Bishop Bans Electronic Devices

[rchorse]

I'm really not a big fan of adding any rules beyond what's in the Handbooks. Do we really need more rules to follow? I'm more in favor of teaching, encouraging, persuading, and leading by example.

[canard78]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

Give me my electronic device or give me death!

Cake or death?

[canard78]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

While I agree that stopping hugging might have been too much (I think I would have suggested instead to talk to the RS President about the issue and then have her discuss it with the sisters and perhaps include suggestions for shorter and less full body contact), telling someone to get over being a creep when they are likely having addictive thoughts (if they can't control them to that extent even when they desire to control them, it sounds like a true dysfunction, possibly addiction, possibly something else) isn't helpful or healthy, IMO.  I would not tell an alcoholic to stop being a lush and just get over their triggers to drink and insist they should just deal with being at places they come in contact with alcohol, but would try to help them with coping behaviour or direct them to someone who could...nor would I ban alcohol simply so they wouldn't be confronted, but try to work out a compromise so that those who desired it could have it and those who had issues could avoid it.

Perhaps have a foyer or probably better an early time period where hugging was part of the social dialogue, but suggest that the remainder of the meetings be limited to other forms of welcoming.

I would suggest that genuine sex addiction is far rarer than the frequency with which it appears to happen within Mormonism. All too frequently, Mormon leaders turn natural, but incredibly strong physical urges, into something evil and repugnant. 

Being a young adult male means that there will be certain natural physical attractions. Turning those feelings into a description of sex addiction isn't really very helpful for the individual. Maybe those people were genuinely sex addicts, in which case they need to follow the appropriate course of treatment. I agree that telling anyone with any form of mental illness (whether it be addiction or any of form of mental malady) to "get over it" is definitely not helpful. 

Either way, I still think that banning the rest of the ward from hugging is using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut!

[HappyJackWagon]

5 hours ago, canard78 said:

I would suggest that genuine sex addiction is far rarer than the frequency with which it appears to happen within Mormonism. All too frequently, Mormon leaders turn natural, but incredibly strong physical urges, into something evil and repugnant. 

Being a young adult male means that there will be certain natural physical attractions. Turning those feelings into a description of sex addiction isn't really very helpful for the individual. Maybe those people were genuinely sex addicts, in which case they need to follow the appropriate course of treatment. I agree that telling anyone with any form of mental illness (whether it be addiction or any of form of mental malady) to "get over it" is definitely not helpful. 

Either way, I still think that banning the rest of the ward from hugging is using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut!

Amen.

Calling urges or even habits an "addiction" minimizes the person's responsibility and maximizes the pathology. It's a really strange combo. Think about what the label of "addict" really tells a person when they internalize it. IMO it's not a very healthy approach to sxuality.

[Thinking]

6 hours ago, canard78 said:

Either way, I still think that banning the rest of the ward from hugging is using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut!

Perhaps it would be wise to not judge unless you were there.

I went to a Spanish speaking mission. Spanish speaking people greet with hugs and cheek kisses. We were encouraged to practice giving "abrazos" at floor prayer in the MTC. There were a few Elders whose "abrazos" lingered for longer than was comfortable. Most of us hugged a few Elders and went to our rooms. These few Elders started keeping track and if you didn't hug them they would seek you out. It was creepy. One night we avoided them and they chased us into our room, confronted us and a fistfight nearly happened. We didn't go to floor prayer again until they shipped out (which was the next week thankfully).

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

People are responsible for their own thoughts, shy people are responsible for dealing with their shyness, introververts with their introversion, germophobics with their phobias, reserved people with their reservations...I can think of tons of reasons someone may not want to hug.  Should these individuals be either ignored or given precedence over those who enjoy hugging for good reasons?  Not to my view, but I would hope we could encourage an environment where we are okay with asking people what they would prefer rather than assuming, especially given a number of individuals have difficulties in a variety of ways with physical contact due to being abused as children or adults.

People need to take responsibility for their own thoughts, whatever they are, and not lay that burden on someone else; but we can also be kind and try to anticipate where someone might have issues and provide accommodation or alternatives that can be easily accessed without stigma.  Nor should we be culturally blind and ignore expectations of the community we are in as if our own preferences should always be top priority. However, it is also unkind to demand more extreme accommodations in general circumstances; people should not be forced to pay for or work at expensive or time consuming projects for minor benefits for one person, IMO.

