MiserereNobis

22 minutes ago, CV75 said:

We have at least two orders in the Church (Zion). The United Order (or its modern counterparts tithing, fast offerings and priesthood-administered business ventures) involves stewardship over vocational and temporal matters; and the marriage order involves stewardship over social and spiritual matters. Both are governed by the order of the holy priesthood,

What I mean by order is more like a focus on a specific and particular aspect of the spiritual life.  In the examples I gave above, there are orders for people who want to focus on the poor, orders for people who want to meditate, orders for people who want to defend religion intellectually, etc.  Tithing doesn't quite fit into this definition.  I don't know much about the United Order (other than the basics I've learned here: it was a communal property system).  Was everyone asked to be in the United Order?  Or where people called?  Or did individuals discern for themselves?

37 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

While I respect the Catholic tradition in this regard, that sounds like a horrible idea for LDS.

Do you mind elaborating on why orders (especially contemplative/meditative ones) would be a horrible idea?  Is it impossible because of doctrine or because of long-established practices?

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Note: Catholicism did traditionally have married priests, and some rites still do today.  I also daresay that Catholic priests feel very stressed and juggling, despite the lack of family/secular day job. 

For sure!  Due to a shortage of priests, most priests have to work very very hard and do lots of juggling.  A celibate priesthood is not dogma, but in the Latin Rite it is a long long long and well-established tradition, so the odds of it going away are miniscule.  However, in the Eastern Catholic Churches (Churches not in the Latin Rite but in full communion with Rome and the papacy) priests are allowed to be married, so long as they marry before ordination.  Eastern Orthodox Churches are the same, but they of course are not Catholic.

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LDS individuals also discern.  For example they discerns whether or not to accept a calling.  They also discern whether or not to service a mission (either during young years or senior).  They discern whom/when/where/if to marry.  They discern in their daily walk with Christ, individually and serving in the Church.  They discern where to work secularly.  They discern where to live.  

There is MUCH prayer and discernment in an LDS person's life.  We pray many times a day, preach frequently about the value of prayer, contemplation, and the gift of discernment.  These are all a huge part of LDS life. 

 

I didn't mean to suggest that there isn't discernment in the LDS church.  I was just looking specifically at discerning a vocation.  You mention that Mormons discern whether or not to accept a calling.  Practically speaking, doesn't almost everyone accept the calling?  If someone turns down a calling, is that frowned upon?

Thanks for your detailed response!

Hello friends,

In another thread about Millenials, mapman made this comment:

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I've found it interesting how some religions have different approaches to the religion built in, such as religions with monastic orders. Like with Catholicism you can chose to be a layperson, to be part of the clergy, or chose from a variety of monastic orders. I don't think we should model our religion off of any other, but I like the thought of when someone knows you are a Mormon, that doesn't mean that they think that they already know everything about your religious, social, and political beliefs and practices.

This got me thinking about what we in Catholicism call "vocations" and how vocations might work in the LDS church.

In Catholicism, there are 4 vocations: single life, married life, religious life, and ordained life.  The first two are self-explanatory.  Religious life is monks and nuns and friars, etc.  Ordained life is the life of the priesthood.  A Catholic is supposed to try to discern his or her vocation.  What does God want me to do?  How does God want to use my talents, my personality, my individual unique life to further His purposes?  If one feels called to the religious or ordained life, there are many different orders with different purposes.  One could discern a vocation to be a Jesuit and defend the Church and the papacy intellectually.  One could discern a vocation to the Franciscans and consecrate one's life to poverty and to the service of the poor.  One could discern a vocation to a contemplative order and spend one's life in meditation and prayer.  The list goes on and on -- it's seriously long (google "list of Catholic religious orders").  And even within these categories there are sub-categories.  If one is called to a contemplative life, one could be a standard Benedictine, a Trappist (yummy beer, ha!), a Carthusian, a Carmelite, etc.  And then within these sub-categories there are 2nd and 3rd level orders.  And so forth.

