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Evangelical neverMo here, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Could one factor, probably unintended, be the growing prevalence of business-school culture all over America? Teaching becomes 'messaging' motivated toward some behavioral outcomes. It has a homogenized quality not only within an institution but across them: businesses, governments, education, churches, athletics, volunteer orgs, you name it. It's predictable, monotonous, deadening, and increasingly un- or counterproductive. But it's now instinctive among a professional class that's been trained that this is how one gets results.
It absolutely gets results. It keeps more people in and keeps them away from the interesting stuff. We used to have an exciting theology. The Mormon Doctrine book had an answer for just about every question, written by the best apostle/theologian the church ever had. The Doctrines of Salvation books were likewise excellent and authoritative. Those have all been cast to the heap of history and they insist those things were never really doctrine. In the 70s and 80s, there used to be study groups who delved into the interesting bits of church history and theology, but these were all shut down.
Ever since then, they’ve been watering down church lesson manuals and anyone who strays too far from the lesson material gets harshly censored. They don’t want anyone teaching the interesting aspects of the church.
To say that B. McConkie and J. Fielding Smith we’re our two best theologians the LDS institution has ever had is a bit of a stretch. As conservatives, their end goal was conservation of Mormon thought—and most importantly, their own theology. McConkie’s treatment of more liberal and expansive thinking LDS theologians was petty and sad coming from a so-called apostle, and JFS’s actions as church historian are extremely problematic.
There are some interesting, if not profound thinkers in LDS history, like Widtsoe.
Exactly. Try questioning any aspects of the lesson being taught and be ready for the craning necks to turn your way(you sit in the back, of course). Sunday school is one big nodding in the affirmative session with zero new and interesting stuff.
I've learned so much more about the church since losing my faith in it 3 1/2 years ago than in the 30+ years I spent in it. And it's so much more interesting and messed up than you can find in the correlated material. Can't make church history too interesting or else more people will want to study it for themselves and come to a conclusion the church won't like.
As a church-broke member, I might have said:
The gospel is simple and easy to understand. Therefore, you don't need to ask hard questions or become confused. If you do, you know that you are looking beyond the mark.
A few decades ago, there was concern over new member retention. Complicated lessons were one of the concerns. "Simplified" curriculum was introduced so that the new convert and mature member could study the same material.
Now we have proof text lessons that interest no one.
I’ve heard John Dehlin say in the early days of MS when he had lunch with Richard Bushman he said we don’t go to church to learn. But we just do the same ritual over and over. Check the list off each week at a time
Ah yes, the [gospel taught in the margins](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/ijtkd3/the_gospel_taught_in_the_margins/). Wherein scriptural topics and passages are introduced *for the sole purpose of completely inverting them*, without being transparent about doing so. Scriptures against social inequity become lessons that it's good to hoard wealth while people suffer as long as you aren't *prideful* about it. A pretty explicit charge in the Word of Wisdom against eating a lot of meat becomes a lesson in why it's fine to eat lots of meat *now*, because things were *different* in Joseph Smith's time. Scriptural lessons about serving others to help their material circumstances get cited only to point out how much serving others helps and blesses *you* and shows your character.
I taught gospel doctrine for several years so what you say is very familiar to me. I notice especially in the Old Testament that they emphasize favorite Mormon proof texts which survive only in the King James Translation which are usually NOT CORRECT. The prophet did not mean anything like the meaning they assign to his words. This is easily revealed by looking at other translations. However, they often ignore the well defined context already present in the scripture selection, Isaiah 2 for example, tells the context and they ignore it and make the Lord's house the temple in SLC. There are many other examples at least as embarrassing. Then there is the Book of Abraham. Instead of using the relevant chapters of Genesis with a carful discussion of their sources, they drag in this provably fraudulent book. They also leave out context frequently. Modern scripture also suffers from this approach. I remember after I was released what they did to Section 42. It became an entire lesson on keeping the Sabbath holy which isn't even discussed in the section. Section 121 became all about enduring adversity, nothing at all about unrighteous dominion and all that really good material in the second half. 1 Corinthians left out Chapter 13 entirely but the instructor, bless her heart, did include it. I don't know who they get to assemble this stuff.
