Sharing that I can't share

Here it is - the way in which I am the most religiously rebellious:

I am repelled by missionary work now.

This is uncomfortable for me. I served a full-time mission. There were hard times, but there were really good times too, and I knew what I was doing mattered.

It's not that I don't believe in the Gospel anymore. I do. It's not that I'm not going to church anymore. I am. But I try and think about bringing people to church or introducing them to the missionaries, and I can't.

It's not just the gay thing, though I could not blame anyone who had a problem with the policy there. We could be handling that a lot better, but at this point there are ways in which our policy is better than the attitudes of the members, and that is where we get to the real crux of the problem.

Once upon a time I felt like bringing someone into the church would be introducing them to a lot of wonderful, wise, spiritual people. I do not feel that way now.

I can point to a lot of individual people who I love, and I know they have their good points, but over the past few years we seem to have given up a lot of depth. We were probably always too insular, but that's gotten worse.

For myself, that meant first that Sunday school lessons became painful, then it became true for Relief Society as well. Now I don't pay much attention to talks, and being in Nursery is a relief because I don't have to listen to the lessons.

Before that, any time I made a comment or answered a question I felt like I was speaking a different language. Realistically, I am fairly different. I have never been married or had children, and I am politically liberal.


It is embarrassing that so many Mormons voted for Trump. If some aspects of our church history seem to support racism, it is your time to read the essays. I guess it's nice that some of them voted for Johnson or McMullin instead, but it's still embarrassing that they listen to so much Fox that they believe Hillary is a crook. It's embarrassing that they get so caught up in abortion that they think anyone who even believes that it should be legal - regardless of whether they would get one - is a bad person, and not living the Gospel. It is embarrassing the mental contortions they will do to know that they are right, and everyone else is wrong.

And going back to last week, it is embarrassing how much of that isn't even doctrine, but based on things they have absorbed from the world. Remember, that world is full of people who think all you need to do to be saved is accept Christ, but that members of The Church of Jesus Christ (of Latter-Day Saints) - who pray in his name and do everything in his name - we go straight to Hell. Seems like flawed thinking; are you sure you want to give into them so easily?

It should still be worth sharing. I get enlightenment from the scriptures, and I get edified in the temple, and prayer is an important part of my life, so there is still a lot that I get as an individual from attendance, and that should be open to anyone, but I've seen too many people come in with enthusiasm, get criticized for minor things, and leave. I've seen the "lost sheep" note next to too many names of people don't come and we have accepted that. I get that there's a limit to how pushy you should be, but maybe our ability to write them off that easily contributed to that first loss.

It shouldn't even be an issue. The scriptures are pretty clear about love and charity. If you love the people you see at church, that is a start, but it's a much bigger world out there, and you have to love those people too. There is not a scriptural basis for choosing ignorance, isolation, and prejudice.

So many people that I have come to know and love would not fit in well at a church meeting, and they are still valuable children of God. I want to believe that they would receive a warm welcome that would help them to see how valuable a testimony is. I would want them to feel that God values them reflected in the way they are treated by those trying to follow God.

I do not feel that now.