I don’t like the phrase faith crisis. It is not accurate once you grasp what happened and it allows your religious tribe to paint you as broken and less than. Its your crisis and hence your problem is the story you allow it to tell about you. It also allows other members of that tribe to dismiss you and tell themselves the issue is not the system itself.
People lose faith in beliefs all the time moving out of or into various religious beliefs and systems. I personally experienced growth and that growth put me at distance from fitting in my religious tribe. That distance between what I was and what Mormonism would allow felt like a faith crisis. It was not.
I also had to grasp that my religious tribe tried to filter what information I had access to and what I didn’t. That was felt by me as betrayal. When I finally gathered in the information myself from other sources, I realized my religious system had a truth crisis. The issue was never me in the first place. My religious system no longer represented my values and I had outgrown my religious system and I left the small world of my religious tribe and moved on to bigger and more beautiful things.
I didn’t have a faith crisis. I experienced growth and development, and that growth and development was not supported or validated inside my former religious tribe. That growth put distance between my values and growing integrity versus the values and integrity of my former system.
The system had a truth crisis. Its truth claims are on shaky ground. So shaky in fact that it did all it could to whitewash its narrative and portray its narrative as way more faith promoting then they are. As it emphasized false stories and shielding its members from unfaithful but true parts of its narrative, a fracture occurred and as hard as I tried I lost trust in it. The betrayal, loss of trust, and the trauma I saw it inflict on others could not be repaired or reconciled. Eventually for my own well-being I had to let it go.
Thanks, Bill! Great framing.
Having Faith in a religious organization and Leaders with a Truth Crisis, a growing boatload of outright lies, is the insanity which the real Jesus could not warn us about enough: vipers, dogs, swine, blind mote-pickers ….. and ravening leaders in fine wool suits who take exemption from ethics and honesty in Their own dealings or making corrections and apologies or restitution for mistakes, especially harmful or deadly and hostile “mistakes,” all infallible works done in Jesus’ name.
They must Lead proudly and mightily. This means they do not have to be honest, repent or even pay tithing as they teach the masses they must do to enter the gateway or keep their families forever. Families eternally held hostage for ransom money and blind obedience, or else. New inventions added as needed to keep the flock Faithful and from asking questions or straying from the Leaders.
Preaching temple salvation is especially profitable since that covers all the bases including Pay, Obey and “Shut the hell up with truth!” And of course the talks in every GenCon reminding the flock that following Jesus means follow these Pharisees.
These are all examples of what the real Jesus warned us of incessantly: vipers, dogs, swine, blind mote-pickers, ….. and ravening leaders in fine wool suits who take exemption from ethics and honesty in their dealing and do not have to repent or pay tithing as they teach the masses that they must do to enter the gateway to “salvation” through none other than Themselves, “the Lord’s Only True Servants.”
I can no longer even imagine a Jesus who would wnat us to bully, lie or abuse others into line for Him, nor a “Jesus” who whould change “His own” Words of Wisdom” telling us to freely choose God’s own wholesome herbs and foods for health and wisdom and stay the hell away from poison-chemical doctors and surgeons (hint, hint). Stay away from those who change His wholesome herbs and foods into refined and synthetic, and then themselves refine and synthesize His wholesome words to then command and constrain (coerce, force, shame, guilt, threaten, punish…) His actually wise words into a fake Sentinel for entry to His kingdom on earth and heaven. Why would Jesus ever, ever command complete blind obedience to Leaders for that as well when He taught the opposite constantly? Jesus covered that too in His admonition against the blind following the blind into the ditch, and of Their “fine works” that are not of Him, but are done in His name.
Doctor Nelson just reminded us, in Jesus’ name, in Saturday morning GenCon that “…those covenants that we receive at baptism and in the temple … all of these are required if we want to be exalted with our families and with God forever.”
***Translation: Pay and Obey Us or We take away your family and everrrrrything, for Christ, and send you to eternal torment, which you choose for yourself.” Sounds a lot like what Mormons teach as Satan’s Plan?
Has the church betrayed Christ worse than Judas? Crucifying Him over and over and threatening you with
Burning at the Stake (center) for seeking and supporting abused children, Truth and the real Jesus?
Their heap of lies and deceit is growing high and mighty. If you climb it you just might be able to get to heaven.