There have been quite a few comments recently, and a mention of it in Jake’s recent post about good & bad fruit, about the tendency to equate emotion with “the spirit” in the church. There is an element of this that reminds me of the old adage about consultants, that they are people who ask you if they can borrow your watch to tell you what time it is, then keep the watch. Emotions are part of being human, and they can be stirred by many experiences.
On Reddit, there was a person sharing a funny story of something that they did when he was in the MTC. As a language learning activity, but also a lesson in teaching “with the spirit,” older missionaries were paired with newer missionaries who hadn’t yet learned the language, and they were supposed to bear testimony in the language (which the new missionaries couldn’t understand) and be evaluated on whether the new missionary felt “the spirit.” As pranksters, several of the older missionaries would make up nonsensical phrases using their new language skills, but say things in a very emotional way. “There is a monkey in the window. We call him window monkey. The window monkey is smiling at us. Smile at the window monkey.” And of course, they proved the simple fact that even if you are talking total nonsense, but you say it in an emotional way with moist eyes and a quavering lip, Mormons will believe that they felt the spirit.
Of course, this emotionalism doesn’t necessarily work on outsiders, especially if it’s over-the-top blubbering. When I was in my first area as a missionary, a mere week into my mission, my trainer asked me to share a message or something. I was overwrought, under-slept, sunburnt to the point of blisters, and only understood about 20% of what people were saying at this point. I don’t even remember what I was saying, but I just burst into tears, then tried to pass it off as emotional-testimony stuff. The reality was that I was kind of miserable at this point. The woman we were teaching thought I was completely off my rocker; she did not “feel the spirit.” My trainer was kind, but explained that over-emotional displays that Mormons liked were usually a turn off to outsiders. She probably also realized I was just not having a good time.
My first encounter with deliberate playing on emotions, at least that I recall, was when the AT&T commercials of the 1980s were big. The commercials were all about calling your relatives on the phone (when long-distance phone calls were a cash machine for AT&T), and featured Diana Ross belting out her heartfelt tune in the background: “Reach out and touch… somebody’s hand … make this world a better place … if you can.” Grandmothers with tears in their eyes talked to distant grandkids. Hearts were touched. For our stake’s youth conference theme, some Tobias Funke got the idea to make tee shirts that said “Reach out and touch someone” and this was our theme. I’m sure you can all imagine what a bunch of horny teenagers made of that slogan.[1]
Throughout the 70s and 80s, the church went viral [2] with a series of ads, designed to promote good messages about honesty or helping others. These ads were designed to tug at the heart strings, and they were very effective at portraying the church as family-centric, so long as we’re talking about traditional nuclear families with kids. The ads were so successful that the church saw a boom in membership numbers, and for the first time, a change in how outsiders saw the church. Instead of a weird polygamist cult, Mormons were a formerly weird polygamist cult that was now big on happy families and telling the truth to scary adults in your multi-ethnic urban city.
Our unique strength is the ability to touch the hearts and minds of our audiences, evoking first feeling, then thought and, finally, action. We call this uniquely powerful brand of creative “HeartSell”® – strategic emotional advertising that stimulates response.
(See archived description from Bonneville Communications’ website)
The thing is, these emotional messages work. It’s why theater and film can be so powerful. It’s why reading books can change lives. It’s why even the unchurched often consider relationships and family to be the foundation of their spirituality even though they may be agnostic or atheist. It’s why, even as horny teens who joked about the stake sanctioning the make-out sessions we hoped would happen at youth conference, we also secretly hoped we would be that person who did make a difference in someone’s life, a depressed stranger, a lonely teen, someone with a rough family life who needed a friend. We could make a connection and make a difference.
It seems that the Church isn’t doing these types of ads any more, instead focusing on ads that demonstrate that “we really are Christians, too” as if the Church is feeling defensive around their chosen political bedfellows, the Evangelicals.[3] Messages now are more “worship” focused and less “be a good person” focused. I think that’s a real miss, even if the old ads were cheesy and manufactured.
