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Last Sunday evening, I went to home teach an elderly couple; the husband is recovering from an operation on his foot. (For those keeping track, this is the same fellow I left church during the third hour a couple of weeks back to say "hi" to; an action evoking much opprobrium from Why Me.)

The lady of the house, seventy-years old, is an interesting study. A frequent past Relief Society President, she is a dyed-in-the-wool TBM. She has on one occasion in the past taken me to task for questioning the divine inspiration and authority of the president of the LDS Church with the statement, "Either we have a prophet at the head of this church or we don't."

Sunday evening she was a different frame of mind.

She is going to give to lesson in Relief Society this coming Sunday, and has been assigned a talk by President Eyring, dealing with the suffering of people who have done no wrong. She is struggling with his message, because she is not certain she agrees with it 100%. Interestingly, she took the initiative to bring up her questions with me.

Apparently, the part that has her concerned is Eyring’s statement that any and all suffering is to give us experience and will be for our good.

She wasn’t totally buying that.

I told her this was an attempt to answer the age old question of why bad things happen to good people; something that nobody has been able to do with any degree of success; and I rehearsed for her the lesson from the Book of Job.

She said that Eyring is in the first presidency and so he should know what he is talking about.

I suggested this revelation to Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail in which this phrase is contained could be looked at contextually as applying only to Joseph Smith in that particular situation; that it is not a universal pronouncement that applies whenever bad things happen to people.

She said that is the way Eyring was presenting it, though.

I suggested (very meekly, because I know she can be sensitive on the issue) that the problem with “answers” to this question is that you don’t have to think very far before you run into examples that prove them wrong. For example, what about all the horrible things that happen to children (abducted, abused and murdered) that we read about happening so often? Can anybody say that this somehow was to give them experience and was for their good?

She agreed nobody could say that.

I think the high point of the conversation was when she retreated to what she called her “comfortable” position of just accepting what GA’s said in Conference as being the word of the Lord to her and as good as scripture.

“Don’t you believe they are inspired of God?” she asked me point blank.

I told her, “I believe that they are good men, and that from time to time, they may be inspired. But I do not believe they are any more inspired than you.”

Her eyes bugged a bit, but she didn’t deny it.

Baby steps, down the street.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

You really get around, don't you? Keep sowing those seeds of apostasy.

I have a new home teaching companion who has not contacted me yet. I think he might be afraid of me. I would be.

In my TBM days, I used to think that there was three types of suffering. The kind that God gave in the form of trials, illnesses and the like. The kind that we brought upon ouselves, (screw up our liver from drinking too much) and the type that is forced on us through the actions of other using their free will (drunk driver runs a red light and kills someone). Only God's type of suffering was meant for us to have and to grow. The other types of suffering wern't meant to happen but God would be there to help us thrugh those times.

Bob Loblaw wrote:You really get around, don't you? Keep sowing those seeds of apostasy.

I have a new home teaching companion who has not contacted me yet. I think he might be afraid of me. I would be.

Are you still active?

I am a firm believer that some things happen because people make terrible choices, and some things happen by accident. I reject the notion that God is a micromanager who allows or causes everything to happen for our good.

son of Ishmael wrote:Are you still active?

How else could I destroy the testimonies of the elect, unless I am among them?

Bob Loblaw wrote:I am a firm believer that some things happen because people make terrible choices, and some things happen by accident. I reject the notion that God is a micromanager who allows or causes everything to happen for our good.

Yep, bad choices and sometimes poop just happens.

Bob Loblaw wrote:You really get around, don't you? Keep sowing those seeds of apostasy.

I have a new home teaching companion who has not contacted me yet. I think he might be afraid of me. I would be.

You know, I'm really not trying to sow seeds of apostasy, Bob. I'm just scattering sunshine all along the way.

Here's how I see it. This good sister has questions about her relationship with the GA's and how authoritative and binding what they say is to her; should she look at what they say as infallible? How does she deal with that when she reads something they say that she doesn't agree with? And is assigned to teach it as gospel truth, to boot?

In the context of the Mormons she knows (or thinks she knows), she cannot raise even the hint of a question she legitimately harbors.

I think what I have done is give her a safe place to ask the questions she already has, knowing at the outset she will not be judged for asking them.

I think that has value all of its own, regardless of what she may do with my answers.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

P.S. If you want to talk about real apostasy, though, I do my home teaching solo without a companion.

consiglieri wrote:

Bob Loblaw wrote:P.S. If you want to talk about real apostasy, though, I do my home teaching solo without a companion.

I always go with a companion because then I have one-on-one time to shake them loose from their testimonies.

Bob Loblaw wrote:I am a firm believer that some things happen because people make terrible choices, and some things happen by accident. I reject the notion that God is a micromanager who allows or causes everything to happen for our good.

And here I talked to her about the same thing I reviewed with the bishop's wife from last week--that either we can believe God micromanages everything for our good, or that people have agency to choose what they do--but we can't believe both at the same time.

I used this passage as an example--if we believe God was micromanaging the Missouri persecutions for Joseph Smith's good, what does that say about the freedom of the Missourians to choose how they responded to the Mormons?

She asked me what I thought, and I said I think there is a lot of chaos built into the system what with giving people freedom to do what they want, and throwing into the mix shifting tectonic plates and pressurized magma at the earth's core.

When you set up a system like that, a lot of bad stuff is just going to happen.

Of course, every now and then something good happens.

And maybe that makes the good stuff extra precious.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri