As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

This is for encouragement, ideas, and support for people going through a faith transition no matter where you hope to end up. This is also the place to laugh, cry, and love together.
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hiding in plain sight
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by hiding in plain sight » Sat Oct 29, 2016 6:12 am

A New Name wrote:Here is how I stay engaged and sane at church
(Note: I posted this several years ago on another forum)

This may not work for anybody else, but it works for me.

1. Learn to say no. After I was released as bishop, I’ve said “No” to both bishops and the SP when asked to accept a calling. I just told them it wasn’t something I could do right now. Or if I accepted the called, I put conditions on what I would do.

2. Know how far you can push their buttons. I would die of boredom in SS and HPG if I didn’t say something. So I know how far I can push with my comments, and when I teach in HP. For example:

Most people enjoy my comments, and I get lots of compliments when I teach HPG. I tell them they are going to learn something new when I teach, and they always do.

3. Stand up for what you know to be true, but be prepared to back it up with “friendly” sources. Once in priesthood meeting, somebody said we need to pay our tithing on Gross. A member of the SP was in attendance, and he said that is what the SP said also. I spoke up and said that was not true, and quoted from a FP letter (which I kept handy in my briefcase) that defined tithing as 10 % of your “increase”. Later than evening the SP counselor called me at home an apologized for his remark, and said I was correct.

4. Be careful who you share your real feelings with. I’ve not shared with anybody outside the internet my true feelings. Sure, everybody knows I’m different, but nobody knows how different from them I really am.

5. Be nice to other people, and they will be nice to you. Visit the widows, the sick and the shut-ins. What does it matter if the BofM is not historically true, if the poor widow down the street is lonely?

Now, one thing that makes this easier for me is that I still attend the ward I was bishop in. So I’m afforded some respect when I spout off my crazy thoughts. I don’t know how I’d be treated if I was new to a ward and started saying the same things I do now.

This is truly sage advice. Thank you for sharing it. Much of it resonates with me and I have tried, with success, what you suggest works for you.

I particularly like your point number 5. It really is about how we treat each other regardless of the truth or lack thereof of the church's truth claims. People want to be loved and respected. Give them that and they will return the blessing, many times.

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nibbler
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by nibbler » Sat Oct 29, 2016 7:45 am

As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Very well. Excepting I do not seem to believe everything that is being preached.

I hold two callings (I'm not sure why I signed up for that) and hold a TR.

1) I've adopted a "do no harm" policy. I don't attend church or make comments to jar people out of their beliefs. Sometimes people need to be strengthened in their beliefs, even if I have good reasons for not sharing in those beliefs.

2) "When in Rome." After my faith transition I am the stranger in a strange land. When I'm in church mode I realize there's certain things I'll have to do to accommodate the culture. This doesn't mean I participate in every single program that keeps people busy at church. At church it feels like everyone is on the hook to give 110% in every program of the church, every goal the BP or SP sets for people, or whatever. Now I pick and choose following what interests me, which is really no different that what an orthodox member does when you think about it, except I refuse to feel guilt for not participating in everything that comes down the pike.

3) Set boundaries, probably the most important thing to learn. This is the "learn to say no" advice. I also have personal limits that trigger actions. Quite often our meetings devolve into comments about why other churches are wrong. I don't know if this is just my ward or typical of wards far away from the MorCor, but when the conversation heads in this direction I leave the class and roam the halls for the remainder of the hour. I don't make an announcement, I just quietly get up and leave... except for that one time I didn't. I'm pretty sure the people behind me heard me swearing. ;)

4) I spend most of my time in silence... which is really no different than my style in my orthodox days. Again, I don't know if this is my ward or typical of most wards but the lessons are presented as a lecture, usually one person does 90% of the talking, so there's not much room to interject comments anyway, short of interrupting the ongoing lecture.

