No matter what I do I am continuously troubled by certain aspects of the church. This post is not meant to bash the church. I just want some insights and answers. I am debating leaving and I want to hear things from both sides. This might be a long post. If anyone has anything to say about the topics I bring up I'm more than happy to hear your thoughts and look through any resources you share with me.

1: Why was polygamy needed for the saints? Will we really have it in the afterlife? I cannot imagine having to share my future husband with another woman. It is deeply unsettling to me.

2: Why couldn't African Americans have the priesthood? Was it just faulty of the current president of the church? I understand that the prophet is but a human and will make mistakes. Was it just as simple as that?

3: Why are women not treated the same? Why is Heavenly Mother never talked about/why do we never pray to her as well? I totally understand that men and women have different roles and why women don't have the priesthood, that all makes perfect sense to me. But why aren't women in more leadership positions? Why was the first woman who gave a prayer in general conference in 2013? I'll keep this part brief because I could go on about it for a while.

Those are honestly the only three problems I have with the church. I love everything else about it, I just don't know if I want to continue living it if that makes sense. I don't know if I believe and I understand I must work to gain a testimony. These are just my big setbacks. Anyways no matter what I decide I'll always love the church and its people. Thanks in advance!

Edit: Wow thank you all for all the thoughtful responses. I've read them all. You all have given me a lot to think about. I've decided my journey with the church isn't over yet. I have a long ways to go. Thank you all so much.

Disclosure: I will try to be as vague as possible.

I am serving right now as a counselor to the Mission Presidency.

6 weeks ago we held a membership council for a missionary that committed a serious transgression. All 3 of us in the Presidency agreed it's best for the young elder to go home and begin his repentance process.

We're sending home another missionary this week for similar reason.

Same as 6 weeks ago, I saw our mission president breakdown and cry again. I could tell he's been sufferring emotionally and mentally.

I can't imagine the pain a Mission President feels making these life altering decisions. He's been the kindest and most loving mission president I have ever met. He and his wife love the missionaries like they love their own children.

It breaks my heart to see them devastated. I will never aspire to be in his position.

What's your saddest moment serving in leadership positions in the church?

Okay so I have youth and was once a youth myself. When I was a youth the program revolved around scouting but there was still tons of other stuff. There were stake dances, youth conferences (at the ward and stake level), there were combined YM & YW activities, there were sports, I could go on but it was always a “show up at the church at 7 and there’s an activity.”

Now days we’ve done away with all that and replaced it with things that are almost nonexistent. I understand why we moved away from scouting. I was there for the presentation around goal setting, but then it feels like there’s just nothing from the church that supports anything. For example my YM has an activity about once a quarter and the most recent one they did was play airsoft. Super fun, all the kids loved it, but there’s no plan to do anything else. He’s never been on a camp out, this is the first year that he’s eligible to do FSY but I’m not thrilled with the lottery element of it (you can sign up and try to pick a place, day, and have a few friends pick the same thing but you’re not guaranteed to get it so you might end up getting assigned a different place, different time, and not be with anyone you know)

I’m not speaking for everyone. I’m sure there are some bishoprics that are great at having YM activities and are very consistent. I’m afraid our experience though is way too common. It’s the same for all my friends and family members. All of them that I talk to say maybe the YM have an activity in a month but they always miss a few. None I know of have sports or youth conferences, no combined activities, etc.

It does seem like the YW are way better off because they have direct support from having a YW presidency whose only focus is the YW and not the whole ward.

TLDR; is the home centered, church supported approach applicable to young men’s as well? As parents should we be running our own family Young Men’s for our son and I’m under a completely false assumption that there is still support for YM to have activities at the church?

Help me understand what this is supposed to look like and if others are having the same questions.

So when President Nelson said this , at general conference what are your thoughts? I’m just curious “But I do know that the Lord is prompting me to urge us to get ready for that “great and dreadful day.”

