Nov 29 2009

The LDS Church as a Living System

Poor Wayfaring Man

In the spirit of adjusting my perspective to account for fundamental attribution error, I’ve been trying to see people in the context of their situational and environmental influences, rather than simply judging the quality of their character. Because members of the LDS Church are part of a system with a stated mission that includes regulating their behavior, their relationships with each other, and their relationships with the outside world (i.e., “Perfecting the Saints”), I think understanding that system can probably go a long way toward explaining why they do some of the things they do. I think in most cases they are people with good intentions, making the best calls that they can, constrained in various ways by their roles in the system.
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Nov 27 2009

To Err is Human

Poor Wayfaring Man

There are a lot of Mormons and former Mormons who are annoyed and upset by the way the leaders of the LDS Church treat Church members, and the way Church members treat each other. It’s easy to see a leader disrespecting, belittling, or otherwise bullying somebody (or a group of people) and condemn him as an evil, arrogant, selfish bastard. Likewise, it’s easy to see a member snubbing, gossiping, or imposing social burdens on somebody and judge him or her to be self-centered, unscrupulous, or stupid. I know I’ve done that.

I have been wondering recently, however, if jumping to that conclusion about people in the Church is really warranted. Could I be exhibiting an error in judgment? Some bias buried in my all-too-human psyche? I think it’s possible.

Okay, probable.

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Nov 25 2009

Book of Mormon Stories Metaphors

Poor Wayfaring Man

I was browsing the internet the other day and found a really interesting blog that discusses events and hot topics at BYU’s Provo campus. In this post about the conflict between the religious world and the secular world, the liberal-leaning Mormon author seems to support (very tentatively and with ample obligatory qualifications to deflect charges of heresy, since he is a BYU student) the view that the creation account in Genesis (six days, etc.) is just a metaphor, not literally true.

This seems like a neat and tidy way to avoid conflicts between science and religion–just treat the religious view as a divinely-inspired metaphor only.
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Nov 15 2009

Rules We Don’t Know About

Poor Wayfaring Man

My previous two posts (Confession and Polygyny?) deal with topics that are quite different on the surface, but share certain underlying concepts, namely

  1. there are circumstances in which it is necessary for an LDS Church member to approach his or her local Church leader, seeking something that only the leader can provide;1 and
  2. the Church rules governing such circumstances are usually unclear or unknown to the Church member.2

Situations like this are the norm in the LDS Church. Continue reading

  1. When I met with a counselor in the branch presidency, I was seeking a way to be forgiven of my sins; when my mom met with her bishop, she was seeking cancellation of her temple marriage []
  2. Neither my mom nor I had a clear idea of what kind of process to expect, or what would be required of us by our Church leaders in connection with our respective request. []

Nov 12 2009

Polygyny?

Poor Wayfaring Man

My mom and dad married in the Salt Lake Temple at the ages of 18 and 19, respectively. They were civilly divorced when I was still a little kid.

By “civilly divorced”, I don’t mean to say that the divorce process was completed in a civil manner, without petty bickering (though I believe that is true). I mean they were legally divorced. Free, in the eyes of the state, to remarry and move on with their lives.

This is an important point, because their divorce was not fully recognized by the LDS Church. Continue reading


Nov 11 2009

Confession: Example 1

Poor Wayfaring Man

Like every other Mormon missionary, my mission started with a stay in the Missionary Training Center (the “MTC”). I will probably have more to say about this topic in the future, but for my purposes today, I will just say that the MTC fills the same role as boot camp does for the military–it is meant to break down the new recruits and re-mold them into homogeneous parts of a mighty army. In the MTC, part of that process involves convincing the new recruits that they are sinners, and in need of repentance and reconciliation with God in order to avoid being a complete failures as missionaries.

As a new missionary, I was in the (common?) position of having never really leveled with my local bishop back home about grave sins like masturbation and/or looking at pornography. Continue reading


Nov 1 2009

You are Laman and Lemuel, not Nephi

Poor Wayfaring Man

My professor at BYU once asked us to read the first couple of chapters of the Book of Mormon–the First Book of Nephi. The book starts with a story about Nephi’s father, a well-heeled man named Lehi, who has a vision from God, in which the Lord tells him to pack up his things, leave his home in Jerusalem, and depart with his family into the wilderness. Lehi obeys, but some of his sons are harder to convince than others that Jerusalem is to be destroyed and that wandering in the wilderness is the will of God for them. The skeptical sons in the family are Laman and Lemuel, and the believers are Nephi and Sam. My professor asked us, as devout Mormons, which of the brothers we were like.

In case you are wondering, the right answer is always “Nephi”. Continue reading