Perception, Regardless of Definition

I've got an amazing roommate, and we have really intense conversations on topics that seem to find us; often coming out of no where. Due to this, we've discussed some very controversial topics and I've realized how my opinion differs from hers, and therefore, from the majority of traditional conservative Christendom. I won't get into some of the more scandalous of my views, but I did want to touch on the topic of abuse. Of the first three definitions, implying misuse, mistreatment, and speaking harshly or unjustly to or about, it's the fourth definition that speaks of what I want to address: to commit sexual assault upon.

Firstly, I have to express my bias on this subject, as a victim, as well as a sibling, niece, aunt, daughter, and friend to victims. I do not like abusers, of any variety, but especially these kinds of abusers. They exercise their will over another human being, subjecting them not only to the sexual abuse, but to emotional and physical abuse, and not just at the moment of the offence, but every day of that person's existence thereafter. I have, literally, not gone a single day without thinking of it, or it's effects on me.

Several months ago I was on a public chat client which pairs you, randomly, with a stranger. Most frequently I talk to them as though I'm a alien (that's the easiest sentient and intelligent creature I can think of who could be asexual, which allows me to avoid the "asl" question with some humour), but I was frank (although dishonest regarding age and circumstance) with one individual who identified himself as an 18 year-old male from Wales. He admitted that when he and his friend were both six years-old, they performed fellatio on each other, at the request of the other boy. This individual viewed it as a case of "boys being boys", and claimed to be heterosexual, and told me he didn't abuse drugs or alcohol, nor was he promiscuous. Deviance of these varieties is a noted effect of sexual abuse, and while I expected very different answers from him, it follows the line of reasoning I developed from the conversation: perception of one's role is more important than popular opinion or the law, to the individual.

After I had this conversation, my roommate came into our living area and I discussed it with her. I respect my roommate and her opinions, but I also disagree with what she says on occasion, and this was one of those occasions. She said, regardless of what that young man felt, he was a victim. With all due respect to her, from what I know of her, she can't ever empathize with a victim of abuse. She can absolutely sympathize with me and people like me, but empathy is a vastly different thing. The law would disregard this young man's experience, as neither participant was mentally superior to the other, and as the young man claimed in our discussion, he was curious. "Boys being boys", would be the response. While his experience and mine are extremely different, he viewed his experience in, almost, a positive light; it was just him and his friend being silly little kids. He experienced no heightened levels of deviance and felt he was mentally and emotionally sound.

As far as abuses go, I consider myself lucky. Yes, lucky. "Gasp! But how?!" The only way to answer that is to explain a bit: I was abused as a very young child by an individual very close to me. I don't remember the actual abuse, which I am thankful for, but I recall the before, and after. What followed was my period of repression (and unexplained behaviour, the "acting out" stage of my childhood), remembrance of the event, and then acceptance. I won't go into detail regarding the event, but I will address the repression, remembrance and acceptance.

Repression: in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defence mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. This was one of Freud's theories, and while I typically dismiss Freud (by way of example, Freud later explained that our lust for our other-sex parent isn't remembered due to repression), this is one I do accept, having experienced it myself. Most people believe repression does occur, but a load of memory researches disbelieve in the regular happening of repression. Given the population of our planet, however, "rarely" becomes less rare. Back to it, Freud did say that with patience and effort, the repression could be broken into and the memory retrieved later, either by a cue or during therapy. While I did undergo therapy, it was not while in a session with some brain-picker that my repression was breached. When I remember it, I often think of the repression as being something like a wall, concealing the memory from my consciousness. Remembrance occurred when that wall, for whatever reason, was removed.

After having the event repression, I knew, without knowing what had happened, that something was wrong. Something happened to me that wasn't right, and in my confusion I acted out: I hid under my bed, almost daily, before being awoken for school; I refused to participate in class, to write tests; I became disinterested in spending time with previously close friends and would get into fights. After my parents separated, I began attending a new school, but I continued to act out. While I was deviant in the traditional ways, it was only in minor degrees. I figured at the time that the way I was acting was just a reflection of what people did. It wasn't until my remembrance of the abuse that I realized it was the cause of my deviance.