But it seems that there is also a real issue with conflating the spirit with emotions and human connection, if only because they are certainly not unique to the Church. To go back to the original metaphor with the consultants, members are free to say “I want my watch back” and go on with their lives. They will take their emotions with them, and they can still do good works and connect with people. Hopefully we all do that.
- Do you think the Church’s “Heartsell” program was misguided or unethical?
- Can you tell the difference between “the spirit” and normal human emotions about relationships?
- Should the Church go back to doing ads about being more ethical vs. worship-focused ads? If you were in charge, what would you do?
Discuss.
[1] This is why I’ve always said that the church needs to have at least one dirty minded person evaluating all publications whether local or at headquarters, and yet, they seldom do.
[2] Back when going viral still referred to viruses.
[3] Which is like trying really hard to get the band kids to let you sit with them in the cafeteria. The band kids, people. Who gets ostracized by the band kids?
Wheat & Tares 
As one who struggles with OCD it’s been a long haul for me to learn how to tell the difference between what truly comes from above and what’s merely my own madness–and that can include feelings. The first thing I had to learn is that the spirit is not coercive–though it can on rare occasions be firm. And the second is that it brings forth good fruit–the kind that lines up with the attributes of Christ. And the third is that it is generally a total experience–and I mean that it involves the head as well as the heart and sometimes even the marrow of the bones.
And I should add–the fourth thing I had to learn is that the spirit is generally very subtle; so subtle sometimes that we can only detect its influence with a bit of hindsight.
I think that too many members shoehorn normal human emotions into being of the spirit. An example that comes to mind is at a person’s funeral that I attended, one of his adult children who had been inactive in the church his whole adult life spoke. He was very emotional and I heard multiple people say how he was clearly “feeling something” and thus would be returning to church. Uh, the guy was speaking at his father’s funeral and he is entitled to be emotional, without the church usurping that emotion and leveraging it to get him back into the fold.
The real disparity is that the world and all human experience in it revolves around the church for devout/orthodox members and simply doesn’t for everyone else.
I served with a missionary who was convinced that without tears the Holy Ghost couldn’t be present. He would sit and strain throughout the entire lessons to force himself to cry because then the spirit would be present. It was distracting and off-putting but we could never seem to put a stop to it. He was later promoted to District and Zone Leader so leadership must have approved of his methods. He was a tool
Think of the hundreds of references by classical writers thanking the Muses or some local divinity for the inspiration to write their epic poetry. That was just humans struggling to understand the creative process that goes on in the human brain. There are no Muses.
Astrology has always been popular and lots of people seem to buy it, even today. Clever and bright practitioners in the ancient world (and to a lesser extent in the modern world) made a pretty good living off of astrology. But it’s all bunk.
Think of the thousands of Scientologists who go through “auditing” while being hooked up to an E-meter. They believe the device gives the auditor insight into the auditee’s “engrams” (as Scientology defines the term). But all the device does is measure electrical conductivity. There are no engrams.
So LDS “feeling the Spirit” is right in line with every other culture and religion in setting up some sort of contrived supposed connection to God. LDS also employ reverse Spirit talk: “When the teacher said that, I just felt the Spirit leave the room.” It’s mostly just wishful thinking mingled with folk psychology. I’m pretty sure Evangelicals and Pentecostals do much the same thing, but with more Jesus talk and less Spirit talk.
My wife says I never cry about her. But then I bawl when I watch the ending of The Shawshank Redemption. I do not know why this is so. Concerning the specific topic, I strongly believe it is wrong to manipulate emotions. I do not think it is wrong to tells stories and produce scenes that as a matter of course tug at the heart strings. There is nothing manipulative about The Shawshank Redemption. It just cuts to the heart of the power of Hope and Redemption.
The challenge for religious leaders and teachers is to produce meaningful stories that are not manipulative. The LDS culture has had varying degrees of success and failure in story telling. I’m not even sure the LDS leadership is trying these days to create good stories. This is curious because up through the 20th century the LDS culture loved story telling. What changed? Will the culture of story telling return.
