Interesting Article Re: Conversion to Catholicism

[smac97]

An unexpected journey from the Latter-day Saints to Catholicism

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Jeremy Christiansen was raised in a faithful Mormon family. As a young man, he spent two years in Argentina as a missionary. When he returned, he married another member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and started a family. He held prominent roles in his faith community. Then one day he asked himself, “What if what I’ve been taught isn’t true — wouldn’t I want to know that?” His research and soul-searching eventually led him and his whole family to the Catholic Church.

When Mormon and Catholic friends asked why he converted, he wrote down his story, which became the book “From the Susquehanna to the Tiber: A Memoir of Conversion from Mormonism to the Roman Catholic Church.” LDS members believe that Peter, James and John appeared to LDS founder Joseph Smith on the banks of the Susquehanna River and conferred upon him the keys of the kingdom that Christ gave to Peter.

“For Catholics, I hope that this can help them see the world from the Mormon perspective so that when they try to evangelize, they might understand a little better,” said Christiansen. “For Mormons who might be doubting their own faith, this might (show) there’s something else and that something else is the true, the good and the beautiful of Catholicism.”

I find these sorts of stories very interesting.  And I have a lot of respect for our Catholic neighbors.

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Christiansen, 35, grew up in the small town of Blanding, Utah. “Our faith was really central to our lives, I suppose in a lot of ways similar to how devout Catholics grow up,” he said. “We said prayers every morning and every night as a family, we read from the Book of Mormon, we went to church every Sunday, we participated in youth activities during the week.”

Though he was rebellious in his teens, his faith became his own as he reached the end of high school. “I had the key religious experience Mormons are taught to seek out — they call it ‘gaining a testimony,’ ” said Christiansen. “In the Book of Mormon, it says that anybody can read the Book of Mormon and pray to God and through the power of the Holy Ghost, God will manifest to each individual that it’s true. It’s really a subjective, emotional experience that many Mormons have and that forms the basis of their belief.”

This sounds pretty fair.  We characterize Moroni's Challenge as a spiritual exercise, but it can be confused with being an "emotional" one.  

I also think the process is ultimately, but not entirely, "subjective."

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After high school, Christiansen spent two formative years as a missionary. “It felt like you were living in the Book of Acts,” he said. “I spent every day, all day, stopping every person on the street, knocking on doors, trying to convince people of the truth of my faith.” Though he faced a lot of rejection, when there were successes, he felt even more affirmed. “LDS missionaries will stop in the middle of the road and pray about which street (they) should go down,” he said. “And when those things pan out, it really reinforces in your mind that God is leading you to all these people.”

When he returned to the U.S., he met his wife, Carly, and they married in 2008. “My wife comes from an equally devout LDS home and our religion was super important to us,” he said. “We volunteered on top of school and work and having kids.” They had two children while Christiansen earned his undergraduate degree at Southern Utah University in Cedar City and two more while he was in law school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. They now have seven children: Raymond, 13, Virginia, 12, Rex, 10, Goldie, 8, Opal, 3, Peter, 1, and Linus, a newborn.

“Things were happy,” said Christiansen. But in law school, things started to unravel. The stress of studying was difficult enough. But then he was called to a new leadership position in the church. “When you’re called, there’s a ceremony where they put their hands on your head and they pronounce an extemporaneous blessing upon you, believed by everybody there to be what God is saying to you. This (church leader) made some really specific promises to me. It gave me a lot of comfort.”

But when those promises about what he would accomplish in law school didn’t come to pass, Christiansen started to doubt. “It was really devastating and it caused a huge amount of cognitive dissonance,” he said. At the same time, a number of prominent members of the LDS church resigned their memberships due to historical and doctrinal issues with Mormon history. So, for the first time, Christiansen decided to research the life of founder Joseph Smith.

Learning more about Smith’s participation in folk magic and treasure digging as well as his extreme polygamous lifestyle deeply concerned Christiansen. But overall, it was knowing that the scholarly biographies he read painted a more believable picture of the founding of Mormonism than he ever had received growing up.