If one could control one's thoughts, there would be no depression, no crimes of passion, and no need for general authorities to keep preaching that temptation is not a sin.

I think young men in heat would disagree when all you can think about is sex, every moment if every day. It is constant and never stops

 

[rongo]

On 12/3/2016 at 3:55 PM, Scott Lloyd said:

I've been in at least one Seminar for New Mission Presidents where departing mission presidents and their wives were strictly instructed that the principles and procedures in the missionary guide "Preach My Gospel" are the current way things are to be done and they are not to ignore or supplant them with other methods or procedures, even those that they think worked for them in the past as missionaries or leaders. 

It isn't the Preach My Gospel instructions that I'm talking about. I'm talking about Church policies, including handbooks that only mission presidents have. My former stake president (we had a new one installed yesterday) told my wife last Sunday in a recommend interview about something that a member of the seventy had shared in their most recent coordinating council (area stake presidents, areas seventy, and sometimes Church leaders). He shared something that a mission president in the Philippines had done, under revelation, that pretty severely violates several handbook proscriptions. His purpose for sharing this with the stake presidents was that "handbooks are guidelines, but never let them trump revelation you receive." The stake president's reason for sharing this with my wife was in appreciation for my maturity and courage in not being afraid to do the right thing when inspired, even though it might come into contact with the handbooks. I don't make a general habit of it, but there have been some things that have come up over the last nine years.

[rongo]

21 hours ago, canard78 said:

There are at least two bits of this that make my eyes pop!

"...real inspiration can trump the handbooks (just make sure that it's real inspiration!)..."

Real inspiration? As opposed to counterfeit inspiration? And how does one decide or decipher when it's real inspiration and when it's just personal preference? 

That's the $64,000 question of mortality, and the one that has perhaps the most value for us in mortality. There isn't 100% certainty in this life, but there is value in us trying to discern and receive confirmation. Anyone who's ever really tried to discern knows that it can be extremely difficult (100% difficult, with 100% certainty) to discern between what I called real inspiration and what we think is real inspiration. In my experience, we gain valuable experience even when we aren't 100% accurate in discerning this. 

Quote

And then this bit: 

"...several men struggling with pornography and masturbation told him that the hugging phenomenon made it harder for them, because they found themselves using the hugs pornographically --- as fantasy ideation..."

Seriously?! The bishop stopped everyone else from hugging each other, simply because a few guys were getting aroused by hugging? He should have focused on telling them to stop being such creeps and realise that a hug is a hug. 

People need to take responsibility for their own problems. That's like someone struggling with a diet wanting shops to stop selling cake to all the other people who can eat cake responsibly.

-----

(rongo, here. I hate how you can't change the formatting by editing if it makes a quote box mistake): Key-holders hold keys for their stewardships, and that is a sacred thing. It was enough of a problem in my dad's ward (and it is an increasing phenomenon among young people overrall, this ubiquitous hugging) that that was the decision for that area using his priesthood keys. It wasn't just one or two guys, and it went beyond just having bad thoughts. And for men really struggling with it, it isn't as simple as simply refusing hugs themselves. Have you ever been in a YSA ward, with gossiping, cliquishness, and potential ostracism? Or insecurities of many in that boat? 

I'll take key-holders doing the best that they can with those keys over online people's opinions, any day of the week.

Edited December 5, 2016 by rongo

[Thinking]

On 12/3/2016 at 3:55 PM, Scott Lloyd said:

I've been in at least one Seminar for New Mission Presidents where departing mission presidents and their wives were strictly instructed that the principles and procedures in the missionary guide "Preach My Gospel" are the current way things are to be done and they are not to ignore or supplant them with other methods or procedures, even those that they think worked for them in the past as missionaries or leaders.

Maybe the Law of Moses wasn't fulfilled after all.

[rongo]

16 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Couldn't you just make an exception? You know, by way of not letting the handbook rules get in the way of personal, <real> inspiration? 

(Sorry. There was an opening there I just couldn't resist. No need to respond.)

That's a fair question, Scott, and a good point you make, given what I had written. 