Observe that as a whole, story telling in the Christian culture has greatly improved in the 21st century. This makes the decline of LDS story telling all the more peculiar.
On the increase in messages of the advertisement type from church about Christ, I think it is part of President Nelson’s attempt to make us appear Christian to other religious conservatives. The same as his campaign to have us called “christian” in the name of the church. He thinks it is just a misunderstanding and a reason Evangelicals dislike us.
He doesn’t understand that by their definition of “Christian” we are not. So, as long as they can look at or hear our actual doctrine, we are as lost as Muslims or Jews. We do not look to Jesus as the one and only God, unless we believe in some form of the Trinity. Period. No matter how much we claim to worship Jesus as the son of God, it won’t make us Christian in their eyes. Huge losing war Nelson has waged on the word Mormon and advertising that we are Christian. We may as well claim to worship Thor or Zeus in their minds. We have 3 Gods, 4 if you count Mother in Heaven, and that makes us pagan. Period end of Argument. That is why the huge fear of praying to Mother in Heaven. Having any kind of female God makes us pagan. By definition.
Nelson cannot change their definition of Christian, so he might as well embrace our pagan status and proudly proclaim that we believe in multiple Gods and that we can become Gods some day. Oh, and it is also why that doctrine was publicly denied. Because the idea that we can become Gods is blasphemy. Add to that the doctrine that Lucifer is our spiritual brother. That makes him an excommunicated God and Jesus’s brother. 4 Gods, one expos, and billions of godlings.
The church will either have to change much of our official doctrine or give up the idea that other Christians will accept us as Christian.
Maybe the problem isn’t that we see God in too many feelings, but that we don’t see God in enough feelings. If God exists and God created our brains and our endocrine systems, then our normal human emotions are divine—sadness, hope, anger, joy. Analyzed with a healthy dose of reason, they can help us make decisions in the world, because that’s what they evolved to do. Like Dash Parr said, if every feeling is special, then no feeling is.
What gets us in trouble is when we think of certain feelings as special and make unreasonable conclusions based on those feelings. When I feel welcome at a church activity, I can take that as evidence that my ward is friendly and supportive. But it shouldn’t bear much evidence whether God has certified the church as exclusively authorized to perform saving ordinances.
On Fast Sunday, I used to say “I’m so hungry I could bear my testimony.” I’m sure that’s where all the crying comes from – low blood sugar.
Anyone remember the LDS Homefront series of commercials? How about the various seminary heart-tugging videos like “I’ll Build you a Rainbow”? It seems an entire generation from the mid 1970s on were hammered with aesthetic, emotional media established this cultural attribute of responding to and with emotions.
Here is the link to the homefront series:
“Increase of messages of the advertisement type…”
I ain’t seen none of that. I have seen Linked In posts about living well, and missionaries posting on Facebook… but ads? Not like back in the 70s or 80s.
Oh, yeah, I don’t watch network TV, and I bet the Church doesn’t advertise during Marvel, Star Trek, or Star Wars universe shows (or during The Chosen or Young Sheldon… and not even during Relative Race). Who knew being a nerd would exempt one from being a target of Church ads!
In reading A Disciple’s response, I have to agree. My first thought was manipulation. Heartsell and the like are a deliberate move to appeal to your emotions and desires. I feel that the church has always muddied the waters regarding emotion and spirit.
My brother left the church about 30 years ago. His community church, which would loosely be evangelical, doesn’t preach doctrine or eternal questions that no one really has the answers to. They just talk about being a good person and having faith/belief in God. What a concept.
As to your last question, I don’t think they should do worship-focused ads because their worship services frequently don’t actually employ worship. Too often the captive congregation gets guilt preached about attending the temple, upping their missionary efforts, ponying up their tithing, and the like. How often have you attended and had the thought “wow, I’m glad I didn’t bring an investigator today!” Then talk about unethical…can anyone say SEC scandal?