“You’re taught a particular narrative in the LDS church and there are maybe a few things here and there that don’t quite make sense, but you don’t think about them a whole lot,” he said. “After doing all the reading, (I was) presented with a coherent narrative that explained things better.”

This is a good example of why Richard L. Bushman's efforts regarding the need for the Church to "reconstruct" its historical narrative.  I went through a somewhat similar experience, just at a much younger age.  I was fortunate to have a father to offer some assistance in sorting things out.

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In 2015, he told his wife that he no longer believed. He continued to take his children to church with her, but it was hard. “It’s a really unpleasant time to think about because my entire universe was just ripped out from under me,” he said. “You feel lied to, you feel silly for having believed. On top of that, I’m married to a devout woman and she’s raising our children in the LDS church. It became increasingly difficult as my children were growing and I would hear them being taught things that I knew were not even arguably true.”

Though he no longer considered himself Mormon, he still thought of himself as Christian, and one day he picked up a book of the writings of the early Church Fathers. “I thought it would be interesting to see what early Christians believed and that I (could) pick and choose a few things they believed and build my own beliefs,” he said. “I was shocked to find that all these people were Catholic, or seemed like something really close to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. That really bothered me because it was not what I was expecting to find. One issue that touched me was the Real Presence. It seemed really obvious to me that whether I believed it or not, these people did.”

That discovery led to a year of intense research into Catholicism. At that point, the family had moved to Northern Virginia for Christiansen’s job and he decided to go to St. Rita Church in Alexandria for his first Mass. “It was so powerful and moving to me. It was really like being transported to another universe,” he said. “And in a way it was very different from the kind of emotionalism of Mormonism. There was something so rooted and ancient about Catholic liturgy.”

In 2018, Christiansen resigned his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was baptized at St. Rita. His family was there to witness it. “In (my wife’s) mind, it was not ideal but she has said, ‘It felt like I got my husband back.’ She sensed that this was a good thing for me,” said Christiansen.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic two years later, Carly began to watch Mass online with her husband. Their children also started at St. Rita School. Gradually, they all decided to become Catholic. His wife was baptized with their newborn son, Peter Ambrose, in 2021.

Ten years ago, Christiansen would never have dreamed that he would become Catholic, let alone that his wife and children would, too. “I couldn’t think of anything crazier,” he said. “Sometimes God works in our lives in ways that are difficult to see in the moment, in very unexpected ways.”

I wish him and his family the best.  The Catholics look to be getting a nice family.

Thanks,

-Smac

[OGHoosier]

I respect the Catholics as an institution and a denomination, but you'll have to forgive me for not being particularly inclined to celebrate.

[smac97]

8 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

I respect the Catholics as an institution and a denomination, but you'll have to forgive me for not being particularly inclined to celebrate.

I think this family is better off within the Catholic Church than outside both it and our faith.

Thanks,

-Smac

[OGHoosier]

33 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think this family is better off within the Catholic Church than outside both it and our faith.

Thanks,

-Smac

Undoubtedly true. And this story does serve as a sad reminder of the necessity of Bushman's warning. 

But it remains sad, despite the fact that it could be worse.

Edited November 30, 2022 by OGHoosier

[SeekingUnderstanding]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

I also think the process is ultimately, but not entirely, "subjective."

In what ways is the process not subjective?

[smac97]

15 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

I also think the process is ultimately, but not entirely, "subjective."

In what ways is the process not subjective?

I didn't say the process is "not subjective."  I said it is not entirely subjective, but is "ultimately" so.

The text of the Book of Mormon exists.  The statements of Joseph Smith and the Witnesses exist.  Factual averments as to the origins/provenance of the text have been made, and are - in a limited sense - testable.  

