- Stephen C on Every Decade is a Decade of Decision: “To be clear, the 70-year old who decides it isn’t true is most certainly not the typical experience, it was just one particular scenario I thought would be particularly hard. I get that it’s usually a more gradual process across years or decades where on gradually sorts out what they like from what they don’t.” May 12, 13:07
- on Every Decade is a Decade of Decision: ““…I can’t imagine what it would be like to decide in your 70s none of it’s true…” I don’t think this is how it works, and I hope this is not the prevailing mindset among those who study activity demographics. I think that some (many? most?) of those who seem to disaffiliate in their later years do so because of irrelevance — they themselves are seen as irrelevant in their wards because of their age or for some reason no longer fitting the preferred pattern, or the lessons they hear in their meetings are irrelevant to daily reality. Lily’s first sentence resonated strongly with me. With regard to the second, the constant emphasis on pay, pray, and obey seems problematic. Rather than extracting from the members, it seems to me that church attendance should refresh, replenish, and recharge — rather than thinking that members exist for the church, it seems to me that the church exists for the members. It might be fruitful for the church’s demographers to shift from a true/untrue binary, if they want to better understand and to help resolve.” May 12, 11:33
- on Every Decade is a Decade of Decision: “As a current nonbeliever who left belief in the church over the course of my 30s, I don’t think you should feel too sad for people who leave religion later in life. I learned a lot from growing up in the church, and I don’t think it was time completely wasted even though I don’t believe it anymore. Life just happens, and I think people should be proud of following the truth as far as what they knew. Making a decision like that later in life can take an enormous amount of character, courage, and self-knowledge that people can be very proud of. I know I’m coming from the other side of the issue to some extent, but I wish the church spent less effort trying to “keep people in the church” at any cost and spent more effort on helping people develop skills of evaluating truth claims and build moral character regardless of where they end up. I actually don’t think very many more people would leave the church as a result and both members and ex-members would be better off as a result.” May 12, 11:13
- on Every Decade is a Decade of Decision: “The older I get the closer I feel to God and the more I think I understand His character. But the Church has made itself largely irrelevant to me with its constant emphasis on the youth and marriage and families.” May 12, 10:07
- on Every Decade is a Decade of Decision: “I suppose I get the general sense of this. But the chart needs value markings and larger type. (Former marketing research guy.)” May 12, 07:02
- on A widow’s mite of chastity: ““27 Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him,” The Sadducees, BELIEVING ONLY IN THIS EARTHLY EXISTENCE, are so threatened by Jesus’ ability to influence & reduce their authority over people, that they send spies/hecklers into the crowds to publicly expose/humiliate him by asking what they perceive as unanswerable questions. However, it backfires as Jesus is able to use these as teaching moments to expose them. He completes answers and then introduces the new topic regarding specific common behaviors & motivations of fraudsters/liars to help us identify truths. Then in the audience of all the people he said unto his disciples, 46 Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts; 47 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation. 21 And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. 2 And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. 3 And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: 4 For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had. If when reading you do not include the beginning of this new topic starting in Luke 20, it almost seems like either 46-47 or the statement of the widow’s mite stands alone, without a strong continuity, beginning or end to either the prior answered question or the following 21:5 new question regarding the decadent opulence of the temple. So, the question is, what was the connected point of the widow’s mite applying the previous description of fraudsters/liars 20:46-47? I think it has more to do with 1st, it exemplifies the perspective of those who believe in eternal life & those who don’t. The widow’s mite was a metaphor of her testimony; a belief that the things of this life are of little value compared to the blessings of life eternal. Whereas, all the Sadducees wealth & power was tethered to this existence only, so they would do anything & everything to keep it. So when seeking clarification of the question of chastity, or any question, is to accept that there is a difference between questioning to gain truth/knowledge, seek & you shall find & searching for support of your already accepted position. Also, who/what are your sources. Who benefits? By their actions you shall know them. Are your choices based on an eternal or life ends here, perspective? If your perspective is from an eternal standpoint, then you will also have to accept that not all questions will be answered quickly because learning is an eternal process, but we already have some of these tools provided here to continuously learn & assess with the promise of Knock & it shall be open to you, not argue amongst yourselves & just figure it out on your own.” May 11, 10:28