I wouldn’t want to be in charge of PR because the church is currently a challenging sell.
I find our Sunday School discussions on the topic of “The Spirit” both promising and extraordinarily frustrating. Our LDS culture or theology has all but reduced the spirit down to some form of heavenly GPS unit, for which its operation depends on my meriting its response. Sam Brown brilliantly writes in his book “First principles and ordinances” the following summary of our often spoken “Holy Ghost” rhetoric: “We have a way sometimes of being a little mechanistic on this topic. Some of us even sound a bit legalistic about the gift of the Holy Ghost as a marker of our general superiority and as a spiritual guide–whereas other have “only” the light of Christ, we say, we are entitled to the constant companionship of the spirit after we have received the gift of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes that mechanistic approach becomes so extreme that it sounds as if we think of the Holy Ghost as our private genie. The Holy Ghost, including the ordinance by which the gift is bestowed, is much more than a lamp and its genie. Through confirmation, we enter into living, breathing relationships with God and our fellow man, we do NOT acquire a magic lamp.”
I find little value in using the spirit as an epistemological method, a kind of helicopter hovering from above telling me every move to make, or our manipulative way of using it to confirm conclusions that have already been decided. Spirit strikes me rather practically as being the qualities and essence of things that are alive, but not physically present, it’s the non-physical presence of divinity. For this reason, I don’t think the spirit is a response to my actions, some kind of heavenly blue ribbon given as confirmation, but rather, a description of qualities or essence I’m attempting to make alive in the world.
toddsmithson: At some point, we went from teaching that the Spirit is there to guide, comfort and protect to teaching that the Spirit is a worthiness barometer. Maybe 8 years ago, the Gospel Doctrine teacher asked the class “Can you feel the Spirit if you’re in a bar?” I enthusiastically answered, “Yes!” because 1) Jesus literally was called a wine-bibber for hanging out in bars, and 2) the Spirit isn’t some Victorian lady on a fainting couch. But of course, I was mostly the only person saying that the Spirit could not care less about whether you are in a bar or not, that your surroundings have nothing to do with your spiritual state, and that the Spirit should be ready to warn you of danger, even if you were in fact doing something dangerous (not that a bar qualifies). But, jeez, I swear that used to be the teaching, and now somehow it is not.
I like how Elder Bednar describes the gift of the Holy Ghost: he says (in so many words) it’s like being in the stream of the spirit. And as long as we’re trying to live the gospel — we don’t have to be perfect — that’s where we’ll be. He also says that we don’t need confirmation of every decision before we act. But because we’re in the stream of the spirit’s influence — how ever subtle it may be — we can often get into action without knowing everything from the get-go–and things we’ll work out so long as we remain open to its influence.
Generally I don’t mind the church producing ads with emotional content. The messages are consistent with what the church is trying to promote, so fine. But somehow I’m a bit bugged by attaching a brand name to what they are doing. This is what professionals in the field would do, so I get it, but it feels to me a bit like an admission of being knowingly manipulative. I don’t know what to think about that. There’s always been that undercurrent of a “by any means necessary” attitude in the church when it comes to missionary program, which in its most extreme form manifests in such disasters as baseball baptisms. I’m not trying to say the advertisements are in any way equivalent, just that having a branded concept for emotionally manipulative ads feels like possibly a small step in that direction.
I also generally don’t have a problem with equating emotion and spirituality. They are things that often occur together in the human experience. Really the fundamental problem is overloading those spiritual experiences with too much meaning. Maybe they just mean God loves you, and not that the Book of Mormon is literal history or some guy on the other side of the world on Salt Lake is God’s one and only mouthpiece. Let’s help people have spiritual experiences and let them decide on what it means to them. Some of them may even still choose to join the church because they like the spiritual feelings and not because of some bold declarations of “truth” that later turn out to come with a long list of asterisks.
