Officially denied to give baby blessing

[SunbeltRed]

Had a final meeting with my Bishop the other night and he officially denied me to do the baby blessing for our new child. I'm fine with this. It means I will have to have a conversation with my parents, but I think he did me a favor. It's been a slow bleed, and it's now time to rip off the band aid be done with all of this.

I don't know if I went about this the right way with him. I didn't bring up any issues, I kept it very high level. I merely affirmed that I'm agnostic, I don't believe in a true church, thus I don't believe Monson is a prophet. I try to be a good husband, dad, community member and I have a hard time with any deity that would take away these treasured relationship post-mortality (if there is such a thing) merely for not being a believing and active Mormon. I don't know if I should have brought up anything more granular, but at the same time he didn't ask and didn't seem to want to know. Most of the conversation was him trying to get me to move back to a place that I can't and him getting frustrated that I can't just even try to have faith a little bit in something.

And it didn't seem to be my agnosticism or my disbelief in Jesus's divinity, it was that I don't believe in Monson and priesthood authority that led him to his decision. As most of us know, the church isn't about Jesus, it's about authority and our deference to it.

He did bring up the A word (apostasy) and made the point that there is a line. One one side you may have doubts about Monson but you are trying, on the other side you don't accept Monson as prophet. But he let that fade out pretty quick. I may have also mentioned that worst case scenario, if Mormonism is true, it's the Telestial kingdom for me and I'm totally cool with that (he didn't really know what to say to that. I mean what do you say when the whole thing is to try to earn some top prize and someone is like, I don't really care about the prize).

So, we are still going to have a blessing, DW and I are going to bless him together, we'll have a little party, make it fun and make it our own family ritual that everyone gets to be involved in.

I'm not mad about it. It's like The Santa Clause club telling you that maybe you shouldn't be going if you don't believe in Santa Clause, and you shrug your shoulders and say, yeah, you're right. It's all made up anyway, but even the BS messes with people's relationships.

Anyway, that's where things are at. Luckily DW is good with me being where I am and she is fine if we do our own baby thing and not do an official baby blessing. Overall, I think my disengagement from Mormonism will be even greater this year than last year, and last year I didn't really go a whole lot. So, I actually think my Bishop is doing me a favor. Time to move on.

[slk]

I guess your make-believe Priesthood isn't as "powerful" as someone else's make-believe Priesthood. If your wife is on board, I would say skip the baby blessing. Sounds like you're going to start your own tradition which is awesome.

[wtfluff]

And it didn't seem to be my agnosticism or my disbelief in Jesus's divinity, it was that I don't believe in Monson and priesthood authority that led him to his decision. As most of us know, the church isn't about Jesus, it's about authority and our deference to it.

Here's where you might have used the Gordon Hinckley answer to ensure plausible deniability: "Mr. Monson is called as such."

[RubinHighlander]

Congrats SunbeltRed! It sounds like pulling off the band-aid won't be that painful for you but there will be more fallout with the extended family.

I love the idea of doing a blessing with your DW, with both of you laying your hands on your baby, saying the things you feel and hope. What a beautiful scene! If your new baby has siblings perhaps they could also participate with their hands on the baby and express their joy and hope; how cool would that be? Seems to me that should be the true order of a baby blessing; not some corporate cultist ceremony, not a circle of standing men with their hands on shoulders, but just the family gathered around the baby.

Good luck in your journey this year!

[No Tof]

I'm really happy for your family. You get to have the circle of love celebration of new life without the life long connection to the church.

Win win IMHO

[Red Ryder]

I'm probably over stepping boundaries here but...

Your baby will turn out just fine.

[MalcolmVillager]

Sorry and congrats. I am not sure if I will make it to the last of my girls baptisms without coming outb, and I just can't imagine making it 15 more years for all the weddings and the rest of my life for all the other PH circles.

I am a bit jealous bit also sad do you and for the church to make it this way.

[Mormorrisey]

I still find it so unfortunate it ended this way, and rather ridiculous. But I'm glad for your family, I'm sure you will have a great family event/blessing, and I'm sure it will be a treasured memory for all. And that's the main thing! So have a great time with it. Thanks for the report, and I'm sure with the family figuring your apostasy out in a rather interesting fashion, we might have some more stories about family interactions in the future.

[SunbeltRed]

Thanks everyone!

So I was tossing this around last night and was talking it through with DW.

Regardless of next steps, I need to tell my parents why I can't bless my baby. There's going to be some pain involved. So either the church can "win" by me not blessing my baby, and having someone else do it, or the church can "win" by letting a baby blessing come between me and my parents.

