mormonminded

Thank you Sadliers.

So, I'll say this as a final thought and then I'll sign off. I don't want to be accused of being anti-mormon. Sadliers - thank you for your thoughts. You are one of the first posters with anything to say that feels anything like understanding.( I do appreciate a PM from another poster that will remain nameless.) Sadliers, I know Depression. This process has made me honestly think seriously about suicide. If you understand the darkness of depression, and I do, you'll know why a process like this can push you far deeper down the dark tunnel than you ever want to go. But those that don't understand it won't ever get it. The only church authority that has ever seemed to get it, or discuss it openly, is Elder Ballard. My bishop actually told me that while I was suffering from depression I may not be able to repent. And major depressive disorder can last for a lifetime. How's that for a kick in the teeth. Again, he's not a bad guy, he just didn't understand what depression is or how dark it can get. I'm now reinstated, so that part of it is in the past, but there was a month or two that my wife was actually following me very closely because of how low I was and she was afraid I might do something stupid. Funny thing is, it had nothing to do with the sin, and everything to do with how people love to judge when they just don't understand.

Of course it's crossed my mind a hundred times if the nature of this process was how the Lord intended, and I've prayed and thought about it daily. I've asked myself and prayed about how this really helps me. I've tried to be humble and do as the Bishop asked, attended church every week, read my scriptures, etc. etc. And I keep coming back to the same thing. How does this process really help a person, esp. for something that happened years in the past. My honest conclusion in hindsight is that the Church has found that for certain sins, the best deterrent is a really painful and shaming process so that a person won't repeat the sin again for fear of the process itself or won't do it in the first place due to the fear of having to tell a room full of men about it. The Catholic "Hail Mary" approach isn't a great deterrent. And maybe the LDS approach works for a lot of folks - I was hoping someone could say that "Hey, I've been through a Court and I thought it was a tremendous healing experience for me". A friendly stake president (not involved in my process) told me that the ones he'd been in charge of had been great spiritual experiences for the member disciplined, but I felt a lot of what he said was just for the purpose of trying to make me feel better about it all. So I thought I'd ask here for someone who has really been through it. No such luck though. I guess very few go through it, or they don't read these boards, or they don't want to talk about it. Makes me wonder where all the members are that go through this? My initial intention in posting to this board was to seek out folks who (a) had been through a disciplinary process and see if their leaders had given them any good advice about why it would help, and how it helped them or (b) who have been a Bishop or Stake President and counseled members in this regard. My Bishops in this case were both brand new and inexperienced, and seemed more intent on carrying out the process than discussing anything about it, partly because I am pretty sure it was their first time in both cases and they didn't have a lot of good advice. The only encouragement was to just say "hang in there". They didn't make an attempt to explain why the process was necessary, they never offered advice or counsel other than to say read your scripture, pray and keep coming to church (oh, and pay your tithing), and when I asked questions about the process, I was explicitly told they weren't appropriate and that questions like that weren't a sign of true repentance and could delay the process. I was explicitly told the process could last for years, in fact, if I kept asking questions like "how many people are being told about this outside of the council". That seems like a pretty reasonable question to me. I'd like to know if this is being broadcast in PEC or Ward Council meetings. From the many postings here, none of them seem to be from a position of significant direct experience with the process per as, other than to say it is ordained of the Lord and so whatever happens happens, and that was meant to be. Except I'm not necessarily sure that's how it works. We all only get one Bishop, so if we get a newbie, or one with a chip on his shoulder, or who is just a hard case, it can have a big negative impact on how we feel about ourselves and the church. Yes, we get to decide alot of it on our own, but imagine you have a boss at work that tells you after a big screw-up at the office that he's going to be putting this in your confidential permanent file, that he's telling all of your line managers about it, and that anytime you are up for a new position it will be reviewed as part of the process. Bet you aren't as excited about the job anymore. You may still believe in your career, but you start to look pretty hard at how committed you are to that particular firm.

So what is my general advice to anyone finding themselves facing confession to a bishop and going through what I went through, which is basically a big name and shame process.....? Don't do it. I wouldn't do it again in hindsight. I accomplished nothing really except to ruin my future interest in sitting in the same room with a man that called up my wife and asked if we were splitting up, or a Bishop that basically told me this would follow me everywhere I went in the church, or counselors that call out to me from across crowded rooms in order to stop me to "fellowship" me. I have no interest anymore. Repent to the Lord and you'll be better off for it. At least you have a better shot at activity in the church. Vort, if I approached the teacher and asked not to be called on to pray, do I do that with every teacher that comes along, since there are probably three different teachers a month? And each of them has a husband or wife, and I'm sure in the car on the way home they mention it half the time, since there are only a dozen or so families in our ward. Does that really work? I might as well do as one board member suggested and wear a sign on my head. Actually, I have a better idea. Let's brand an A on my forehead, because that is kinda how the process works in a small ward. As far as advice on this board, my general thought is if you haven't been through it, you don't know. And I take it that most people here don't know.

So, I appreciate the comments, but I'd just say that no one has really stated a reason the Church puts members through this. Certainly no one involved in my disfellowship even tried to explain the rationale. They just told me this is what is going to happen to you, i.e. you can't pray, you can't speak, you can't take the sacrament, but hey, at least you can still pay your tithing, etc. I'd equate what I went through to the modern day equivalent of an stoning ceremony. Maybe the people involved felt they were doing it for the good of the community and the person, but it sure didn't help me in any way that I can see. In fact, it's making me largely inactive. My advice to anyone thinking about going through the process....make yourself right with God and only God and forget confessing to a Bishop. I realize someone will chime in and say "Well, you can't make yourself right with God without confessing" but I think it's better to take the risk that God will someday understand, then to put yourself through what I've done through, with so many people gradually finding out over a period of months, and then being told "That's just the way the process works". It's easy for people with thick skin to say "Hey, don't worry about what people think", but for those of us that subconsciously do care, it's a nightmare. No one yet has explained how the disfellowship process helps. What is my personal view after having gone through it, and still living with it? It's the only way the Church can makes itself feel that it is punishing someone for something that other members haven't done, and therefore it's not about helping the member, but punishment. But what really irks me is that I realize that many many members probably simply never confess and therefore it make me feel that I was really stupid to go in there and confess in the first place.

I am interested in advice and other people's stories. I was disfellowshipped after many many years of faithful church attendance and participation. I was never a leader at church, but I was a full tithe payer, I rarely missed church, I held callings as asked, and I held FHE and scripture study with my family. I was never in a position more "senior" than that of an instructor. My confession was voluntary, the sins had occurred some time in the past, a bishop's council was called, and the decision was to be disfellowshipped. Let me state up front that I found the process humiliating, poorly executed, anything but "confidential" and now feel that I am forever branded as a third-class member of the church. I have gone from a member that enjoyed attending church, that felt uplifted in meetings, that had a testimony of not only the Gospel but of the men that run it, to being a member that now dreads going to Church, finds any reason not to go, and likely will become inactive over time if I stay in this ward. My children will be impacted by this, my wife feels the process was destructive, not productive, and I am curious why there are people who call this process a Court of Love and think it is helpful. My guess is they've only been on one side of it.