The point of discerning a vocation is spend time figuring out where my personal and unique life (including my desires and interests) and God's purposes intersect.  There is a specific place in the Catholic Church for almost all types of (Catholic) religious desires and practices.

Now, my question is, is there something similar in Mormonism?  As an outsider looking in it doesn't seem so, but maybe it is subtle and that is why I am missing it.  It appears that all Mormons are called to the married life and all Mormon men are called to the ordained life.  Young Mormon men are temporarily called to be official missionaries, which would be like an active religious order (such as the Jesuits or Franciscans), but that is a temporary vocation.  I know that there are callings in the LDS church, but these are also temporary and are given from a leader rather than discerned by the individual.

So, could the LDS church benefit from having the equivalent of Catholic orders?  Would there be benefit to having individuals discern vocations rather than being called by someone else?  Is there a way for an individual to pursue an individually discerned vocation full-time rather than having to juggle family, church directed vocation, job, etc?  And finally, where does contemplation/meditation/mysticism fit into this?  Where are all those robed Mormon monks at?

I hope I'm not coming off as being critical, because that is certainly not my purpose!  Orders are near and dear to my heart, as I have always felt drawn to the consecrated contemplative life and spend as much time at monasteries as possible, and I was hoping to spark a discussion of the ideas of "orders" (or whatever term is appropriate) in the LDS church.

+PAX+

1 hour ago, HappyJackWagon said:

This sounds like a Star Trek movie...and not one of the good ones.

Yes, definitely an odd-numbered Trek movie...

Bob Marley's temple work has been done?  Right on.

Now, can a Mormon who has access with an account (or however that works) check to see if someone has done Jerry Garcia's work? (b. August 1 1942, d. August 9 1995).  This Deadhead right here is wondering

I don't want to work for all eternity.  I want to rest in the peace, joy, and beauty that is the Beatific Vision.

But maybe I'm just lazy

Ok, I see the end of this thread is nigh.  I'll try to bring it back around to the original post by saying that I often smile to myself when certain Evangelicals put Catholics and Mormons in the cult category together.  The active Mormons I know (I'm outside of Utah) are almost without exception good folk trying to do their best in this world.  While I think they are mistaken in their beliefs (as they think of me in mine), it is a "successful error" to use Rory/3DOP terms.  And I find that they think that of my beliefs, too.  In the end, we share much in common -- the belief in priesthood, authority, lineage, and leadership, the belief in heavenly apparitions and "revelations" (using the LDS term, not the Catholic one), the belief that more than the Bible is necessary, the belief in saving rituals, and so forth.  So yes, we share a lot, but being a cult isn't one of them, and I'm glad to know good Mormons both here on the board and in real life off the board that are seeking God's will.

+PAX+

3 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Doesn't make the feigned outrage any the less hypocritical.

 

My outrage is neither feigned nor hypocritical.  I have not cheated on my wife nor grabbed a woman by her genitals.  Exactly how is it rank hypocrisy that I am disgusted by Trump as my president?

Edit: I'm sure I've overreacted; you didn't accuse me of hypocrisy.  Please accept my apologies and read my following post  

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I really enjoyed hearing the Latin mass as televised for midnight mass on Christmas.  Love the sanctus as usual but that dang old credo always gets me.  

Grrrr.   That first line works but fergitabout the rest.

But it's in Latin so it's all good, man

54 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

This is crap. Nothing Trump has reportedly said or done is more despicable than cheating on your wife. 

Here's an interview with Trump (there's a video of it and an article) about his years-long affair.  His only remorse is that he got caught and it ended.

He says:

"My life was so great in so many ways. The business was so great... a beautiful girlfriend [Marla Maples], a beautiful wife [Ivana Trump], a beautiful everything. Life was just a bowl of cherries."

Pretty despicable, eh?

4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The one thing works but the other doesn't. When you paste, doesn't the program give you a thing to click on to remove the formatting? 