Jack,
After hearing Bednar say so many blatantly insensitive, authoritarian, absurd, and self-aggrandizing things, I find it impossible to listen to him without some contempt. Even the definition you mentioned about how he describes the spirit is still trapped inside a moral conundrum. We have moralized the whole project by suggesting that the only thing that matters is whether you are a moral person. Paul echoes the words of Jesus by placing emphasis on our vocation.
We were called to be image bearers of God.
Even our Sacrament prayers, if we read them carefully, suggest just how difficult it is to keep something alive that is not physically present. To always remember him, keep his commandments, that we will always have his spirit to be with us is routinely read as carrot and stick. IF we do something God will give us his spirit. This entirely misses the point. Hence the words of the preacher in Ecclesiastes 9:5, where he is lamenting how meaningless life appears to be, we live, we die, and are quickly forgotten. In other words, our spirit fails to live on because the people still living fail to continue bearing the image of the dead.
God’s spirit is made alive in the world through us, we are the image bearers, faith without works is dead, why? Because spirit is like the wind, unseen and undetected accept by its effects. Spirit is always seeking embodiment, something that will manifest its quality and essence into the world. So, to always have his spirit to be with us, is not the reward for “remembering” and “commandment keeping”, those things are describing how God’s spirit is made manifest in the world. Spirit flows “from” those actions, not as a reward for them. Spirit, like the air we breathe, is a gift, it’s everywhere always. The air no more belongs to me than to you, it’s not a scarce commodity we are competing for our trying to earn, but the abundant life-giving force we take for granted because it is so familiar. Our vocation, like Simba in the Lion King, is to remember who we are, remember that God lives “in us”, and to have his spirit is to take our place in the circle of life, to show up and bear the image of divinity. Frankly, I currently think the LDS church is doing a horrible job of bearing God’s image in the world. The institution does NOT “always have his spirit with them”.
I have little to contribute to the discussion other than to say I have stopped believing in “the spirit” and my mental, social, emotional, and spiritual health are the better for it. I feel more of what the LDS Church teaches as the “spirit” through good art than I do in almost all Church meetings, speakers, scriptures, etc. And our brains and bodies are amazing. They are what is happening. They respond, feel, warn, inspire, and process at amazing levels. There is beauty and comfort and inspiration in the world that has the LDS Church has no hold over. For me, the Church does not provide any “spirit” that I have not and do not daily feel from other sources. And my feeling and receiving those insights, expansions of empathy, etc, do not depend on either my relation to the Church or my supposed worthiness, instead on my humanity.
Todd, I love that. I have long felt that 99.9% of Mormons misunderstand faith and works and the relationship between them. Or at least the relationship the Lord wants us to have. The church teaches “covenant path” as if living by all the rules makes you a good person. And I think they have it assjack backwards. I didn’t understand the problem very well myself until I argued with a “born again” to try to explain that Mormons do not really believe that we get to heaven by works alone. Sure, I told him, some Mormons emphasize works too much, and we add things on top of baptism as absolutely necessary. But we do believe that faith without works is dead. Then I searched my mind for Mormon teachings that demonstrated that faith without works isn’t really faith at all, and I kept coming back to the same thing. The “works” the church wanted was “covenant path” works, not “feed my sheep” works. And the “faith” they were talking about was not love, just a really really strong belief that we are right and everybody else is wrong. And what we mean when we repeat that scripture in James turns out to be more like, “faith without works dies pretty soon.” Instead of faith without love is dead. See, to really love God is to want what is best for all his children. Not just “us”.
I looked for stories or examples and I found things like “share your testimony to develop your testimony.” As if saying it makes it so, rather than believing it causes you to want to say it. Well, this idea is even backed by psychology, in that we start to believe the things we claim to believe…whether they are true or not. Ouch. I found stories of people who stopped paying tithing and then quit believing. Well, yeah, psychology backs that one up too. We justify our behavior by changing our beliefs. Donate to the KKK long enough and your lovely brain will convince you…. well, never mind, you get my drift. So, what the church is saying is true, if you don’t care about really following Jesus by loving.
