Matt and I were at our friends home the other night when we began to have a very good conversation about THE church. For those who aren't members of THE church, I'm referring to MY church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I KNOW I know, you are all thinking "oh great, another religious rant" but it is my blog, and its not really a rant, just more of what I've discovered lately.
BTW, does anyone else' ENTER key NOT bring your cursor down to the next line? Its really annoying me. Ok. Moving on.
I don't recall how we got on the subject of religion and THE Church. It was probably me, because ever since I ran across the facebook page that was full of haters I've been thinking about THE Church a lot. We started discussing why anti-Mormons might have so many misconceptions of (for lack of a better word) Mormonism. Then we began to discuss the new Broadway show, 'The Book of Mormon' from the creators of South Park (both of whom are return missionaries btw). It personally doesn't bother me, and the statement that THE Church put out about the whole thing was very tasteful. In fact, I might want to see it someday, who knows. We began to discuss people (members of THE Church) getting all worked up about it, and spouting off and being offended. I don't personally see anything to get worked up about, in fact, my friend mentioned that THE Church should probably post 2 real missionaries out front of the show handing out copies of The Book of Mormon, people would probably read it! My friends husband said something really interesting that I had never really thought about before. I find, in Utah especially (sorry Utah friends), that members will FIND things to be offended over. And you hear a lot of complaints from new members, or non-native members, even some native inactive members that they feel judged and shunned because of things they do, or used to do, or haven't quite let go of yet. Anyways, back to what my friends husband said, he said "people in Utah tend to be more concerned with the LETTER of the law, and not the SPIRIT of the law. Its kind of like, its not the gift that matters, its the thought that counts... right? There is no sense in competing with Sister Smith down the block, or Brother Jones across the street. When you do this, pride begins to enter into the equation and then you have to start all over. When you are comparing yourself with someone you think is perfect, or if you try to better yourself by judging someone else, in person or in your head, you become more focused on the letter of the law, and not the spirit of the law. Anyways, I'm not preaching, just writing these things down for my own use.
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Ok Barbara, for some reason none of your posts have been making it to my news feed then all of the sudden today like fifteen billion of them showed up. Hahahha! So...I'm reading a few of them that are old so that's why I'm commenting on one from a while ago.
ReplyDeleteBarbara I NEEEEEEDDDD to hang out with you. Like ASAP!!!!!! This post canNOT be truer! The past couple wards that we were in I think we really felt this. There is the gospel and there is the church. The gospel is undoubtedly true, but the church is lacking. People need to realize that the gospel is NOT the church. It is NOT about being perfect 100% of the time and judging people who aren't. Phil received a confirmation of sorts that we need to move out of state or else his testimony will be crushed about a year ago. I am totally seeing it too. It's really rough to go through. The problem is that the way Phil views the gospel is often shot down or misunderstood by many people and he can't stand being in church sometimes. I feel like I'm kind of bearing my soul over blogger, but I need to get this out. I won't go into too much detail, but the past couple wards we were in, the priesthood group was terrible (from the stories Phil told me). They would roll their eyes when they talked about women, they would focus on political issues and entangle them in the lesson, and they would shoot down Phil's comments. One example of their ridiculousness was there was a lesson on being judgmental and in relief society they spent about 5 seconds discussing that you do have to judge some situations and some people to a certain extent and then they went on to talk about being judge free. But Phil said in priesthood they spent most of their time saying "well you do have to judge people" blah blah. That's not the point guys!
And just one more quick vent (about my old ward not about the gospel). We had a lesson on keeping the sabbath day holy once and seriously half the lesson was people making comments about what they don't do on the sabbath. Some women were actually saying "I don't go to the vending machine on Sunday because that's shopping" REALLY? Talk about focusing on the letter of the law and not the point of the law! Why are you focusing on what to do and not to do? This isn't the law of Moses! This is the gospel people!
Anyway, some of those stupid things get to me too, but not that much. I just ignore it, but it's been getting to Phil a lot more. And with his mom leaving the church and all his foundation was cracked. My parents aren't helping the situation that much because of their republican think inside the box kind of view. I just really need friends like you to come hang out more often and remind us that the church is not the church, it's the gospel! Sorry for the soap box! haha!