carlimac

This is a half truth and not the teaching of the church. Never has it been taught that we are only sexual objects. But we do have the power of procreation, and thereby we are sexual object. But the church's teaching is and always has been that we are SO much more than just this. But that does not take away from the fact that we are endowed with procreative power and we have the responsibility to be wise stewards over that.
 
 
 
This is baloney and a logical fallacy of mammoth proportions. The teaching has absolutely nothing to do with men's responsibility for their own thoughts and actions. It does not teach that men "cannot" control themselves.
 
What it teaches is that it's unwise to shove drugs in an addict's face. It's unwise to have sweets in the home where there are health and obesity issues. And it is unwise to expose female flesh to men struggling with lust (which, coincidentally, happens to be most men at some point in their lives). It advocate's wisdom, not the removal of choice or responsibility. My responsibility to not tempt others is not implying other's are not responsible. It would be like saying a parent has no responsibility to teach their children right principles because that would take away the child's agency. We are responsible for our influence over others. We are also, all, responsible for ourselves.

Thought 1: Sometimes I think this modesty discussion gets too focused on "what my clothing might make men ( and women, if we want to be gender neutral) think." With due appreciation to the Savior's teachings in Matt 5 (thoughts about something are the same as actually doing it), I think, socially, there is a dramatic difference between a man who sees a woman and spends the next week fantasizing about her and a man who sees a woman and seduces/rapes her. This kind of hit home to me in a brief internet exchange. One man said, "if you knew what a man thought, you'd be scared out of your mind." and the woman replied, "I am not afraid of what men think." It has made me wonder if the modesty discussion is too much about what others might be thinking. In some ways, as long as they keep their thoughts/hands/lips/etc. to themselves, it does not matter much what they are thinking.
 
Thought 2: Another observation that I have found interesting comes from the nudist community. Nudists are fond of claiming that they learn how to properly separate nudity from sexuality. We have all heard of "native" cultures where women go topless, and they do not sexualize the nudity that they are exposed to -- it is the cultural norm for them. It emphasizes to me that some of this modesty discussion is "cultural" and not "theological." I'm not promoting nudism or other less modest cultural dress standards, but it helps me see that no one is forced to think anything (let alone do anything) because they see a certain amount of skin. Everyone can properly respond in thought and (especially) action to what others wear or don't wear.

I believe a virtuous woman will dress modestly and in so doing will do all else within her power to dissuade men or women from having inappropriate thoughts.  At the same time, I expect virtuous men to turn away from women or men that encourage them to have inappropriate thoughts.
 
I would also point out that for some – regardless of the reason – they will find some fault in those that attempt in any way to encourage them to be modest.   When I was single and considering marriage most of the young women available were not endowed but I thought it wise to seek out a virtuous woman that would dress to a modesty standard worthy of the temple – even if and especially if they were not yet endowed.    I am grateful to have found a virtuous woman whose foremost goal was to marry a man that honorees his priesthood.   It is obvious it was not my look or my otherwise manly statue that won out.

I found this hilarious considering the topic of the discussion.

While agreeing with Jenamarie's post, I think there's also a component of bearing one another's burdens (see, e.g., Romans 14) that--with reasonable limits--should come into play as well. The unfortunate thing is that as a Church, a lot of times we don't really think about how that underlying concept applies above and beyond the specific topic of modest apparel.
 
I'm always amused at those parents who say "my teenaged son doesn't engage in this activity--because I teach him not to, and dadgum it, he listens to me!!!"  It's particularly entertaining to see progressives who are fond of pointing out that conservatives' children's sexual behavior cannot be controlled (so we need free contraceptives!  We must have graphic sex education courses!  Because abstinence just won't work!); smugly assert that their own teenagers are inevitably going to (not?) think about sex in accordance with the demands of 21st-century feminism.
 
Sisters, y'all don't want to know what's going on in a teenaged boy's head.  Trust me.  Five minutes in our brains, and you'd be more than happy to spend the rest of your lives in a burka.

I think they are trying to teach a valid idea...  But that the idea gets distorted into blame an fault finding.
 
Lets remove clothing as a factor and go generic.  The idea is that we all influence each other by our actions.   The people influenced have a choice on how they respond to that influence though, and they have full responsibility for that choice. 
 
But sometimes we need to ask ourselves some serious questions about the influence we have have on others due to the choices we make.

I have attended my current ward in the UK since I was 13, and I'm 28 now. 
 