Jesus didn’t heal people *because* he loved God. He healed people because he loved that person. The Samaritan didn’t help the injured man because he believed in God, but because he saw the humanity of the injured man and he loved that man. If our church teaches us to love God, and the church teaches us to feed the poor, then if we feed to poor, we learn to love our church more, because it is because of our church we are doing it. Now, if we just drop money in the begger’s hat, we don’t learn to love *him*. But if we stop to talk to him, or even stop to consider his life, then we learn to love him too. That’s the way the psychology works.
And do we really think the Pharisees didn’t have faith. They had faith in God, but not *love* for God or their fellow men. The Spanish were 100% sure there was a God as they were burning the pagans. What they lacked wasn’t faith, but love.
What I don’t like about Bednar and Nelson and Oaks is that they may have plenty of faith, but they don’t have very much love. And what James really meant is that faith without the kind of loving works Jesus did is dead.
Brian: I agree. In fact, it could be said that that is what is meant when Jesus said (Luke 17:21) “the kingdom of God is within you.” Just add a wink to the end of that statement, and you’re onto something!
Anna, thanks for your wise comment. I think you’re pretty close to hitting the nail on the head. One of my favorite passages of scripture is in John 6: “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Our principal work should be faith, not some quantity or checklist of acts or deeds. Faith, properly understood and lived with real intent, will naturally produce good fruit. I wish that we taught faith more and works less. We remember the warning in the Sermon on the Mount to those who say Lord, Lord, and who do all manner of mighty works. You’re also right about love, because real faith will also cause us to love our fellowmen more. “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.” (from this week’s Come Follow Me.) Judgment and righteousness should be among our fruits, not oppression of the less fortunate, and not causing the dispossessed and the disenfranchised to cry. Sometimes we “bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders.” Sometimes we “shoot out the lip” and “shake the head” (gossip and unrighteous judgment?) when people don’t measure up against what is really an unrighteous measuring stick. This ought not be. I would like to see faith, real faith, and love taught more.
I’m more inclined to believe that everything is a “window monkey” and we then assign whatever meaning we want to it. So I have no problem with individuals claiming that their emotions are from the Spirit, the Tao, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, so long as those emotions lead to human flourishing, or at the very least, do no harm. What I am bothered by, is when institutions or leaders cross the boundary into manipulating those emotions or interpreting them in a way that takes autonomy away from the individual and ties their emotions to specific truth claims or standards of “worthiness.” However someone “feels the spirit,” individually…. You do you. Personally, I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. As other commenters have pointed out, his main message seemed to be, the Spirit of God is already inside you, go love your neighbor. I do think there is something transcendent happening when a group of people are experiencing the same emotions at once, but this could happen at church, at a recovery group, or at the punk rock show. I “felt the Spirit” in the mosh pit many times back in my day.
Tobbsmithson,
What’s at bottom is that the Savior is a Living God. And what he desires is to bring each one of us into a relationship with him–and that’s one of the functions of covenants. It’s not so much about how righteous we are as it is about how willing we are to enter into said relationship. The purpose of the Savior’s atonement is not only to cover us but to transform us so that we become like him. And in order for that to happen we must be brought into close proximity to him so that we can receive of his influence–his spirit if you will.
Sorry about getting your name wrong, Toddsmithson.
Jack,
I don’t disagree with the idea of “transformation” being the primary aim of Jesus’ life and teachings. I, however, believe our LDS church has a very different way of defining “transformation” and what exactly it looks like to “be like Jesus”. How does the church define or describe “becoming like Jesus”? It’s not enough to use words here, but to pay attention to what the church emphasizes. The Church conflates being like Jesus with being a good member of the church. Those two things are not the same thing at all. The church seeks to “transform” people into card carrying members of the institution, pay, pray and obey. Gaining a testimony of the gospel really means to join the group dynamic willing to repeat the religious creeds. Testimony for the LDS church has more to do with belonging to the group than transforming into Christlike beings. What are the points of an LDS testimony? 1) Joseph Smith is a prophet 2) The Book of Mormon is true 3) This is the “true” church (the one and only) 4) Russell M Nelson is a prophet (the ONLY one authorized) 5) God lives and Jesus is savior.