5) I don't talk to my leaders about anything. This is me being cynical, but it's not like they'll have something insightful or helpful to say anyway. Most leaders are ignorant when it comes to a faith crisis or a faith transition and can be intolerant to nuanced thought. Why would I talk to them? It would be like going to a ear, nose, throat specialist when I have planters fasciitis.

If I talked to a leader it would only be because I want them to validate my thoughts and I don't need that, at least not from a leader. There are almost no pros and the cons include tempting people to start exercising "unrighteous dominion" with what little authority they imagine they have over me.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

I'm an introvert, so much so that I wonder whether I have some type of social anxiety. The bottom line is that I don't go to church for social reasons. The church isn't set up well to accommodate the introvert. Everything about the church tries to get people "out of their shell" which makes me miserable. In the past, when I was an orthodox believer, I took it as a sign that I needed to change, my lack of social butterflyness was a "sin." Now I try to embrace who I am. In that regard I engage with the church by disengaging with the things that make me uncomfortable.

So why attend at all? I think if I were to live my dream of being a hermit I wouldn't be the kind that people come from near and far to impart of my wisdom, I'd become the kind that people take their picture with because I'd be certifiably insane. I've got to tether myself to other humans, lest I become even more eccentric. If truth is everywhere and nowhere all at once I figure the church is as good a vantage point as any to sail into the black.
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
– Anais Nin

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Hermey
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by Hermey » Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:44 am

hiding in plain sight wrote:
A New Name wrote:5. Be nice to other people, and they will be nice to you. Visit the widows, the sick and the shut-ins. What does it matter if the BofM is not historically true, if the poor widow down the street is lonely?

This is truly sage advice. Thank you for sharing it. Much of it resonates with me and I have tried, with success, what you suggest works for you.

I particularly like your point number 5. It really is about how we treat each other regardless of the truth or lack thereof of the church's truth claims. People want to be loved and respected. Give them that and they will return the blessing, many times.
^^^Totally This!


What a great thread! I have enjoyed reading it even though I don't attend at all and haven't since the summer of 2012.

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Bosch
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by Bosch » Sat Oct 29, 2016 3:32 pm

For three years my DW and I were serving in a Juvenile Detention Center. This meant holding a quasi non-denominational Sunday Service. It was a wonderful calling, except for the monthly High Council speakers -- who would mostly testify about how God would help them find lost items, or help out finding elk during the hunt.

After we were released, it was back to the home ward where I was called to be the HPG secretary. I went to 2 meetings in total. Now I am in limbo. I don't say much. I go to support my wife and earnestly strive and long for spiritual nourishment. I still wear the Melchizedek underwear and pay tithing. I've been a faithful disbeliever for over 20 years. Is there an award for that?

Thanks HIPS, for your insights.
"Once you label me, you negate me." S. Kierkegaard

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Zadok
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by Zadok » Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:47 pm

I am not an active NOM, so I don't engage the church, indeed you could say we have filed for divorce. I kept custody of my money and mind, they got to continue to be hypocritical and disingenuous.
If I'm a bird, why can't I fly?

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Hagoth
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by Hagoth » Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:57 pm

Ever since I came out to my bishop and the YM leaders I worked with I have tried to fly as low under the radar as possible.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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Meilingkie
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by Meilingkie » Sun Oct 30, 2016 8:03 am

I attend and pretend, and for an ever larger part so does my wife.

If you don´t like what I say or do, fine: go ahead and rat me out, it´s your loss and not mine.
It reflects poorly on you and not on me.
That´s my playbook the last couple of months, and it works fine.
In the mean time I am getting more and more people on the Phone or whatsapp who are fed up with Church.
Being in Church and having a recommend makes us credible.

