Deseret News Article: What surprised a British journalist after spending time with Latter-day Saints

[bluebell]

20 minutes ago, Teancum said:

I an interested as to how you interpret the many examples I gave of church teachings and culture that I feel create an atmosphere of separation?  I often feel we have been part of two very different churches.

I never considered the church to be teaching me that I needed to separate myself from anyone in anything other than my conduct, and even then, it wasn't a "I'm better/more loved by God than nonmembers" type of separation. 

I can't picture why or how my view of nonmembers would change if I became an ex-member.

But maybe that's because my entire believing life has been spent surrounded by many nonmember family and friends who do not live the standards of the church but who are still really good amazing people that I'm lucky to know and be loved by.  They drink, some of them smoke, most of them have kids outside of wedlock or live with people they aren't married too, but we spend lots of time and holidays with them (and their beer) every year.  And always have since I can remember.

If I lost my faith in the gospel and God, we'd have more in common, but I don't think i'd suddenly see them in a better light.  Maybe it's hard to know until you've lived it though.

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Or area…I grew up in “the Mission Field” in the same time period and my closer friends were all nonmembers (Illinois I had no church friends as too far to drive to connect outside of primary; California I had some who went to my school, but more acquaintances than friends; I had one church member close friend at school, but she was in a different ward and both of us were the ‘geek’ or just “odd” type of outsiders and the third of our little semigroup was a nonmember).  I did not see members as privileged or more valiant and as far as I could tell neither did my siblings.  “The Mission Field” label was not seen as derogatory as far as I could tell at that time, just more indicative of a focus of our community.  By the time I graduated college, I could see the usage felt more insulting to those who lived outside of Utah though.  Utah was seen as provincial and unsophisticated by Californian members, at least the teens around me, lol.  My parents were both born in Utah, but never gushed or complained about it…I know they loved California though.  My grandparents who talked about Utah (all were born there) mostly had fond memories as they had close families; the one that had messed up parents loved to talk about taking drives back in his first cars, so I believed he loved the beauty of Utah, but he wasn’t active in the Church as a kid, so I never heard anything about that side of Utah.  All my grandparents preferred “the mission field” as they felt there was more meaningful work as a church member to be done there and my mom was meeting GAs all the time as they would stay or at least eat with her family when traveling out East.

There were some members in my California ward who might have treated nonmembers as less than, but I never saw them interact with nonmembers that I remember as they didn’t go to my schools, so who knows.  The reason I suspect they might was because they treated several of the members as less than, so most likely if they did, it was snobbery in general and not a “I am one of the valiant” variety of arrogance…more “I am so smart and talented” or “I am so beautiful” run of the mill arrogance.

I should ask my husband who was born in Provo and grew up in Orem what vibes he got, but knowing him it will be positive because he prefers looking at the world that way.  I did stay in Utah for 4 months in 6th grade, most miserable time of my life though (nothing to do with Utah except for it being drab in winter, my grandmother was a lovely woman, but a rotten caregiver for kids), so I don’t trust my biases.  I was first exposed to the bad swear words then.  It was an eye opener for me that Utah wasn’t quite Zion yet, lol.  I was really worried I was going to get stuck in Utah if I married an Utah boy…and eventually I did and likely will be here till I die, but except for the heat…and to be honest politics, it has been great.  As neighbours, the born and bred have been the kindest, most concerned in my experience and the transplants (most of our friends have at least one in the twosome) are right there with them, just not as motherly, lol.

That could be a big part of it.  Teancum, did you grow up in Utah?

I can see how the teachings of the church could really go awry somewhere where nonmembers were the minority and the church was very insular.  I grew up in northern Wyoming and there were plenty of members, all things considered (four wards in our town of 6,000-usually about 6-8 members per grade in high school), but still most people are not members.  If you separated yourself from them you'd have to live in a commune.  If you treated them as less than you, you'd do very poorly in the community since most people wouldn't like you for treated them like that.

 

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, Rain said:

I don't know if interpreted is the right word?  As a member I didn't interpret as others.  As a non believing member I don't interpret it that way either, but I do see consequences of othering from the things he mentioned. 

