the fact that they just don’t look like real sins so why do we continue to insist that we supposedly know that they are sins that will result in eternal condemnation? Even though tobacco does significant harm, I still don’t believe for a second that it really makes people who are addicted to it somehow “unworthy.” I don’t agree with celibacy either but at least it is typically only for the relative few that specifically volunteer for it. In our case, we have set up these strict rules as the expected requirements for everyone. So as far as free agency is concerned the only real choice here seems to be to either go to along with the group or to basically be an outcast.
Some things come down by through the organization through a progression of events. So the policy alone can seem to make no sense in and of itself. But understanding the progression can provide some understanding where it came from and more importantly, what the doctrine behind the policy is trying to teach us, even if it never ends up being an acceptable explanation for some. A random policy coming out of no where…like pink suits is different than a substance like coffee that back in the 1800s was considered a stimulant that some argued was harmful to the body and impairment to the brain. Whether they were right or not…that is where it came from (you certainly don’t find it in the New or Old Testament). Today we may not think that is valid, but it that’s where it came from…I get it.
I would compare it more to a White Suit rather than a Pink Suit. If we were asked to wear white suits in the temple because it symbolizes purity and keeps the standard in the temple of everyone equal in stature…this has meaning and value. There is no magic about white fabrics because God looks on the heart…but it serves a purpose to teach us because we are physical beings. I don’t think it is about randomly picking something just to ask people to obey. The church is about strict obedience because that is how they think it will best help families. That is their motive.
It becomes a matter of faith, not substance. Blind faith requires no logical reason behind it. Intelligent faith has deeper meaning and symbolism that can elevate one’s mind and heart towards God and positively impact behavior (= blessings).
The principle of free agency is unchanged. We can either accept how the church defines it or not. Free agency also allows us to choose how we accept it, regardless if we see it differently than our neighbors. It is our choice.
I personally use my free agency to not worry about Word of Wisdom. I live it because I can, but I focus on other commandments that have more day to day impact to my soul (forgiveness, love, service, etc). I also have the free agency to be perfectly comfortable around people who smoke or drink and I make no judgments about their worthiness to God nor the worthiness of LDS folk who abstain. And I respect my Hindu friend who is a vegetarian.
Fwiw, I’m on record in multiple places saying I wish the Word of Wisdom was not a requirement of baptism and membership, especially since it’s such a huge cultural issue in many places and because I believe everyone ought to have the same “grace period” the early saints had when it was given initially. Addictions are brutally hard for many to reject, and I think that is lost for some people who are from ancestry where church membership has not forced them to confront the addictions addressed in the Word of Wisdom. They get it intellectually, but they don’t really understand. I feel strongly about that, even as I have no problem with it being part of the temple recommend interview.
Quote:Even though tobacco does significant harm, I still don’t believe for a second that it really makes people who are addicted to it somehow “unworthy.”
DevilsAdvocate, I agree with you. People aren’t “unworthy” if they smoke. But I really support it’s inclusion into the WoW (and hence temple requirements) because it is so harmful. Perhaps using church government in a “good’ way makes me more of a socialist than a libertarian, and perhaps some of these disagreements over church practices come from a more philosophical position than a spiritual one. It seems like CWald has more libertarian leanings than I do, so perhaps that is why we see things differently. But from a church perspective, I see the ideas behind consecration as trying to do what’s good for the group as more important than what’s good for the individual. Of course over-individualism or over-groupism can be taken to unhealthy extremes, so there needs to be balance.
How about we all just live the word of wisdom how ever we feel like. That is real agency. If you take it in the broader sense of doing things that are good for you and avoiding the bad it becomes more simple. It is all the crappy little details that cause the controversy. Personally if I wanted to I could go drink a class of wine tomorrow and feel perfectly fine that I was living the word of wisdom. I suspect others feel the same way but that is not the problem. In the church we always worry what others will think. So there goes your agency. You have given it to another to control you based on peer pressure. You just said it, Cadence. We give up our agency in these situations; it is not taken from us. If we choose to follow the Word of Wisdom as others interpret it, that’s our choice. Nobody took away our ability to choose; we exercised our agency and made a choice. If we choose to reinterpret the WofW to meet our own understanding of the principle as we see it, that’s our choice. If we choose to get a temple recommend in that situation, that’s our choice. If anyone questions us about it, we choose how to respond – fully or partially, assertively or passively, vocally or silently, etc.
The Church can apply pressure to varying degrees, but it can’t take away our ability to choose. I think you know I’m not saying I approve of the way pressure is applied often, but that’s not the same as removing our agency.
Interesting thread. I agree with what seems to be the dominant thought, that maybe the WofW shouldn’t be a deal breaker for baptism or temple. I do feel it keeps many away from spiritual blessings and uplift, and certainly keeps people physically away from the building in some cases. I know of several extended family members who have strong beliefs in the church, but avoid attendance because of the WofW. They feel embarrassed. Does violating the WofW make one spiritually lower? Usually. Why? Because they believe they are. Should it be that way? Probably not. Wasn’t it Howard Hunter that called for more smokers in church? I thought that was great. What if he had gone a step further and said, “We’ll even give you a temple recommend if you promise not to light up in the temple.” However, it’s difficult to argue against the utility of nearly all… well really all of the modern DON’TS of the WofW because when health is compromised, those are generally items your physician will tell you to avoid. So, if a person were already avoiding those items, they might have a leg up, no pun intended. Also, maybe the “destroying angel” is one of addiction. Will a glass of wine make you alcoholic? No, but many glasses might. If the line is drawn at no wine, your chances of becoming an alcoholic are certainly less.
What about the data suggesting a little wine is good for you? I don’t know. There is also emerging data suggesting that any alcohol is bad for your brain. This isn’t isolated BYU data, but stuff from some of the top brain imaging researchers.
So, while all would likely agree that the WofW is a great health code and guideline, the difference of opinion is in whether or not following it should be mandatory for certain church activities and does it inhibit free agency.
Inhibit free agency? ha. I don’t see it. I say, why would a bunch of systemic-thinking and big-picture type of people such as yourselves become categorical on this issue? Okay, maybe the concern isn’t for ourselves, who can comfortably swig our green tea while at the church social, but for our neighbors who equate access to the good things of the church with mandatory adherence to Section 89. Well… not Section 89, actually, but a modernized interpretation of what that means, from a group of men clearly more inclined toward beef than tobacco.
I’m wondering if Section 89 were left to us Joe-Coca-Cola members and not interpreted for us and made mandatory for access, maybe we’d actually be healthier overall because we’d focus on more of what it contains. Maybe we’d be drinking more home-made beer, eating less meat, eating more grains, and serving ice tea at every social. We’d probably have some disagreements about marijuana (because, you know, it IS illegal in the US). That’s an interesting thought.
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