So yes, you could call me and my best friend´s the source of apostasy in our stake now.
We have both now started to investigate Masonry :evil:
This as an intellectual counterweight to the shallowness of Churchmeetings and so-called friendships.
"Getting the Mormon out of the Church is easier than getting the Mormon out of the Ex-Mormon"

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hiding in plain sight
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by hiding in plain sight » Sun Oct 30, 2016 8:30 am

Zadok wrote:I am not an active NOM, so I don't engage the church, indeed you could say we have filed for divorce. I kept custody of my money and mind, they got to continue to be hypocritical and disingenuous.

I wish I had a mind for which I could keep custody. 8-)

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achilles
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by achilles » Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:36 am

Would it help to view it all as sociological field work? You know, going native and writing an ethnography.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

― Carl Sagan

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MerrieMiss
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by MerrieMiss » Sun Oct 30, 2016 12:30 pm

achilles wrote:Would it help to view it all as sociological field work? You know, going native and writing an ethnography.
I try to do this in sacrament meeting. It helps.

The real difficulty is that everyone there assumes you're one of them and unlike the researcher who engages another culture for a definite amount of time, often under no pretense of actually belonging, I'm undercover for...as long as necessary, I guess, with no end in sight. I suppose that's why socially I've distanced myself (even more than I used to).

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Meilingkie
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by Meilingkie » Sun Oct 30, 2016 12:49 pm

achilles wrote:Would it help to view it all as sociological field work? You know, going native and writing an ethnography.
Here a piece a friend of mine wrote for Dialogue some years ago.
He was a Stakepresident in the 80´s and a colleague on the high council.
He is Emeritus Professor in Cultural Anthropology.

Article here:
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N04_11.pdf

Here a brief excerpt.