For me, I cannot reconcile the existence of the text to "Joseph wrote it" or "Joseph and an unknown cabal colluded" explanations for the text.  My assessment is, in the end, based on spiritual experiences I have had (which I acknowledge are subjective).  But there are plenty of ancillary evidences to help corroborate and strengthen my conclusions.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

Undoubtedly true. And this story does serve as a sad reminder of the necessity of Bushman's warning. 

But it remains sad, despite the fact that it could be worse.

Bushman has also credited the Church will doing what he was advocating: reconstructing the narrative.

It will take a while to trickle down.  Alas, some are prone to listen to soundbites and social trends rather than digging into books and other resources which present this reconstructive narrative.  The Church needs to be given a fair hearing, now more than ever.  And we need to address efforts of our critics/opponents crafting an unfair/inaccurate narrative of their own and presenting it to others (including to impressionable members of the Church).

Thanks,

-Smac

[Damien the Leper]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

Undoubtedly true. And this story does serve as a sad reminder of the necessity of Bushman's warning. 

But it remains sad, despite the fact that it could be worse.

It's a reminder that the ancient faith still moves God's creation to exactly where they are meant to be.

[smac97]

This just posted a few minutes ago: From Catholic to Mormon: Why Latinos are joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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Listen to This Story

Traditionally, Latinos have been associated with Catholicism. But for the past several decades, there’s been a trend of Latinos leaving the Catholic Church.

Some become evangelical, some leave religion altogether, and others joined a religion that looks very different from the Catholic Church: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sujey Vega is an assistant professor with the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University, and she researches this phenomenon.

The Show spoke with her to learn what triggers it, and how it intersects with her personal experience as a lapsed Latina Catholic.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SkyRock]

When I turned 18, I decided I needed to determine for myself if I was going to stay in the church or not.   I was not going to go on a mission if I didn't believe.   I was not going to waste my life if it wasn't true.

I had a very studious reader of the scriptures and various doctrine works, more than anyone my age, but I went about it with even more diligence, with fasting and prayer.   After a few months I decided to explicitly inquire if it was all true.  I received a strong confirmation.   

Even so, my testimony was largely an intellectual one.  Even after my mission it stayed that way.  While in grad school, I came upon some ideas that helped me move beyond the intellectual level, to a much more spiritual level.   This has only grown over the decades with all of life's struggles and trials.  

Nothing in church history has ever concerned me.  While I have concerns about the church and the leadership at times, I concern myself more about my life and things in my own control.

This gentleman struggled in law school and seemed have gotten mad that his blessing didn't turn out they way he thought it was.  Plus he got caught up in politics.  Lots of members let politics lead them away from under church over the last decade. 

Struggles in life should push us closer to God, but too many use them as a reason to blame the church. 

I am glad he found a church,  but if I left the church, I wouldn't go to the Catholic Church.  I would likely go after the Orthodoxy.   I have found great wisdom in the writings of various religions outside of the LDS Church.  However, since I have a very strong testimony of the BoM and the Restoration, I won't be leaving.   

Yes, the people involved in the Restoration were flawed.  It doesn't make the Restoration false.  Likewise, current church leadership are also imperfect humans and their imperfections do not cause the church to be false. 

[pogi]

38 minutes ago, SkyRock said:

When I turned 18, I decided I needed to determine for myself if I was going to stay in the church or not.   I was not going to go on a mission if I didn't believe.   I was not going to waste my life if it wasn't true.

I had a very studious reader of the scriptures and various doctrine works, more than anyone my age, but I went about it with even more diligence, with fasting and prayer.   After a few months I decided to explicitly inquire if it was all true.  I received a strong confirmation.   

Even so, my testimony was largely an intellectual one.  Even after my mission it stayed that way.  While in grad school, I came upon some ideas that helped me move beyond the intellectual level, to a much more spiritual level.   This has only grown over the decades with all of life's struggles and trials.  

Nothing in church history has ever concerned me.  While I have concerns about the church and the leadership at times, I concern myself more about my life and things in my own control.