- on A Review: Legends of Deseret Album: “They have some that are going through final proofs. I know that they will be releasing them with the physical CDs. They have put a PDF of liner notes with the digital versions of previous albums, so I’m hoping they will just add those retroactively.” May 10, 21:54
- on A widow’s mite of chastity: “I wonder if it would clarify the analogy to replace “the widow’s mite” with “five loaves and two fishes.” The widow gave all that she had, and it was enough. The boy with the loaves and fishes gave what he had on hand in the moment, and it was not nearly enough. But his offering was transformed by Jesus’ power so there was enough and to spare. Here’s how I understand Jonathan’s message: If you’re convinced you cannot live the law of chastity, fine. Do what you can, but don’t try to convince yourself it’s okay. Don’t lower the bar until you can clear it. If you can’t make full obedience a goal, keep it as a hope, or even a wish. Meanwhile, stick with the Church and obey the other commandments as best you can. Do that faithfully, and in process of time your offering–yourself–will be transformed by the power of Christ’s atonement until your obedience to the law of chastity is enough. But if you convince yourself you don’t need or even want that transformation, he will respect your agency and not give it to you. In reality, this describes most of our efforts to live the gospel. @Tori: I started out assuming this was about same-sex relationships too. Isn’t that what all arguments are about in the blogosphere? (Not so much any more, fortunately.)” May 10, 14:24
- on Salsa Edition: How Did You Participate in Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About) Yesterday, 5/10?: “Here’s some of how I found the Gospel in what happened in Church (5/10): Apparently the BYU a cappella groups Vocalpoint and Noteworthy were in town for performances, and chose our ward for sacrament meeting —- and both sang during the meeting. I witnessed the power of putting yourself into the meeting when one brother, just before Elders Quorum started, exclaimed “I sang with Vocalpoint!” I think he is exactly right. The whole point of church is to participate, and to be connected with other people. Its not about who is good or what music is better. During Elders Quorum, the teacher showed a video of Elder Holland talking about motherhood (for Mothers Day, for those reading this in the future). It occurred to me during this that one of the reasons Mothers Day can be so difficult is the contrast in how universal the various experiences of motherhood are—we all have mothers, so that experience is universal; but in contrast not everyone is a mother, which is not universal. This latter experience is where the problems lie: not everyone who wants to be a mother can be, and we generally assume that all women should want to be mothers, even though some do not want it. The problem of Mother’s Day is how to express the universal experience of gratitude to mothers without the difficulties associated with the later experience. A temple worker spoke of his experiences working in the temple, where he pointed out that individual accomplishments or status are left outside, along with all our worldly cares. This reminded me of the story of Mary and Martha, and the need for people like Martha to take care of the worldly cares so that we don’t have to. I suppose temple workers are perhaps the Marthas of the Temple, facilitating the work so that the patrons and those in the next life receiving the vicarious ordinances don’t have to worry about those things. While the temple worker said that no worker ever says “I’d rather not”, the term reminded me of Melville’s Bartleby—what does it mean in this case to say “I prefer not to?” We also looked briefly at Elder Tay’s talk in the last general conference on following the prophet and focused on the section of the talk that discusses “gospel culture.” While Elder Tay talks about eliminating cultural things that are in conflict with the gospel, I think we need to focus a bit more on what cultural things we need that strengthen communicating about the gospel. Like it or not, the gospel is spread inside a culture — it brings baggage with it that isn’t part of the gospel — but it simply can’t be spread without some culture. It’s one thing to eliminate cultural elements that are in conflict, and quite another, much more difficult thing, to create cultural elements to communicate the gospel. I think that needs to be looked at much more. ” May 10, 13:34