Even though I've gone through this process reading the scriptures, being prayerful and trying to do what God tells me to do I still feel like I am seen as other.  Maybe that's my own problem and I just need to get past it, but because I'm not a believer of God’s "only" true church then I feel other with most members. For most I'm not on the strait and narrow path. I've let go of the rod. Unless people (and you are a rare one) can accept that maybe I was led in a different direction by God I will be on the outside and other unless I come back. 

And I still strongly believe in God and that he loves me. For those who are not sure or do not believe then the othering consequences will be harder.

 

I think it's hard to distinguish "different" from "other".  I don't know how to distinguish between them in this context but I'd love to figure out a way to do so. 

There's no doubt that you are different (in belief) from believing members.  What do you think is pushing that difference over into "other" territory? (sincere question, since you are living the experience and have obvious insight into the topic).  Is it that these members view the difference in terms of them being right and you being wrong (spiritually speaking) or is it something else do you think?

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I never considered the church to be teaching me that I needed to separate myself from anyone in anything other than my conduct, and even then, it wasn't a "I'm better/more loved by God than nonmembers" type of separation. 

Were you not taught to choose your friends carefully?  How about not dating non members?  What does in the world and not of it mean to you?  How about being a peculiar people?

I don't think I viewed myself better than others at all. Just different. And because of the constant pressure and preaching about missionary work and having people we know into our homes for the missionary to teach, I always had on my mind that difference and in some ways viewed non members I knew as a target. And I was actually a pretty good member missionary.

 

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I can't picture why or how my view of nonmembers would change if I became an ex-member.

Maybe. It is hard to tell. At least you would not feel a need to convert or reactivate.

And yes, I grew up in Utah. But after my mission most my life has been spent outside of Utah. All but a few years.

 

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

But maybe that's because my entire believing life has been spent surrounded by many nonmember family and friends who do not live the standards of the church but who are still really good amazing people that I'm lucky to know and be loved by.  They drink, some of them smoke, most of them have kids outside of wedlock or live with people they aren't married too, but we spend lots of time and holidays with them (and their beer) every year.  And always have since I can remember.

If I lost my faith in the gospel and God, we'd have more in common, but I don't think i'd suddenly see them in a better light.  Maybe it's hard to know until you've lived it though.

 

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

I an interested as to how you interpret the many examples I gave of church teachings and culture that I feel create an atmosphere of separation?  I often feel we have been part of two very different churches.

It's no wonder I always felt different from everyone that was inactive or non members. Didn't ever feel better than them, just felt like they might of thought I was sort of different then them. Or even felt embarrassed about our religion being sort of set apart from everyone. 

[Calm]

15 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

It's no wonder I always felt different from everyone that was inactive or non members

Did you feel connected to members any more?

just curious because I never did growing up (for reasons I won’t go into now or it will be an epic and irrelevant post)

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Were you not taught to choose your friends carefully?  How about not dating non members?  What does in the world and not of it mean to you?  How about being a peculiar people?

 

 

I definitely was taught to choose my friends carefully, but so were my nonmember friends.    What parent, regardless of spiritual belief, wouldn't teach their kids that?  For most of my life my best friend was a nonmember (then I moved 80 miles away).  My best friend in the new town was a member but the rest of our friend group wasn't.

I was never told not to date nonmembers growing up and only one of my boyfriends in high school was a member (and he ended up being a real jerk).  I was advised to date members when I was dating for marriage of course, which made perfect sense to me since marrying in the temple was my goal.  There could have been members in town that taught their kids that (with a couple of families I'm thinking of, that wouldn't surprise me at all) but I can't remember ever being taught it at church.

In the world but not of it means to live in the world but not to follow the world's morals to me.  Being a peculiar people for me growing up was about being ok with being 'weird' by not drinking or partying or smoking or having sex in high school.

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Were you not taught to choose your friends carefully?

Yes, but based on behaviors not connected to what religion they belonged to, but morality. 

I dated one nonmember, but not seriously. My parents said nothing, I don’t believe they said anything when my brother dated a nonmember quite seriously…at least about her faith. I know Mom was concerned about her intelligence and ability to connect charitably with others, thought she was rather caught up in appearance and self centered).

At church I was taught to only date members, but if I had met a nonmember I liked well enough I would have dated him, at least long enough to see what his view on religion was. I wanted to be on the same page, which meant a lot of members were off my list of eligibles as well. 