This gentleman struggled in law school and seemed have gotten mad that his blessing didn't turn out they way he thought it was.  Plus he got caught up in politics.  Lots of members let politics lead them away from under church over the last decade. 

Struggles in life should push us closer to God, but too many use them as a reason to blame the church. 

I am glad he found a church,  but if I left the church, I wouldn't go to the Catholic Church.  I would likely go after the Orthodoxy.   I have found great wisdom in the writings of various religions outside of the LDS Church.  However, since I have a very strong testimony of the BoM and the Restoration, I won't be leaving.   

Yes, the people involved in the Restoration were flawed.  It doesn't make the Restoration false.  Likewise, current church leadership are also imperfect humans and their imperfections do not cause the church to be false. 

I'm not sure why you are bringing politics into his decision to leave.   I don't see where the article mentions politics at all, or that "he got caught up" in it.  This is what he said:

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“You’re taught a particular narrative in the LDS church and there are maybe a few things here and there that don’t quite make sense, but you don’t think about them a whole lot,” he said. “After doing all the reading, (I was) presented with a coherent narrative that explained things better.”

It doesn't suggest or remotely imply that he was reading politics, rather he was reading scholarly writings about Joseph Smith and the restoration.   That is ultimately what led him to leave the church.  The initial seed of doubt, however, was born from a false belief and culture within the church that this fellow fell victim to.  This to me is another example of what I have been saying for so long.  I see it over, and over, and over, and over again.  It is disillusionment born from unsustainable perspectives of our leaders as somehow infallible.   That is what caused him to question his faith - a false idea about prophets and leaders.  It is a school of thought that persists today in the church, engrained in the culture of many.  

Until this false belief and strong resistance to acknowledge mistakes in our church and leadership is addressed, we will continue to see many fall victim to it.  

Edited November 30, 2022 by pogi

[pogi]

19 minutes ago, Ambrosia said:

Rather than a need for the Church to receive a better historical narrative; however, the Church needs to receive a personal testimony from God regarding all of the basic tenets of our faith. 

Even with a testimony of that, if it is built upon another belief that our leaders don't make mistakes or that it is wrong to acknowledge mistakes, then the testimony of everything is liable to crumble when leaders prove to be human.   I think that is what we see here.  That is what initiated his doubt and sustained his investigation into why the church might not be true.  Testimonies are fragile.  It is not something that you receive once and are good for the rest of your life.  That is why we are so constantly encouraged and covenant to "remember" every single week.  It is an active living thing that can die quickly if not sustained.  That is why this toxic culture within the church is so damaging to testimony.  It gives room to step away for a while from active hope and sustaining faith and "remembering", and step into doubt.  When doubt overtakes hope, then once received personal testimonies have little "hope" of survival.        

Edited November 30, 2022 by pogi

[smac97]

28 minutes ago, Ambrosia said:

Yes, and it looks like we (LDS) lost a (another) nice family, which is why this is sad (albeit as you said "very Interesting") news.

This is about as good a "loss" as we can hope to see.

28 minutes ago, Ambrosia said:

Rather than a need for the Church to receive a better historical narrative; however, the Church needs to receive a personal testimony from God regarding all of the basic tenets of our faith. 

I'm not sure what you mean.  "A better historical narrative" is needed because, as demonstrated here, the un-reconstructed narrative can create some impediments to having an enduring and efficacious testimony.  We need to be more candid about our history.  

28 minutes ago, Ambrosia said:

Each and every member needs that, and that is always what is missing when a member chooses to leave the Church in favor of some other group, Christian or not.  Many leaders in the Church have told us how essential that is, and that without that we are likely to be lead astray.  This news is about an example of that.

Each of us as individuals need to have and maintain a personal testimony of the truthfulness of the Restoration.  I agree with that.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by smac97

[pogi]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

We need to be more candid about our history.  