I didn't notice it but I'll look for it next time I paste.

11 hours ago, california boy said:

Some would argue that both things are a revelation from God.  Others would argue that there is a difference between revelation from God and inspiration from God.  Therein lies the problem.  I think for some, to abandon the first definition for the more watered down definition, then the very distinct claim of Mormonism goes away.  If revelation is simply having a committee comes to a consensus, then how is the Mormon church different than any other church run by men wishing to do the will of God.  For some, by using a more broad definition of revelation then the claim of having a prophet is just a different title used by Mormons than the title of Pope the Catholics use or President that other religions use.  If that is the case, then one has to once again ask, "How are the claims of Mormonism any different than any other religion?"

I've argued this before on this board.  If we look beyond the words used to describe it (like "revelation") and just focus on the practical acts, it seems like the Pope and the President of the LDS church do the same thing.

1 minute ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I wish you would fix your formatting. When it's wide like that it makes it hard to read on an iPod. 

Looks just fine to me on my MacBook.  All I did was copy and paste from the NYTimes article.  I'm sorry it's not working for you.

29 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

So by my calculation, Trump has been in office half a work day and has already had a couple of cabinet appointments confirmed by Congress, signed a document to roll back Obamacare and another document declaring a freeze on regulatory measures pending a review. This on top of all the stuff involved in the inauguration. 

Wish all my days were that productive. 

That's very standard stuff for a new president.

Here's what Obama did on January 20, 2009:

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Hours laters, the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, signed a memorandum sent to agencies and departments to stop all pending regulations until a legal and policy review could be conducted by the Obama administration.

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After seeing Mr. Bush off, Mr. Obama went back inside the Capitol to sign nomination papers for his cabinet choices and to attend a traditional luncheon in Statuary Hall, the original chamber of the House of Representatives.

After lunch, the Senate got back to business, and by unanimous consent confirmed the appointments of seven cabinet secretaries

5 minutes ago, JAHS said:

Well he didn't mention Mormon's; unless you count the part where he spoke about Trump's critics. Here's the sermon:

Robert Jeffrees sermon

Thanks for the link.  That was quite a fawning flattering sermon.  I'm sure Trump's ego just ate it up (maybe that's why he chose Jeffreess):

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Today─one year later─God has raised you and Vice-President-elect Pence up for a great, eternal purpose.

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President-elect Trump, you, Vice President-elect Pence, and your team have been called by God

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Mr. President-elect, I don’t believe we have ever had a president with as many natural gifts as you.

I wonder what previous inaugural sermons have been like.  I wonder who Romney would have chosen to give it and what that person would have said.

He's also anti-Catholic, so we're all in good company

Pastor Robert Jeffress scheduled to preach to Trump

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A pastor with a long history of inflammatory remarks about Muslims, Mormons, Catholics and gays is scheduled to preach at a private service for President-elect Trump and his family on Friday, shortly before Trump takes the oath of office.

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Jeffress leads a 12,000-member megachurch in Dallas and is a frequent guest on Fox News. But to many Americans, he may be best known for his frequent condemnations of Mormonism as a "cult" during the 2012 presidential campaign. He urged Christians not to vote for Mitt Romney, a Mormon, during the Republican primary. He later supported Romney over President Barack Obama. 

Jeffress has also called Islam and Mormonism heresies "from the pit of hell," suggested that the Catholic church was led astray by Satan, accused Obama of "paving the way" for the Antichrist and spread false statistics about the prevalence of HIV among gays, who he said live a "miserable" and "filthy" lifestyle.

In recent years, Jeffress has frequently denounced Islam, calling it an "evil religion" that "promotes pedophilia" because the Prophet Muhammed married a 9-year-old girl. (Many modern Muslim scholars disagree about her age.) The pastor has also said that Mormons, Muslims and Hindus "worship a false god."

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Love it.

That's just because you have Latin as part of your avatar...