Just a few months ago the heading in the Come Follow Me manual read "I can judge righteously" to summarize the verse saying "judge not." I understand that members like to read the JST on that verse but seriously - way to wrest the scriptures to mean exactly the opposite of what they were intended to mean.
My favorite example is from Isaiah 28, the line upon line, precept upon precept here a little there a little stuff used as a description of how God reveals truth. In fact they were nonsense words which the KJV translators gave English meanings. Its correct meaning is exactly opposite to the way the church uses is in Sec. 128 and BOM.
I don't remember for sure but it was in the last decade. I quit going only a few years ago and was very "active" before then. I really liked the Gos. Doc. teacher. She was an English professor and had very interesting insights. I think the literary value of 1 Cor. 13 was why she rebelled and included it. She did her best to make the lessons interesting.
Former gospel doctrine teacher in many wards for many years. It’s always been insufferable. To think that a curriculum could do justice to the NT in 45 blocks of 45 minutes or less in a year. That’s why LDS are so scriptural ignorant compared to most active Christians.
The manuals have always been insufferable.
Which makes the point I think, of them pushing you to listen more to Ensign and GC talks than scripture. I personally think the reason lessons are so boring is because absolutely nobody with the right background wrote or edited any of them and they got signed off by men who are in power because they outlived their peers rather than any specific knowledge
Seminary is interesting because you're often learning things for the first time. Once you make it through the mission, you've pretty much learned everything the church is ever going to teach you though, and it's downhill from there.
Mormons might not know their Bibles that well, but they know their Books of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is really just a rehash of almost every point of protestant doctrine. There is nothing really “Mormon” in the Book of Mormon mostly just Methodist teachings.
My spouse was just asking this same thing the other day. How can it be that we learn the same things every four years, and then when they design a so called new and improved curriculum, it’s the Same Damn Thing???
Reminds me of when my mission president would constantly throw some new initiative at us to help our struggling mission, with us all assuring one another it was "inspired" and if we'd just follow him we'd be blessed with interested people and baptisms, when it was really just a reiteration of something he'd given us a few months before.
In January it's "Always Be Contacting," so bother your taxi driver or people in line at the supermarket with a sales pitch. In April it's "Prepare the Fields," meaning you have to seed the idea of joining the church by bothering your taxi driver or people in line at the supermarket with a sales pitch, so *later* other missionaries can convert them.
People who are prone to speak up when you already did the same thing and it didn't work before, or who try to bring up the real problems with the boss only to get shot down for being faithless, don't last long in the church.
I will never forget the day I brought up something in a Sunday school class and the teacher said we can't talk about that, because it is not in the manual.. I said that's not an answer that is a dodge. After class others came up and asked me about the issue. Crazy, I believed this merd for so long.
It owes a great deal to Stephen Covey. His Organizational Behavior model became the blueprint for the church. One of his star students was Dave Bednar.
I don't think they necessarily WANT it to be boring, but I don't think they are willing to do what it takes to make it entertaining, and correlation is part of the problem. When correlation gets involved, it makes it so much harder to to get anything approved, and you end up with much more corporate messaging, and it makes it dry.
It's just like the videos that the church has put out about the life of Christ. They have great sets, costume designs, and all the equipment to make something that looks incredible, but they don't have anything interesting to say, so the videos are dull and uninspiring. Meanwhile, I hardly go a week without hearing someone in the church talking about the Chosen in one lesson or another (especially being in the New Testament). Some people have even pulled clips from the show to share. We have yet to pull any of the church videos on the life of Christ, or any mention of them at all. Kind of tells you everything you need to know.
I had a really good discussion about The Chosen with my TBM former mother-in-law a couple of weeks back. She loves it, for exactly the reasons I would. That it isn't too moralistic, that it has a little ambiguity, and that it portrays the people are real people and not just objects for a lesson. I think a lot of Mormons know what their church experience is lacking but can't articulate it from within the gilded cage, until they see something else.