This.  100%

A candid review of our history will demonstrate fallible leaders and an imperfect church.  Lest some accuse me of accentuating the negative, I only do so in this context to demonstrate a point.   A candid history will also point to inspired leaders and a divinely directed church.  But to tuck the uncomfortable truths under the rug and demean those who acknowledge mistakes in our leaders both past and present as misguided or unfaithful (not accusing anyone specifically) is to create an unsustainable narrative that will inevitably lead one to doubt as all leaders are human.  Our culture has propped up this super-human church leader to an unsustainable level for far too long. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, SkyRock said:

seemed have gotten mad that his blessing didn't turn out they way he thought it was. 

I don’t think it is fair to assume he got mad rather than confused and hurt, feeling lost…

And I agree with Pogi, there is nothing that suggests politics played a role. 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Calm

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Ambrosia said:

This fellow didn't even understand the mechanics involved in priesthood blessings, and priesthood officers. And supposedly he had the priesthood conferred upon himself.  I am sad that he didn't put more effort into understanding such things about God and how God works with priesthood officers. God will teach us and answer our questions about such things, so if we don't know it isn't God's fault.  And it isn't necessarily the fault of our priesthood leaders or other officers, either.  (by priesthood officer I mean anyone ordained to any office of the priesthood)

It bothers me that when a life-time Latter-day Saint who attends church faithfully his entire life (with a short stint of rebellion in his high-school years), and faithfully serves a mission, marries in the temple and raises a family faithfully in the church is accused of not "putting more effort into understanding such things".    Where do you think this faulty idea came from?  He was literally raised in/by the church?  It didn't come from nowhere.  I have seen it enough times in my life to KNOW that it is not an outlier perception.  It is one that I am personally recovering from.   It is a common source of disillusionment from my observations of close relatives and friends who have left the church.  For so many to have that perception of church leaders is indeed a fault of church leadership.

You are absolutely correct, that there are plenty of teachings about not relying on borrowed light and other such correct principles.  But despite those teachings, there is an undercurrent of culture that drives leaders to say things like "when the leaders speak, the thinking has been done" which undermine correct principles and generates a toxic fear around questioning what a leader ever says or does.   There are many other examples like it.  It was a palpable culture that I remember from growing up in the 80's and early 90's church that I vividly remember and am still recovering from to this day.  While the church, over-all, has improved, the culture remains strong in many.  There is still a culture of fear surrounding questioning our leaders.  There is a culture that suggests it is a slippery slope to not always trust in our leaders.  But as slopey as it may be, the alternative is even more dangerous.   As I have said before, for a faith to endure all things, we need to learn to live on the slopes of real life. 

Someone engrained in that culture might answer -  "while it is true that we shouldn't live on borrowed light, it doesn't mean that our leaders can/will lead us astray on certain issues, or to believe in false principles, ideas, or confer bogus blessings."  That we can't live on borrowed light actually perpetuates the idea that our leaders are nothing but a source of light, and that we need our own testimony of them.  This idea of having "faith in our leaders", I believe is one source of this culture.   I don't believe in having faith in leaders, I have faith in God and what he speaks to me personally and through leaders that is verified to me via the spirit.   I have faith in principles, not people.  When we teach members to have faith in people, we are setting ourselves up for inevitable faith-crisis when those people prove to be human.  We can only have faith in things which are true...but people/leaders, aren't always "true".   So, such teachings and ways of living are damaging to faith and set people up for disillusionment.       

Edited November 30, 2022 by pogi

[pogi]

57 minutes ago, Ambrosia said:

Our perception of our Church leaders is our own.  They did not give it to us.  They told us what they thought and we then formed our own impression of them and what they were saying, as we heard or read what they said.  Were we right to think they were right if they were wrong?  No.  If they were wrong then they were wrong even if we thought they were right.  If they were right and we thought they were wrong, were we right?  No.  Our leaders are right only when they are right, and when they are wrong, they are wrong.  Feel free to substitute  "right" with "telling the truth" or "saying what God said" or whatever you please to extend the idea. This fellow said and thought that because a priesthood officer said something while giving him a blessing that was the same as God saying what the priesthood officer said and therefore whatever the priesthood officer promised as a blessing was promised as a blessing by God.  And according to this same fellow, those promised blessings did not materialize.  So what say ye?  Is this fellow telling the truth?  If he was, was the priesthood officer who promised the blessing telling the truth?  Was he God or speaking as God?  Apparently somebody is wrong about something.  How do you propose we arrive at a solution?  Do you think you should believe everything any priesthood officer tells you? How do you propose people determine who is telling the truth? 

