Hannah Seariac inadvertently points out how spiritually unsatisfying Mormonism is…

[IHAQ]

I sat alone in the pew during an Ash Wednesday service at a Catholic church in southern Utah. A kind woman sat near me, and we talked after the service concluded. She told me that one of the greatest joys of her life was Starbucks coffee, but for Lent, she was sacrificing the money she would have spent on it in order to help a young single mother in her neighborhood.

Lent inspires small sacrifices like this.

As a Latter-day Saint, I don’t typically do anything for Lent, the six-week observance most often associated with Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians. But this year, I did, hoping to deepen my faith. The experience exceeded my expectations.

https://www.deseret.com/2022/4/19/23028 ... gethsemane

I should admit here that I have holy envy for the liturgical calendar. Ritual and tradition resonate with me deeply. The scent of frankincense transports me to a holier sphere, and knowing that Christians all around the world engage in similar meditative practices fosters a special bond and sense of community.

So to observe Lent this year, I decided to sacrifice time and resources to engage in activities outlined by Jesus in his famous parable in the 25th chapter of the gospel of Matthew.

Worshipping with other Christians during Lent also inspired me deeply.

One day I attended a service at a Presbyterian church with a friend. During the service, the pastor asked the congregation to join in communal prayer. As the pastor led the prayer, worshippers voiced their sincerest petitions to God, and heaven felt closer than it had before.

At another service, a priest spoke about how sacrificing our will to God’s means that we have to forsake contention in favor of cultivating unity. He read from Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son: “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.”

Then the priest quietly said to the congregation: “Go and do likewise.”

It was a holy moment, one of many I experienced during my observance of Lent. Not only was my faith strengthened, but I made genuine friendships by stepping outside the boundaries of my chosen church to worship with the broader Christian community. I was reminded that our deeply held beliefs are often more similar than we think.

The last verse of “He is Risen!” has been the hymn in my heart this season: “He is risen! He is risen! He hath opened heaven’s gate. We are free from sin’s dark prison, Risen to a holier state. And a brighter Easter beam, On our longing eyes shall stream.”

If the dawn has yet to break in your own life and you are in your personal Gethsemane, I can share from personal experience that after the grief of Lent, the Son rises, and aided by the solemn practices of Lent, many of his followers have risen to a holier state. It is, I believe, six weeks well spent, with transformations greater than you might imagine.

It’s noteworthy that a Latter-day Saint had to observe a non Latter-day Saint Christian spiritual to find that deep meaning and spiritual awakening so devoid in any and all Latter-day Saint services.

[Physics Guy]

Mormonism has original ideas and practices and traditions of its own which will deeply inspire some people. Being a heterodox Christian sect is by now a time-honoured tradition itself; there's ample precedent for offshoot groups maintaining a lot of ancient Judaeo-Christian stuff with some significant innovations.

What seems to me to set Mormonism apart in a difficult way, though, is the insistence on being the one and only real church, explicitly organised and actively directed by God, and moreover with a high-intensity model of what God's real church is supposed to be. This really seems to be a ground rule of Mormonism, and it seems to commit the Mormon church to having its own special way of doing every last little thing—which then has to be, for Mormons, the only good and right way of doing whatever it is.

That ground rule cuts Mormonism off from a lot of vigorous older traditions that could perhaps otherwise have been sustained within the new movement. Acknowledging that anything pre- or non-Mormon could be good enough for Mormons would apparently undercut the basic claim of the Restoration, though. So my impression is that Mormonism suffers seriously from not-invented-here syndrome. Joseph Smith and some of his followers and successors may have been unusually creative people, but by themselves they are thin soil, compared to the billions of person-years of experience from which any major world religion can draw.

Mormons could perhaps have been, in Jesus's words, "like the owner of a house who brings out of their storeroom new treasures as well as old.” Instead the theocratic insistence on using only Restoration-branded products for everything seems like a spiritual version of Soviet autarky, where everything is home-grown but too many things are mediocre substitutes.

[Kishkumen]

Mormonism has original ideas and practices and traditions of its own which will deeply inspire some people. Being a heterodox Christian sect is by now a time-honoured tradition itself; there's ample precedent for offshoot groups maintaining a lot of ancient Judaeo-Christian stuff with some significant innovations.

What seems to me to set Mormonism apart in a difficult way, though, is the insistence on being the one and only real church, explicitly organised and actively directed by God, and moreover with a high-intensity model of what God's real church is supposed to be. This really seems to be a ground rule of Mormonism, and it seems to commit the Mormon church to having its own special way of doing every last little thing—which then has to be, for Mormons, the only good and right way of doing whatever it is.

