I recently met up with a group of my friends from my home ward. Thirty years later, we are all far removed from the teen girls we were; our lives have followed their individual courses through children, marriages, divorces, remarriages, moves, deaths of parents and loved ones, etc., but we still feel that we deeply know one another from those years we spent together, attending weekly activities, putting on roadshows, participating in dance festivals, playing ward basketball games, camping out, and staying in college dorms for youth conferences. I was taken aback when they all laughingly said I was a “rule breaker.” Me? A rule breaker?
I mean, sure, I can think of some rules I broke, but we all did here and there. In my home ward, I was certainly not the only or even the most egregious rule breaker in our youth group. Among my non-LDS friends I often considered myself to be the mildest most compliant person ever, someone who fasted monthly at Church and gave talks and led the music and various youth activities. Squaring that with the idea that I was a rule breaker made me think about what they really meant generally and what they might have meant about me in contrast to others.
Aren’t we all breakers of some rules? What do we do when the rules don’t make sense? What if the rules aren’t fair?
Here’s a catalog of some of my rule-breaking:
- When I was 5, I was mad that my brother could walk around with his shirt off, and I insisted that I should be allowed to do so, too, when it was hot out.
- When I was in 5th grade, our class was doing a play based on A Christmas Carol. I flipped through the script and noticed that the largest role for a girl only had 2 lines! I felt this was incredibly unfair, so I tried out for the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, and I got it!
- At girls camp one year, we were told we couldn’t use matches to light a fire to cook, and since none of us was any good at rubbing two wet sticks together to make fire, I said we should just eat whatever was edible raw and toss the rest, which is what we did. Apparently cake mix isn’t great when eaten from a box with a spoon.
- At an all day Saturday youth Church activity, a few of us got bored and were tired of being bossed around, so we snuck out and evaded leader capture for the rest of the evening, walking to a nearby restaurant to hang out, then hiding in the bushes and a window well at one point. It was one of the most fun nights we all had together as a friend group.
- At a work conference, we had an evening group project assigned and were told that we couldn’t make phone calls after 4PM so our attention was focused on the group activity. Given the time difference to my home state, that meant I wouldn’t be able to talk to my kids at all that day, which wasn’t a sacrifice I was willing to make. I said, “I know what they said, but I’m going to call home anyway.” A bunch of the other executives in the training got riled up, “Yeah! We’re the customer here! They can’t tell us what to do!” I wasn’t trying to stage a coup; I just wanted to talk to my kids before bedtime!
Rules I didn’t break:
- I was a pretty good faster, exhibiting amazing self-discipline when it came to not eating.
- When our basketball coach suggested playing dirty (throwing elbows and stepping on toes), I didn’t do that. When a girl on another team who was bullying lied and accused me of swearing (which I didn’t), she got to shoot a free throw which was totally unjust!
- Not only did I attend my Church meetings, but I often stayed and attended a second sacrament meeting while my Dad was in bishopric meetings. However, I did once paint my nails during that second sacrament meeting which was probably a bad call.
These friends of mine probably had a point, though. I remembered that I talked a lot about the limits of rules in my mission memoir, The Legend of Hermana Plunge.
I noticed that every rule came with unintended consequences. Sometimes rules were designed to reward the wrong things:
It was also evident that mission rules were driving bad behaviors and a negative competitive spirit. It was hard to focus on the right things when the wrong things were so rewarding.
Other times, following the rules meant you would get others in trouble:
I didn’t want to say anything either. It would just end up tracing back to them, and then they’d get in trouble. Once again, the rules made it impossible to do the right thing without throwing someone under the bus.