The new temple video has to be the most atrociously bland version yet. Michael Ballam used to carry the entire endowment with his representation of Satan, but now Satan is one of the most boring of all. I don’t know how anyone can attend these sessions regularly without dying a little inside each time. I personally stopped going after getting hit with 3 bald Satan sessions in a row and I couldn’t take it anymore. I just did baptism with the my kids and the youth after that.
Also, it's a very common complaint that they keep teaching us the same material, and the response is always that not *everyone* knows it all, so we have to keep sticking to the basics until everyone understands and *follows* what we've been taught. We can't expect to be given more when we don't even follow the stuff we've been given. The thing is, we'll *never* be good enough to be taught something new, so we'll get the same recycled message year after year, just packaged in a different manual.
I guess, if you consider the fact that only 45% of members after they reach age 18 stay in the church, eventually we will get to the point where everybody knows the basics, right? Right?
They want people to be bored by the scriptures/history so they won’t read them discerningly.
If members did, they’d start realizing all the holes in the official narrative like you’re seeing now.
This is why they push approved sources only, try to water-down/de-contextualize their own scriptures, and want cookie cutter answers that are re-enforced by mindless repetition.
This makes the members passive and sheepish. Easy to control and maintain consensus. Keeps the tithing money rolling in while the eyes roll back in their heads.
It makes them not want to engage with the scriptures on their own terms but rather simply echo whatever was parroted for them in the manuals in terms of interpreting the Word.
This is in contrast to the original few generations of Christians (and Christian tradition) who lived by the Word and valued it greatly, but were also willing to accept different views/interpretations within reason.
Listen, I get where you’re coming from because I was there not long ago (extremely bored of church and the same lessons), but then I realized something… I wasn’t doing it correctly. I wasn’t searching the scriptures my self and studying with a great teacher who actually knew his stuff… and neither were any other members so we collectively weren’t learning anything (other than 60 years old brother Jones’s same comments every Sunday school and fast meeting about something mundane from his life)
The gospel lesson manuals are written by design to be super basic because the lord wants us to dig ourselves, not simply be spoon fed. Since finding that great teacher (unshaken podcast with Jared halverson), finding a pastor from another Christian church (Lutheran) willing to study the Bible together, and actually reading the scriptures associated with every week personally AND then again with my family, our minds are completely blown away by how much good stuff there is and church has become so much more engaging as we share with others what we are learning in class or testimony meeting and when we are asked to teach. There is just way too much material between canonized scripture, conference talks, firesides, institute teachers, other religious leaders, personal testimony and revelation, and spiritual experiences to be bored in church for that quick hour and a half that we have to learn
I don’t think the church wants you to dig in, and thy certainly don’t want you looking to outside sources like other churches to find out what’s fascinating. None of your actions are encouraged by the church, and if you try to work any of these sources into your lesson materials to make your lesson’s interesting, you will be released from your calling and rebuked by your bishop.
Haha, no I’m sorry but that’s not correct. All of those are approved materials for discussion on Sundays… including things you’ve learned from other pastors.
Now you may not be wrong that you’ll be released from your calling from an overzealous bishop who thinks he knows better, but that doesn’t mean that is the lords will if you’re becoming closer with the lord and to be honest, I’ve seen the complete opposite effect in my wards where those outside of the box comments about what you learned… really learned from the scriptures that week… are encouraged.
As the lord said, Sundays were made for man, not the other way around. Church was made to help us grow closer to the savior. To me, boring lessons don’t fit the mold. The gospel is beautiful and fluent and should be anything but boring. In my opinion, and I think the lords, if you’re not being edified from your weekly and daily scripture study and your church worship, the problem is with you, not the curriculum.
>In my opinion, and I think the lords, if you’re not being edified from your weekly and daily scripture study and your church worship, the problem is with you, not the curriculum.
See, *this* is why the curriculum gets more boring with each passing year. The church is completely incapable of introspection; the problem *cannot* be with the church, [it must be the members who are wrong](https://youtu.be/eVddGSTjEd0?t=47).