Key-holders have to make myriads of real-time, split second decisions, and they can be tough and weighing. I think this is the single biggest burden that people who have never been in that boat will never fully feel or understand. I certainly could have "just let it go" with videotaping a baptism, but if it doesn't feel right . . . and you have to do/say something NOW!

Definitely a moment where you look to the promise to be given what to say in that very moment.

 

 

[Thinking]

11 hours ago, canard78 said:

Either way, I still think that banning the rest of the ward from hugging is using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut!

Some walnuts might need a sledgehammer.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

Maybe the Law of Moses wasn't fulfilled after all.

Why don't you write to the Missionary Executive Council, including the apostles who sit on that council, and tell them they are stuck in the law of Moses and have rejected Christ's fulfillment of it because they insist on mission presidents abiding by what's in Preach My Gospel? And then report back to us. I'd be interested to hear their response.

The sense I got was that people saying, "Forget what you learned at the MTC; we do things differently in this mission" has been a problem in the past, or it the point would not have been raised in the Seminar for New Mission Presidents.

Edited to add:

Forbidding the use of electronics in the chapel by everyone for any reason strikes me as being more Mosaic Law-like than the let-them-govern-themselves approach of allowing the devices but teaching people what does not constitute appropriate use of them at church.

Edited December 5, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

38 minutes ago, rongo said:

That's a fair question, Scott, and a good point you make, given what I had written. 

Key-holders have to make myriads of real-time, split second decisions, and they can be tough and weighing. I think this is the single biggest burden that people who have never been in that boat will never fully feel or understand. I certainly could have "just let it go" with videotaping a baptism, but if it doesn't feel right . . . and you have to do/say something NOW!

Definitely a moment where you look to the promise to be given what to say in that very moment.

 

 

I really do understand that. And my post was somewhat facetious (even mischievous) and not really calling for a response.

If I have a point, it is that occasions when one is inspired to contradict the guidelines given in the handbooks (which presumably are, themselves, prepared under inspiration) would be very much the exception. And I think you understand that, as you said I had made a good point.

To bring this back to the thread topic, I think, realistically speaking, there are occasions, perhaps, when personal preference is confused with or mistaken for inspiration. But I'm repeating myself here.

Edited December 5, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If one could control one's thoughts, there would be no depression, no crimes of passion, and no need for general authorities to keep preaching that temptation is not a sin.

I think young men in heat would disagree when all you can think about is sex, every moment if every day. It is constant and never stops

 

But maybe you meant you meant that one could control one's reactions to thoughts?

[Jeanne]

17 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Couldn't you just make an exception? You know, by way of not letting the handbook rules get in the way of personal, <real> inspiration? 

(Sorry. There was an opening there I just couldn't resist. No need to respond.)

 

I would have loved for these sentences to come from you in November, 2015.

[Rain]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If one could control one's thoughts, there would be no depression, no crimes of passion, and no need for general authorities to keep preaching that temptation is not a sin.

I think young men in heat would disagree when all you can think about is sex, every moment if every day. It is constant and never stops

 

One CAN control one's thoughts, but it can be incredibly difficult and may take years or decades or centuries to do so.  I found the need to do so on my mission and worked hard with the Lord to do so. I will never judge someone for not controlling thoughts. I will never demand that anyone control their thoughts, but I feel the need to share that it can be done because just knowing it can be done gives someone greater power to accomplish it...some day.   One thing to keep in mind is that doesn't necessarily mean our natural human responses will be changed when we are able to control our thoughts.  Those responses can be very different than thoughts. 

44 minutes ago, rongo said:

It isn't the Preach My Gospel instructions that I'm talking about. I'm talking about Church policies, including handbooks that only mission presidents have. My former stake president (we had a new one installed yesterday) told my wife last Sunday in a recommend interview about something that a member of the seventy had shared in their most recent coordinating council (area stake presidents, areas seventy, and sometimes Church leaders). He shared something that a mission president in the Philippines had done, under revelation, that pretty severely violates several handbook proscriptions. His purpose for sharing this with the stake presidents was that "handbooks are guidelines, but never let them trump revelation you receive." The stake president's reason for sharing this with my wife was in appreciation for my maturity and courage in not being afraid to do the right thing when inspired, even though it might come into contact with the handbooks. I don't make a general habit of it, but there have been some things that have come up over the last nine years.