At a zone conference, one of the talks was about following the rules, something our mission was particularly bad at doing, so I decided to take stock:
The thing was, I wasn’t much for reading the fine print, so I decided I’d better take stock of the mission rules I may have been unknowingly breaking. The next day, after some searching, I found a copy of my “White Bible,” the missionary rule book they gave us in the MTC. Upon perusal, I discovered I had been breaking 14 mission rules, as I noted in my journal: #6 Learn and obey all the rules of the mission. (obviously) #17 Follow the Missionary Gospel Study Program. (meh) #18 Exercise regularly. (blah) #23 Use regular missionary clothing whenever I leave my home, except for recreational activities on p-day. (pfft) #24 Not begin p-day activities nor leave my house on p-day until 10AM. (What?) #31 Bear my testimony to my companion each and every day. #32 Be faithful and sensitive to my companion at all times. #35 Never telephone or write someone of the opposite sex in my mission #50 Pay a fast offering on Fast Sunday. #52 Get adequate rest every day. #55 Not unwisely spend my money, for these are sacred funds. #56 Be meticulous in keeping track of my budget and expenditures. #58 Keep at least 100,000 pts (roughly $100) on my person or in my house at all times for emergencies. #69 Not have more than 20 kilos of luggage. I mean, really, was he blaming our lack of success on my extra luggage or my failure to exercise? Ludicrous! But I was actually surprised about a few of these rules, like not leaving before 10 a.m. on p-day. Then again, I didn’t think these things really mattered in the grand scheme of things—they weren’t sins, after all—and I wasn’t done stewing over the injustice of his lecture.
I talked with a fellow missionary because this rules-focus really got under my skin.
President had told him that he didn’t value blind obedience in the missionaries. He said we should be obedient because of our faith, and if we were obedient for any other reason, we’d be unhappy.
The problem was (and still is) that obedience to rules that don’t make sense to me or that contradict my values never corresponds with happiness. The best I could do is obey rules I felt either positively or neutrally about, but if I believed that some rule got in the way of a higher law like putting people first, then obedience felt like a downgrade.
Too often, obedience was about something else anyway, like wanting approval from authority figures or trying to control things we couldn’t, like who got baptized. It was also a cudgel some missionaries used against each other to feel superior or manipulate them into doing something they didn’t want to do. These were all reasons Jesus broke the rules, instead pointing to higher laws that offended the rule-obsessed Jews of his day.
I decided to look up some articles on why people break the rules and whether that’s a bad thing. Looking back, I stand by the rule breaking examples I’ve listed. There’s nothing on there that I regret. I was living my best life. When we think of rule-breakers, we tend to think of something negative:
- Criminals
- Cheaters
- Arrogance
- Anti-social
- Immoral
- Lazy
Come to think of it, though, you can be a rule-follower and still be immoral or lazy or anti-social. You can use the rules as a weapon against others. You can find loopholes to punish your enemies or get away with things. You can be self-righteous about how well you follow the rules.
Not all “rule-breaking” is equal. Rules aren’t necessarily right. They are just norms or requirements for behavior set by people in charge who think they want things to work a certain way. The rules are there to control the group to the extent possible and to attempt to drive certain outcomes. You can be a rule-breaker while acting ethically or morally because most rules don’t have ethical or moral implications. Here are some positive reasons people break rules:
- The rule is dumb. Not all rules make good sense. They are just theories. They can be outdated or ill-conceived or have really bad unintended consequences.
- The rule doesn’t apply to them or their situation. They are an exception. On the flip side, this can be an excuse or a rationalization.
- In the words of Oingo Boingo, “Who makes the rules? Someone else!” Rules are behavior guides created by an authority figure to guide behavior in a group; if the rules contradict our conscience or moral reasoning, disobeying them can be empowering and can create a morally superior result. For example, not ceding your seat on the bus may be morally superior to complying with laws that oppress an entire race. Refusing to follow unjust rules may result in more just rules being created. Civil disobedience leads to civil rights.
- Some rules are inherently unfair; they may give an advantage to an in-group, but at the expense of other people. Some rules even the playing field, but others tilt it (unfairly) in someone’s favor. For example, missionaries in our mission weren’t allowed to attend Church if we didn’t have investigators with us (as a way to curb laziness), but leaders were the enforcers which meant the rule didn’t apply to them. Now who was lazy?
- Rules may be unclear. When I was in first grade, our teacher had told us on the first day (probably in a fit of frustration with restless kids) that under no circumstances could a student sharpen her pencil during a test. When my pencil lead broke during a test, I shared my friend’s pencil by waiting until she was done, then using her pencil to answer my test questions. The teacher saw this and assumed I was cheating. She stopped the test and called me out for cheating, and I burst into tears and said what I was doing because of the rule. She looked at me like I was nuts, disclaimed ever having made such a rule, and told me to go sharpen my pencil for Pete’s sake.
- A rule is new or a change to a habit. For example, if it’s now a “rule” not to use the term “Mormon,” but you’ve been using it for over 50 years, that’s a hard habit to break (if you even think it’s important to try).