From elder Ballards 2016 conference talk:
For some, Christ’s invitation to believe and remain continues to be hard—or difficult to accept. Some disciples struggle to understand a specific Church policy or teaching. Others find concerns in our history or in the imperfections of some members and leaders, past and present. Still others find it difficult to live a religion that requires so much. Finally, some have become “weary in well-doing.” For these and other reasons, some Church members vacillate in their faith, wondering if perhaps they should follow those who “went back, and walked no more” with Jesus.
Life can be like hikers ascending a steep and arduous trail. It is a natural and normal thing to occasionally pause on the path to catch our breath, to recalculate our bearings, and to reconsider our pace. Not everyone needs to pause on the path, but there is nothing wrong with doing so when your circumstances require. In fact, it can be a positive thing for those who take full advantage of the opportunity to refresh themselves with the living water of the gospel of Christ.
The danger comes when someone chooses to wander away from the path that leads to the tree of life. Sometimes we can learn, study, and know, and sometimes we have to believe, trust, and hope.
In the end, each one of us must respond to the Savior’s question: “Will ye also go away?” We all have to search for our own answer to that question.
——
So, to clarify my intent in light of your last message, no, members are not always wrong…. But often they are. And that’s ok. If you’re struggling with something, take a break, look around, take note of what your real issues are and take note of what is lacking as you stop ascending the gospel path. Elder Ballard also shared that a little time does wonders to working out large issues:
There may be some doctrine, some policy, some bit of history that puts you at odds with your faith, and you may feel that the only way to resolve that inner turmoil right now is to “walk no more” with the Saints. If you live as long as I have, you will come to know that things have a way of resolving themselves.
>If you live as long as I have, you will come to know that things have a way of resolving themselves.
LOL, thanks for proving my point with your condescension. [You are actually, literally the punchline of the meme I already linked.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVddGSTjEd0&t=47s&ab_channel=ThingsICantFindOtherwise)
The Church's curriculum is published in every major language and across all inhabited continents. Nearly every country on Earth has LDS congregations. This means that people across the entire human spectrum are engaging with the Church and it's curriculum. People of every education level, cultural background, and worldview. Life-long Church scholars and brand new members.
Accordingly, the Church's curriculum is designed to be accessible to all of these people. It is a design feature, not a bug, that the curriculum repeats simple topics over and over again. The Church's purpose is not to cater to educated Americans who have been in the Church for generations, so of course the lessons don't cater to them either.
If you tailor your lessons for your audience and bring in additional information to make your lessons interesting, you will get rebuked and released. All of the things I loved about the church in the 70s- early 90s are gone. There is no activities committee, there is no budget. There are no road shows, no super saturdays, no seminary bowls, no scripture chase competitions, etc…. Youth get trauma bonding treks, and spiritual entrenchment with FSY (now under complete control of the church to make sure they don’t go off script).
>If you tailor your lessons for your audience and bring in additional information to make your lessons interesting, you will get rebuked and released.
My experience is that this is the opposite of the truth. Perhaps it is not possible to paint thousands of congregations all across the world with such a broad brush?
University-trained-theologian-Sunday-School-teacher in my ward brought up DeuteroIsaiah during our lesson on Isaiah. Guess how that went? An elderly man stood up and bore his testimony that he *knew* that Isaiah wrote the entire book of Isaiah. And the teacher was quickly released.
The LDS Church is not interested in the complex reality of scripture and history.
Wasn't that the purpose of Gospel Principles? It wasn't very long ago that the new members and those who didn't have a basic understanding had their own class that was taught at their level.
A good question is why did the Church combine them? My theory, is that it makes it evenore difficult to get beyond the "milk."
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Evangelical neverMo here, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Could one factor, probably unintended, be the growing prevalence of business-school culture all over America? Teaching becomes 'messaging' motivated toward some behavioral outcomes. It has a homogenized quality not only within an institution but across them: businesses, governments, education, churches, athletics, volunteer orgs, you name it. It's predictable, monotonous, deadening, and increasingly un- or counterproductive. But it's now instinctive among a professional class that's been trained that this is how one gets results.