As I contemplated this, I decided that I will offer to let my dad do the blessing if he wants. I figure that the pain of realizing that their son is a non-believer may be softened a little bit, maybe not, with still being allowed to have this tradition with their grandson. I think that the pain of both things, son basically out, and now not even being allowed one last religious experience with their grandchildren may be even more painful.

We will still have our own baby blessing after the "official" one. The Bishop will not be invited to either one.

So I'm working on a letter to my parents. We'll see how that goes.

[AllieOop]

Thanks everyone!

So I was tossing this around last night and was talking it through with DW.

Regardless of next steps, I need to tell my parents why I can't bless my baby. There's going to be some pain involved. So either the church can "win" by me not blessing my baby, and having someone else do it, or the church can "win" by letting a baby blessing come between me and my parents.

As I contemplated this, I decided that I will offer to let my dad do the blessing if he wants. I figure that the pain of realizing that their son is a non-believer may be softened a little bit, maybe not, with still being allowed to have this tradition with their grandson. I think that the pain of both things, son basically out, and now not even being allowed one last religious experience with their grandchildren may be even more painful.

We will still have our own baby blessing after the "official" one. The Bishop will not be invited to either one.

So I'm working on a letter to my parents. We'll see how that goes.

Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this and that you're trying to do what will hurt your parents the least. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this, but I hope it goes as well as it can with them.

Just don't ever use the "w" word when writing or talking to them (never say you're not "worthy"....I hate the way that word is used to cause pain in the church).

Good luck and please do let us know how it goes!

[Mormorrisey]

As I contemplated this, I decided that I will offer to let my dad do the blessing if he wants. I figure that the pain of realizing that their son is a non-believer may be softened a little bit, maybe not, with still being allowed to have this tradition with their grandson. I think that the pain of both things, son basically out, and now not even being allowed one last religious experience with their grandchildren may be even more painful.

This is a very thoughtful, sensitive and kind thing to do for your dad. I don't know if you'll get praised enough in mormon circles for doing this, but you'll get it here. It's insane that the institutional church is holding your family hostage, and YOU have to come up with creative ways to help soften the blow. I think your family has thought through all this very well, and I have nothing but kudos for you dealing with this situation this way. It's made me think of ways I can be kinder to the TBM's in my life, to help soften the blow of my apostasy - usually guns a' blazin' hasn't worked out all that well.

In any event, I hope your parents can see the sacrifice of all of this, and treat you accordingly.

[Red Ryder]

Let's help out with a draft.

Dear Mom and Dad,

As you know, Sister SunbeltRed and I have been sexually intimate with each other numerous times resulting in the birth of your precious grandchildren. The most recent birth has also been a result of our healthy marriage relations.

As you may not know, Joseph Smith had similar sexually intimate relations with numerous women. Possible 34 or more. Some of these women were really young and some weren't exactly spring chickens, if you know what I mean. Nonetheless, when I found out about these "sacred" relationships, I began to doubt the authenticity of the Prophet and his restoration church.

Let me get to the point of this letter. I no longer believe in the foundational claims of Mormonism which has resulted in my inability to bless the new grandchild because my Bishop follows the handbook of instruction over tradition and family bonding. I would appreciate it if dad could do the deed? What do you say Pops?

Love,
SunbeltRed

[Flaming Meaux]

Had a final meeting with my Bishop the other night and he officially denied me to do the baby blessing for our new child. I'm fine with this. It means I will have to have a conversation with my parents, but I think he did me a favor. It's been a slow bleed, and it's now time to rip off the band aid be done with all of this.

...

I don't know if I went about this the right way with him. I didn't bring up any issues, I kept it very high level.
Anyway, that's where things are at. Luckily DW is good with me being where I am and she is fine if we do our own baby thing and not do an official baby blessing. Overall, I think my disengagement from Mormonism will be even greater this year than last year, and last year I didn't really go a whole lot. So, I actually think my Bishop is doing me a favor. Time to move on.

This just goes to show what a significant role "leadership roulette" plays in the church. In my case, I was a professed atheist who didn't accept the priesthood or the prophetic calling of any of the church's leadership and my local leadership was (to their credit?) bending over backward to try to get me involved somehow just so that my son (now 2 years old) would be "blessed in the church."

When I moved into this ward some five years ago, I attended the first Sunday with my wife since she didn't know anyone--the bishop quickly pulled us aside but here they did the introductory meeting with the entire ward council present. More welcoming that way, I suppose, but a little awkward when the bishop says, "So you are an Elder, yes?" and you have to say, "That is how I appear on your records, but I'm not a believer in the religion so you won't frequently see me attending even though my wife does."