This to me sounds very much how I feel about the spirit of the law.  While this isn't the "law" it seems to apply to me.  I've found those that live the law will be inspired by when the Spirit says that it is the rare, right time to do something different.  Others rarely live the law and then use the spirit of the law for justification to break the law often, sometimes bragging they are living the spirit of the law.  Just to be clear it sounds like you live by the spirit of the law. 

[Scott Lloyd]

4 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

I would have loved for these sentences to come from you in November, 2015.

Um, sorry, you lost me. I don't get your point.

But never mind.

[cinepro]

5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Um, sorry, you lost me. I don't get your point.

But never mind.

Probably referring to the unpopular and short-lived policy regarding children of same-sex couples not getting baptized.

[Thinking]

5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Why don't you write to the Missionary Executive Council, including the apostles who sit on that council, and tell them they are stuck in the law of Moses and have rejected Christ's fulfillment of it because they insist on mission presidents abiding by what's in Preach My Gospel? And then report back to us. I'd be interested to hear their response.

Do you have contact information?

[Thinking]

11 hours ago, canard78 said:

Cake or death?

I think that many members would gladly put away their devices for a piece of cake.

[rongo]

10 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Probably referring to the unpopular and short-lived policy regarding children of same-sex couples not getting baptized.

Are we sure it's going to be short-lived? The Church has dug in on this to the point where undoing it next year, as John Dehlin and Bill Reel allege inside moles confirm, will be problematic. 

I'm not saying it can't/won't happen. I'm saying it would be problematic if it did.

[Jeanne]

24 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Um, sorry, you lost me. I don't get your point.

But never mind.

I deserved that.  In speaking of an exception to any handbook policy, A shame that the early policy on child baptism of gays in November, 2015 could have been one you would suggest.

[Scott Lloyd]

51 minutes ago, rongo said:

Are we sure it's going to be short-lived? The Church has dug in on this to the point where undoing it next year, as John Dehlin and Bill Reel allege inside moles confirm, will be problematic. 

I'm not saying it can't/won't happen. I'm saying it would be problematic if it did.

That the Church leaders have, as you say, "dug in" is a pretty good sign they don't contemplate "undoing it." And yes, calling it "short-lived" is premature, to say the least.

And, if rescinding it would be "problematic," a recent Salt Lake Tribune poll showing that support for the policy is growing would indicate that standing pat and sticking by the policy would be less so.

In the past, Church leaders have shown a determination to adhere to policies they thought were wise notwithstanding frequent complaint about them. An example that readily comes to mind is the requirement that couples in the United States who get married with a civil ceremony must wait a year before having a temple sealing.

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

Some walnuts might need a sledgehammer.

Nothing here to indicate scale. That is, there is nothing in the photo such as a ruler or a pencil to show a basis for comparison.

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

12 hours ago, canard78 said:

I would suggest that genuine sex addiction is far rarer than the frequency with which it appears to happen within Mormonism. All too frequently, Mormon leaders turn natural, but incredibly strong physical urges, into something evil and repugnant. 

Being a young adult male means that there will be certain natural physical attractions. Turning those feelings into a description of sex addiction isn't really very helpful for the individual. Maybe those people were genuinely sex addicts, in which case they need to follow the appropriate course of treatment. I agree that telling anyone with any form of mental illness (whether it be addiction or any of form of mental malady) to "get over it" is definitely not helpful. 

Either way, I still think that banning the rest of the ward from hugging is using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut!

I did not say it was addiction, that is one of many possibilities...some serious, some not...many just part of becoming adult and learning how to control one's thoughts and emotions.  And being placed in a situation where one feels overwhelmed by what is going on around them is not a good way to learn control.  Nor is removing all stimuli...probably the best would be middling to high, with some occasions getting very close to overwhelming, but not there if possible.  I think life provides enough overwhelming opportunities on its own to learn one can survive them, where we can I think it makes more sense to provide situations where control can be practiced.

I don't see telling someone in the process of growing up and learning control that they are a creep and to just get over it at all helpful.  That is more likely, IMO, to drive them into retreat out of fear of doing something else that labels them a creep.