Do you think that predatory corporations have no accountability for misleading perceptions in deceptive advertising?

Please don't misunderstand me here.  I am not comparing church leaders to predatory corporations, I am making a point about perceptions and accountability.   To blame members and suggest it is their fault for believing church leaders after being taught by them and by a dominant culture of just trusting in what they say, is misguided. 

Notice how black and white the following contemporary comment are.  There is no room for picking and choosing what to believe - lest one be accused of being the dreaded "cafeteria Mormon":

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As we press forward, choosing to follow the counsel and the warnings of our leaders, we choose to follow the Lord while the world is going in another direction.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2016/04/standing-with-the-leaders-of-the-church?lang=eng

As we choose to follow "the counsel" period.  Not the "correct counsel", or the "inspired counsel", but "the counsel" of our leaders.  If we follow "the counsel" of our leaders, we choose to follow the Lord.  If we don't follow the counsel of our leaders, we are following the direction of the world.  Period.   It is not hard to see how such teachings might have influenced this toxic culture.  It didn't come from no where.  To place all the blame on the members and place no blame on the leaders is really, really problematic.  It attests to the very point I am making - protect the leaders at all costs.  They are not to blame.  Blame the members instead.  While you at least acknowledge that they make mistakes, there is still an undercurrent of keeping our leaders free from accountability or fault. 

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Our obedience and our faith in our leaders is put to the test through callings and releases.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/1988/02/question-and-answer/question-and-answer?lang=eng

If we question anything a leader does, it becomes a test of faith.   Will we remain faithful or go the way of the world?

Again, highlighting this unsustainable idea of having faith in people - which again, can't always be true.  So, if true faith can only be in things that are true, then faith in people is unsustainable and not true faith. 

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The Lord promised us that if we believe in the holy prophets, we should have eternal life (see D&C 20:26). In the sixth article of faith, we declare that we believe in prophets. To believe means to have faith and confidence in them and to follow and do what the prophets ask us to do.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2010/10/obedience-to-the-prophets?lang=eng

They are equating believing in prophets with having faith in men and doing whatever they ask.  Again, should there really be any question as to how these faulty perceptions and cultures arise in the church? 

Here is another:

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We can trust the prophet’s counsel when we come to know that the Church’s doctrinal teachings are true.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/elder-tad-r-callister-shares-why-latter-day-saints-can-have-faith-in-modern-day-prophets?lang=eng

Again, black and white.  There is no room for human fallibility there.  If the church is true, then we can trust the prophet's counsel.   This same faulty counsel has had a trickle down effect and is applied to all ecclesiastical leadership.   

To ignore the source and teachings of leadership that has generated this perception, is to ignore the problem and perpetuate the perception and culture in our church.  If we keep blaming membership for believing in their leaders, then nothing will ever change.  We are only perpetuating the problem. 

I am only scratching the surface of examples.    

Edited December 1, 2022 by pogi

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Ambrosia said:

People do say things that are wrong, from time to time.  Even priesthood officers.  You seem to be aware of this truth.  So, knowing that, will you automatically believe something a priesthood officer tells you?  If not, why not. If yes, why? 

I understand why people believe everything their leadership tells them.  I understand because I used to be one of those people.  It is how they were raised to believe, so it is hardly "their fault".   To some extent we need to be accountable for what we choose believe, but when we are raised from childhood to believe a certain way, it can become your reality even when you are an adult.  It is not something many even think about, it just is the way it is and always has been.  When it comes to forming perceptions - to place all accountabilities on the receiver of a message and none on the giver of the message really is unhelpful in understanding and addressing the issue.