- A rule might make things less efficient. One type of rule-breaking is cutting corners, and people will cut corners if they feel that it saves time without eroding quality.
- Breaking rules can signal your individuality. When someone violates dress code norms or other cultural norms, they often do so to express their creativity, so they don’t look like everyone else. Particularly when conformity has no concrete benefit, too much conformity will result in a less creative environment, one in which status quo prevails and individuals check out mentally, going on auto-pilot rather than being thoughtful or internalizing discussions and ideas.
So what do you think?
- Are you a rule-breaker or a rule-follower?
- Is there a place for rule-breakers in the Church?
- What types of rules are you prone to break? Do you regret it?
- Why is there such a focus on rules and obedience in the Church? Is it necessary and useful?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
As a teenage member of the ward choir I hated that we had to wear hideous pale blue blouses with a large floppy bow. Instead, I would wear a darker blue shirt teamed with a blue patterned scarf.
When the YW had to get up early one Saturday for who knows what bizarre reason for a worldwide helium balloon release and each ward in the stake was to be assigned a colour from the YW values to wear, I was very vocal in insisting that the only value colour I was prepared to wear was green whatever colour we were assigned. We got green.
As a student in a singles ward in London I was dubbed the relief society rebel, frequently arguing with the teacher in those interminable lessons that tried to tell us what women were, and then on the weeks when I couldn’t stand the thought of another RS lesson, I would attend the EQ lesson instead. Because I couldn’t not attend a lesson.
More recently until the change to 2 hour church, in RS lessons it had been customary to have the YW join us for opening exercises on a fast Sunday, and everyone had to stand to recite the YW theme. I chose to remain seated and did not recite the theme.
I’m sure there are any number of other things too.
I guess that makes me a rule breaker.
A gazillion extra points for referencing Oingo Boingo. Fond memories of my 20s come flooding back, like when Elfman stopped a show mid-song to harangue the audience because someone threw a bottle at his head. Danny ain’t no rule follower.
As a lapsed and non-believing Mormon, I have to say I am not a rule follower, though in life I am, generally, because I can see a logical reason for the rule and understand what happens in society when individuals decide to just ignore norms en masse.
No, there is not really a place for rule breakers in the church, and this gets to the heart of church membership. LOTS of church policies and doctrines make no sense and following rules becomes about nothing more than obedience. Believers are obedient because they want to be safe with their families for all eternity, and because they are scared not to be by the threat of eternal damnation (flip sides of the same coin).
Why is there such a focus on rules in the church? From the church’s perspective, because a chosen people will hearken unto the lord’s word, and devout members believe the president speaks for the lord. From a more sinister perspective, because obedient people will continue to give money to a multi-billion dollar corporation that doesn’t need it; because obedient people will set aside the cognitive dissonance and ridiculous tales; because obedient people will demonstrate their fealty by orienting most every decision they make around the church.
Yes, it is necessary, and yes, it is very useful for the church.
Oh my goodness as a teen I tried to be good and not break the rules, but basically lived to please myself. I knew I was not living the way God wanted me to, and that terrified me. Today, I know we live under grace and though I try to do what God asks of me I fail Him everyday. Thank God for His mercy and grace! Blessings, Malinda
Commandments, policies, rules. Mormons love rules. While commandments come (at least in theory) from God and policies come (at least in theory) from senior leadership, just about anyone in the Church can make a rule for their little kingdom. Some make sense, some don’t; some are clear, some are confusing. Some are just plain silly. A lot of Mormon rules are directed at LDS youth (which is all kids under 18, all missionaries, and all single LDS under 30).
Pharisees are routinely condemned in LDS Sunday School classes for making all kinds of rules that add extra requirements onto the already significant burden of commandments that Jews of that day faced. No one seems to notice that is just what Mormons seem to do at every level of the Church as well.
The biggest regret of my life is not being more of a rule breaker when I was a teenager when consequences were less severe.
Dave B’s comment resonates with me. I’ve heard both the Pharisees in particular and Jews in general (Mormonism, at least as I came to know it as an investigator thirty years ago, is unmistakably anti-semitic) be condemned at church in the very same Sunday school class where people were insisting that shopping on the sabbath was an absolute no-no. We are astonishingly myopic about such stuff.