In my experience of both the US and UK is that the US tends to be more accepting of religion in general. The UK as a whole tends to be sceptical and views religious people as naive, perhaps stupid.
 
The area that my ward is located in is run down, one of the poorer areas of the city I live in. The issues caused by having a ward in this area got so bad at one point that the stake president attempted to close it down, but was overruled when a new stake president replaced him.
 
This stereotype of religion exists even more deeply in these areas, and people trying to "sell" religion are viewed as worse than door-to-door salesmen trying to scam already poor people out of even more money.
 
99% of our missionaries are fresh faced American boys from the US, who repeatedly demonstrate very little local knowledge regardless of how long they've been serving their mission. I've watched them come and go over the years, and each set of missionaries make the same mistakes as those before. They come into the ward, get invited into lots of houses, get the local people to come out to the ward on Sundays and then move on happy in the knowledge that they've bought a few families into the ward. They never see the aftermath that occurs when these families realize that despite their conceptions about the local "American church" as having very deep pockets, they aren't going to just be handed money because they have are poor and have 10 kids to feed. Once they realized the support they'll get from the church is limited, they disappear never to be seen again.
 
I've seen this happen, time and time again over the past 15 years. We've had people come to church because they are present illegally in the UK and believe the church has enough influence to help them obtain a visa, we've had many people with the financial difficulties mentioned above, we've had people with severe health problems that need a lot of money for support and the result is always the same - the church doesn't just hand out packets of cash upon request and they leave. The young American missionaries have left at this point, and never see these results. Their replacements are there bringing in yet more people for the same hidden motives.
 
Don't be surprised. Based on my experience above, this is relatively normal.

Last summer I was able to attend a 90 year celebration of a small Branch that I had worked in while on my mission in Germany. While I was working in that city, I had only one baptism. I lost contact with him, and he and his wife moved away. From what I understand he and his wife did go inactive. I have hope that they have come back. But, anyway, what I did see with this Branch were many of the stalwarts who were still active. Their children were active.  In fact, we stayed at a member's home, who was about 6 years old at the time I was a missionary there. She still remembered me.
 
I had few baptisms in Germany. I know that one of the Sister's that I taught and was baptized has struggled with activity and then inactivity most of the past 30 years. But, she has done extensive genealogy research and loves it.
 
We don't know the impact that we've had on other's lives. One lady that we taught, who never joined the church, became widowed after our first lesson with her. She and her family were so grateful about learning the Plan of Salvation. Even though she never joined, I know that my companion and I were sent there, to help her and her family during this tragedy in their lives. I know that Heavenly Father loved them. She believed, and was so thankful to know that she would see her husband again.
 
I long ago decided that if the one person/soul that was saved on my mission, was my own, then my mission was worth it!!  My mission was hard!  I was a good missionary, but not perfect. It forever changed my life. My mission strengthened my testimony!  I loved the people I served. Whether they joined the Church, remained active or not, I still love them.

Two things:
- sometimes a mission is more for the missionary so focus on what *you* gained from it
- this church requires a lot and is not for the faint of heart and unfortunately some just aren't ready to handle it
 
xxx

On my mission I had roughly 26 companions.  I had one with Downs Syndrome, one SCT (mild retardation), one bipolar, one OCD/manic depressive/anger issues, two with major depression, two sent home for past transgressions, and a few with obedience issues.  All of the mental illnesses were professionally diagnosed.  This, coupled with serving in the deep south, made for some very trying times to put it mildly.  Trust me when I say that I know how you feel, and please trust me when I say that your mission was absolutely with it.
 
As mentioned earlier, sometimes the mission is for the missionary.  I believe that it's always for the missionary.  It does not matter where you serve.  It matters how you serve.  Success is not measured by how many converts you baptized or how many people you reactivated and served.  Success is measured by the level of spiritual growth you had during and after your mission.  I still learn valuable lessons from my mission even to this day and I can't wait to serve a mission again.

I think you were a little idealistic.  I served in South America.  Inactivity was 80%.  My home ward inactivity rate s somewhere between 65-70%.  This is normal.  
 
This is normal not only in the LDS church, but in other not for profit/volunteer/charitable organizations, and every other church in the world.
 
There are many reasons why people fall away.  It is ridiculous to take it personally when someone does.  
 
I baptized many on my mission.  Some went on to serve missions of their own, some fell away, our AP even went inactive shortly after returning home.  
 
Don't equate what you see in Utah/Idaho with the rest of the world.  In those states the church is cultural and social as much as or even more than faith based.  