Edited December 1, 2022 by pogi

[pogi]

12 minutes ago, Ambrosia said:

People often misunderstand what someone is saying, or claiming, or offering to sell.  The more clear the communication, the better, but what is clear to one is often not clear to some other person. I see a need for more specifics on this.

The end result is usually someone was right and another person involved was wrong.  What was said?  What was understood?  Was there some type of misunderstanding?  If someone is wrong but doesn't know he is wrong, is he right?  Deceptive?

 

There is no harm if the doctrine is correct, though.  Right?   Believing church leaders and trusting what they say is all well and good as long as they are right about what they say.  And I suppose they always believe what they say.  Don't you think so?

So there is no real problem as long as everything they say is right, correct, true doctrine not only of our Church but also of Jesus Christ.  Everything they say would then be what we should believe.  Because if Jesus say so, then it must be right. 

 

I usually assume the person saying something like this believes what he (or she) is saying and is talking and thinking about "correct, inspired" counsel even if not using those words.  I don't think he would advise following counsel he believed was wrong.

So here we have someone expressing his (or her) own faith that his and our priesthood leaders are giving good counsel and useful warnings while advising others to heed what they say.  If he felt differently, he probably wouldn't advise that. 

Either way, it is still a test of our own faith.  I often say things to express my faith in my priesthood leaders, which itself is based on my personal testimony from God.  Counsel from our priesthood leaders is usually good, general.  Sometimes they're a bit too extreme but I think and feel it is usually with the best of intentions.  Like no rated R movies, or no caffeine, or no traveling on Sunday except for Church related-activities.  Some people advise against particular things because they feel closer to God by making those (what I call) sacrifices.  I live a little more on the edge but still avoid doing anything I believe to be wrong.  I drink beer, with no alcohol.  Some people think that is a lot worse than drinking drinks with caffeine.

I have faith that most people try to be good people and offer advice they believe is good.  And most people think they are right even if I may believe they are wrong.  What you're hearing, generally, is what other people are thinking.  

I try my best to forgive others as I would like to be forgiven if it turns out that I am wrong about something I believe is good.

I feel like I recognize these words and style.

Brand new poster with a familiar voice/spirit as one speaking from the dust.  Hmmm…

Either way, what I am gathering from you is that leaders can be wrong but never to blame for members believing them.  Is that fair?

Give them credit when they are right, but point the finger at members when they are wrong.  That is the vibe I am getting from you.  It is the very culture I speak of, actually.

Edited December 1, 2022 by pogi

[Teancum]

3 hours ago, pogi said:

Our culture has propped up this super-human church leader to an unsustainable level for far too long.

And who is at the crux of this do you think?

[Tacenda]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think this family is better off within the Catholic Church than outside both it and our faith.

Thanks,

-Smac

That's incredible, many ex-LDS immediately become agnostic or Atheist. I hope I can land in a place that is on the believing side with a community like that. For now I'm on a no man's island. I appreciate that you are so positive about their experience.

[Tacenda]

4 hours ago, pogi said:

It bothers me that when a life-time Latter-day Saint who attends church faithfully his entire life (with a short stint of rebellion in his high-school years), and faithfully serves a mission, marries in the temple and raises a family faithfully in the church is accused of not "putting more effort into understanding such things".    Where do you think this faulty idea came from?  He was literally raised in/by the church?  It didn't come from nowhere.  I have seen it enough times in my life to KNOW that it is not an outlier perception.  It is one that I am personally recovering from.   It is a common source of disillusionment from my observations of close relatives and friends who have left the church.  For so many to have that perception of church leaders is indeed a fault of church leadership.