I am not a traditional survivor of abuse, but I don't hold myself up as some kind of beacon that all other victims and survivors 'ought to look to for guidance. I believe, were it not for my introduction to and acceptance of my faith, I would have ended up as a traditional statistic of child abuse.

You may have noticed that I started using the word "survivor", as well as "victim". Our perceptions are important, they enable us to define ourselves, which I believe is more important than how others would define us. Victims are acted upon, while survivors act. Victims are defined by what others have done to them, while a survivor has taken that experience and added into their chronicle of events that have helped shape who they are.

There's a scripture in the New Testament that says that "... God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Let's take the word tempt and look at it with its obsolete meaning: to try, or to test. So, like a good math professor who wouldn't give an AP calculus test to his eighth grade students, God is not going to laden us with a test that is beyond our capabilities. To be able to deal with the test, to handle it, God supplies us with a way. This scripture has always meant a great deal to me for this reason. Yes, I was abused, and it was horrible and awful and shouldn't have happened, but it did. It, along with many, many other experiences, have shaped who I am. While I don't see myself speaking to my abuser again in the future, I wouldn't change the past even if I could.

Anti-Mormon Drivel

While puttering around my documents I located one entitled, "Anti-Mormon Drivel." I've mentioned it before, but one of my siblings had made a post on their LiveJournal, which has since been taken down, about various fallacies regarding the Church. I think he was simply upset and trying to "educate" those in our family who had joined the Church, or was just venting, but the post wasn't kind at all. After reading it, many years ago, I resolved to look up each reference in the paper and refute it with the truth. Believing it to be lost, I worked hard to try and find the batch of lies again so I could address them, but to no avail. Having found it gives me great satisfaction. It's about three pages or so and I've refuted a couple points it brings up, but will be working hard at finishing my rebuttal. It was with great disappointment that in looking for it in a search engine, I was drawn to the supposed "original." I was just upset that my sibling hadn't actually looked up anything about the Church, but instead copied and pasted what someone else had put out there. So! The point of this post is to express my happiness in having found it, and to assure everyone that it'll be a good read once I have it posted - so check back!

"Joseph Smith/Jesus Christ": Poignant or Pointless?

So, I had the opportunity to go to the temple on Saturday with some out-of-country friends: a former Sister missionary and her husband, their daughter and mother-in-law. As soon as we got over the crest of the hill, I saw a lone protester and was instantly giddy. I don't know what it is, but ever since I went to Salt Lake for the October 2008 General Conference, I find protesters to be.. well, a form of entertainment I guess.

Here's a photo I took from atop the Conference Centre of the protesters along the Square. My favourite is the guy left of centre, yeah, the one in the Satan outfit.

When I first joined the Church I had never heard of the "Mormons," and a few months into the year 2004 I went online and began looking at anti-Mormon material. I got wound up in this particular LiveJournal that claimed to be a place for "recovering Mormons," meaning LDS members who had left the faith. I forget the subject matter, but something caught my attention and I experienced a trial of faith. I posted a few times on the LJ and although a few of the people there claimed I was a "troll," someone else seemed keen on helping me through my difficulty, no matter which direction I chose: to continue with the Church, or to leave it. They believed I was actually experiencing a trial of faith, and I'll always be grateful to that mystery person for not pushing their own agenda but for helping me figure out what I wanted and believed.

Anyway, since then I've always been drawn to anti-Mormons, and though I stayed away from it for a couple years after that, I've gone through two stages with regard to my reactions to them: first I felt anger towards them, and now I react with a bit of humour. Yes, I find anti-Mormons funny. Well, for the most part, that is until I actually meet one who knows what they're talking about and have done their own research - then my response is a kind of searching interest.