And as far as whether there is a place for rule-breakers at church, not really. There is a place if you are quiet about your rule-breaking, never confess or mention it to an ecclesiastical authority and never rock the boat in Sunday school or in fast and testimony meeting. Other than that, no. And that is related, of course, to your other question about why there is such a focus on rules and obedience. On one level, it’s simply practical. There’s no way for any church leader to really know the contents of our hearts, our true intentions, or the actual progress of our spiritual journey. Because of that, the “rules” offer an easy way to, in a crude and simplistic manner, measure one’s commitment to the church (not Christ). In the case of the Mormon Church (and in the case of many other organizations), the yardstick becomes the goal itself, not a path to higher goals or aspirations. That’s the problem with measuring sticks: They loom larger than any more abstract or ethereal goal due to the very fact that they are concrete.
The shame of all of the emphasis on obedience is not just the consequences that we usually talk about: it reduces the gospel to a set of rules, it’s only really about boundary maintenance, etc. The larger tragedy that lies behind all of this is that the emphasis on obedience indicates that the church is not what it was 2000 years ago or 200 years ago. Christ was, by any measure, a radical thinker and teacher, one who challenged cultural and societal norms, one who spoke truth to power and one who was willing to die for his beliefs and for other people. It’s a shame that all of that has gone out the window and we’re just supposed to trudge along not thinking, not challenging any ideas and not making any waves and checking our little boxes. And yet we claim to be ardent (and the only “true”) followers of a personage who did pretty much the opposite of what the Church expects us to do now. That, for me, has been an absolutely soul-crushing realization. These days, I just sit in sacrament meeting and Sunday school reading poetry or one of the Gnostic gospels in order to pass the time between talks on subjects I’ve heard spoken about hundreds of times and wonder where it all went wrong.
Missionaries required to pay fast offerings? That’s a new (and absurd) one on me. Missionaries don’t earn an income from which to make the offering. I never paid a fast offering on my mission.
I served my mission in the German part of France and the French part of Belgium. It was a 2-1/2 year mission. Our only real mission activity was tracting, which was almost never successful. Four of the cities I was assigned had almost invisible branches, 2 of which had missionary branch presidents. Baptism were few and far between, so were lessons. Membership activity rates were about 10 percent. I had to take breaks. I read a lot, saw an occasionally movie, and traveled a lot. The latter was occasionally outside our mission, and almost always outside our assigned area. I was interested in European history, culture, and absurdist philosophy. I would have loved to study more about the Church, but few resources were available, other than “Mormon Doctrine.” In other words, I broke a lot of mission rules. Do I feel guilty, Hell No. I guess I failed my Church leadership training.
I worked for the Federal government for 35 years. The last 25 gave us the opportunity to carve out own territory. Many of the agency programs and regulations were tilted toward the haves. We preferred to work with the havenots. I continually investigated alternative routes, loopholes, and the like. I danced on the edge to keep our program alive and fully funded. And ultimately, I believe we were very successful. We added a new meaning to the expression “We are from the government, we are here to help.” I was frequently accused of breaking rules, both written and unwritten. But no one stopped us because we were successful. Do I fee guilty, Hell No.
I’ve spent most of my life questioning rules, regulations, even an occasional “revelation.”
Three cheers for Eve, the original rule breaker…proving that sometimes you have to just go for it and trust your intuition that some rules should be broken.
I’ve been a rule follower my whole life, living off the bravery of those who dare suggest inconvenience and many types of harm can come from strict adherence. I can’t be quiet anymore.
I’m grateful for some order and law, because I don’t want to live in a chaotic or reckless place. But the church had better keep tossing the unnecessary checklists and cringy policies (or the 2nd coming might be a repeat cleanse whipping😬)
I’ve always seen myself as a rule follower, but I could name many rules that I have broken, rules similar to those broken by self appointed “rule breakers” above, so I don’t know. But I have a lot more regrets about following rules than I do about breaking them.
As far as mission rules go, I think it would have been impossible to keep all the rules and unhealthy to follow many of them. I’m glad that I ended up relaxing and not being as obsequiously obedient as I planned to be.
Kevin Barney’s comment on fast offering is interesting. That “rule” definitely existed for my mission. Straight from the “white Bible”. I object to it as a rule, but not for the same reason as Kevin. Missionaries of my day, and probably now, didn’t pay tithing because they earned no income, as a general rule. But we did recieve a food allowance, and I think it is reasonable and it builds character to abstain from two meals and donate the savings to be distributed to families in need.
