Official vs Actual Church

[Linked]

The definition of "the church" is a tough one to pin down. There is a post by Oliver on reddit where he mentions that the church no longer officially supports mixed orientation marriages or conversion therapy. This suggests there is an official church and an actual church. I think it's worth defining these two churches.

The Official Church:

• Handbooks
• Lesson manuals
• General Conference talks
• Church websites
• Official proclamations
• First Presidency letters read in Sacrament
• Newsroom

I would put the scriptures, but there are too many opposing viewpoints to make sense of. And the general conference talks are only valid official views if they agree with the talks from the last few years.

The Actual Church - The official church plus:

• Church cultural norms
• A mixture of doctrines the official church has stopped promoting or even disavowed (like conversion therapy, or dark skin being a curse, or the Q15 having all seen Jesus, or the Mark of the Beast, or a focus on the end of times, or any number of things)

ETA - The official church has the power to completely ban an old doctrine from the actual church, as it has with Polygamy and blacks and the priesthood, but the leadership chooses not to in most cases. This is either tacit approval or a recognition that publicity around a disavowal is worse for the image of the church than their attempts to flush it down the memory hole.

[Give It Time]

Okay, my post is really far from your topic, but not your question. Confused? I've been thinking about this the past few days. I have a very unique situation. It's a situation I can now prove and it makes it so traditional visiting and home teaching are not advisable for me. I have a VT who is very by-the-book. I have a comp who is very by-the-book.

I looked up VT in one of the handbooks to find out how much flexibility there is there.

VTs are never called nor set apart
Monthly visits are optional (but they do want them regular, not more than three months apart)
Monthly visits are preferred for high needs sisters
Lessons are optional

Here is the point of VT and it said right up top:

The visiting teachers were to get to know the sisters on their routes and see to their needs.

That means that if I need my VTs to take a box of donations to one of those big collection dumpsters, that's a visit. That's not a lesser kingdom visit with the standard visit and lesson being "celestial" (I used to use those terms). Remember, the needs are not optional, the lesson is. So, the dag-blasted lesson can be totally jettisoned and pulled out when no one has a more creative idea.

I have frequently said, because I firmly believe, the visiting teachers are the most underutilized resource in the church. Such massive potential for good could be unleashed if the sisters would get out of the "correlated" pattern for visiting teaching. I think the reason it is the way it is is a chicken/egg thing. Was it a conference talk? Who knows, but the handbook that covers this subject, the actual instructions, tell us we are doing it incorrectly. That means that even a member of the Q15 who disagrees with this is nothing more than a talking head until the handbook is changed.

This is something that could be within correlation and completely grass roots.

Now that I've written it, you'll see it's kind of an odd official-vs-actual, but I testify of its truthfulness.

[Linked]

Okay, my post is really far from your topic, but not your question. Confused? I've been thinking about this the past few days. I have a very unique situation. It's a situation I can now prove and it makes it so traditional visiting and home teaching are not advisable for me. I have a VT who is very by-the-book. I have a comp who is very by-the-book.

I looked up VT in one of the handbooks to find out how much flexibility there is there.

VTs are never called nor set apart
Monthly visits are optional (but they do want them regular, not more than three months apart)
Monthly visits are preferred for high needs sisters
Lessons are optional

Here is the point of VT and it said right up top:

The visiting teachers were to get to know the sisters on their routes and see to their needs.

That means that if I need my VTs to take a box of donations to one of those big collection dumpsters, that's a visit. That's not a lesser kingdom visit with the standard visit and lesson being "celestial" (I used to use those terms). Remember, the needs are not optional, the lesson is. So, the dag-blasted lesson can be totally jettisoned and pulled out when no one has a more creative idea.

I have frequently said, because I firmly believe, the visiting teachers are the most underutilized resource in the church. Such massive potential for good could be unleashed if the sisters would get out of the "correlated" pattern for visiting teaching. I think the reason it is the way it is is a chicken/egg thing. Was it a conference talk? Who knows, but the handbook that covers this subject, the actual instructions, tell us we are doing it incorrectly. That means that even a member of the Q15 who disagrees with this is nothing more than a talking head until the handbook is changed.