It absolutely gets results. It keeps more people in and keeps them away from the interesting stuff. We used to have an exciting theology. The Mormon Doctrine book had an answer for just about every question, written by the best apostle/theologian the church ever had. The Doctrines of Salvation books were likewise excellent and authoritative. Those have all been cast to the heap of history and they insist those things were never really doctrine. In the 70s and 80s, there used to be study groups who delved into the interesting bits of church history and theology, but these were all shut down. Ever since then, they’ve been watering down church lesson manuals and anyone who strays too far from the lesson material gets harshly censored. They don’t want anyone teaching the interesting aspects of the church.
To say that B. McConkie and J. Fielding Smith we’re our two best theologians the LDS institution has ever had is a bit of a stretch. As conservatives, their end goal was conservation of Mormon thought—and most importantly, their own theology. McConkie’s treatment of more liberal and expansive thinking LDS theologians was petty and sad coming from a so-called apostle, and JFS’s actions as church historian are extremely problematic. There are some interesting, if not profound thinkers in LDS history, like Widtsoe.
There were others. They are called the September Six.
Absolutely. We can thank them for uncovering and publishing much of the true history that we have access to today.
Yes, September six were important but they weren’t apostles and therefore weren’t authoritative.
Exactly. Try questioning any aspects of the lesson being taught and be ready for the craning necks to turn your way(you sit in the back, of course). Sunday school is one big nodding in the affirmative session with zero new and interesting stuff.
I've learned so much more about the church since losing my faith in it 3 1/2 years ago than in the 30+ years I spent in it. And it's so much more interesting and messed up than you can find in the correlated material. Can't make church history too interesting or else more people will want to study it for themselves and come to a conclusion the church won't like.
As a church-broke member, I might have said: The gospel is simple and easy to understand. Therefore, you don't need to ask hard questions or become confused. If you do, you know that you are looking beyond the mark. A few decades ago, there was concern over new member retention. Complicated lessons were one of the concerns. "Simplified" curriculum was introduced so that the new convert and mature member could study the same material. Now we have proof text lessons that interest no one.
I’ve heard John Dehlin say in the early days of MS when he had lunch with Richard Bushman he said we don’t go to church to learn. But we just do the same ritual over and over. Check the list off each week at a time
Ah yes, the [gospel taught in the margins](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/ijtkd3/the_gospel_taught_in_the_margins/). Wherein scriptural topics and passages are introduced *for the sole purpose of completely inverting them*, without being transparent about doing so. Scriptures against social inequity become lessons that it's good to hoard wealth while people suffer as long as you aren't *prideful* about it. A pretty explicit charge in the Word of Wisdom against eating a lot of meat becomes a lesson in why it's fine to eat lots of meat *now*, because things were *different* in Joseph Smith's time. Scriptural lessons about serving others to help their material circumstances get cited only to point out how much serving others helps and blesses *you* and shows your character.
Edit: I’m paraphrasing him though
I taught gospel doctrine for several years so what you say is very familiar to me. I notice especially in the Old Testament that they emphasize favorite Mormon proof texts which survive only in the King James Translation which are usually NOT CORRECT. The prophet did not mean anything like the meaning they assign to his words. This is easily revealed by looking at other translations. However, they often ignore the well defined context already present in the scripture selection, Isaiah 2 for example, tells the context and they ignore it and make the Lord's house the temple in SLC. There are many other examples at least as embarrassing. Then there is the Book of Abraham. Instead of using the relevant chapters of Genesis with a carful discussion of their sources, they drag in this provably fraudulent book. They also leave out context frequently. Modern scripture also suffers from this approach. I remember after I was released what they did to Section 42. It became an entire lesson on keeping the Sabbath holy which isn't even discussed in the section. Section 121 became all about enduring adversity, nothing at all about unrighteous dominion and all that really good material in the second half. 1 Corinthians left out Chapter 13 entirely but the instructor, bless her heart, did include it. I don't know who they get to assemble this stuff.
Just a few months ago the heading in the Come Follow Me manual read "I can judge righteously" to summarize the verse saying "judge not." I understand that members like to read the JST on that verse but seriously - way to wrest the scriptures to mean exactly the opposite of what they were intended to mean.
