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Roy wrote:DarkJedi wrote:
Pardon me, I’m a newbie. What is RSR?
Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman
:thumbup: Ah, I have heard of the book & should have figured that out. I have not read it, but I’m not all that hung up on church history. I have looked into church history in some depth (I’m from upstate NY) and have pretty much always been aware that actual church history and the history as portrayed by the church are not generally the same. Then again, all history is like that. Our founding fathers are not the saints they’re portrayed to be, either.
SilentDawning wrote:MayB wrote:The bishop sent me an email this morning thanking me for all my contributions to our ward. He really is a good guy. I guess maybe we both were having a tough day. He asked me again if I’d like to meet with him and talk about church history issues or the book RSR. He said that he and many other members of our ward have read that book as well as others and that some found it to be a trial while others found it faith promoting. I can tell he really just wants to help.
My advice — be careful. VERY careful. I hate to say it, but even though they appear nice and caring, the majority of priesthood leaders are loyal to the institution first, and the individual members second. If you start sharing doubts that conflict with the TR questions, or sharing unorthodox ideas, you may find yourself on the black list for a very long time. And if you ever change your mind and want traditional participation again (and that could happen), you may find they make you jump through hoops that will only alienate you further.
Better to simply meet with him, give general, non-offensive answers, then work on your own relationship with the church that makes you happy. Do your withdrawal from GD on the stress factor rather than the your incompatible unorthodox views. There is this liberating feeling I have had in the two or three brushes with priesthood leaders like you are about to have – it comes from knowing that you preserved your ability to move in any direction in the church — back to traditional participation, or further along the unorthodox path. It’s quite liberating. If you have already outed your RSR influences, consider minimizing them and focusing on pragramatic reasons you don’t want GD anymore.
My most recent meeting with a priesthood leader involved a stake president who essentially, we sent away from our home without anything to go on. He left without any levers to control our behavior in any direction either. He left a bit puzzled and unsure what to do with us. We were in control of the situation, our agency, and commitment level. Individual needs prevailed and that was what was important.
I personally believe that while some priesthood leaders have the interests of their members at heart, there is too much culture and reward for people who are “company men” or better described as “church-centric men”, This interferes with their sincere desires to help individuals. And the more you share about how you really feel, the more disadvantaged you will be — particularly if the feelings you share are unorthodox. Apostasy is in the eye of the priesthood leader. And they are very quick to judge.
The other thing is that a Bishop is kind of a counselor and judge at the same time. You may start relating to him as a counselor, but if you cross any lines, his role as judge takes over. It’s a terrible combination of roles the Bishop has because you can’t trust him to have your interests at heart when he has church interests to protect at the same time — and the power to withhold things you might want eventually.
Not to worry, SD. I don’t plan on meeting with him. I was very clear with him that the reason I will no longer be teaching is due to the stress of school on top of everything else. Sitting down to discuss church history issues wouldn’t do either of us any good. I’m sure he’ll probably offer again sometime in the future as we’re planning to scale back our family activity with the church over the next couple of months and our more frequent absences will probably be noticed.
I just plan to take all this one little step at a time. I’m hoping that, as we pull back a little bit, we’ll find a sweet spot–a level of participation that works for us. We’ll see.
Very good strategy — you sound like you have it figured out. And yes, discussing church history isn’t going to help anyone. As Napoleon said, “History is a pack of lies, agreed upon”…
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