Fast forward a few years and my wife is pregnant and our home-teacher raises the "What are you going to do about blessing your son?" question (why Mormons think it is normal to be so intrusive is beyond me). I didn't want to have a big discussion so I just said we might just do our own thing and left it at that. A few months ago, as he was apparently unsatisfied with my answer, he indicated that apparently the blessing of my son had become some sort of topic of discussion among local leadership, and the view was that it was the father's right to give the blessing, so I would be welcome to do so notwithstanding that I hadn't attended a service for years. I told him that I wouldn't be comfortable blessing the child since I didn't actually believe in the priesthood. He then said, "Well, yeah, but clearly you are still a believer in God so that's good enough." That's when I told him I didn't actually believe in God either and wouldn't want to get up and pretend that I did.

The next suggestion was that I agree to have someone from the church who did believe in God bless my son, but that I could be in the circle holding him. Ignoring for the moment whether I'd be comfortable with a nearly complete stranger give a standard Mormon-centric blessing over my son, complete with all of the rituals I'd be later excluded from (e.g., temple marriage, etc.), I suggested that maybe it would be more appropriate for my wife to hold my son since the ritual would actually be more meaningful to her as a believer. THAT. THAT WAS THE LINE THAT COULDN'T BE CROSSED. You see, apparently you have to at least nominally hold the priesthood to be in the circle, even if you don't actually believe in it.

At that point I highlighted how the church was bending over backward to involve me as a nonbeliever while at the same time not letting my wife participate in any meaningful way even though SHE WAS ACTUALLY THE ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE CHILD. I told them I wouldn't be a party to such baseless gender discrimination and we would not have our son blessed in the church.

Guess what? He's now two and he's just fine. More verbally developed and I dare say smarter than average. I'm not attributing that to the fact that he wasn't blessed, but just saying that your baby will be fine regardless. The conversation with the parents will be trickier. I was already out as an atheist to my parents, so it wasn't surprising to them that we weren't blessing our son in the church. My in-laws are complete jack-Mormons, but they couldn't believe that I wasn't just having some complete stranger do it just so that he was blessed regardless. They tried to insert themselves in that process in uncomfortable ways (we live on the other side of the country; we went to visit them for a few days and while we where there they told us how they were getting everyone together for the blessing that we didn't even agree to--they suggested that one of the new brother-in-laws, who is a complete jerk BTW, just do it). I had to have strong words with them that were not popular, but they got the point and left us alone about it.

Anyway, best of luck with the parental units. That whole aspect of the transitioning process was the most difficult because Mormonism really screws with people's heads about what happens when people leave the religion, but over the years (it's been about 8 years now, I think) we've been able to build our relationship on something more than just our common religion (a net positive, overall).

[foolmeonce]

I'm probably over stepping boundaries here but...

Your baby will turn out just fine.

How can the baby possibly be fine without the dad publicly committing him/her to a lifetime of church service, a mission, temple marriage, and lots of grandkids? I don't know if the kid can function without all of that public pressure driving motivation!

[wtfluff]

We will still have our own baby blessing after the "official" one. The Bishop will not be invited to either one.

I believe you have to have at least one member of the bishopric "present" to make it "official".

No matter how it pans out, don't do the "official" version during sacrament meeting: avoid the Mormon Public Shaming™ situation.

[SunbeltRed]

Let's help out with a draft.

Dear Mom and Dad,

As you know, Sister SunbeltRed and I have been sexually intimate with each other numerous times resulting in the birth of your precious grandchildren. The most recent birth has also been a result of our healthy marriage relations.

As you may not know, Joseph Smith had similar sexually intimate relations with numerous women. Possible 34 or more. Some of these women were really young and some weren't exactly spring chickens, if you know what I mean. Nonetheless, when I found out about these "sacred" relationships, I began to doubt the authenticity of the Prophet and his restoration church.

Let me get to the point of this letter. I no longer believe in the foundational claims of Mormonism which has resulted in my inability to bless the new grandchild because my Bishop follows the handbook of instruction over tradition and family bonding. I would appreciate it if dad could do the deed? What do you say Pops?

Love,
SunbeltRed

This was perfect! Copied and sent!

Appreciate the laugh RR!

[SunbeltRed]

As I contemplated this, I decided that I will offer to let my dad do the blessing if he wants. I figure that the pain of realizing that their son is a non-believer may be softened a little bit, maybe not, with still being allowed to have this tradition with their grandson. I think that the pain of both things, son basically out, and now not even being allowed one last religious experience with their grandchildren may be even more painful.

This is a very thoughtful, sensitive and kind thing to do for your dad. I don't know if you'll get praised enough in mormon circles for doing this, but you'll get it here. It's insane that the institutional church is holding your family hostage, and YOU have to come up with creative ways to help soften the blow. I think your family has thought through all this very well, and I have nothing but kudos for you dealing with this situation this way. It's made me think of ways I can be kinder to the TBM's in my life, to help soften the blow of my apostasy - usually guns a' blazin' hasn't worked out all that well.