It's actually an old joke between me and Mark.  I thought I'd come out of semi-retirement to bring it up again

22 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

THREAD NECROMANCY ALERT!

I get that somebody landed here by way of Google.

But even I had to look twice before I realized I had already posted on this thread, and it was clear back in July.

Hey, I got two rep points in the past 12 hours because of the post on this thread that I made back in July.  I'm selfishly pleased that this has been resurrected  

3 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Very helpful. I kind of understood what you said in the two posts I referred to, but this one solidifies it for me and I now understand. Thank you.

In light of your posts, I wonder why the prophet Joseph Smith says when things eventually get to the point where the world will hatefully reject the Restored Gospel and violently persecute and murder those who espouse it, he will then try to bring those who reject the Restored Gospel message to repentance, and to the TRUTH, by what the prophet called "the sermon of nature." And what is this semon of nature? It's the oft prophesied dreadful day of divine destruction when God will send forth mighty convulsions of nature designed to humble the rebellious and bring then to repentance and the TRUTH. Do you think God will be unwise if he actually resorts to such a crude and inelegant method to try to bring unbelieving atheists to his version of the TRUTH? Another way of phrasing the same question might be, "when it comes to bringing people to God's version of the  truth, does human sorrow, misery, agony  and desperation trump in effectiveness challenges issued by believers for atheists to engage in post-modern philosophical introspection?" Or is it that the sermon of nature will inspire much post-modern philosophical introspection? 😉

I like how you capitalized TRUTH.  If you really want to take it to the next level, I suggest using: TRVTH.

1 hour ago, Marmonboy said:

I like to read modern translations of the Bible, as they are easier and clearer. But having been done by Protestants, they frequently differ from LDS interpretations of doctrine and history.

The King James Version was also done by Protestants (the Church of England).

I suggest you check out the Douay-Rheims translation (wikipedia article here), especially the Challoner revision.  It is a wonderful example of counter-reformation Catholicism and was influential in the translation of the KJV.  In a lot of ways you can look at it as the non-Protestant version of the KJV.  Check it out here.

PAX

1 hour ago, carbon dioxide said:

The LDS faith requires more of its members than others like church callings.  Many churches you just have to show up and listen to a preacher for an hour and that is it.   

I understand what you are saying and there is of course merit in it.  However, I'd like you to consider the following: in some way, isn't it asking more of members of a church to do things when they are not explicitly asked/required?  If it is all volunteer based, then people can certainly slide into being lazy, so it seems to me that it puts a greater burden on the individual to actually take initiative, based on what God is telling him or her, to do work in a particular area.

Also, I think by not having explicit callings, an individual Christian then has greater freedom to discern what God wants for him or her.  For example, maybe God's will for me isn't to work with the youth, but to help women with unplanned/unwanted pregnancies... if I am truly seeking God's will, that puts me in a place of humility to figure out what God wants of me.  It also means that I have to personally wrestle with God (and myself!) to figure out what He wants.  If I just defer to what an authority asks me to do, in some ways that seems the easier path, because I don't have to figure out God's will, I just accept the authority's calling of me as God's will.  It seems much easier to seek confirmation in what someone else has told me to do than to actually figure out from scratch what God wants me to do.

Just food for thought from a Catholic perspective...

+PAX

On 6/26/2016 at 3:04 PM, Valentinus said:

He has no interest in the theologies of these groups. As a humanitarian, he'll meet others as a gesture of goodwill. For him, meeting an LDS apostle is the same as meeting any other person on the street. Essentially, he's meeting a person and not a person with a religion. 

This is incorrect.  I recommend this book:  The Good Heart.  It is the proceedings of a conference where the Dalai Lama meets with the World Community for Christian Meditation.  He comments on passages from the New Testament.

He was very much interested in theology.

Now you all just need to get your own version of the Jesuits to run your schools

Let's not forget that for most of the world, "family" is not the nuclear family but the extended family.  It is a rather American and Western European view that the nuclear family is what family means.