Going through my journey I wrote in 2020 I came across the following notes I made after having to watch general conference as I was visiting a friends house. It's just my thoughts on what I am seeing in the Church today. I grew up in the Church. Was raised a Mormon believing in Christ, etc. But to listen to church leaders today you would think we never did that and that Dusty Rusty is guiding us back to reality. I feel that Church members back then has just as much reverence and understanding for Christ and maybe more but their focus was much broader. Anyways these are my journal notes from April 2020

Its too much today, therefore
•It loses its reverence.
•It loses its awe
•It loses it spiritual significance
Why is it too much? We are getting bombarded with:
•This is the way
•This is the way to peace
•This is the way back to spirituality
•He is our brother
•He is our Redeemer. Don't offend him
•There is no other way

This is not freeing. Accepting Jesus must be an individual decision not a group think decision. Its private and down on an individual basis.

Our feelings of Christ needs to develop over time by the following:
Must be made in the quiet time of the soul and includes
1.A deep quiet inner feeling of peace
2.A spiritual sense that the teachings of Christ are true
3.A sacred experience that makes us humble

Its not reading a Come Follow me manual and answering lame questions.

Its not reading scriptures without deep critical thinking

Everyone is going to have a difference reaction to what Christ means in their life. There is no one set answer. Everyone takes a different path and we need to accept that there is just one mold.

My last thought. Look at the history of Christianity. Lots of blood shed. Persecution if you did not do it the way the Church or Priest taught you. All we hear now is "Here is Christ, there is Christ." But His Church today does not seem to reflect His life.

I guess they will not be making me Bishop soon!

The subject line caught my attention, especially coming from you, SEcular Priest. I have no insight for your notes that you shared. However, in my opinion, THE thing the mormon church focuses far, far (far) too much on is money. Obsession with sex would be my next suggestion.

Good luck on your journey, SP. May your stint as bishop be a good one! :D

I have no evidence if my statement is true but just my opinion. I grew up in Church and learned about Jesus, etc. I went to the University of Windsor Canada that is run by the Catholic Church. Most of my professors where Fathers (Priests) so I got an interesting education. Their focus on Christ was there but not to extent I see in LDS Church today.

The church is always changing but so is the world. I got my great, great, grand grandfather’s journal. He was a stake president in Brigham Young’s Utah. The church then was nothing like it is now. One of his stake conferences focused on the return of the star of Bethlehem. The church was more esoteric then. Utah was a theocracy.

Today Utah is becoming more non-Mormon and the church over the last 60 years has become more corporate and more centralized. Everything is a program. The current program is push Christ like crazy. Why? It distracts from the church’s embarrassing history, there are less competing Christian church’s now. Christ still sells. Christ sells better than Joseph Smith and American Zionism which was the hot product of the past.

In short. The church is mainstreaming a bit.

'Focus on Christ'; Given the way ChurchCo follows thru with sayings: This probably won't have much of a shelf-life even though it 'makes sense' to GAs because the reminder is direct to their claimed authority... (Focus are personality rather than values, principles)

I would substitute focus on Christ-Like living, with ChurchCo policies & practices to be held strictly in conformance.

In many, many cases, a 'TBM' mormon divorces a doubting or inactive or resigning spouse. My sense of this is that these divorces are predominantly wife initiated with some if not many brought for reason other than adultery / abuse.

In my case, ChurchCo supported my wife (who I continue to love) in spite of false financial court submissions that she used to cheat me of my share of our community property...

IOW, ChurchCo traded away myself who wanted truthfulness in church actions (from Sunday School upstream) for a lying, tithe-paying church loyalist.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2021 10:01PM by GNPE.

Something tells me they’re just as qualified to teach about the life of Tupac Shakur.

It has been almost 40 years since I attended a Mormon church and for me the lack of preaching Christ was the catalyst for my leaving. Sunday after Sunday, as I recall, the only mention of him was at the ending of prayers. There is little expository preaching in Mormonism that I suspect it has not changed much. MV but casual mention of his name is not really preaching hi .

