Bullying at Church

[NeuroTypical]

It's hard to want to remain active when one has been hurt by other active members.  The greater the hurt, the greater the social standing, the greater the difficulty.

 

My wife has overcome tremendous odds to remain active.  The battle was won, and her "I care what other's think" was left dead on the battlefield to rot.  These days, she sums it up like this:

 

"I trust God to act like God, and I trust man to act like man."

[Guest]

It's easy to say that the leaders aren't doing anything, but probably not accurate. We consider very carefully in our board meetings how to handle situations that come up, and more often than not that handling is done privately.

[John Prather]

^{I remember being the only one going to church from my family to a meeting house 25 miles away in another town.  Had no friends there and was bullied by several boys. Adults did nothing. Set the stage for my bitterness towards the church.}

[Vort]

I am sorry for that, John Prather. Many of us have experienced bullying in the Church and felt the shame and anger of witnessing adults that do nothing about it. I hope I have never, or at most seldom, been that adult. But I know I have at times, even within my own family.

 

A son of some family friends suffered such bullying in his Young Men's group that he left the Church entirely. Today, he's about 20 and, at that young age, is completely disaffiliated from the Church. As far as I have been told, the young men involved have yet to apologize to him or even acknowledge what they did.

 

All is not well in Zion, and probably never will be as long as we have mortal, fallible, stupid, selfish human beings in it.

[Ffenix]

 

 

All is not well in Zion, and probably never will be as long as we have mortal, fallible, stupid, selfish human beings in it.

So until The mount of olives splits? yeah that sounds about right. let me know if you manage to do that before then though.

[Guest]

I tend to think a lot of children don't realize what they are doing.  They need to be taught and corrected or else it will just get worse.

 

In our primary/sunday school class (they were kinda combined back then) we had a girl that we constantly made fun of. We were just having fun.  (see the link on locking someone in the latrine) And all we did was make jokes.  But if you spoke to us, I don't think you'd label any of us as bullies.  We even grew up to be fine upstanding citizens and saints.   

 

I grew up being taught correct principles about loving our neighbor, serving others, and being honest in all our dealings.  In later years I realized that what we did to that poor girl was bullying.  I just wish I could go back and yell at myself for doing that.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Guest

[The Folk Prophet]

It's sad to see bitterness in people towards a whole organization because of the weakness of a few. The church is filled with fallible, mortal, weak, sinners. The Christ-like principles of forgiveness, turning the other cheek, etc., apply just as much to fellow members as they do to non-members for good reason.