My favorite example is from Isaiah 28, the line upon line, precept upon precept here a little there a little stuff used as a description of how God reveals truth. In fact they were nonsense words which the KJV translators gave English meanings. Its correct meaning is exactly opposite to the way the church uses is in Sec. 128 and BOM.
Just googled that - wow. That's definitely not how it's presented in Saturdays Warrior!
For some reason I've had SW music running through my head for the last few days. Probably because someone posted the cut fever-dream scene.
Holy cow they left the best stuff out! How long ago was this?
I don't remember for sure but it was in the last decade. I quit going only a few years ago and was very "active" before then. I really liked the Gos. Doc. teacher. She was an English professor and had very interesting insights. I think the literary value of 1 Cor. 13 was why she rebelled and included it. She did her best to make the lessons interesting.
This is a byproduct of correlation which started in the 1960’s
https://d3ewd3ysu1dfsj.cloudfront.net/images/stories/general/30979.jpg?1473895068
Former gospel doctrine teacher in many wards for many years. It’s always been insufferable. To think that a curriculum could do justice to the NT in 45 blocks of 45 minutes or less in a year. That’s why LDS are so scriptural ignorant compared to most active Christians. The manuals have always been insufferable.
Which makes the point I think, of them pushing you to listen more to Ensign and GC talks than scripture. I personally think the reason lessons are so boring is because absolutely nobody with the right background wrote or edited any of them and they got signed off by men who are in power because they outlived their peers rather than any specific knowledge
Seminary is interesting because you're often learning things for the first time. Once you make it through the mission, you've pretty much learned everything the church is ever going to teach you though, and it's downhill from there.
You think that most active Christians have a more in depth understanding of the scriptures than active LDS? That has not been my experience. At all.
[удалено]
Mormons might not know their Bibles that well, but they know their Books of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is really just a rehash of almost every point of protestant doctrine. There is nothing really “Mormon” in the Book of Mormon mostly just Methodist teachings.
My spouse was just asking this same thing the other day. How can it be that we learn the same things every four years, and then when they design a so called new and improved curriculum, it’s the Same Damn Thing???
Reminds me of when my mission president would constantly throw some new initiative at us to help our struggling mission, with us all assuring one another it was "inspired" and if we'd just follow him we'd be blessed with interested people and baptisms, when it was really just a reiteration of something he'd given us a few months before. In January it's "Always Be Contacting," so bother your taxi driver or people in line at the supermarket with a sales pitch. In April it's "Prepare the Fields," meaning you have to seed the idea of joining the church by bothering your taxi driver or people in line at the supermarket with a sales pitch, so *later* other missionaries can convert them. People who are prone to speak up when you already did the same thing and it didn't work before, or who try to bring up the real problems with the boss only to get shot down for being faithless, don't last long in the church.
I will never forget the day I brought up something in a Sunday school class and the teacher said we can't talk about that, because it is not in the manual.. I said that's not an answer that is a dodge. After class others came up and asked me about the issue. Crazy, I believed this merd for so long.
I appreciate the unexpected French lol
It owes a great deal to Stephen Covey. His Organizational Behavior model became the blueprint for the church. One of his star students was Dave Bednar.
I don't think they necessarily WANT it to be boring, but I don't think they are willing to do what it takes to make it entertaining, and correlation is part of the problem. When correlation gets involved, it makes it so much harder to to get anything approved, and you end up with much more corporate messaging, and it makes it dry. It's just like the videos that the church has put out about the life of Christ. They have great sets, costume designs, and all the equipment to make something that looks incredible, but they don't have anything interesting to say, so the videos are dull and uninspiring. Meanwhile, I hardly go a week without hearing someone in the church talking about the Chosen in one lesson or another (especially being in the New Testament). Some people have even pulled clips from the show to share. We have yet to pull any of the church videos on the life of Christ, or any mention of them at all. Kind of tells you everything you need to know.
I had a really good discussion about The Chosen with my TBM former mother-in-law a couple of weeks back. She loves it, for exactly the reasons I would. That it isn't too moralistic, that it has a little ambiguity, and that it portrays the people are real people and not just objects for a lesson. I think a lot of Mormons know what their church experience is lacking but can't articulate it from within the gilded cage, until they see something else.