Where I object is that it shouldn’t be a “rule”, but rather at most it should be encouraged. A fast offering to me seems like it should be 100% voluntary, even for missionaries. I also think that it should be equally acceptable to donate the fast offering to a self-chosen charity as giving it to the church.
I thought I was a rule follower… until I read this post. Now I realize that I was, and am, a huge rule breaker. Ha! But really, as long as we’re consistently trying to be like Jesus, although making mistakes along the way, I believe that we’ll all be okay. God is a just, and a merciful, God.
This is a personal mantra of mine by the Dalai Lama that I think applies to our rule-based Mormon culture: “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.” I am less of a rule follower now than I used to be, but I feel that with age, I’ve gained the wisdom to see what rules are and are not important and the right way to break them. For example, I think most of our rules are good barriers to keep young people away from trouble; the no R-rated movies thing was a big deal when I was growing up. I was not perfect, but followed it more or less. As an adult, I can see the wisdom of this in shielding kids from a lot of trash, but feel like I should be able to decide what movies I want to see and what I choose not to and have that be my own decision. With garments, I don’t feel like it is an effective means for me to remember the temple all the time, but it is an important tribal marker, so I wear them to church, ward activities and family events to show group commitment and solidarity with those who think they are important.
On my mission I thought of the rules as more “guidelines” than anything else. A lot of them didn’t make sense for what I did. I technically served in Anaheim but I was assigned to the Deaf area which was larger. One of the “rules” was we could only go shopping within our district on P-day (???). We lived outside the district so it was a stupid rule. One Christmas I had really bad bronchitis and my Deaf companion didn’t want to go to the party since it was mostly musicals so we didn’t go. AP tried to call us and talk us into going. I told him I was sick and wasn’t going to make everyone else miserable by hacking up a lung at the party. We ended up not going. Rules aren’t meant to be hard things but guidelines for life.
I decided as a YA that I could never serve a mission because I wouldn’t be able to handle all the rules.
From a corporate perspective, the rule breakers always end up owning the companies that hire the rule keepers, because the breakers think outside the box. Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Michael Dell. Sam Walton. Roy Kroc. H. Ross Perot. Each of them a billionaire because they didn’t follow conventional wisdom
the old saying “not all who wander are lost” applies here. I hate to admit it but I have a certain level of admiration for those who break the rules for a principled reason
As a kid I was unquestionably a rule follower. I was upset when others wouldn’t follow the rules – cuz you HAVE TO! As a missionary I was quite good at keeping the rules, but didn’t get all upset if we returned home 5 minutes late from a good appointment.
I find myself close to fielixfabulous’s take now. I see the need for (many) rules for society to run. But I think I have learned some rules may have had good intent, but are just stupid or even harmful. There is a higher law that I look at rules now.
I wonder if all of the self proclaimed rule breakers are really the lovers of anarchy they would need to be to really love rule breaking. I suspect that most self proclaimed rule breakers in our 21st century western culture, where rule breaking has been enshrined as a virtue (see the other clark above) are really just comfortable with a world where the majority of people follow the rules so that they, the exceptional people that they are, can break them without the chaos that would come from everyone breaking them. Do y’all really love a rule breaker heading for the red light when you’re with the green one going through the intersection with your kids in the minivan?
Speaking for myself klc I’m not unhappy with rules that make sense, arbitrary whims of individuals not so much.
I mean generally I’m well behaved, a good citizen, obey the law, was a model student at school etc. It was the arbitrariness of church or people at church demands that set me off.
I was mostly a rule keeper growing up, but never super strict. I liked the idea of some rule-breaking (since I thought a lot of the rules were really stupid and resented them), but I was mostly too afraid to ostentatiously break major rules. I liked my hard rock music as a teen, to the chagrin of my parents, but kept that under wraps. On my mission, I mostly followed the rules, but didn’t get too caught up in the numbers game. Near the end of my mission, I had an 18-year-old girl and her friend over for some smoothies at 9:30pm, right as we were finishing up work. She and her friend sat outside on our patio while I made them a smoothie. Some member of the ward happened to walk by (I think) and ratted me out to the bishop who told my mission president. They treated this as a scandal. The bishop told me to meet with him and scolded me. The mission president called me and scolded me and had me transferred immediately. He demoted to junior companion. I thought that this was the dumbest thing ever. I actually regret following the rules too much, especially after my mission. I truly believe that I would have had a lot more fun and better memories had I broken more rules. I wish I had not gone to BYU and instead a non-religious university and lived a more secular lifestyle.