So when we were leaving the temple, we pulled out into the street and saw a man handing out newspapers and little DVDs. I was intrigued because there was a picture of the Saviour and a picture of Joseph Smith on the cover. It's called "Jesus Christ/Joseph Smith," and is produced (as far as I can tell) by an organization called "Search for the Truth." In other words, this wolf in sheep's clothing was handing out DVD's to let people visiting the temple know the differences between Mormonism and Christianity. I'll edit that I think: the differences between Mormonism and Mainstream Christianity. As far as I'm concerned, there is a difference between the Christianity of today and the Christianity from Biblical times. A big difference.

So this is just an introduction to that video, which I'll watch within the week, and then post on. It's not looking good though; I'm only three and a half minutes in and I've found two errors. The first is within a quote by Orson Pratt, which is shown onscreen and states, "Convince us of our errors of doctrine, if we have any, by reason, by logical arguments, or by the Word of God, and we will be ever gratefull for the information." As I'm an English major, I can't ignore the spelling mistake in the word "grateful." As for this quote, it's from a periodical Elder Pratt published in called The Seer (careful, that's a large PDF file), and that particular quote comes from an article he wrote defending polygamy. In 1865, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve released this statement with regard to Elder Pratt's teachings, "The Seer [and other writings by Pratt] contain doctrines which we cannot sanction, and which we have felt impressed to disown, so that the Saints who now live, and who may live hereafter, may not be misled by our silence, or be left to misinterpret it. Where these objectionable works, or parts of works, are bound in volumes, or otherwise, they should be cut out and destroyed."

The next error seems to just be a part of what mainstream Christianity likes to do, that is, "simplify" the scriptures. On screen we're shown a supposed quote from the Book of Abraham, found within the LDS' Pearl of Great Price. Now, if you just read what it says, it seems like they're actually quoting the scripture, but instead they quote part of it and "simplify" the rest. Here's what they show: "Our Father said, 'Whom shall I send?' Two of our brothers offered to help. Our oldest brother, Jesus Christ, who was then called Jehovah, said, 'Here am I, send me." The way I first read it made me think the way most people would, that they were quoting, word for word, from the scriptures. I picked up my scriptures and thumbed through it until I found Abraham 3:27, curious about what they "simplified." The scripture reads: "And the Lord said" Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first." Now, I understand that mainstream Christianity uses different terms for the Saviour and for God, but is it really so difficult to understand? My real upset comes from the way they format this, making it appear as a quote when it isn't. Format, people, format.

All right, so this has been, like I said, the introduction. Yes, three and a half minutes has been stretched into two large paragraphs. Using simple math, this hour and twenty minute long video will probably be turned into about 23 paragraphs. Not only am I working on this video now, but I've got a commentary/review on current Quorum of the Twelve President, Boyd K. Packer's "The Holy Temple," (synopsis found here) in the works, as well as the previously mentioned posts on excommunication, the documentary known as "The Mormons," prayer regarding the Book of Mormon, and one on the purpose of temples. In other words, make sure you check back weekly for new posts!

Why all the fuss?

When I first had contact with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was from the missionaries - I had never heard any of the anti-Mormon arguments or discussion. Personally, I don't think it would have mattered. A persons religious worship should be between them and God, and when I prayed about the Book of Mormon I really began that relationship with God.
When I did start hearing the anti-Mormon banter, I didn't understand why so many people would be trying to "disprove," or "destroy" the Church! It just didn't make sense to me! It does now.
Those questions, "why are they always hating on us?" ("us" referring to other LDS), "what do they have against the Church?" are naive. Naivety isn't bad, and I'm not trying to insult people who wonder these things. It's all part of our progression. But it seems to me that those questions are not dissimilar from the "why me?" questions.

So why all the hate? Of course there are also other reasons, but it's really no wonder. If you claim to have the fullness of Christ's restored gospel, a claim which if true would mean that all other churches don't have the full gospel, you're gonna end up stepping on some toes. And toe-stepping typically isn't appreciated.

For now, I'm going to step on some toes and sum up every single reason anyone has ever had for leaving or "hating on" the Church. And, I'll do it in one word. So what's today's word of the day?
Pride.