I think every missionary asks this question decades down the road.  You can't help but ask the question.  When you think how much wisdom and experience you accumulate in life AFTER living another 30 years, you naturally look back and wonder how much more effective you could have been.
 
I can liken it to my experiences as a musician.  I sometimes go back and listen to old recordings of myself from 20 or 30 years ago.  I played guitar as a soloist and occasionally with bands.  I have a recording of a radio show I appeared on in 1987.  My technique was very powerful--even better than it is today--but I was lacking a depth of musicality that I possess now.  I cringe to hear parts of that recording now, because I can hear the flaws, not so much on a technical level, but of interpretation and finesse.  
 
I regard my mission like that sometimes.  If I could go back, knowing what I know now, I would have done some things very differently.  Yet the Lord accepted my offering because it was my best effort at the time.  I'm satisfied with it because he is.
 
It's sad when people we brought into the gospel don't make it.  I've had several close friends whom I baptized outside of my mission who eventually fell away.  Living the gospel is hard and it involves making hard choices sometimes.  Some of them chose education and career over serving the Lord.  Others succumbed to loneliness because they didn't find a mate and married outside the Church.  One of them had his wife--a lifelong member--cheat on him and then divorce him and it broke his heart.
 
In the end, each situation was a test that asked believer "Lovest thou me more than these?" (John 21:15)  They faced having to follow Jesus despite the pain that continued faith would cost them.  The choices they made took them away from the pain and away from the Lord.  They could have continued to carry the cross, but they lost hope and despaired.  
 
To me, it is significant that I've heard old men, particularly general authorities, express the hope that they would remain faithful until the very end.  You'd think that they'd feel really confident in their abilities by that time in their lives.  Instead, the reality of God's chastening has made them humble and reliant upon the Lord because they are acquainted with the pain and trouble that can come from God's chastening hand.  
 
I look back on my mission and I see it as the beginning of that process.  I went out into the field as a new convert of 20 months.  I was so inexperienced!  Yet it is the trials of my mission that gave me the first lessons in enduring faithfully that have kept me going for over three decades.  For that alone, it was worth it.  I hope for the strength to maintain that faith through whatever comes.

Wow, I mean wow. Is that the prevailing attitude of today? If a woman doesn't show as much skin as possible she's being oppressed?

Work on your reaction to their reactions. Don't give in and change. I've honestly never heard of a reaction like this. Never seen anyone react to the swim wear my wife wears, she tends to wear these girly, swim shirt things, I have no idea what they are called with swim shorts.

People are ignorant.  Stand for your beliefs and don't back down.

Are their doughnuts?
 
We get nice seats I'd swap to be honest

Applogies I am behind on my LDS news she was only having disciplinary action last time I checked. Which answers the defensive question, nope don't care for the woman myself and wouldn't want the priesthood if it came with endless doughnuts. The only part of the priesthood I am slightly envious of is the fact my husband got to bless our son and will get to baptise him. But I got to carry him and be go to parent so not a big issue. I don't think lessons should be turned into debates but experiences should be encouraged but I rarely teach so may be that would change my opinion if I did
 
My name stands for Ormskil Warriors for life, it is my husbands Viking re-enactment group and I stupidly left him to name me while I went off to do something.

Also a response from the teacher could be, "Thank you for your comment now moving on with the lesson."  :)

I would never bring up the subject in RS like she did.  She opened that can of worms knowing it was going to irritate the majority of the women in the room.  We come to church to be uplifted - not listen to that. 

http://jeffbenedict.com/index.php/blog/35-blog/378-maybe-ill-meet-a-girl
 
 
First of all, I found it to be well articulated and an article that would do a lot to convince LDS to be more accepting of openly gay members in our congregations. I didn't know Elder Christofferson has a gay brother. 
 
I did find myself balking at a few things though. This line:
 
"Desire gets to the crux of the matter. You can restrain desire. But you can't fabricate it."  
 
Ha! Whoever wrote that either isn't a woman or at least hasn't ever had a baby or raised a family large or small.  It absolutely can be fabricated and, well...has to be at times. Many times!!  I guess that's one reason why I don't have much sympathy for the notion that gays just don't have any desire with the opposite sex.  
 