I think there is a small place for rule-breakers in the church. Those who break minor rules in favor of living the higher law, for sure. But there really isn’t a place for members to openly violate Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity rules. A known coffee or tea drinker will likely be denied a TR and on fornication, even something so innocuous as an engaged couple having sex before marriage (even just the night before) or moving in together before marriage is heavily shamed. Someone who says that they casually view porn, even with a spouse, for fun will likely be shamed and told that they are on the pathway to addiction and personal ruin and must stop. Even someone who admits to masturbation regularly (even without porn) will likely be told that they are sinning and on a slippery slope towards addiction. The open social drinker will be shamed as well. And as I mentioned, there is deep, deep superstition and intolerance for missionaries doing anything remotely resembling dating.
The church focuses on rules so much because the people who run it 1) follow a long tradition of strict rule-based policy and 2) come from business and legal/administrative backgrounds and believe that strict rule-enforcement will yield the best results. In many ways, rules have become more relaxed. Face cards aren’t shamed as much (although I remember at the BYU Jerusalem Center in 1999 they were not allowed). The For Strength of Youth pamphlet no longer appears to contain as many specifics. But there appears to be a greater emphasis on other rules, such as wearing white shirts. I remember pictures of General Conference with men wearing colored shirts. Nowadays, colored shirts worn by men are hardly seen in a chapel.
KLC: I think that the idea of “rule-breaking” is pretty tame among Mormons because that are sooo many ticky-tack little rules. You drank water on Fast Sunday? Your skirt was an inch above your knee? You paid tithing on net, not gross??? You answer a Trivial Pursuit question about what’s in a mixed drink correctly? These can be seen as vaguely scandalous, but they are ridiculously tame by most standards.
I had a bishop with a lead foot. When ward members would chide him for “breaking the law,” he always quipped back, “I’m not breaking the law. I pay all my speeding tickets.” Even if you’re talking about laws, I think you have to consider whether it’s a law to protect people from actual harm (such as running a red light), and what the context of it is. For example, if you are driving in India, forget about traffic signals. You just have to watch everyone around you and try to get where you are going without killing others or yourself! If you are in the US, you know that running a red light could mean that the cars with a green light aren’t going to be watching for someone to run the red. But there were Jim Crow laws, too, and those were unjust laws. Breaking those laws would have been morally superior.
Rules are less binding than laws. Theoretically moral laws like chastity are higher than dress code rules. One of the articles I read in preparing this post specifically warned about “unwritten rules,” pointing out that there’s a reason they are unwritten. These should be ignored, according to the author of that article.
Another point on obedience. Leaders insist that they do not encourage blind obedience, all while repeatedly emphasizing the importance of obeying with exactness. There is a whole section on obeying with exactness in the mission prep manual. It was said that Joseph Smith was commanded to obey with exactness as well (even though we know he didn’t since D&C 132:61 told him to only marry other women that were virgins and with the wife’s consent). Yet there is something redundant about the concept of blind obedience, for a certain degree of blindness is built into the concept of obedience itself. Obedience by its definition is blind.
Children are to obey their parents whether what their parents tell them to do is right or not. Soldiers are to obey their commanders, even when the latters’ orders are immoral. Children and soldiers are told to do things under threat of punishment. They aren’t to question or think about the order. Just carry it out. I’m by nature disobedient. I like to think about whether what I do or not do is moral in a broader framework and act on that basis, not on the basis of whether it coincides with someone’s command.
Christ set rules (e.g. baptism, obedience to secular rule—render unto Caesar’s that which is Caesar’s). He also said that strait was the gate that leads to Heaven. But more importantly, He also set HIGHER rules (love God and your neighbor as yourself, succor the weak and afflicted). And He went through the corn fields with His disciples, plucking the ears of the corn on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees had a fit, accusing Him of violating the Sabbath. He was not obsessed with nit-picking rules.
Rules are necessary for any non-chaotic society to function. Societies that follow rules tend to do better. I visited Singapore for several weeks, and that is a place that runs like clockwork—much better than the U.S. But many of its residents find the atmosphere of rule-keeping oppressive.