That ground rule cuts Mormonism off from a lot of vigorous older traditions that could perhaps otherwise have been sustained within the new movement. Acknowledging that anything pre- or non-Mormon could be good enough for Mormons would apparently undercut the basic claim of the Restoration, though. So my impression is that Mormonism suffers seriously from not-invented-here syndrome. Joseph Smith and some of his followers and successors may have been unusually creative people, but by themselves they are thin soil, compared to the billions of person-years of experience from which any major world religion can draw.

Mormons could perhaps have been, in Jesus's words, "like the owner of a house who brings out of their storeroom new treasures as well as old.” Instead the theocratic insistence on using only Restoration-branded products for everything seems like a spiritual version of Soviet autarky, where everything is home-grown but too many things are mediocre substitutes.

Marvelously insightful post. Thank you.

[dastardly stem]

I don't know...whose the bestest religion, most pious of them all? When you can't find good reason to believe the founding pieces of these religions, all their pious moves look a little silly and pointless in a way. I grant we ought to try our best to find some level of respect, in a "to each his own" kind of way, I don't think that means one religion's way of doing things is better simply because observers look and perhaps feel more pious than others. As an outsider of it all, it feels silly to make a point of it. If one practitioner of one religion wants to feed off of some practices of another, I'd say, more power to you. I can't possibly see how that makes one deficient. I mean they both are for thinking the unreasonable is reasonable.

[malkie]

In my little branch in Scotland, it was almost a tradition to go to Midnight Mass at Christmas, even for people who had not been Catholic before they joined the LDS church.

I never thought about it at the time, but I can feel some degree of truth in what IHAQ says.

[Rivendale]

Mormonism has original ideas and practices and traditions of its own which will deeply inspire some people. Being a heterodox Christian sect is by now a time-honoured tradition itself; there's ample precedent for offshoot groups maintaining a lot of ancient Judaeo-Christian stuff with some significant innovations.

What seems to me to set Mormonism apart in a difficult way, though, is the insistence on being the one and only real church, explicitly organised and actively directed by God, and moreover with a high-intensity model of what God's real church is supposed to be. This really seems to be a ground rule of Mormonism, and it seems to commit the Mormon church to having its own special way of doing every last little thing—which then has to be, for Mormons, the only good and right way of doing whatever it is.

That ground rule cuts Mormonism off from a lot of vigorous older traditions that could perhaps otherwise have been sustained within the new movement. Acknowledging that anything pre- or non-Mormon could be good enough for Mormons would apparently undercut the basic claim of the Restoration, though. So my impression is that Mormonism suffers seriously from not-invented-here syndrome. Joseph Smith and some of his followers and successors may have been unusually creative people, but by themselves they are thin soil, compared to the billions of person-years of experience from which any major world religion can draw.

Mormons could perhaps have been, in Jesus's words, "like the owner of a house who brings out of their storeroom new treasures as well as old.” Instead the theocratic insistence on using only Restoration-branded products for everything seems like a spiritual version of Soviet autarky, where everything is home-grown but too many things are mediocre substitutes.

If trends continue as Pew research shows Christianity might have to coalesce. It appears Mormonism is already conceding marketing very similar to vanilla Protestantism , Russell Nelson be damned. Some leaders have said for years that the "one true church" has been a hard sell.

[toon]

If trends continue as Pew research shows Christianity might have to coalesce. It appears Mormonism is already conceding marketing very similar to vanilla Protestantism , Russell Nelson be damned. Some leaders have said for years that the "one true church" has been a hard sell.

Can Mormonism really back away from the "one true church?" Take that away, and can it really compete? There may still be some aspects of the religion that are attractive and set it apart. If I don't need the saving ordinances that only the Church can provide, why go if I find it unfulfilling or boring?

[Moksha]

Hannah now knows that if she needs a spiritual boost, she can visit the service of a non-LDS Church.

[Dr. Shades]

I sat alone in the pew during an Ash Wednesday service at a Catholic church in southern Utah. A kind woman sat near me, and we talked after the service concluded.

So, which is it? Did she sit alone, or did she sit near a kind woman? It can't be both.

[Marcus]

I sat alone in the pew during an Ash Wednesday service at a Catholic church in southern Utah. A kind woman sat near me, and we talked after the service concluded.

So, which is it? Did she sit alone, or did she sit near a kind woman? It can't be both.

Yes it can.