The "Tribe" of Deseret
The Deseret tribe inhabits a remote hinterland of the continent, occupying
a large territory with fuzzy boundaries, united by its one important
ritual center. The people are bound to the land by a mythical charter
using ancient images such as "the everlasting mountains," a new Jordan
river with another Dead Sea, and the "people of Israel." Effectively they
see themselves as a chosen people who fled from an oppressing government
to an unpolluted land. The promised land is considered to have
been prepared by deity. They view themselves as a replica of a mythical
tribe that once, on another continent but in similar surroundings, possessed
such a land. The area was considered to have been empty, despite
the presence of a small remnant of an old population. These remnant people
(in African situations often considered half-mythical creatures) enjoy a
special status in the founding myths of Deseret. They represent a positive
presence, not as such, but only as remnants of history. As remnants they
were watched with some fear and apprehension, tolerated and
marginalized. The Deseret tribe tends to accentuate its distinctiveness
from its own earlier cultural origins in a large neighboring territory; but it
still retains more of the earlier culture and religion than the people of the
tribe suppose.
The tribe of Deseret is kin-based, as is any tribe. As people flee
from their recruitment area to the relative safety of the new mountain
homeland (a very common situation in Africa too), they cannot at first
participate in a structure of consanguine relations. A myth (the "blood
of Ephraim") offering fictive kinship is called upon to explain how all
those who heeded the call and gathered from the recesses of the world in
fact belong to one of the tribes of the Israelite diaspora. This mythical
kinship is linked with a quest for the tribal homeland, making immigration
a permanent feature of tribal self-definition. Of course in due time,
fictive kinship evolves into real kinship, for the tribe has a very strong
tendency towards marriage within the group (endogamy). As in any
tribe, marriage is an important concern for the elders: women form a
very important asset, and procuring progeny (the more the better) is a focal
point of the religion. Apparently, much of the appeal of polygyny is
due to this desire.
Polygyny forms one of the most obvious parallels with Africa, as
throughout that continent polygyny is the rule. However, Deseret polygyny
is based upon an explicit myth ("revelation") and is one of the most contested—
and therefore cherished—issues of the tribe. Polygyny in the Deseret
tribe is as deeply engrained in religious life as African polygyny is in social
life. In Deseret the ecclesiastical elders dominate the marriage market.
They happen to have an extra inducement to marry more wives and usually
the means at their disposal to do so. In consequence, "plural wives" tend to
be considerably younger than their husbands, in Deseret as in Africa. The
tribe follows peculiar drinking taboos, and they manifest other unique customs,
too. The tribe routinely excludes nonmembers (and even nonconforming
members) from the rituals in their temples, stating that outsider
presence would spoil the ritual and pollute the shrine (a quite common
view in African religions, too).
A standard amount of ethnocentric bias can be recognized in the
tribe. They call themselves "the elect," "Saints" or "God's people," thus
drawing a clear boundary between themselves and others, for whom counter-
names are employed, such as "the world," or "gentiles," sometimes
"the sectarians." Still, these out-groups are not considered evil per se, as
they contain actual kinsmen and potential tribe members. So out-group
relations are, on the whole, on a double footing: The difference between
the tribal society and the outer world is stressed, yet the larger society is defined
as a recruitment area. As far as routine life experiences are concerned,
people beyond the tribal border cannot be trusted.
People tend to restrict their social encounters to tribesmen. With
them they share the same language, values, and social (including authority)
structure. Consequently, they rely on them for help and support, the
extended kin group being important in this respect. As is usual among
tribes, they have a more complex folk sociological model in which they differentiate
between kindred tribes containing potential kinsmen and
tribes to which no kinship can be traced; in short, they are neither
color-blind nor innocent of ethnic labeling.
Authority is strongly centralized in the tribe, as usual without a de facto
separation between religious authority and political power. The paramount
chief, who has more wives than most tribesmen (like one of the great classical
case studies in anthropology, he is like a Trobriand chief), enjoys tremendous
popular respect, though on a basis of affective kinship rather than in a
specifically "political" sense. He may be affectionately called "Brother,"
though usually the formal title of the chieftainship, "President," applies. In
daily life he distinguishes himself as little as many African chiefs do, wearing
about the same outfit as any of his people. People listen with respect; and
when he sends people off to distant places to enlarge the tribal territory,
normally they go unquestioningly. Few material symbols of kingship are
used. In ceremonial gatherings, the overt symbols of power are practically
absent, though the placement of the elders in ritual settings is highly significant:
Chiefs are seated higher than the commoners and always face them.
The authority structure is reinforced in a semi-annual rite with all those attending
raising their right arm in support of the chief leaders. Authority is,
in fact, unchallenged. It is based upon an unquestioning acceptance of the
legitimacy of the chief, who has a personal history of close association with
the much mythologized founding hero and with whom he is even said to
have had a fleeting moment of supernatural identification.
The chiefs appointed community and lineage elders try to follow his
example. They lead their communities as undisputed authorities; in theory
their authority is grounded just as directly in the supernatural world as that
of the great chief. In practice, however, they have to follow his general counsel
and policies. They, like the chief, have their own businesses to tend, their
fields to plow, and their harvests to reap. In their tribal section leadership as
well as in their utilitarian work, they tend to rely on kinsmen and in-laws.
Leadership is not considered a full-time occupation, although on the level
of the chief and his counselors, in effect it is.
Religion, as in any well-organized tribe, is of prime importance for the
unity of the tribe. The hierarchical structure is heavily imbued with ritual
power, the political system depending on the religious one. Tribal character-
istics in the religion are found in, among other things, the territorial myth,
the absence of full-time religious specialists, ritual clothing, patriarchal
blessings as divination, a sacred initiation at the start of adulthood for boys,
and girls' initiation into the tribal secrets at the age of marriage. African
tribal religion usually is rooted in its geography: sacred places, holy mountains,
shrines along the footpaths of the ancestors. These religions often do
not travel well, though individual cults may.
Deseret religion has its holy grounds as well. The main messianic message
is couched in territorial terms: the tribe has a gathering place for eschatological
times. Its relations with the neighboring tribes are often stated in
terms of this messianic territoriality. Characteristically, for any tribe, the future
holiness of a territory links to pre-historic elements: gathering places of
ancestors, high points of the tribe's specific history, and spots significant to
the founding hero. As with any tribe, the landscape of Deseret is part of sacred
history and future eschatology. As with any African tribe, magic is a basic
element of the religion, both in its grounding myths and in everyday life,
as tales of miracles and healing testify.
This only partially tongue-in-cheek description of a few aspects of
early Deseret Mormonism—perhaps an exercise in what Nibley called
"the art of telling tales about Joseph Smith and Brigham
Young" —shows how apt is our depiction of the Mormons of the
mid-nineteenth century as a tribal group: that is, as a group of people
bound together by fictive and real kinship ties and a mythical charter, occupying
a definite territory to which they are ideologically bound, their
group life facilitated by sharing a culture and speaking a common language,
and unified by a comprehensive power structure.
Of course, there are differences. A crucial one is the claim to universality
and exclusiveness by Deseret religion. Traditional religions, be they
African or other, have no claims on unique truth, nor on universal application
or exclusive authority. Such a pretension is far removed from the
everyday practicality of local religions. Claims of universality and exclusivity
belong in the Christian/Moslem sphere, not in the tolerant and
easy-going traditional religions of Africa and elsewhere. It is this feature,
however, that will transform the colonized Deseret people into the
religious colonizer of the rest of the world.
"Getting the Mormon out of the Church is easier than getting the Mormon out of the Ex-Mormon"