 
The other part I struggle with is the question of where we draw our tolerance line in the sand. I completely agree that ALL human beings with an honest desire for religious influence should be welcome in our meetings. ( Except perhaps mass murderers with a gun, itchy fingers and no self control in a large crowd.)  
I think those who have labeled themselves as gays and lesbians should be welcome. But how do we keep ourselves from becoming so sympathetic that we lose sight of the meaning the plan of salvation has in every human life?  Don't we have to have some reservations?  How do we explain the presence of hand-holding, backrubbing same gender couples in sacrament meeting to our children?  And in the case of the family of the subject of the article, what words do we use that make sense to explain this to our children at a family gathering? Do we just toss the whole scenario into the box of unexplainable mysteries and tell the kids we'll understand it someday? Or do we take a stand and boldly say that this uncle or aunt of theirs  is doing something wrong, without question, but we still love him or her anyway?   It seems like society wants us to just accept it. Not judge it or talk about it as sin. Are we as a church getting closer to that line in the sand where we don't call it a sin either?
 
 

The idea that the President of the Church ever had first claim upon the virginity of any woman in the Church he happened to desire (or even the notion that such an idea was ever current in the Church), is utterly unsupported. 
 
I believe there are some statements out there from Brigham Young to the effect that a woman had a right to leave her unrighteous husband and marry a man who either she deemed to be more righteous, or who was higher in priesthood authority.  (As territorial governor he was very generous in giving certificates of divorce to women; whereas he typically told male applicants to tough it out.)  I have no idea with what frequency this may have actually happened in practice; but I suspect you might be thinking, at least in part, of the modern FLDS practice of the "prophet" coming up to a man accused of unrighteousness and saying "all your wives and kids now belong to me".  That practice is a perversion of Young's teaching--as I recall, it was the wife who was supposed to initiate that sort of thing.  It was an escape mechanism for the woman, not a wife-poaching procedure for the man.
 
Young did have a wife who was a bit of a firecracker (Augusta Cobb, I think her name was) who declared that she no longer wanted to be sealed to Young and insisted on being sealed to Joseph Smith.  Young eventually acquiesced, but drew the line when she later demanded to be sealed to Jesus Christ Himself.

Of course Church office isn't a direct indicator of spiritual state.  However, church office is a direct indicator of whether one is authorized to disseminate the revelations one claims to have had.  And, more to the point of this discussion--spiritual state is a direct indicator of whether or not a purported "revelation" is likely to be a true one.
 
The Brigham Young quote you cite is geared towards Church members who won't bother to seek their own revelation.  I know that OW dearly, desperately wants to believe that assertion to be true of the entire orthodox wing of the Church--but frankly, they're basing that smear on nothing more than the fact that the orthodox Church (including its divinely appointed leadership) disagrees with them.  Whatever happened to "reasonable people can disagree"?
 
 
There's a difference between saying we can know what the 1st Pres/Q12 know, versus saying we can know more than them (and are authorized to teach that additional purported knowledge).

Well, it's entirely possible that the leadership prayed about it and got no answer.
 
This would require the leadership to either get in to an argument with members who said "Well, if he didn't say 'No', then you can change it". You'll note that they didn't say that they received inspiration saying that women couldn't be ordained. Only that they 'don't' get ordained.
 
If they got no answer, simply saying, "We've had no inspiration to change it." would have made things worse. If that were the case, they stuck with the conservative decision.
 
It might be a non-answer, but there might be a reason for the non-answer.

Canonized scripture, Conference sermon specifically tailored to the individuals raising the issue, united statement of the 1st Pres/Q12--In the words of an esteemed (former) secretary of state, "what difference, at this point, does it make?"
 
 
Suzie, I daresay you are familiar with enough Church history to know that conformance with some sort of legal code doesn't immunize one from excommunication.  Nor, IMHO, should it.  If the Holy Ghost tells a bishop or stake president that a Church member's heart is not right before the Lord, I don't think that bishop/stake president's hands should be tied in perpetuity while the member keeps the council bogged down in legal procedures.  There should be fair play and adequate notice; sure.  But this business of Kate Kelly acting like she has absolutely no idea why she was excommunicated is just silly.  Babylon may buy it, and the sympathetic LDS intelligentsia may split hairs over it; but to most rank-and-file Mormons it's pretty clear cut:  she demanded something that the Church leadership said the Lord was unwilling to give, and she wouldn't take "no" for an answer and tried to shame the leadership into giving her what she wanted anyways.
 
 
FWIW--McKay did inquire of the Lord re the blacks and priesthood issue, and did get an answer (a negative one).  But he did not formally announce that answer.  Had he done so, the Church membership could have gotten even more entrenched in the status quo.  Rather, he continued working quietly to prepare the Church for the "long promised day".
 
