A Wall of Separation Between Church and Faith

Before you are so critical, maybe you should try to understand the author’s point of view a little. Is that too much to ask? “Greatly bothered” doesn’t mean the same thing for educated people who go to university and stuff as it does for you.

I’ll help you out.

Occasionally somewhat mildly bothered=Mormons are being fired or otherwise persecuted for donating to the Prop. 8 campaign.

Somewhat mildly bothered=the national debt reaches over $200k per child.

Mildly bothered=the President asserts the right to drone-strike American citizens including on US soil

Bothered=chafing and dry skin

Really bothered=modesty lessons that emphasize that boys also shouldn’t wear miniskirts or bikinis.

Greatly bothered=missionaries bearing testimony at events

Really greatly bothered=skirts; Republicans

Really truly greatly bothered=unkind remarks on Facebook; the Holocaust

“Mormon liberalism, like secular liberalism, tries to privatize belief and disagreements about belief. ”

I completely agree.

I had a similar thought after reading a ksl.com article recently about how to respond when your child departs the church. The main thrust of the article was that you shouldn’t say anything at all about it, since it’s between them and God, and in the end not really your business.

I kept thinking, “This is the trajectory we are heading—not just removing religion from the public sphere (as in public events), but so privatizing religion that it is deemed inappropriate for a parent to discuss or comment on their children’s religious preferences.” People wish for such a privatizing of faith that there is no need for anyone, in any context, to know about or be interested in your personal relationship with God.

It’s one with the preference I’ve seen in some circles for orthopraxis over orthodoxy.

They’re both important, like the spirit and the body.

Interestingly, I have mat apostates who complained about this as well. I suspect, the real problem is that they are testifying grudgingly, or ‘without real intent’. I noticed there were complaints about saying ‘I know’. But I can say I know this much. Some of my best mission experiences happened because I bore down in pure testimony and stopped trying to reason things out for people. Explaining is important, but quite secondary to the witness of the spirit. If the spirit isn’t there, you are wasting your time.

Brings to mind something I heard lately, about trying to serve God, without offending the Devil. I reckon it is time we spit in the Devil’s eye a bit more often.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

The stage hands who hear the actors repeat the same lines night after night, and who know that they are doing it just for the paycheck, and witness the actors’ behavior after the final curtain comes down may become inured to any truth or wisdom in the lines. But that does not negate the possible effects, perhaps even ennobling, of the spoken lines upon the audience, who also know that the actors are being paid, and who also know “it’s just a play”.

Missionaries, even visitor center missionaries, may also be actors on a stage, at least to some degree. But the fact they are unpaid says something about the sincerity.

We hear testimony quite often in the church. We are too familiar with the perhaps overused boiler plate phrases. We often get inured to the sometimes mawkish oroccasional over-emotive testimony bearer, or those who try to use emotion to invoke or substitute for the Spirit. We know the people, or types of people involved. We know what each other is like Mon-Sat. We know what kinds of shenanigans those “kids” did prior to their missions.

We are like the stage hands. And we shouldn’t mock Shakespeare if the actors’ performance, either on or off stage, doesn’t live up to the lofty concepts of the Bard’s works.

But the non-members who hear those visitor center or younger missionaries are the audience that’s there for what is likely just one performance. They NEED to hear the message, regardless of the imperfections in the actors or the delivery.

One commenter on that thread had a good point. Clumsy testimony is sometimes the warm up practice. I would also say that clumsiness is the camoflauge that the Lord uses to hide his pearls in the open. Clumsiness and weakness in His messengers is the stumbling stone intentionally placed to trip the proud.

Well-considered, Books.

For my own part, I see routinized expressions of testimony like routinized expressions of love or courtesy. We should try as best we can to make them non-routine, but we’re better off with the routine than with nothing.

I have found with testimony that the Spirit listeth where it will, and one cannot know until one speaks whether it will be routine or not.

I wonder how bothered liberal Mormons get when ex-mos testify/claim/claim-to-know that the church is false? Boy-o-boy, talk about routine talking points.