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Chad Ford is a BYU-Hawaii professor, a professional mediator, and even a commentator and analyst for ESPN. To that list we can also add “author.” His new book “Dangerous Love: Transforming Fear and Conflict at Home, at Work, and in the World” offers readers tools to navigate the inevitable conflict in their lives.

Ford • It’s called conflict avoidance — sweeping something under the rug, pretending it isn’t there. It’s wearing a mask that on the outside looks pure and holy. This is a consistent theme you hear again and again from Latter-day Saints, this idea that conflict is of the devil. That there is something unholy and shameful about conflict, and if I was really holy, I wouldn’t experience it.
That’s really self-defeating. If there is conflict in my life or in my family or community, I don’t want the world to know that. So that makes it harder for LDS people to seek out help from therapists or mediators.
Sometimes we also do conflict accommodation, especially among women: “If there’s no way for me to avoid this conflict, the righteous or holy thing is for me to give in.” That’s the default move if they can’t avoid conflict altogether, because it seems meek and humble, and we like our martyrdom. The problem is that it only works in short-term settings. When things are really important and we constantly push conflict aside, a gulf builds up and eventually it will break. As a long-term conflict strategy, accommodation will not work.

Ford • The LDS Church is structured around patriarchal and hierarchical authority. One thing that’s drilled into us from a young age is that if someone above us in the hierarchy gets a revelation, it’s not appropriate for us to push back. That person has keys or authority to make decisions, so when they make decisions, our job is to follow. I don’t believe that’s necessarily doctrinally what we believe, but that’s what we do culturally.

Ford • I’ll start with faith crisis. As a university professor working with young Latter-day Saints, many are going through a faith crisis. Think about our unhealthy approaches: We ignore it, we hide it. This makes young people afraid to talk about it with their friends or parents. Parents may feel shame about it.
So we start mistreating each other: We’re not open to their questions and concerns, and we don’t create space to have collaborative problem-solving. We think there’s something inherently wrong with asking questions, instead of seeing questions as a way to go deeper with faith. I see this all the time with my students and in my own family.
Because I’m teaching this stuff, they end up seeking me out because they feel I’m a safe place to talk about it. I’m very clear that I’m a practicing member of the church, but I’m not threatened by their questions. And that extends out to so many other questions, like the Word of Wisdom, women in the church, or LGBTQ+ issues. We aren’t good yet at talking about these issues in a healthy way. So we leave young people with two choices: to either shut up and accommodate, even though it hurts, or to leave and become a fierce critic of the church. Those outcomes to me are both tragic outcomes.

IHAQ wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 8:48 am

Church Leaders are telling young people to doubt their doubts, put things on the shelf as they will be resolved in the next life. Is that good advice?

Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 12:19 pm

IHAQ wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 8:48 am

Church Leaders are telling young people to doubt their doubts, put things on the shelf as they will be resolved in the next life. Is that good advice?

I've been a member a long time and have never heard "put it on the shelf" as advice. My experience with bishops, stake presidents and the general authorities I know is that they don't have answers. Maybe there are some general authorities who have answers, but I've not encountered them.

But advising a member with questions to ignore them -- that's not official doctrine. Websites like FAIR and the Interpreter try to answer the questions and, in my experience, succeed about 90 percent of the time.

Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 12:19 pm

Websites like FAIR and the Interpreter try to answer the questions and, in my experience, succeed about 90 percent of the time.

Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 12:19 pm

IHAQ wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 8:48 am

Church Leaders are telling young people to doubt their doubts, put things on the shelf as they will be resolved in the next life. Is that good advice?

I've been a member a long time and have never heard "put it on the shelf" as advice. My experience with bishops, stake presidents and the general authorities I know is that they don't have answers. Maybe there are some general authorities who have answers, but I've not encountered them.

But advising a member with questions to ignore them -- that's not official doctrine. Websites like FAIR and the Interpreter try to answer the questions and, in my experience, succeed about 90 percent of the time.

Where did this shelf concept come from?

Camilla Eyring Kimball, wife to President Spencer with. Kimball is the first documented mention of a shelf to store gospel questions. She is quoted detailing the process in an Ensign article from 1975 (only a couple years into the Kimball presidency):

“I’ve always had an inquiring mind. I’m not satisfied just to accept things. I like to follow through and study things out. I learned early to put aside those gospel questions that I couldn’t answer. I had a shelf of things I didn’t understand, but as I’ve grown older and studied and prayed and thought about each problem, one by one I’ve been able to better understand them.”

She twinkles, “I still have some questions on that shelf, but I’ve come to understand so many other things in my life that I’m willing to bide my time for the rest of the answers.”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... t-learning
Ensign Magazine, October 1975, Camilla Kimball: Lady of Constant Learning By Lavina Fielding

“We don’t control the timing of getting answers. Sometimes answers come quickly, and sometimes we must place questions on the shelf for a time and rely on our faith that has developed from the answers we do know”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/chu ... e?lang=eng
Elder Paul V. Johnson spoke to CES instructors during a CES broadcast on August 7, 2012.

Cease troubling yourselves about who God is; who Adam is, who Christ is,who Jehovah is. For heaven's sake, let these things alone. Why trouble yourselves about these things? . . . God is God. Christ is Christ. The Holy Ghost is the Holy Ghost. That should be enough for you and me to know. If we want to know any more, wait till we get where God is in person. I say this because we are troubled every little while with inquiries from Elders anxious to know who God is, who Christ is, and who Adam is. I say to the Elders of Israel,stop this. . . . We have had letter after letter from Elders abroad wanting to know concerning these things. Adam is the first man. He was placed in the Garden of Eden, and is our great progenitor. God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are the same yesterday, today, and forever, that should be sufficient for us to know. [Millennial Star 57 (June 6, 1895), 355-56; address delivered at General Conference April 7, 1895]

Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 12:19 pm

I've been a member a long time and have never heard "put it on the shelf" as advice. My experience with bishops, stake presidents and the general authorities I know is that they don't have answers. Maybe there are some general authorities who have answers, but I've not encountered them.

ELDER NEIL L. ANDERSEN , General Conference, Oct 2010 wrote:I promise you, as you choose not to be offended or ashamed, you will feel His love and approval. You will know that you are becoming more like Him. Will we understand everything? Of course not. We will put some issues on the shelf to be understood at a later time. Will everything be fair? It will not. We will accept some things we cannot fix and forgive others when it hurts.

Rick Grunder wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:41 pm

The speaker was the President of the Church, Wilford Woodruff . . .

Cease troubling yourselves about who God is; who Adam is, who Christ is,who Jehovah is. For heaven's sake, let these things alone. Why trouble yourselves about these things? . . . God is God. Christ is Christ. The Holy Ghost is the Holy Ghost. That should be enough for you and me to know. If we want to know any more, wait till we get where God is in person. I say this because we are troubled every little while with inquiries from Elders anxious to know who God is, who Christ is, and who Adam is. I say to the Elders of Israel,stop this. . . . We have had letter after letter from Elders abroad wanting to know concerning these things. Adam is the first man. He was placed in the Garden of Eden, and is our great progenitor. God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are the same yesterday, today, and forever, that should be sufficient for us to know. [Millennial Star 57 (June 6, 1895), 355-56; address delivered at General Conference April 7, 1895]

See the full passage in context at the link below. Notice there that Woodruff makes a point to remind his audience that he heard doctrines personally from Joseph Smith.

https://books.google.com/books?id=9NcRA ... 22&f=false