NOM

I have struggled with the concept of worthiness in the mormon church.
Worthiness is a mormon invention. It started off as something different and has morphed into some obedience-centered, authority driven sense of accomplishment. The mormon version places fear and control over the member.
A relative once shared an allegory that worthiness is like getting holes in your bicycle inner tube. Sometimes you can patch them yourself and sometimes you have to get a new tube. Sometimes you have to go to the Bishop to get forgiveness. This drives me crazy.
If you are unworthy, you lose the priesthood. You can't function in the priesthood. So, when a bishop, SP, or general authority is found out to be unworthy, do they go back and re-ordain everyone that was ordained by him? Do they rebaptize these people? No. They don't. So, then why is worthiness so stressed? If you happen to sip a cup of Earl Grey, you are then unworthy? Somethings just make no sense at all.
How have your views on worthiness changed along with your faith transition?

Update: fixed a misspelled word

What exactly are they "worthy" of?

Feeling unworthy is a universal human experience, and the church capitalizes on that common fear. The church promises to have the authority, tools, and know-how to resolve your unworthiness, but delivers only an endless and impossible list of checkboxes for actualizing worthiness. If Jesus' atonement made people worthy, then we could just celebrate. Instead, the church experience is constant stress, worry, fear and do-more, do-more, do-more to make yourself worthy. So in a sense, the constant focus on *doing* things to *become* worthy denies the teachings about the atonement.

Frankly, I never could make sense of the atonement, and it is probably this fuss about worthiness that makes it so impossible to understand.

Understanding two basic fundamental principles have helped me unwind the concept and related side effects of worthiness. Like a belly button, it's either an inny or an outy.

Let's talk about the outy first. Worthiness has become the list of requirements necessary to keep the Mormon brand pure.

Why are Home Depot's signs orange and white?
Why are McDonalds the yellow arch?

While branding creates a universal method of recognition, outward worthiness creates an internal brand of mormon recognition. It starts with a white shirt and tie on the outside and continues down the outward appearances spectrum from there. Most people can see and understand this form of branding. Wearing a blue shirt on Sunday will disrupt this.

Now let's talk about the inny form of branding. This form of branding is breed in the form of the natural man. The natural man is weak, pathetic, gluttonous, and focused on the flesh. The church constantly reminds us that we are hungry, horny, and like chocolate ice cream (sometimes as part of foreplay but I digress). Because we are human, we recognize these weaknesses and rather than accept them as human qualities, the church washes our brains into believing that it's a religious fault that can be overcome with persistent participation in said religion. When we believe this, we become addicts to the church (religion). These symptoms manifest themselves and are extent easy to see in nature (at church). Think of every testimony where someone gets up and rambles on and on about their "trials" and then praises the church for providing strength to endure. It's like listening to someone complain about their throats burning while they drink the bleach.

What I'm taking forever to get at it this: pay attention to the patterns that keep us bound to the church. When you start to recognize these patterns (like tithing settlement, TR interviews, etc) you'll start to see that your NOT unworthy. In the real world, your just another human being who's distancing yourself from the Mormon brand.

FreeFallin wrote:Frankly, I never could make sense of the atonement, and it is probably this fuss about worthiness that makes it so impossible to understand.

Dog sees tail. Dog chases tail. God laughs while dog circles round and round, round and round, round and round....

If I was a dog, why would I send my favorite puppy down to earth to bring love joy and happiness, only to then be killed for the benefit of all other puppies? To watch them see their tails and chase?

I beat myself up for far too long over worthiness. I finally had to tell myself that "I am a good person". It seems like it's the honest ones who suffer the most under the whole Mormon worthiness thing.

When I discovered the extent of Joseph Smith's sins, it became obvious to me that there is no way in h#$% he should have had the "worthiness" to accomplish many of the religious feats he did. I suddenly began to resent the duplicity of the Church on the subject. How could a good/fair God/Church inflict upon me terrible and soul-destroying inner conflict because I masturbated, and then let Joseph off the hook? I saw the whole setup for what it was--a way to control me through fear and self-loathing.

This one gets me very angry. The Church lost much of its moral authority with me when I finally figured this one out.

It is about control. because the COJCOLDS controls our worthiness and subsequent eternal salvation we have to give them our money and time and energy. Although we don't have to sacrifice all things; our lives, our comfort, our families, etc... we do give up our tithing even if we can't afford basic necessities, our time even when our families suffer from our absence, our effort even when our employers & careers suffer from our distraction.

When they hold the key to our earthly worth and happiness and our eternal salvation we have to bend over for everything they choose to inflict upon us.

The LDS church loves to harp on worthiness because it creates shame which ties people to the church. When a culture loves public shaming, you know that it's a culture of control.

Since I've left the church, I've focused a lot more on the difference between guilt (I messed up, and I should do better and make it right if I can) and shame (I did something bad, so I am bad). This is a critical thing to distinguish. Making mistakes should be a chance for growth.

Control through shame and self-doubt probably lessens the worthiness of the individual inducing those feelings.

Red Ryder wrote:Understanding two basic fundamental principles have helped me unwind the concept and related side effects of worthiness. Like a belly button, it's either an inny or an outy.

Let's talk about the outy first. Worthiness has become the list of requirements necessary to keep the Mormon brand pure.

Why are Home Depot's signs orange and white?
Why are McDonalds the yellow arch?

While branding creates a universal method of recognition, outward worthiness creates an internal brand of mormon recognition. It starts with a white shirt and tie on the outside and continues down the outward appearances spectrum from there. Most people can see and understand this form of branding. Wearing a blue shirt on Sunday will disrupt this.

Now let's talk about the inny form of branding. This form of branding is breed in the form of the natural man. The natural man is weak, pathetic, gluttonous, and focused on the flesh. The church constantly reminds us that we are hungry, horny, and like chocolate ice cream (sometimes as part of foreplay but I digress). Because we are human, we recognize these weaknesses and rather than accept them as human qualities, the church washes our brains into believing that it's a religious fault that can be overcome with persistent participation in said religion. When we believe this, we become addicts to the church (religion). These symptoms manifest themselves and are extent easy to see in nature (at church). Think of every testimony where someone gets up and rambles on and on about their "trials" and then praises the church for providing strength to endure. It's like listening to someone complain about their throats burning while they drink the bleach.

What I'm taking forever to get at it this: pay attention to the patterns that keep us bound to the church. When you start to recognize these patterns (like tithing settlement, TR interviews, etc) you'll start to see that your NOT unworthy. In the real world, your just another human being who's distancing yourself from the Mormon brand.

Thank you RR for your insight. This is so true. The church is so concerned with its brand to the detriment of the mental structure of the member.
I wore my blue shirt to church again today. That has become my mantra. I do not want to contribute to the brand of the church.
I'm really interested in finding more about your chocolate ice cream theory.

I think that the Church has been improving on this point lately : saying for example that if you don't feel worthy for X because Y than change Y. Worthiness is obviously only determined by meaningless outward appearances (I was asked to pass the sacrament a while back, and was forced into a tie, but they didn't care about orange sneakers?), and by individual evaluation of self-worth. Depending on the person, you can feel worthy with 37 wives or feel unworthy because you can't keep "bad thoughts" entirely out of your mind.
As for priesthood worthiness if there is such a thing, I suppose all it does is toggle the miracle switch? So you can ordain and preside but not bless?

I like blue shirts.

When a white shirt comes up in my shirt rotation I skip it for a darker color. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm backsliding.