I think I would have found it very hard to marry someone who insisted on a young earth and no evolution. 

Edited August 9, 2024 by Calm

[Rain]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

I think it's hard to distinguish "different" from "other".  I don't know how to distinguish between them in this context but I'd love to figure out a way to do so. 

There's no doubt that you are different (in belief) from believing members.  What do you think is pushing that difference over into "other" territory? (sincere question, since you are living the experience and have obvious insight into the topic).  Is it that these members view the difference in terms of them being right and you being wrong (spiritually speaking)

This is basically it.  I get people feeling something is right. I would never want others to do something they feel isn't right. There is just no room for me to be on a different right path in the eyes of the church, leaders and most members. 

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

or is it something else do you think?

 

[The Nehor]

10 hours ago, bluebell said:

So polyamorists generally embrace polygyny as long as it's not considered marriage and has no religious undertones? 

No, polygyny suggests that only the guy can have multiple lovers. Many of the Christian groups go off a very careful reading of the Bible and suggest it is okay for a man to have multiple lovers but not a woman. That is the big divide between the religious form and the secular one. Others try to meld Christianity with regular poly but that doesn’t usually fit well.

Polyamorists look very critically at relationships that are only open on one side (or that artificially limit partner selection by gender). Poly relationships are open for both people to find other relationships. Some use hierarchy in their relationships. Some try not to. Some are solo poly and form relationships but generally avoid nesting (living with a partner) or meshing lives too much.

When you have a relationship where a guy is collecting multiple women to be partners with while not letting the women have other partners or only allowing them to date other women it is usually called “harem building”.

Another common trope is the couple that decides to ‘add’ another woman to their existing hetero marriage/relationship. Then they form a triad where everyone is in a relationship with everyone else. This is called Unicorn Hunting and almost always fails. I have never seen it work long term. It might for someone out there but odds are bad. It is what a lot of people try to do when they start poly thinking it will be the easiest way to practice it when it is actually one of the hardest. Rarely they look for a guy to join them and that is called Dragon Hunting but it is pretty rare.

In my days of sin and vice I stumbled my way into a quad relationship once with three other people all in a relationship with each other. It was fun but probably wouldn’t have lasted. There was also an end date for the relationship from the beginning (two people were leaving the country about a year after it was formed) so we could mostly ignore the problems knowing they wouldn’t matter eventually.

[ZealouslyStriving]

The issues with "othering" sound more like a Utah thing- the following scenarios are foreign to me.

Utah’s LDS vs. non-LDS divide: Kids might not understand why, but they feel the pressure https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/08/04/how-utahs-lds-v-non-lds-religious/

 

[Tacenda]

On 8/8/2024 at 5:58 PM, Calm said:

Did you feel connected to members any more?

just curious because I never did growing up (for reasons I won’t go into now or it will be an epic and irrelevant post)

I felt connected somewhat with most members, but not in a real close way. My callings gained me some friends, but they haven't been life long, just while serving in that capacity only or while being in the ward. I take that back, our close friends now were in a ward many years ago and my husband home taught them, oops. 

Edited August 11, 2024 by Tacenda

[MustardSeed]

I assure you that people on the outside of the church look at those on the inside and see us as others. They just don’t use their outside voices to share it in front of us.

[california boy]

I was really surprised at how non members talk about the Church once I told them that I was a former member.  Never heard the kind of stuff they said when I was a member.  

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, california boy said:

I was really surprised at how non members talk about the Church once I told them that I was a former member.  Never heard the kind of stuff they said when I was a member.  

I've always assumed they keep most of their thoughts to themselves about us, because most people don't want to look like jerks and will keep negative thoughts to themselves unless they feel like the people they are talking to are going to join in.

I've often gotten the feeling though that some of the negativity from others stems from the idea that we are judging them and think they are going to hell for not agreeing with us, so they don't like us because they think we don't like them (or think they are inferior to us), kind of thing.

[california boy]

6 hours ago, bluebell said:

I've always assumed they keep most of their thoughts to themselves about us, because most people don't want to look like jerks and will keep negative thoughts to themselves unless they feel like the people they are talking to are going to join in.

