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Old-Timer wrote:
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 don’t really understand.
It already is that way to some extent because if you don’t really care about getting a temple recommend you can still go to church, hold callings, etc. and they typically aren’t going excommunicate you or even directly pressure you that much about it in many cases. Sure we tell investigators that they need to quit doing these things but I’m not so sure that it really sinks in for many of them right away just how serious we are about it.
I think what makes members with these habits feel like there isn’t really any place for them in the Church more than the official policies is simply the culture and attitude of many members that act like it is absolutely not acceptable at all for active members to smoke or drink. Not drinking or smoking has become synonymous with being a practicing Mormon more than anything else I can think of. So even if some members that repeatedly break these rules attend Church regularly, they aren’t really fully accepted as real members of the group, they are looked at basically as Jack Mormons. Some members actually like it this way because they see it as having “high standards.” It doesn’t seem like a very Christian attitude to me but that’s what we are dealing with at this point.
I favor changing the official policies mostly because I think it would be more honest but also because it would send the message to other members that these things aren’t as important as many have assumed so far. And yes this kind of peer pressure absolutely limits people’s free agency in a big way because they feel compelled to go along with the group and are afraid of the rejection or disapproval of other members. Sure they can choose to ignore this pressure and break the rules anyway but when they do it seems like they will typically just stay away from church entirely and essentially withdraw from the people applying this pressure to some extent.
mormonheretic wrote: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…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.
Then why not just tell people it is harmful and that when Joseph Smith prayed about it he felt inspired to emphasize this point? Why do we need to tack on the dubious idea that you will be condemned forever if you don’t conform to this “commandment?” Personally, I don’t believe that this kind of “pious lie” approach is nearly as effective over the long run as many like to think. Many people see through it sooner or later and end up dismissing the Church entirely because of this kind of thing.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:Why do we need to tack on the dubious idea that you will be condemned forever if you don’t conform to this “commandment?”
Hmm…I think that statement is too strongly worded in trying to make your point.
I don’t believe the church condemns us forever if you don’t conform. I guess I could see that one is asked to live it to get baptized, but many are baptized who are trying to live it, even if not 100% successful. The principle is not coffee, but obedience. So we are asked to humbly follow the rules to follow Christ and be baptized, or there is a condemnation if a person isn’t baptized…but the church is not teaching you are condemned forever, as temple work affirms for us.
I like this talk by Elder Haight in 1981 Nov Ensign, because it better characterizes how I truly believe the church teaches it…
Quote:Driving to the Los Angeles Airport with a busy radio executive, I learned that he and his wife, though born in the Church, had never participated. Their social life of parties and weekends for fun and escape dominated their lives.
After eight years of marriage and three children, they were becoming concerned about their lives but did nothing about it.
Different sets of home teachers came and went. A new home teacher—a true shepherd—came into their lives, and after a time this new home teacher committed this man to go to Church once.
Brother Adamson said he would not give up smoking and drinking.He had made a firm resolve not to live the Word of Wisdom, and if he was not welcome in Church because of it, that was fine. The home teacher said, “You are welcome, and I will pick you up.”The first Sunday Brother Adamson attended Church he waited for someone to move away from him because of the strong tobacco odor, but that didn’t happen. “They will ask me to pray or work in the Church,” he thought. That didn’t happen either.
The home teacher did not phone on Sunday mornings to give him a chance to make an excuse and back out but drove to his home and would say, “Are you ready?” This home teacher picked him up every Sunday for over a year.
The Adamsons began readingA Marvelous Work and a Wonderand found that the Church consisted of much more than just the Word of Wisdom, which he had heard so much about all his life (and because he didn’t live the Word of Wisdom, felt the Church had nothing to offer him). This couple soon learned it is a Church of love, not a Church of fear.They learned of the mission of the Savior and of our Heavenly Father and of repentance. They became so proud of the Church they had been born into that the Word of Wisdom no longer was an important issue. He didn’t go through the pangs of quitting. It just happened. There were so many other principles of the gospel that now were so important in their lives. He said, “I found myself working on our new chapel and then one day quietly telling the bishop, ‘I’m ready, now. You can call on me to pray.’ ”
Now, unfortunately there are all too few “true shepherds” in our wards and stakes that are able to love and treat others this way, and that see the Word of Wisdom as less important than other commandments. That does not mean it is not still asked of people as a commandment, but that it needs to be put in its place. Milk before meat.
I think this is the truth of the gospel teachings. I think it is too often wrongly emphasized by members in wards. But that is a result of members trying to be dedicated themselves and sometimes forgetting to do as the Savior taught, and love others unconditionally. That is an imperfect people problem, not a church teaching problem, IMHO.
I think free agency allows you to choose to see commandments such as this one as something you fear or you love, whether I choose to place this commandment over and above the other beautiful things of the gospel and choose to have it be a deal breaker to prevent me from loving the other parts of the gospel…or I can choose to shrug my shoulders at it and live it anyway and focus my time on more important things. No commandment, or peer pressure, takes my agency away…I can only choose to give it away to others, or give it away to addictions. I try to avoid giving away to either.
Heber13 wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:Why do we need to tack on the dubious idea that you will be condemned forever if you don’t conform to this “commandment?”
Hmm…I think that statement is too strongly worded in trying to make your point.
I don’t believe the church condemns us forever if you don’t conform. I guess I could see that one is asked to live it to get baptized, but many are baptized who are trying to live it, even if not 100% successful. The principle is not coffee, but obedience. So we are asked to humbly follow the rules to follow Christ and be baptized,…but the church is not teaching you are condemned forever, as temple work affirms for us.
I like this talk by Elder Haight in 1981 Nov Ensign, because it better characterizes how I truly believe the church teaches it…
Now, unfortunately there are all too few “true shepherds” in our wards and stakes that are able to love and treat others this way, and that see the Word of Wisdom as less important than other commandments…I think it is too often wrongly emphasized by members in wards. But that is a result of members trying to be dedicated themselves and sometimes forgetting to do as the Savior taught, and love others unconditionally. That is an imperfect people problem, not a church teaching problem
It would be nice if there were more stories like that but this attitude is not very typical in my experience. Maybe the Church has tried to teach unconditional love in a vague way sometimes but it is just not filtering down very well to any of the wards I have been in. The general attitude I see is that any members that drink or smoke are typically regarded as low-life backsliders and the assumption is that if they don’t repent of their supposed sins then they deserve to be condemned because they should have known better. My understanding was always that the temple work is supposedly only for those who didn’t have an opportunity to accept the “gospel” in this life, not those who have already rejected it.
I wasn’t trying to say the Church is teaching that if you ever break these rules you will be condemned forever, only that they still seem to be insisting that everyone absolutely needs to repent of these supposed “sins” eventually or else they are out of luck. The problem is that I just don’t believe these things are actually sins by themselves to begin with so there is no need to ever repent of anything like this. If you claim the sin is disobedience I just don’t buy it because as far as I’m concerned it is simply disobedience to men and their traditions not God. To me it looks like this is just a goofy thing that people do; they will try to claim that you absolutely need to do one thing or another in order to be saved. The problem is that they can’t ever seem to agree on what exactly these essential requirements are for very long. So I am content to do what seems best to me and try not to harm others and if that’s not good enough then I can live with the results either way.
Quote:I am content to do what seems best to me and try not to harm others and if that’s not good enough then I can live with the results either way.
and that, dear friends, is the heart of “according to the dictates of their own conscience”, imo.
Just remember to grant that same privilege to those who disagree with you, even if they are among those who actually do condemn you.
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