Thanks, Tornapart. If you've been struggling with the organization for more than 50 years, what is it that is tearing you apart about it? Making a major change in one's theological outlook after so many years must be difficult. If you do decide to drift apart, will you remain a Christian or will you become an atheist?
The rules to me, an outsider, sound beyond belief. I read about the absolute dedication that members of the FLDS community feel about that monster, Warren Jeffs, and that, too, makes me wonder how people and organizations control people. When part of my family became JWs back in the 70s, they cut off all ties with the family and refuse to this day to return phone calls. My sister called one of our cousins and said he treated her like dirt. "He sounded like he couldn't wait to get off the phone with me," she said.
One of the things many people who experience Near Death Experiences (NDEs) talk about is the deep feeling of peace that envelopes them. They say their experiences are very real, not ethereal or indistinct like dreams. Everything they see is in color and three diminsions. The reason I mention them is that people of virtually all religions have similar experiences. It's not that Catholics experience them, and everyone else has hellish experiences. The notion that one church receives salvation and members of other faiths are damned is something that's missing from the NDEs. Some do have negative experiences, but these are people who have lived less than desirable lives. And even these are often treated with compassion when they beseech God for salvation. The people in the FLDS compound in Utah, Colorodo and Texas all believe that everyone other than themselves will be damned, and they, too, are preoccupied with Armageddon. They're taught that eventually all the people of the Earth will attack them, and only the power of God will prevail in their favor.
The success of many of these groups relies on them isolating their members from the rest of the world. They, too, believe that the worst sin someone else can commit is apostasy. And the rules they're expected to follow are incredible. To people on the outside, these rules sound like pure fiction. If my church tried to control me like that, there would be an instant parting of the ways.
When the JWs first offered me Bible courses, I figured it would be a good way to learn about them and how they viewed the Bible. There were no rules by my own church against my taking these courses or reading their material. But Holy Toledo! It only works one way. They would read a page or so and then ask me solicitous questions designed to elicit specific answers. If I replied in any other way they would re-ask the questions in other ways. But they weren't interested in my views, only in how I answered the questions in the book.
So good luck in your decision, whatever it may be. Sometimes it's better just to stick with it if doing otherwise would disrupt your family or end in divorce. You can always ignore the rules and do what YOU think is best for YOU. I don't see anything in the scriptures, though, that would authorize a religion to make so many rules ostracizing you from the rest of the world. Especially a religion that admits it receives no revelation from God.
Anyway, good luck. And thank you for your feedback and the answer regarding elders. It makes me wonder if anyone in the church is ordained in the religious sense. You know, by the laying on of hands? The problem about ordination is that you always have to have someone who ordained you to have someone who ordained them. But that's another topic.
