Yesterday in Church . . .

[_why me]

Yesterday in fast and testimony meeting, a lady got up and announced that she was a former member of the church, then turned to ask the bishop whether it were okay for her to speak. Our bishop gave her the go ahead, and she said that the only reason she was here was because she brought her aged and infirm parents to meetings.

She mentioned that she did not necessarily believe everything Mormons teach anymore, but she thought there were many things that were good about the church.

Later in Sunday school, our teacher was going over the middle chapters in Helaman and, true to the manual, had put up on the board the cycle of “righteousness/prosperity” to “pride/wickedness” to “destruction” to “humility/repentance” and back to the top of “righteousness/prosperity” again.

I mentioned to my wife that this correlated cycle was evil in that it equated righteousness with prosperity. Not bad enough on its own, it also suggested poverty to be equal with wickedness.


All the Best!

--Consiglieri

What is prosperity and what is poverty? It may not mean material prosperity or material poverty. In fact, it often does not mean it. Prosperity can mean peace, contentment and fulfillment. And poverty can mean unhappiness, sadness, angst, lack of fulfillment. We need to remember that this lesson is studied all over the world when definitions would be different from the traditional american understanding.

[_why me]

How kind you are consiglieri. I wish I had known more people in the church like yourself. As it was, I knew some very, very bad examples of what it means to be a Mormon and a human being. I am sorry that their distorted and ignorant understanding of Mormonism, faith, belief in God and everything else that goes with religion was advanced as the authoritative one---so much so that I didn't get much of a glimpse of other possibilities.

Of course, these types are still around, some in actual positions of institutional church power, and some in their self-appointed virtual positions of faux power online.

Fortunately, out of some marvelous twist of fate, or perhaps the hand of god, I've since been able to study a great deal of Mormon history and meet many more Mormons whose kindness, intelligence and generosity has tipped the scales back in the proper direction.

Churches are made up of sorts of people. It is a part of being human. And humans will always disappoint. If I depended on humans for doing the right thing, I would be a basket case. But by and large, Mormons are good people. Better than most. But then again, devout catholics are good people also. Better than most. But one will always find a bad peanut in the bag regardless of the church.

[_consiglieri]

has not anyone read the book of Job in th LDS church? and tried to understand that the cosmos of which God is in total control is not dualistic in terms of good and evil?
no human in the history of the planet can answer the question of good and evil in the the lives of human beings. the closest best answer comes from franciscan richard rohr and it is pretty simple rohr says "God will have the last word"
just sayin

k

Mormons tend to view Job through the eyes of the correlated manual, which ignores virtually all of the earlier poetic text and focuses instead on the later added prologue and epilogue, turning it into a morality play about those who perservere in righteousness being blessed with . . . prosperity.

A couple of years back when I was GD teacher, we focused on the poetic portion and God's supreme and final answer to Job in which the Everlasting reveals the meaning behind human suffering with this insightful admonition--"Sit down and shut up!"

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_consiglieri]

You, Good Sir, have balls of brick and mortar.

- VRDRC

Which may explain why I have trouble going to the bathroom of late . . .

[_consiglieri]

Pahoran is dead!?!?! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

I always hated that bastard.

H.

And according to the Nephite record, it was our very own Kishkumen killed him.

Ditto the hate.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_consiglieri]

by the way, I am very heartened when fellow members like Consiglieri and his ward mate stand up and point out that some of our assumptions, like prosperity equating with righteousness and poverty being linked with wickedness, need reassessment based on being faulty.

I am not at all certain why this "cycle of righteousness" gets repeated so often in church. It is simple and easy to grasp, sure, and there are some passages in the Book of Mormon that would support it. But as I also mentioned to my my wife, the Book of Mormon is a multi-layered text and we can find other passages that say different, most notably the tale of the poor Zoramites who were, specifically because of their poverty, prepared to receive the gospel message from Alma and Amulek as opposed to the wealthy Zoramites who threw them out on their respective ears.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_consiglieri]

How kind you are consiglieri. I wish I had known more people in the church like yourself.

Thanks for the nice words, Blixa! I hesitated to post this because it sounded like I was blowing my own horn, but truth be told, I knew saying this to the lady at church was the right thing to do before I did it and I felt great about myself afterward.

I have made it a goal of sorts to try and say or do something every week in church to make it known the gospel is a net that gathers of all kinds, and the Church of Jesus Christ is the church of all the saints, not just the TBMs.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_ludwigm]

Future mother-in-law to the future son-in-law:
- Are You smart?
Future son-in-law to the future mother-in-law:
- Yes.

- Are You rich?
- Yes.

- Are You athletic?
- Yes.

- Are You broadminded?
- Yes.

- Have You any negative attribute?
- Yes, I am too humble.

[_Sethbag]

As usual, the perversion of the anti-mormon liberal mind perverts basic principles, using a little truth to tell great lies.

What sad Consig and others in this thread are IGNORING is that the "Pride Cycle" is only ONE PART of life and the teaching of experiences and principles.

It's ONE PARTICULAR LESSON that fits ONE PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE....
We also teach the story of JOB!!!!

So, in addition to teaching the righteous/prosperity crap cycle, you also teach that God will sometimes dick with people who are righteous, just for kicks?

Each principle is TRUE depending on the circumstance and God's Will and purposes.

Be righteous and you will prosper. Or you won't prosper. If you prosper it's because God is blessing you, and if you don't prosper, it's because God is testing your faith.

It's nice to see that the believers have both angles covered. Whatever happens, faith wins. There's probably a really good term that describes this sort of rigged belief system.

The pride cycle is a true principle. God WILL bless the righteous, and yes sometimes he also provides trials, and yes, the wicked can also seem "blessed" and they think it's due to their own righteousness, like you all believe, and like my ex-wife believes. But God knows.... and you know... and I know.... We aren't fooled.

Why do the believers explanations of this always end up reminding me of "Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait" from My Fair Lady?

Why must you all allow HATE to blind your basic logic and reasoning skills??? :(

Well, it's that whole Dark Side thing. I'm sure you've seen Star Wars, no?

[_Drifting]

ldsfaqs, don't you realise there must needs be opposition in all things?
It's all part of the plan...