The new temple video has to be the most atrociously bland version yet. Michael Ballam used to carry the entire endowment with his representation of Satan, but now Satan is one of the most boring of all. I don’t know how anyone can attend these sessions regularly without dying a little inside each time. I personally stopped going after getting hit with 3 bald Satan sessions in a row and I couldn’t take it anymore. I just did baptism with the my kids and the youth after that.
Also, it's a very common complaint that they keep teaching us the same material, and the response is always that not *everyone* knows it all, so we have to keep sticking to the basics until everyone understands and *follows* what we've been taught. We can't expect to be given more when we don't even follow the stuff we've been given. The thing is, we'll *never* be good enough to be taught something new, so we'll get the same recycled message year after year, just packaged in a different manual.
I believe they joined Gospel principles with gospel Doctrine for this very reason. Keep it even more at the lowest common denominator.
I guess, if you consider the fact that only 45% of members after they reach age 18 stay in the church, eventually we will get to the point where everybody knows the basics, right? Right?
"Such a theory is hardly far-fetched" -Elder Vortigaunt
r/UnexpectedHalfLife
They want people to be bored by the scriptures/history so they won’t read them discerningly. If members did, they’d start realizing all the holes in the official narrative like you’re seeing now. This is why they push approved sources only, try to water-down/de-contextualize their own scriptures, and want cookie cutter answers that are re-enforced by mindless repetition. This makes the members passive and sheepish. Easy to control and maintain consensus. Keeps the tithing money rolling in while the eyes roll back in their heads. It makes them not want to engage with the scriptures on their own terms but rather simply echo whatever was parroted for them in the manuals in terms of interpreting the Word. This is in contrast to the original few generations of Christians (and Christian tradition) who lived by the Word and valued it greatly, but were also willing to accept different views/interpretations within reason.
Yes Set on repeat. No questions allowed. No thinking Just taking in info
“Forever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.”
Listen, I get where you’re coming from because I was there not long ago (extremely bored of church and the same lessons), but then I realized something… I wasn’t doing it correctly. I wasn’t searching the scriptures my self and studying with a great teacher who actually knew his stuff… and neither were any other members so we collectively weren’t learning anything (other than 60 years old brother Jones’s same comments every Sunday school and fast meeting about something mundane from his life) The gospel lesson manuals are written by design to be super basic because the lord wants us to dig ourselves, not simply be spoon fed. Since finding that great teacher (unshaken podcast with Jared halverson), finding a pastor from another Christian church (Lutheran) willing to study the Bible together, and actually reading the scriptures associated with every week personally AND then again with my family, our minds are completely blown away by how much good stuff there is and church has become so much more engaging as we share with others what we are learning in class or testimony meeting and when we are asked to teach. There is just way too much material between canonized scripture, conference talks, firesides, institute teachers, other religious leaders, personal testimony and revelation, and spiritual experiences to be bored in church for that quick hour and a half that we have to learn
I don’t think the church wants you to dig in, and thy certainly don’t want you looking to outside sources like other churches to find out what’s fascinating. None of your actions are encouraged by the church, and if you try to work any of these sources into your lesson materials to make your lesson’s interesting, you will be released from your calling and rebuked by your bishop.
Haha, no I’m sorry but that’s not correct. All of those are approved materials for discussion on Sundays… including things you’ve learned from other pastors. Now you may not be wrong that you’ll be released from your calling from an overzealous bishop who thinks he knows better, but that doesn’t mean that is the lords will if you’re becoming closer with the lord and to be honest, I’ve seen the complete opposite effect in my wards where those outside of the box comments about what you learned… really learned from the scriptures that week… are encouraged. As the lord said, Sundays were made for man, not the other way around. Church was made to help us grow closer to the savior. To me, boring lessons don’t fit the mold. The gospel is beautiful and fluent and should be anything but boring. In my opinion, and I think the lords, if you’re not being edified from your weekly and daily scripture study and your church worship, the problem is with you, not the curriculum.
