Discussions toward a better understanding of LDS doctrine, history, and culture. Discussion of Christianity, religion, and faith in general is welcome.
“We are striving to raise a sin-resistant generation unto the Lord, promise by promise and covenant by covenant,”
One of the things that irks me is as a people we seem to be overly obsessed with sin and repentance. I realised one day that my life is pretty boring and I wondered what it was that I was supposed to be repenting of every day.
I would much rather raise a generation of kind, reliable, confident kids who are just nice people than another generation of poor souls feeling guilty when they are not sure what they are doing wrong, but they must be doing something wrong because we are all sinners right?
When people bear testimony of how grateful they are for repentance I wonder what on earth they are all doing that requires it? Most of the people there are generally good people who genuinely try to live good lives. I feel sad that they feel like they are not measuring up.
This has been one of the biggest paradigm shifts for me in leaving the church. When I hear someone say they're trying to build a sin resistant generation, I hear them say that they're trying to program children to be obedient robots. I don't believe in that type of parenting. I don't think it's healthy or good to tell children that their primary goal should be obedience to X.
I'm love my kids more than anyone else loves them, and I still mess up. I don't want them being mini replicas of me. I want them grow up to be functioning, kind, empathetic, well-rounded human beings who realize that making mistakes and learning how to fix them to the best of their ability is part of the human experience that we all share. That's far more important to me than being "sin resistant."
LostGirl wrote:One of the things that irks me is as a people we seem to be overly obsessed with sin and repentance. I realised one day that my life is pretty boring and I wondered what it was that I was supposed to be repenting of every day.
I would much rather raise a generation of kind, reliable, confident kids who are just nice people than another generation of poor souls feeling guilty when they are not sure what they are doing wrong, but they must be doing something wrong because we are all sinners right?
When people bear testimony of how grateful they are for repentance I wonder what on earth they are all doing that requires it? Most of the people there are generally good people who genuinely try to live good lives. I feel sad that they feel like they are not measuring up.
My wife and children have a mix of personality types that don't fit the square hole the church wants to pound them into. I wish I had figured this out sooner, as I think our efforts to raise my three oldest as TBMs may have been harmful to them in some ways. With my youngest, "kind, reliable, confident" is the objective I shifted to some time ago for her and that seems to be working out very well at the moment. I do not want her thoughtful introverted personality to be compared against the extroverted ideal the church feeds us and have her feel sinful because of that. Maybe she is having a great high school year this year because her mom let her drop seminary .
The way spiritual guidance has worked in my life, I felt those same kinds of "promptings" telling me that God just might be leading my family out of the LDS church. That its teachings are not all that healthy for people like us. The obsessive preoccupation with sin has to rank quite high on the unhealthy list, at least for certain personality types.
On the other hand, I still see people in my ward who seem to somehow avoid the crazy while still believing, and pass that along to their kids. Different strokes, I suppose.
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
Once when I was in the YW program the Beehive leader said that the incoming Beehive girls are so innocent and so pure, and she wished more than anything that she could keep them that innocent and pure.
And I think to myself, "Yeah, wasn't that Satan's plan?"
According to the plan of salvation, we had progressed as far as we could in the spirit world and to progress, we had to be allowed to learn and grow ourselves. Not just more learning by listening to others warn us about mistakes, but to be allowed to make mistakes.
It is like driver's Ed. You can only learn so much in the classroom. At some point, you have to be allowed behind the steering wheel of a real live car, where mistakes can be fatal, and be allowed to learn by making mistakes. Hopefully, we will learn from making small mistakes rather than huge ones, but as Satan said to Eve in the garden, "there is no other way." That is the whole point of free agency, is that there is no other way to continue to learn and progress. We cannot stay in the classroom forever.
Or compare it to learning to cook. You can first learn to follow the recipe and actually get that right and down. But you only progress so far by strict obedience to how someone else cooks. You don't learn to be a master chef by always following somebody else's recipe. You have to try new things, new combinations of food to come up with something new and creative. You WILL make some mistakes, but to really create something new and exciting, you have to experiment, not just follow the recipe. Hopefully you don't poison yourself or someone else with a mistake, but you have to learn.
It is the same way raising kids. You can teach them not to make the same mistakes you made, but they are going to make new and unique mistakes you never even thought of.
Strict obedience only goes so far, then comes the stage of learning from our own mistakes. There is no other way.
LostGirl wrote:I would much rather raise a generation of kind, reliable, confident kids who are just nice people than another generation of poor souls feeling guilty when they are not sure what they are doing wrong, but they must be doing something wrong because we are all sinners right?
When people bear testimony of how grateful they are for repentance I wonder what on earth they are all doing that requires it? Most of the people there are generally good people who genuinely try to live good lives. I feel sad that they feel like they are not measuring up.
You are bringing up some very good points. When the church says "sin resistant generation", notice that they are not defining "sin". Because by "sin" they mean the long list of LDS restrictions and obligations that are above and beyond the teachings of Jesus Christ. Within the LDS church, sin means allocating tithing towards "Doctors Without Borders" instead of LDS, Inc. Sin means drinking green tea instead of Red Bull. Sin means being a good friend neighbor and never inviting your neighbor to meet the missionaries. Sin means having a civil wedding so non-member parents can attend. Sin means supporting your LGBT child and attending their wedding.
At this point in my life I want my children to grow into functional adults that treat others with the best philosophy from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. This is not good enough for the institutional LDS church. But it's more than good enough for me and I feel confident that it would be good enough for Jesus.
I agree with you corsair. I feel very sad to hear parents describe their children who leave the church as lost when as far as I can see they are pretty good people.
“We are striving to raise a sin-resistant generation unto the Lord, promise by promise and covenant by covenant,”
Makes me think of Hitler's youth.
I'm relieved my kids won't have to deal with this their whole lives like I did. I've told them multiple times that now my only wish is that they are kind to other people, be happy and leave the world a better place than they found it.
“Sir,' I said to the universe, 'I exist.' 'That,' said the universe, 'creates no sense of obligation in me whatsoever.”
--Douglas Adams
I get the desire to have children avoid the pain that can come from mistakes (sin). I don't see how giving them way too many ways to err, then giving them massive guilt for the inevitable help out. That is not a sin resistant generation but a guilt ridden generation.
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