Increasing Detachment from LDS Church

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

What version of Mormonism is better? Even if they brought back road shows and opened up a can of gnosticism would that be better? Help us understand what you’d have the faith do in order to reach some sort of ideal that’s never actually been achieved.

- Doc

[_Dr Moore]

You're a good man, Reverend. Stay healthy and safe!

[_Holy Ghost]

Hey, old Seedy Academician, do you yet believe that Joseph Smith communed with God and/or that the Book of Mormon is the result of Godly influence?

Greetings, HG. So, I understand that such questions as yours and the one above about the "Sky Daddy" are to be expected. I recognize that they come from a genuine place and real curiosity, whether casual or serious. That said, I am wholly uninterested in them, not because they aren't legitimate questions for most people. They just don't really apply to my framework. The simplest answers I can give are: 1) I have no idea; and 2) I find the concept of belief as it is understood within the usual discourse of Christian faith to be empty (for me).

Each of us will be born into a certain pre-existing cultural way of interacting with the world. It is a human framework designed through trial and error over time to try to help us get along as groups and individuals. You don't choose the one you are born into, but you can choose to depart from it to a certain extent. At the same time, human beings are fundamentally structurally incapable of apprehending absolute reality in its totality, so they do the best they can. Everything we devise will be a poor, incomplete, and inadequate reflection of what is.

That is what I believe. I know that the framework I was born into was an American one and a Mormon one. I will doubtless continue on in that framework, even if I should try very hard to depart from it. Many here choose to depart from it by calling themselves "ex-Mormons" or "post-Mormons" or what have you. I do not. I call myself Mormon because I can't get away from that. I also, however, choose to "think with" my Mormonism instead of simply against it. That is where I differ from a number of people here. My thinking with Mormonism can be satirical, imaginative, or even serious. I think of it as serious play and spoudogeloion.

I consider this way of approaching the world sacred (to me), and yet I feel it is important to remain always flexible, light, and here for the fun. There is nothing so awful (to me) as the rigidly somber demand for consistency and an inflexible sense of one's self and the world. I want to see more storytelling and less canonizing. That is the space that I want to occupy. The Mormon story should be a broad generic category, or a theme that runs across generic categories. I will continue to write within that framework, while magpie-like collecting and integrating other things as I go along.

Do you yet hold out hope that the LDS church will improve, or are you now indifferent to it, with your remaining Mormon vestiges (which from your description sound cultural, not theologic) entirely detached from the LDS organization?

[_Kishkumen]

You're a good man, Reverend. Stay healthy and safe!

You are a good man, Dr. Moore. You stay healthy and safe too!

[_Kishkumen]

What version of Mormonism is better? Even if they brought back road shows and opened up a can of gnosticism would that be better? Help us understand what you’d have the faith do in order to reach some sort of ideal that’s never actually been achieved.

- Doc

I encourage people to do their own thing. I am not dictating which version is better. My standard would be that it does minimal harm and instead, in the balance, does a lot more good. I prefer smaller organizations with fewer people and more flexibility. Less centralized. Less emphasis on authority.

[_Kishkumen]

Thank you for sharing that, Kishkumen.

for what it's worth, I’m going to throw a Scripture out from Acts17:26-27,
“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find
him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”

Yes, seek God. I like that. The question is what that means. There are many ways to seek God, and who is to say whose experience of God is the correct one such that they become a Paul, going out claiming that they have the only true version?

[_Kishkumen]

Do you yet hold out hope that the LDS church will improve, or are you now indifferent to it, with your remaining Mormon vestiges (which from your description sound cultural, not theologic) entirely detached from the LDS organization?

Maybe the LDS Church will improve in some ways, maybe it will get worse in others. I may react to those changes, but I am increasingly indifferent to the possibility of an LDS Church that I would want to throw myself wholeheartedly into.

The vestiges of my Mormonism are cultural, philosophical, and theological. But they are not limited to the confines and approaches of LDS Mormonism.

[_Kishkumen]

I apologize for returning to this thread late. I tried to view this thread a couple of times from mobile devices and that did not work either time.

[_msnobody]

Thank you for sharing that, Kishkumen.

for what it's worth, I’m going to throw a Scripture out from Acts17:26-27,
“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find
him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”

Yes, seek God. I like that. The question is what that means. There are many ways to seek God, and who is to say whose experience of God is the correct one such that they become a Paul, going out claiming that they have the only true version?

Acts 17:26-27 was an answer He provided to one of my crying out to him "Why, God, why?" questions. It really changed my perspective in a lot of ways. I think I've posted on this before. Basically, it was a question of why am I here in this particular time/place, while others are others are in their particular times/places, and especially with regard to our various spiritual journeys. I learned that it wasn't just the luck of the draw or by happenstance, but involved a very specific plan and purpose, and was orchestrated and is continuously being perfectly executed in its entirety by someone distinctly and wholly other than myself/ourselves, and creation. And, I might add, it will be brought to fruition.
God could have but didn’t simply reply to my petition to him with, “I’m God and you’re not,” but took me to a place where I was lovingly, gently, and gracefully striped of myself and was shown, that even though some people’s spiritual journey seems more difficult or strange to me from my own, that he, from before the foundation of the world, poured out his unbounding grace and love and is continually working to draw us to himself, so he can lavish his love, mercy, and grace upon us. Honestly, have you ever thought that, even now, God is creating you into a masterpiece?
God came here in the person of Christ Jesus (Emmanuel- God with us), and “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross...” What or who was the object of that joy? Could it be?

There is only one God. If there were more or different versions, what would be the point? God would not be God and not worth seeking. We find him at the appointed time and when we come to the end of ourselves. Know, my brother, that the journey will be well worth it!

[_msnobody]

What I’m trying to say, is we don’t have to knock on endless doors, or sample from miles and miles of religious buffet items, or, wander in the dark. The veil [curtain/Jesus’ body] was torn giving us direct access to God. Go, my friend, directly to the source.