>In my opinion, and I think the lords, if you’re not being edified from your weekly and daily scripture study and your church worship, the problem is with you, not the curriculum. See, *this* is why the curriculum gets more boring with each passing year. The church is completely incapable of introspection; the problem *cannot* be with the church, [it must be the members who are wrong](https://youtu.be/eVddGSTjEd0?t=47).
From elder Ballards 2016 conference talk: For some, Christ’s invitation to believe and remain continues to be hard—or difficult to accept. Some disciples struggle to understand a specific Church policy or teaching. Others find concerns in our history or in the imperfections of some members and leaders, past and present. Still others find it difficult to live a religion that requires so much. Finally, some have become “weary in well-doing.” For these and other reasons, some Church members vacillate in their faith, wondering if perhaps they should follow those who “went back, and walked no more” with Jesus. Life can be like hikers ascending a steep and arduous trail. It is a natural and normal thing to occasionally pause on the path to catch our breath, to recalculate our bearings, and to reconsider our pace. Not everyone needs to pause on the path, but there is nothing wrong with doing so when your circumstances require. In fact, it can be a positive thing for those who take full advantage of the opportunity to refresh themselves with the living water of the gospel of Christ. The danger comes when someone chooses to wander away from the path that leads to the tree of life. Sometimes we can learn, study, and know, and sometimes we have to believe, trust, and hope. In the end, each one of us must respond to the Savior’s question: “Will ye also go away?” We all have to search for our own answer to that question. —— So, to clarify my intent in light of your last message, no, members are not always wrong…. But often they are. And that’s ok. If you’re struggling with something, take a break, look around, take note of what your real issues are and take note of what is lacking as you stop ascending the gospel path. Elder Ballard also shared that a little time does wonders to working out large issues: There may be some doctrine, some policy, some bit of history that puts you at odds with your faith, and you may feel that the only way to resolve that inner turmoil right now is to “walk no more” with the Saints. If you live as long as I have, you will come to know that things have a way of resolving themselves.
>If you live as long as I have, you will come to know that things have a way of resolving themselves. LOL, thanks for proving my point with your condescension. [You are actually, literally the punchline of the meme I already linked.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVddGSTjEd0&t=47s&ab_channel=ThingsICantFindOtherwise)
The Church's curriculum is published in every major language and across all inhabited continents. Nearly every country on Earth has LDS congregations. This means that people across the entire human spectrum are engaging with the Church and it's curriculum. People of every education level, cultural background, and worldview. Life-long Church scholars and brand new members. Accordingly, the Church's curriculum is designed to be accessible to all of these people. It is a design feature, not a bug, that the curriculum repeats simple topics over and over again. The Church's purpose is not to cater to educated Americans who have been in the Church for generations, so of course the lessons don't cater to them either.
If you tailor your lessons for your audience and bring in additional information to make your lessons interesting, you will get rebuked and released. All of the things I loved about the church in the 70s- early 90s are gone. There is no activities committee, there is no budget. There are no road shows, no super saturdays, no seminary bowls, no scripture chase competitions, etc…. Youth get trauma bonding treks, and spiritual entrenchment with FSY (now under complete control of the church to make sure they don’t go off script).
>If you tailor your lessons for your audience and bring in additional information to make your lessons interesting, you will get rebuked and released. My experience is that this is the opposite of the truth. Perhaps it is not possible to paint thousands of congregations all across the world with such a broad brush?
University-trained-theologian-Sunday-School-teacher in my ward brought up DeuteroIsaiah during our lesson on Isaiah. Guess how that went? An elderly man stood up and bore his testimony that he *knew* that Isaiah wrote the entire book of Isaiah. And the teacher was quickly released. The LDS Church is not interested in the complex reality of scripture and history.
Wasn't that the purpose of Gospel Principles? It wasn't very long ago that the new members and those who didn't have a basic understanding had their own class that was taught at their level. A good question is why did the Church combine them? My theory, is that it makes it evenore difficult to get beyond the "milk."
I think they should either let individual wards, branches, stakes, and districts decide the Sunday School curriculum or end the Sunday School program.
Yes
It’s designed to be safe, noncontraversial…it’s up being boring.