Let me ask you this, Suzie--if Monson did get an answer, and it was a "no"--are you sure you want that answer presented to a solemn assembly and canonized as Official Declaration 3?
 
IMHO, those who want to keep female ordination on the table as a long-term option should be grateful for the ambiguity.
 
 
The Church hasn't stopped the dialogue here; they've merely stated that the apostles will contribute to it on their own (the Lord's?) terms.  Those terms apparently do not involve giving Kate Kelly a photo-op or otherwise implicitly suggesting that someone can shout their way into the council room of the First Presidency.
 
 
They shouldn't have to, MoE.  The Church records are completely devoid of any record of a female ever being ordained to one of the four offices of the Aaronic Priesthood or five offices of the Melchizedek Priesthood, and OW knows it.  It is they who are deliberately creating murky waters with the ambiguous use of the word "ordain" and the red herring statements about priestesshood made to the Nauvoo Relief Society.  The LDS leadership shouldn't have to address that blatant lie, and frankly I think I prefer it in general when apostles don't get into the business of apologetics or historical analysis.

Sorry but she sounds kind of messed up. I can't judge because I've never been in her circumstances, nor do I know the whole story, but sounds to me like she's compromising and blaming the church for being...the church. For teaching what it's supposed to teach. I could feel her anger right away. That's just sad.
I've been in that hypercritical mind set before. I really struggled with the church at times as young mother with lots of children. Sometimes General Conference would almost put me over the edge. But in retrospect, it did me no good, nor did it ultimately make me feel any better to whine and complain about having to do hard things, or about bucking up against the strictness of the gospel. If I had followed my notions to go inactive, to experiment and "taste-test" things that weren't approved by the church, I know it would have only led to a more profound unhappiness. ONLY when I have conformed my life to the will of my Father in Heaven, has His blessings of peace and a sense of well being come to me. We all make mistakes and bad choices at times, but to remain unrepentant and prideful will never equal happiness. She says she's happier now that she's not attending church as much. My guess is that it isn't true happiness, or a genuine happiness that will last. She's cheating herself and she knows it. Why else would she feel the need to blog about it- to somehow justify it because she is picked on by the church cause her husband is gay. Being humble, submissive and allowing the atonement of Jesus Christ to work for us is the only path to true peace and happiness. Doesn't sound like she's on that path.
As I read the part of the book I'm reading about the gay young adult who took his life, I was touched and saddened. He was painted as a kid who was practically perfect in every way. My guess is that it wasn't only being gay that made him take his life. He was a perfectionist and it sounds like he just couldn't love himself unless he was perfect. It sounded like he was just depressed. He was typical candidate for suicide. Scares me cause I have a son who isn't gay but who is very intense and a perfectionist. It's not the church that makes people that way. It's their personalities-their dispositions. I have children with equally strong testimonies but who are a little more forgiving of themselves when they make mistakes...honest mistakes and not open defiance like this blogger shows.
Anyway, to base my whole understanding of what it's like to be married to someone with SGA on one or two blogs, even a whole slew of blogs, still doesn't mean to me that those marriages should never happen. It takes some incredible maturity and unselfishness on the part of both persons in the marriage to make it work. And I believe it's possible. I know you want me to believe otherwise- that gays should never enter a heterosexual marriage and it's bound to fail. Sorry. I just don't buy it.
Nor do I believe that the Church and religion drive gays to commit suicide. This is what the LGBT community wants us to believe every time a gay Mormon kills themselves. They say-"See? This is what you are doing to them. " I just don't believe that. I do believe that gay suicide in relation to religion is a misunderstanding of the atonement and not allowing it to work for them- in combination with whatever predispositions they have to depression, perfectionism, and the environment of family or friend networks or the lack there of. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not to blame.

It's not the actual people who are hard to tolerate, it's their parading their alternate lifestyle. I'm not one who likes the spotlight on me in real life. If I suspect someone doesn't approve of me or my lifestyle or my religion, I high tail it out of there. I guess that's why I have such a hard time with the demanding nature of the LGBT movement. The flaunting and pride stuff. In the same video interviewing the elementary school kids there was a teacher who had "come out" to his students and was was telling them how proud he was of it. That just makes me a little sick to my stomach. WHY does anyone have to know that, especially 3rd graders???
I have nothing against sex by the way. But isn't it supposed to be a private matter?