In any event, I hope your parents can see the sacrifice of all of this, and treat you accordingly.

Thanks Mormorrisey! I'm trying...the guns a blazing approach has crossed my mind.

[SunbeltRed]

This just goes to show what a significant role "leadership roulette" plays in the church. In my case, I was a professed atheist who didn't accept the priesthood or the prophetic calling of any of the church's leadership and my local leadership was (to their credit?) bending over backward to try to get me involved somehow just so that my son (now 2 years old) would be "blessed in the church."

When I moved into this ward some five years ago, I attended the first Sunday with my wife since she didn't know anyone--the bishop quickly pulled us aside but here they did the introductory meeting with the entire ward council present. More welcoming that way, I suppose, but a little awkward when the bishop says, "So you are an Elder, yes?" and you have to say, "That is how I appear on your records, but I'm not a believer in the religion so you won't frequently see me attending even though my wife does."

Fast forward a few years and my wife is pregnant and our home-teacher raises the "What are you going to do about blessing your son?" question (why Mormons think it is normal to be so intrusive is beyond me). I didn't want to have a big discussion so I just said we might just do our own thing and left it at that. A few months ago, as he was apparently unsatisfied with my answer, he indicated that apparently the blessing of my son had become some sort of topic of discussion among local leadership, and the view was that it was the father's right to give the blessing, so I would be welcome to do so notwithstanding that I hadn't attended a service for years. I told him that I wouldn't be comfortable blessing the child since I didn't actually believe in the priesthood. He then said, "Well, yeah, but clearly you are still a believer in God so that's good enough." That's when I told him I didn't actually believe in God either and wouldn't want to get up and pretend that I did.

The next suggestion was that I agree to have someone from the church who did believe in God bless my son, but that I could be in the circle holding him. Ignoring for the moment whether I'd be comfortable with a nearly complete stranger give a standard Mormon-centric blessing over my son, complete with all of the rituals I'd be later excluded from (e.g., temple marriage, etc.), I suggested that maybe it would be more appropriate for my wife to hold my son since the ritual would actually be more meaningful to her as a believer. THAT. THAT WAS THE LINE THAT COULDN'T BE CROSSED. You see, apparently you have to at least nominally hold the priesthood to be in the circle, even if you don't actually believe in it.

At that point I highlighted how the church was bending over backward to involve me as a nonbeliever while at the same time not letting my wife participate in any meaningful way even though SHE WAS ACTUALLY THE ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE CHILD. I told them I wouldn't be a party to such baseless gender discrimination and we would not have our son blessed in the church.

Guess what? He's now two and he's just fine. More verbally developed and I dare say smarter than average. I'm not attributing that to the fact that he wasn't blessed, but just saying that your baby will be fine regardless. The conversation with the parents will be trickier. I was already out as an atheist to my parents, so it wasn't surprising to them that we weren't blessing our son in the church. My in-laws are complete jack-Mormons, but they couldn't believe that I wasn't just having some complete stranger do it just so that he was blessed regardless. They tried to insert themselves in that process in uncomfortable ways (we live on the other side of the country; we went to visit them for a few days and while we where there they told us how they were getting everyone together for the blessing that we didn't even agree to--they suggested that one of the new brother-in-laws, who is a complete jerk BTW, just do it). I had to have strong words with them that were not popular, but they got the point and left us alone about it.

Anyway, best of luck with the parental units. That whole aspect of the transitioning process was the most difficult because Mormonism really screws with people's heads about what happens when people leave the religion, but over the years (it's been about 8 years now, I think) we've been able to build our relationship on something more than just our common religion (a net positive, overall).

Yeah, leadership roulette for sure. I'm not an atheist, though my "belief" in God isn't probably too far off from yours. But I would have taken that out, of them letting me do it because I still believe in God.

But also, good on you for sticking to your guns all the way around. And the gender thing...don't even get me started.

[SunbeltRed]

We will still have our own baby blessing after the "official" one. The Bishop will not be invited to either one.

I believe you have to have at least one member of the bishopric "present" to make it "official".

No matter how it pans out, don't do the "official" version during sacrament meeting: avoid the Mormon Public Shaming™ situation.

Yeah, going to do it in our home. Maybe one of the counselors can be there, but Bishop definitely not invited.

My dad is a Bishop, I wonder if that would be enough?

[wtfluff]

My dad is a Bishop, I wonder if that would be enough?

I sure hope so. That would be Purrrrfect!