You are absolutely correct, that there are plenty of teachings about not relying on borrowed light and other such correct principles.  But despite those teachings, there is an undercurrent of culture that drives leaders to say things like "when the leaders speak, the thinking has been done" which undermine correct principles and generates a toxic fear around questioning what a leader ever says or does.   There are many other examples like it.  It was a palpable culture that I remember from growing up in the 80's and early 90's church that I vividly remember and am still recovering from to this day.  While the church, over-all, has improved, the culture remains strong in many.  There is still a culture of fear surrounding questioning our leaders.  There is a culture that suggests it is a slippery slope to not always trust in our leaders.  But as slopey as it may be, the alternative is even more dangerous.   As I have said before, for a faith to endure all things, we need to learn to live on the slopes of real life. 

Someone engrained in that culture might answer -  "while it is true that we shouldn't live on borrowed light, it doesn't mean that our leaders can/will lead us astray on certain issues, or to believe in false principles, ideas, or confer bogus blessings."  That we can't live on borrowed light actually perpetuates the idea that our leaders are nothing but a source of light, and that we need our own testimony of them.  This idea of having "faith in our leaders", I believe is one source of this culture.   I don't believe in having faith in leaders, I have faith in God and what he speaks to me personally and through leaders that is verified to me via the spirit.   I have faith in principles, not people.  When we teach members to have faith in people, we are setting ourselves up for inevitable faith-crisis when those people prove to be human.  We can only have faith in things which are true...but people/leaders, aren't always "true".   So, such teachings and ways of living are damaging to faith and set people up for disillusionment.       

That's me in the bold. Thanks for acknowledging this lack of insight from some out there.  And the rest of your comments are spot on, thank you.

[mrmarklin]

Hilarious. Reading about LDS Church history led him away. I guess he hasn’t read much Catholic history yet. But when he does, then what?😗

[Bede]

10 hours ago, smac97 said:

Bushman has also credited the Church will doing what he was advocating: reconstructing the narrative.

It will take a while to trickle down.  Alas, some are prone to listen to soundbites and social trends rather than digging into books and other resources which present this reconstructive narrative.  The Church needs to be given a fair hearing, now more than ever.  And we need to address efforts of our critics/opponents crafting an unfair/inaccurate narrative of their own and presenting it to others (including to impressionable members of the Church).

Thanks,

-Smac

Where has this reconstructed narrative appeared? In the Saints books?

[pogi]

12 hours ago, Ambrosia said:

You aren't getting that from me.  Maybe it would help you to read what I wrote again with some highlights this time:

Our perception of our Church leaders is our own.  They did not give it to us.  They told us what they thought and we then formed our own impression of them and what they were saying, as we heard or read what they said.  Were we right to think they were right if they were wrong?  No.  If they were wrong then they were wrong even if we thought they were right.  If they were right and we thought they were wrong, were we right?  No.  Our leaders are right only when they are right, and when they are wrong, they are wrong.  Feel free to substitute  "right" with "telling the truth" or "saying what God said" or whatever you please to extend the idea. This fellow said and thought that because a priesthood officer said something while giving him a blessing that was the same as God saying what the priesthood officer said and therefore whatever the priesthood officer promised as a blessing was promised as a blessing by God.  And according to this same fellow, those promised blessings did not materialize.  So what say ye?  Is this fellow telling the truth?  If he was, was the priesthood officer who promised the blessing telling the truth?  Was he God or speaking as God?  Apparently somebody is wrong about something.  How do you propose we arrive at a solution?  Do you think you should believe everything any priesthood officer tells you? How do you propose people determine who is telling the truth? 

I already acknowledged that he was wrong about his perspective of Church leaders.  That has been my point all along.  He was caught up in the same culture that I grew up in and believed the same things I believed and was taught by the same Church leadership.  Is it a coincidence that we both believed the same wrong things?  I think not. Are we to blame?  I think not.  My point is that the Church is largely responsible for allowing this culture to thrive and not correcting leaders when they propagated it in their talks and lessons, etc.   

“You aren't getting that from me.”

Yes I am.  You are blaming the membership for “not researching enough” (or however you put it), and are attempting to shield leadership from any blame or accountability for this culture that exists.

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by pogi