This is something that could be within correlation and completely grass roots.

Now that I've written it, you'll see it's kind of an odd official-vs-actual, but I testify of its truthfulness.

Thanks for your testimony Sister Time.

I agree, this goes right along with the official and actual church theme. There is so much wiggle room the church takes by having the written policies so far from reality.

And I agree, I always liked the idea of the VT/HT programs. But they never really worked in real life like I imagined they could. Neither visitor or the visitee could do it quite right. Now I just try to be nice to everyone and help people when I can.

[Give It Time]

Okay, my post is really far from your topic, but not your question. Confused? I've been thinking about this the past few days. I have a very unique situation. It's a situation I can now prove and it makes it so traditional visiting and home teaching are not advisable for me. I have a VT who is very by-the-book. I have a comp who is very by-the-book.

I looked up VT in one of the handbooks to find out how much flexibility there is there.

VTs are never called nor set apart
Monthly visits are optional (but they do want them regular, not more than three months apart)
Monthly visits are preferred for high needs sisters
Lessons are optional

Here is the point of VT and it said right up top:

The visiting teachers were to get to know the sisters on their routes and see to their needs.

That means that if I need my VTs to take a box of donations to one of those big collection dumpsters, that's a visit. That's not a lesser kingdom visit with the standard visit and lesson being "celestial" (I used to use those terms). Remember, the needs are not optional, the lesson is. So, the dag-blasted lesson can be totally jettisoned and pulled out when no one has a more creative idea.

I have frequently said, because I firmly believe, the visiting teachers are the most underutilized resource in the church. Such massive potential for good could be unleashed if the sisters would get out of the "correlated" pattern for visiting teaching. I think the reason it is the way it is is a chicken/egg thing. Was it a conference talk? Who knows, but the handbook that covers this subject, the actual instructions, tell us we are doing it incorrectly. That means that even a member of the Q15 who disagrees with this is nothing more than a talking head until the handbook is changed.

This is something that could be within correlation and completely grass roots.

Now that I've written it, you'll see it's kind of an odd official-vs-actual, but I testify of its truthfulness.

Thanks for your testimony Sister Time.

I agree, this goes right along with the official and actual church theme. There is so much wiggle room the church takes by having the written policies so far from reality.

And I agree, I always liked the idea of the VT/HT programs. But they never really worked in real life like I imagined they could. Neither visitor or the visitee could do it quite right. Now I just try to be nice to everyone and help people when I can.

Thanks, Linked.

I will touch briefly on the disparity between the sound bites over the pulpit regarding the church not tolerating abuse and what actually happens in the church. I could write for quite a long time in that subject. Instead, I'd rather comment on the true street level of that disparity.

There is a lot of misinformation about abuse that is still considered common and, therefore, correct knowledge. Couple this bad information with a doctrine that implicitly and explicitly states divorce is wrong and we have a situation where a whole lot of former victim retraumatization happens. Also, one thing that has victims allowing themselves to be abused is under-developed skills in setting boundaries. One skill the former victim needs to develop is setting boundaries. We all know this is a church about disrespecting the boundary.

So many well many people that need to be told to back off. So many well meaning people who think that sharing with the victims the beautiful doctrines of eternal family and forgiveness and thinking those doctrines will be uplifting. If an abuse victim says they don't want to hear about the temple or covenants or priesthood or gender roles or obedience, because all those things were used against them, then don't try to talk that victim around. Just shut it. Don't get mad at the victim for not having faith. Get mad at the abuse for having leveraged a doctrine that was once considered beautiful and used it to abuse.

I could write quite awhile, because it's essentially rape culture and how it manifests at the ward level. Bottom line though, saying the church doesn't tolerate abuse, means you, dear member. That means you don't do it. That means you don't excuse the abuse. That means you support the victim and aid their healing. That's it. Pulpit-vs-street and former victims shouldn't have to further traumatize themselves by educating people who can have skulls on the thick side. This should come top-down.

[1smartdodog]

The official church tends to be for those under 50. The actual church is for those older who hang onto the doctrines they grew up with. Or maybe I got that backwards but you get the point.