Thoughts to Ponder

I had an great conversation with a cousin this week as our children played together. She and her family stopped attending church about five years ago due to their own issues with church policies and subsequent disagreements over such with local leaders (not gay related, but liberal thinking). I was sad to find out that her husband's family have reacted much worse to them leaving the church than Scott's family has reacted to our changes in thinking. It is very sad that stalwart members of the church that call themselves by the name of Christ would forgo inviting family to events like Thanksgiving and Christmas over something like church attendance.

She has an awesome quote from Galileo on the wall in her home:

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

She pointed it out to me in response to my telling her about a talk at the recent women's conference in my stake. I also mentioned the talk to my sister today, who is a very active member of the church with a strong testimony. Her response: false doctrine. As members of the church, we are not to act as sheep, following blindly to whatever our leaders ask of us.

So where has this attitude come from? And how do we know that the leaders of the church are not wolves in sheep's clothing leading us astray unless we pray about it, seek the guidance of the spirit, and follow what the Lord would have us do?

How many of the rules and regulations that we follow as members of the church are truly inspired? Either my mom or Scott told me once that the reason coffee was against the word of wisdom is that Brigham Young thought it was too expensive, and so it was on a list of things that they should not purchase to bring across the plains with them. So thus it was banned. I have no idea if this is really true or not, but it is interesting.

Another thing that Scott has found interesting lately is tithing. Tithing began in the early church as an easier law following the law of consecration. It started as 10% of ones surplus after living expenses, not 10% of gross income. That changed with Lorenzo Snow when the church was in need of finances for building temples, etc. But I believe the church is no longer in need of all the tithing income they bring in, especially if they can spare so much of it for funding things like campaigns against gay marriage. For some people, they can barely live on the income they bring in without paying tithing, so paying 10% on their gross income is a harder law than the law of consecration. 10% of someone's increase, or extra money after necessary bills are paid, makes much more sense, doesn't it? Something I will have to ponder and pray about, I think.

Hmmm. The gospel is true. The purpose of the church is to help us live the gospel, and I suppose also to obtain the necessary ordinances. But if it gets to the point that the church is not the best thing to help us live the gospel, then is it better to leave and find our own way of living as Christ would have us live?

Wouldn't it be better as leaders and members of the church if we paid more attention to love and service than to rules and regulations?

No, I have no plans to leave the church, but who knows what the future might bring.  I only pray that my future path will be the one that God wants me to follow.