Posted by:
catnip
(
)
Date: October 02, 2016 07:37PM
DH's long-time HT and HT's wife, a lovely, well-educated lady of whom I am fond as a friend (really - I genuinely enjoy her company and conversation. My only problem is that she is still a Mormon) took us to lunch recently. It was all very friendly, mostly catching up on our children and grandchildren. Our kids grew up with theirs, so we go way back.
I am SO tempted to take Mrs. HT up on her invitation to go to lunch, just the two of us, and ask her straight-out: "Why are you still in the church? Haven't they admitted that nearly everything is false, and then this business of trying to turn the children of gay couples against their parents. . .Why do you keep going back?"
I think of our oldest son, the straight-and-narrow living TBM: Eagle Scout, RM, married in the temple Golden Boy. His wife was the classic Molly Mo to the marrow of her bones.
Then came the atomic blast back in November (wasn't it November??) about the children of gay parents not being allowed to receive any Sacraments until adulthood, and then, only if they turned on their parents.
Son and DIL were absolutely outraged. They have two children and felt the outrage that most normal parents would feel. They stopped attending church. They take day trips and enjoy family outings on Sunday. Son even goes out for a beer after work with his buddies now and again.
So I'm wondering if a couple so deeply entrenched could be blown out of the Mo-community, what gives with HT and Mrs. HT? They may be afraid that their children and grandchildren would fall away too - I don't know. Social and familial pressure keep a lot of people in - we know that.
But really, what is left of the church that we all knew at one time? If most of what they once taught has been officially spurned, what in the world do they talk about in Sacrament? Or Sunday School? Or in RS and Priesthood? How do they fill those three hours? Church "doctrine" - such as it was - whipped full of air and fluffed out, like Cool Whip.
I am sincerely interested in how they are still limping along on fumes.