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DPRoberts
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by DPRoberts » Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:38 pm

I still attend to support my wife, and to a lesser extent, my daughter. I say to a lesser extent because I think chances are better than even that she will follow her siblings who no longer participate. That said, we sit close together in SM and it is a good bonding experience. I also think it is important that I pretend just enough that my TBM DW does not blame me when DD follows her siblings. I generally avoid voicing criticism of leaders to DD with a few rare exceptions (e.g. the SSM letter).

My mantra is to "look for the baby". As in the one to not throw out with the bath water. Fortunately I am in a good enough ward that the baby is not that hard to find. There are good people here and the program works for many of them. We have been here a long time, and those that have been here with us are like family. True, we are not part of the in crowd, and sometimes that hurts, but it also means we are not held to the usual expectations of that group. I can still appreciate the humanity of these folks and rarely feel the need to engage in exchanges that might upset them.

The bath water, just like any plumber will tell you, flows downhill. So generally the less I here from someone with the title of Elder so-and-so the better.
When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or cease to be honest. -anon
The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world. -Max Born

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Advocate
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by Advocate » Wed Nov 02, 2016 11:45 am

I attend and hold a busy calling. Mostly I attend to support my wife, but I do have friends at church and enjoy seeing them.

I've found that focusing more on people at the local level and worrying less about leaders keeps me sane. There are a lot of great people in our ward that are trying to do their best. I have no issue doing my home teaching and being friendly to these people.

If we watch general conference, there are also a number of talks that annoy me because they are wrong, don't make sense, or are just some grumpy old guy talking (I'm looking at you Ballard). We didn't watch much of the last General Conference, maybe an hour total. It was a great win when my miamaid aged daughter said that she needed to know about one talk so her YW leaders would think we watched conference when they asked. :twisted:

The major change for me was when I had a prayer answered stating that the church isn't true. It is a great feeling of freedom when you have a direct link with God and no longer have to blindly follow imperfect men. Once you have that, you can just ignore anything that feels off.

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MalcolmVillager
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Re: As an active NOM, how do you engage the church?

Post by MalcolmVillager » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:03 pm

Mostly the same as before, just without any heart or sincerity. Still mostly in the closet. Paying less tithing, have a bad attitude about everything, sceptical of everything, but friendly, smiley, and pleasant as ever.

Few suspect anything except for the fellow doubters in the ward and maybe a bishopric counselor.

Much of the music still does good for me.

The social and community aspects are about the same.

I have to emotionally plug my ears by all the false doctrine and crazy doctrine.

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