So along with obeying the rules, there has to be room for rule breaking. As has already been pointed out, bravo to Mother Eve for having had the sense to break the rule about the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so we could be here during our mortality discussing these things.
I am by nature a rule keeper, but there is in my opinion a large class of people in the Church obsessed with trying to follow every rule, and they can be pretty oppressive to be with. Joseph Smith broke all the rules of conventional Christianity, and the world is a better place for it.
“Render under Caesar…” doesn’t mean what you think it means.
“Render unto Caesar” refers to the coin that Christ directed the Pharisees and Herodians to show him, in reply to their question of whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar and his Roman Empire. (Matthew 22: 15-21.) It was a penny, and Christ referred to it as “tribute money.” It had the image of Caesar on it. The Pharisees we’re hoping to entangle Christian in his words: if Christ said to pay tribute, the Pharisees would accuse him of disloyalty to Jewish law; if he said to refuse payment, the Herodians would accuse him of fomenting disobedience to Roman rule. Christ’s answer, “render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s,” neatly evaded the trap, and has, I thought, been generally interpreted to mean to obey the State in secular matters (here, taxation), and to obey God in religious matters. This point is reinforced, I believe, in Mark 12:13-17, Luke 20:19-26, Matthew 17:24-27, 12th Article of Faith.
As to vajra2’s claim that I have missed the boat on what this phrase means: I certainly make many mistakes, and am open to different interpretations on what “render unto Caesar” means.
I don’t wear a white shirt to church.
I question things to see if they can be improved. When my wife and I were trying to afford a new home, we bought a block of land and I looked for a way to build quickly and inexpensively. I built the house out of 100mm thick cool room panels. Which are sheets of polystyrene with colourbonded steel bonded to each side and with a tongue and groove edge so they lock together. They are very well insulated and usually used for cold storage. The house took 10 days from slab to lock up, and sold for 5 times what it cost 10 years later.
A few years ago I bought a mercedes S550, at auction, it was the most comfortable car I have ridden in, but high milage, and not economical car 12l/100k. There is a current mercedes S500e, which costs $325,000, and is a plug in hybrid and uses 3litres/100 kilometers so I am converting mine to the same mechanically. Building a house is easier.
So when someone says there is one way to do this, just obey, I am inclined to question why that way and is there a better way? Which is not what is expected at church.
I have been refused a TR for not agreeing with the Bishop that “obedience is the first law of heaven”, I believe love is.
I don’t think of myself as disobeying the rules, just looking for a better way.
I think I have become less enamoured of obedience as I have grown older.
Rule breaker.
Aye too must be a rule breaker. When Spencers W. Kimball was prophet the edict came out that all brothers were to wear white shirts. Aye was in the Navy at the time. It was a blessing to me to get time off to attend sacrament meeting. Stationed in the island of my birth, aye happily wore an aloha shirt to church as an expression of my joy and happiness. One day the bishop approached me and gave me the edict that aye must wear a white shirt and tie. Aye felt like aye had been hit with by a torpedo. Aye complied but still could not shake my feelings of no longer expressing my joy outwardly.
Rules always exist. Even here. Sometimes I know what they are.
One problem with mormons is always quoting ” obidience is the 1st law of heaven”.
I guess they never realize progression; that there is a 2nd law of heaven, and a 3rd law of heaven, etc.
They literally dam themselves with their obidence. Not learning to live life and get beyond the basic principles and guidelines of obieience.
The 2nd and 3rd laws are liberating and bring greater happiness than the first.
Mormonism is centered around only 2 groups …literally.
Youth and older male leaders.
If you look at all the programs they are centered around youth and getting them
” firm in the faith.”
After that a few males that are part of a clique are in a game to see who can gain the most power and titles.
The rule emphasis is because the men want to dominate and show they are more God-like via rules and restrictions. The subjects are the youth who are learning . They use rules to suppress.
They should use their office to elevate.
As noted by richard rohr most TBM are in stage II orthodoxy and rules and are still immature “teenagers”.
Until the mormon decision makers dump their rules ..they will repeat the patterns of the pharisees and never journey toward stage V faith.
“As noted by richard rohr most TBM are in stage II orthodoxy”
What wimps. I’m at least a Stage IV Orthodox and at Stage V I can walk through walls without crumbling the plaster (or was I thinking of Scientology?) But at Stage IV all I can do is scare pigeons at the city park if I look at them in a threatening manner.