What do any of these things have to do with being a good person? Nothing. They are statements of assent to propositional claims. They propose loyalty to the organization but have absolutely nothing to do with actually being transformed. The book of James addresses this issue head on. James clearly has concerns with the new Christian movement becoming a new version of the old way, always devolving back into the Pharisaical problem, defining righteousness by “piety”, one’s personal, moral, right-standing before God. And they taught that only a scrupulous adherence to personal holiness would beget God’s blessings.
Sound familiar? A little too close to how Mormondom views it today?
Moreover, the Pharisees turned righteousness into a self-serving measure of personal piety, a yardstick with which to beat others.
After introducing his letter in chapter 1, the first problem James sites is one we rarely, if ever, discuss in Sunday School as a key part of our transformation.
James begins chapter 2 with a pointed and indicting question, he asks; “My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?
He begins with the very human propensity for bias and prejudice. racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, or fill in the blank with the host of ways we attempt to make ourselves superior. James continues by offering a simple social experiment; “For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. 3If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, 4doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?
These are the things we ought to be discussing in church, actually facing the worst parts of ourselves, so they can be transformed. But instead, we take the low road of preaching dogma (doctrine) and obsessing over obedience. We may have a lot of “good members”, but I’m not sure we have created better people.
Toddsmithson,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
First off, I think it’s important to remember that the scriptures, by and large, are a catalogue of documents written to or about the Lord’s people when they were in need of correction. And so the fact that the church today may be in need of a few adjustments shouldn’t come to us as too much of a surprise. But even so, I’m of the opinion that the church is doing a remarkable job at making available all of the essential elements necessary to get each one of us on the high road to eternal life. Of course, we might disagree on some of the details regarding how all of that is carried off–but overall I believe there’s good reason to be optimistic about the church’s efforts.
“The Church conflates being like Jesus with being a good member of the church. Those two things are not the same thing at all.”
I think some virtues are contingent upon or at least informed by other virtues. For example: can a man be like the Savior and be a bad husband? Or a bad father? And so while the two may be divided (conceptually) into separate categories they live in the same space and are for all practical purposes the same thing.
“What are the points of an LDS testimony? 1) Joseph Smith is a prophet 2) The Book of Mormon is true 3) This is the “true” church (the one and only) 4) Russell M Nelson is a prophet (the ONLY one authorized) 5) God lives and Jesus is savior. . .What do any of these things have to do with being a good person?”
I could be the meanest old curmudgeon on the block–but if I have a basic sense of the truthfulness of the restored gospel then that knowledge will keep me in the right neighborhood — the sunny outer courts of the temple so to speak — until I’m ready to make my ascent.
Re: The Book of James: It’s a gem. And it’s my opinion that what’s at the center of his thesis is his definition of pure religion–which is 1) to visit the fatherless and the widow and 2) to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Both are essential–and it requires effort on the part of the individual to become like the Savior with regard to both.
“He begins with the very human propensity for bias and prejudice. . .These are the things we ought to be discussing in church, actually facing the worst parts of ourselves, so they can be transformed. But instead, we take the low road of preaching dogma (doctrine) and obsessing over obedience.”
I agree that the church needs to warn against all forms of ungodliness. And I also agree that there is a time and a place for “facing the worst parts of ourselves.” Even so, I’m of the opinion that the church’s primary focus must be the basics–the doctrine of Christ. Being reminded on a regular basis of how dependent we are on the Savior and what it is that we need to do in order to position ourselves to receive his influence is indispensable–as it is the Lord’s influence that is the only antidote that is powerful enough to cure all the ills of the fall.
Take care, my friend.
There are a couple of Australia rugby league games being played in Las Vagas this weekend if you want to see men playing contact football without wearing crash hats, or tights, but great skill.
When we were in Tibet we bought a solar powered prayer wheel, which is about as good at getting prayers answered as Mormon prayer.