My experience too, kentish (and I attended more recently than 40 yrs ago!). That is the primary reason I came to see why "mainstream" Christians (at least) hold that Mormons aren't Christians.

Interestingly (to me) I still wince at the mention of Jesus being "our brother". Yet another reason why Christian denominations consider that LDS teachings are inaccurate (understatement) as Christians preach him as being King of Kings and Lord of Lords (brother denotes equality which in their view debases him) and, of course, part of the Trinity.

This is just me but I could never get used to Mormons saying "Christ" instead of "Jesus". It's always jarring to me. Perhaps because my EV friends use the term Jesus so much more. Maybe because Jesus sounds less stark. Also undoubtedly as a nightmare of a sister missionary I knew said it a LOT (not in a swearing way but it sounded that way to me because she was usually ill-tempered and always in your face re her testimony). But also likely due to my father's penchant for freely using it as a curse word. My father was the champion of all swearers, everywhere, of all time. It mesmerized me as a child and even as a grown-up I never got totally used to it. He was very creative with his strongly expressed opinions and feelings. Weird how that can turn into a fond memory after spending years trying to get used to him speaking that way.

Meanwhile, back to the Mormon Church. If they are focusing on Jesus more than before I agree that it is likely a PR move. I concur with you, kentish, re the lack of expository preaching. I was always waiting for that to come from a trained, learned "elder" type person, after all the preliminary testimony-bearing, announcements and other trifles. Never happened. I would leave feeling unfulfilled and asking "that's it?" Just so different from what I had experienced in other churches of the Christian persuasion where often the sermon was interesting at least and sometimes even inspiring.

Kentish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

“the lack of preaching Christ was the catalyst for my leaving.”

==Is this something typical? Would others in this forum AGREE with what Kentish is saying?
Does the priest discuss the Bible in mormon churches? Do they read large sections of it and give a speech about it as to what the meaning is, do they tie it in as to how it applies to people’s lives?
Do they read the BOM?
Do they read large sections of it and give a speech about it as to what the meaning is, do they tie it in as to how it applies to people’s lives?

In other words, what does the mormon priest talk about? Can you give me some examples from what you remember?

How long does the talk last?

~~~~iceman9090

But they don't focus on Christ. They focus on themselves as the only valid road to Christ. Jesus is their mascot. They believe the main point of Jesus' life was to set the stage for Russell Nelson.

If they really wanted to focus on Christ they would shut the ____ up and admit that people can find Christ without their help.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2021 08:12AM by slskipper.

But then they wouldn’t have a $100B hedge fund.

slskipper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

“If they really wanted to focus on Christ they would shut the ____ up and admit that people can find Christ without their help.”

==Wouldn’t the mormon respond with
“But we are an organized church and we organize helping the poor.”
Without that organized church, we could not achieve that level of help output.

~~~~iceman9090

"They draw near to him with their lips, but their hearts are far from him." Somebody said than once. Seems applicable to this day.

I may have shared this in the past my exit began all those years ago when I was teaching the GD class. I think the chit h was switching from a church year beginning in the fall to one aligned with the actual calender. This resulted in there being several weeks without prepared lessons, so I was allowed to improvise and create my own.

I was concerned about the very good we are discussing here and I thought it a good idea to start a discussion with the vet question: Why it it that if we are the one true church as we claim, THE church of Christ we do not talk about him or teach him more? Followed by by the follow up: Why do all those other churches which are not true talk about him more than us?

I don't know if I was shocked by the responses but certainly troubled by them. Answers included "I don't come to church to hear about that I come to learn how to raise my children." And "We have so much more to talk about," followed by a list of church programs, Mutual, state program genealogy, etc. The kicker to me was"Other churches two about him a lot because that's all they've got,"

So began my departure from Mormonism. Long story short that wasn't going to be me, and it isn't

That should be welfare program and "other churches talk a lot about.."