MormonMatters 499

[slavereeno]

BIL sent this. Thought it was pretty good.

TL;DL: Matt Jones had a faith crisis and then got called to be a Bishop. He serves as a nuanced bishop for 6 years. Interviewed by Dan Wotherspoon.

https://www.mormonmatters.org/podcast-i ... wise-soul/

He seems to still have an emotional basis to his "testimony" but its a pretty nuanced one. There is a lot he is willing to dismiss or simply ignore, but I would say that I would rather have him as my bishop than the past several that I have had...

[slavereeno]

I find this kind of Mormon very interesting... His story is very similar to the friend that I had lunch with a week or two ago.

They both mention an "undeniable" testimony. What they are referring to is a very strong emotional response when questioning or lashing out at God. One of the reasons this is interesting to me is because I have had a similar experience, overwhelming emotion when really railing against the logic of something, and I too would describe the emotion as "love"

My Mormon Spectrum for those who get past the head in the sand phase:

1. Those who come up with elaborate and impossible explanations to make stuff work and become ardent apologists
2. Those who decide to ignore stuff as unimportant because they have an "undeniable" emotional experience and become cafeteria, nuanced Mormons.
3. Those who decide its all hogwash but feel like the church could someday be saved from itself and its history
4. Those who decide its all hogwash but don't want to upset the apple cart too much with family and friends
5. Those who quietly slip out
6. Those who want it to burn to the ground

Dan Wotherspoon, Matt Jones and my lunch friend, seem to fall into category 2. I am squarely in category 4, looking over the fence at 5.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

4.5 here! Maybe creeping towards 4.7 since I'm a sacrament only attender. I like your list.

[slavereeno]

4.5 here! Maybe creeping towards 4.7 since I'm a sacrament only attender. I like your list.

I like this approach of using a floating point number.

I see someone like NewNameNoah as a solid 6+. Sam Young could be a 3 or maybe a 2.8. John Dehlin is kind of a 5ish, though he tried to stay a 3

[oliblish]

I am probably at about a 4.75. I think I have only been to sacrament meeting twice this year, maybe 3 times. I went to Gospel Doctrine once because my wife was called as an instructor. (I kind of feel bad that I have only been to one of her lessons, but not bad enough to get out of bed for 9:00am church.)

[MoPag]

I know it's hogwash, but I feel like I can have a positive impact on the people I serve. I can teach a loving Jesus, and I can be an advocate for feminist issues and the LGBT+ community. I can't remember that last time I sat through the whole 3 hour block, but I show up for my calling.

[Red Ryder]

I love your scale. I'll say I'm at 4.75 like others. I also like to think of my Mormonism in terms of hours per week. Right now I'm at 2.85 mormon hours per week not counting Mormon internet time and factoring in being 10 minutes late to sacrament meeting! My goal is to be a 1 hour a week mormon again which was attainable for the last two years until this damn calling they put me in with the wife teaching a primary class. We have fun and the kids aren't getting brainwashed. Like zero. We've even implemented Corsair's root beer taste test on a fast Sunday no less!

As to the MM episode:

I really have to question their definition of faith crisis. Would it best be described as them driving down the mormon highway and hearing a slight knocking sound coming from under the hood? So they pull over, pop the hood, notice nothing wrong, wiggle a few things, then close the hood and continue their drive down the Mormon highway towards the Celestial Circle K?

Or did they pull over, check the engine, realize something wasn't right, called a two truck to take it home, where they then started to dismantle the whole car piece by piece in their garage until 4:00 in the morning every day for a year until every part was disassembled and nothing is left that resembles the car?

My faith crisis surely isn't their faith crisis nor is mine yours. So these "feel good" experiences are nice to hear about but they surely are not great examples our loved ones can send over and say "see, you can make it work like these people did!!"

It's unattainable for my worn out mormon brain.

[Archimedes]

Just a couple of comments. You can only be nuanced if your local leaders will put up with it. And technically being nuanced won't get you into the penthouse level of Celestial Suites by Marriott.

Plus I would add another category.

7. Those who had it burned to the ground around them.

[slavereeno]

I do teach my primary class still, my DD is in my class right now so I at least have some influence over 45 minutes of her church time.

I really have to question their definition of faith crisis. Would it best be described as them driving down the mormon highway and hearing a slight knocking sound coming from under the hood? So they pull over, pop the hood, notice nothing wrong, wiggle a few things, then close the hood and continue their drive down the Mormon highway towards the Celestial Circle K?

Or did they pull over, check the engine, realize something wasn't right, called a two truck to take it home, where they then started to dismantle the whole car piece by piece in their garage until 4:00 in the morning every day for a year until every part was disassembled and nothing is left that resembles the car?

For Matt Jones it seems the former for sure. He explained his "faith crisis" and said he "no longer has a shelf and instead he started putting things on the floor" but by that he really meant was that he just made the whole floor his shelf, ignoring all the issues he had discovered and focusing on the people. He did say in the interview he wasn't ignoring the issues, but then describes doing exactly that.

[slavereeno]

7. Those who had it burned to the ground around them.

This is basicall what I did to DW. But I would describe that as more the mode of exposure to church stuffs than her place after finding them out.