I've often gotten the feeling though that some of the negativity from others stems from the idea that we are judging them and think they are going to hell for not agreeing with us, so they don't like us because they think we don't like them (or think they are inferior to us), kind of thing.

Turns out, there are a lot of things that people don't like about the Mormon religion.  You mention just one of the reasons.  I have heard a bunch of reasons for their dislike of the Church.  Some fair and some maybe not so fair.

[bluebell]

21 minutes ago, california boy said:

Turns out, there are a lot of things that people don't like about the Mormon religion.  You mention just one of the reasons.  I have heard a bunch of reasons for their dislike of the Church.  Some fair and some maybe not so fair.

Yep, I know I only mentioned one. 

It's not a secret that a lot of people don't like us.  I started getting flack from friends about in high school and then, serving a mission, you hear a ton of reasons why we are horrible (mostly from evangelicals and the four square crowd).  As a full fledged adult, you get an even different list (often around drinking, not letting kids go to birthday parties on sundays, and an unwillingness to embrace sketchy media, weirdly enough). 

I can't imagine hearing anything as a nonmember that I haven't heard as a member.  I think the biggest difference would be "nice" people's willingness to say it to my face as attempt at conversational bonding.

[Dario_M]

That doesn't suprissed me. 

[Stargazer]

On 8/8/2024 at 8:19 PM, Calm said:

Or area…I grew up in “the Mission Field” in the same time period (or not much earlier…I am 65 and Teancum reads as in his mid to late 50s to me assuming he was early 40s or so when called as a bishop, but I could be way off) I and my closer friends were all nonmembers (Illinois I had no church friends as too far to drive to connect outside of primary; California I had some who went to my school, but more acquaintances than friends; I had one church member close friend at school, but she was in a different ward and both of us were the ‘geek’ or just “odd” type of outsiders and the third of our little semigroup was a nonmember).  I did not see members as privileged or more valiant and as far as I could tell neither did my siblings.  “The Mission Field” label was not seen as derogatory as far as I could tell at that time, just more indicative of a focus of our community.  By the time I graduated college, I could see the usage felt more insulting to those who lived outside of Utah though.  Utah was seen as provincial and unsophisticated by Californian members, at least the teens around me, lol.  My parents were both born in Utah, but never gushed or complained about it…I know they loved California though.  My grandparents who talked about Utah (all were born there) mostly had fond memories as they had close families; the one that had messed up parents loved to talk about taking drives back in his first cars, so I believed he loved the beauty of Utah, but he wasn’t active in the Church as a kid, so I never heard anything about that side of Utah.  All my grandparents preferred “the mission field” as they felt there was more meaningful work as a church member to be done there and my mom was meeting GAs all the time as they would stay or at least eat with her family when traveling out East, which provided her with some wonderful experiences.

There were some members in my California ward who might have treated nonmembers as less than, but I never saw them interact with nonmembers that I remember as they didn’t go to my schools, so who knows.  The reason I suspect they might was because they treated several of the members as less than, so most likely if they did, it was snobbery in general and not a “I am one of the valiant” variety of arrogance…more “I am so smart and talented” or “I am so beautiful” run of the mill arrogance.

I should ask my husband who was born in Provo and grew up in Orem what vibes he got, but knowing him it will be positive because he prefers looking at the world that way.  I did stay in Utah for 4 months in 6th grade, most miserable time of my life though (nothing to do with Utah except for it being drab in winter, my grandmother was a lovely woman, but a rotten caregiver for kids), so I don’t trust my biases.  I was first exposed to the bad swear words then.  It was an eye opener for me that Utah wasn’t quite Zion yet, lol.  I was really worried I was going to get stuck in Utah if I married an Utah boy…and eventually I did and likely will be here till I die, but except for the heat…and to be honest politics, it has been great.  As neighbours, the born and bred have been the kindest, most concerned in my experience and the transplants (most of our friends have at least one in the twosome) are right there with them, just not as motherly, lol.

Utah: a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there!

I did live there for a few months while attempting to attend BYU, but I ran out of money and joined the Army. I was there during the summer and into November, and it was beautiful in a lot of ways. But it did not feel at all like home, and when I left I was actually kind of relieved. Aside from that brief sojourn, I've lived in "the mission field" all of my life. And I prefer it.