Posted by:
derrida
(
)
Date: July 12, 2011 12:20PM
This is one of those practices where the church's interest in control, repression, and groupthink led on the one hand, in part, to your disaffection (one more crappy thing about the church to put on your shelf so when it came tumbling down, here was this bit of ugliness) and leads normal people, "worldly" people, to see it as a controlling cult.
(My MIL, a Nevermo, said to me, now that I am open about my disgust with the church, that she always found it too controlling. My FIL's lifelong friend, "Uncle Bill," confided in us that the Mormons "control teenagers like puppets.")
If the church were a mainstream religion there wouldn't be such a focus on recruiting new members; there wouldn't be the need for so many missionaries and for laying out so many rules for them--even to the point that when they give service to members, helping a family move, and then are thanked by being taken out to dinner, they are reprimanded for not eating with an Investigator. "Who cares about your giving service? We want our numbers! We want our recruits."
If the church were a mainstream religion, there wouldn't be the recruiting, the missionaries to be controlled, the unkind reprimanding, which require people not just to humble themselves but to abase themselves, to negate themselves for the good of the organization. In other words, the church would be a kinder, more loving, more enjoyable, friendlier community to be a part of instead of a militant cult that seeks obedience and discipline in its members BEFORE adhering to any Christlike virtues. Disgraceful.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2011 12:24PM by derrida.