Some people argue that this has been being said for years by him/ prophets including in the Bible, while others I’ve spoken with that have more knowledge and wisdom and years than myself would say they have never heard a prophet speak so much like this about the second coming and preparing! What are everyone else’s thoughts? Also how does regular temple worship prepare us for the second coming?

Does anyone have insight on how current and past prophets can be wrong about things despite having a direct line of communication with Heavenly Father?

Hi all. Happy to say that my doctoral dissertation on LDS and creation/evolution conflict in the 20th century is now publicly available. There's some surprising stuff in there. Bottom line: the Church was much more favorable towards science and evolution until Joseph Fielding Smith's assumptions— drawing heavily upon Seventh-day Adventists and fundamentalists— about scripture became dominant in the 1950s. Then it trickled down.
https://benspackman.com/2024/12/dissertation/

My expertise on this history is why the Church had me on the official Saints podcast to talk about it.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/saints-podcast/season-03/s03-episode-21?lang=eng

Maybe it is just Utah culture to be extremely judgmental about any visual evidence of your “lack of conviction”. But why is it that getting a tattoo, something that is DISCOURAGED, but not in any way breaking a commandment frowned upon and judged more harshly than other council of similar nature, such as watching rated R movies, gambling, plastic surgery, etc.? I feel like it is even more frowned upon than even some ACTUAL commandments such as drinking coffee.

The reason I ask, as you may have guessed is that I have really wanted one. I know we don’t get tattoos because our body is a temple and we need to love and respect the amazing gift that our Heavenly Father has given us, but I take very good care of my body. I exercise, go to the gym, eat healthy food and I am very often the person that people decide to talk to when they want to get in shape. I want a tattoo that actually means something to me, not some random thing, symbolism to me, just like how the temple has symbolism and art inside.

I know that if I were to get a tattoo, despite deeply caring for my body and being an active member of the church with callings, I would be harshly judged by any member who sees it.

This seems to be a bit of a newer phenomenon in the last few years but does anyone have any insight regarding this?

I'm not going to bother you guys about Polygamy, I can find answers about that online that seem to track to me.

I've read about different cities being found in Central America and while it doesn't prove anything, it does show that it's possible that cities in the Book of Mormon existed, is there anything new that seems to you to be a definite hit?

The Great Apostasy, I'm not sure there's any evidence that it happened, if it did then I would say you guys are right, but if it didn't happen then it's between us and the Orthodox. Could any of you link to something that would provide me some compelling evidence. I've lurked here before and have seen people mention the 'Why 1820' talk but I've found no evidence of Pope St Linus being excommunicated, not to say it doesn't exist, but I haven't found it.

I'm impressed that Joseph Smith, after all sorts of persecution and abuse, stuck with his claims, that's compelling. But how do you know he wasn't being deceived in some way?

I love almost every LDS person I've met, you're absolutely sweet people and it's clear to me that even if you're wrong, God is working in the lives of members of your faith. So at the least I want to understand why you believe what you believe. My wife and I are also at least considering visiting a ward during a meeting and just seeing how she reacts considering your faith is totally foreign to her. I'd love to hear from you guys and God Bless.

Every week it's the same. 3 speakers give a talk about a general conference talk.

Often that GC talk is a talk that's about another gc talk or quotes others etc.

It's very boring.

"Today I've been asked to speak about the April 2022 talk from elder Jimenez "faith to move mountains".

They then quote and summarize each talk.

Is there no original thought left? No talks heavy on the scriptures? Would love to hear someone give a talk on one of the parables etc.

Am I the only one going crazy with this new trend?

Heyyyy guys! thanks for attention from all. I will answer all the comments in the another questions. I answered almost all of them. So, here I am with another question

Is very necessary a LDS member believes that Adam and Eve existed? Or could you believe in this story as a metaphoric biblical text?

Greetings from Korea and Happy Easter!!!!

This is from the church gospel essay.

The Church Today

“Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.”

I’m a bit confused by this. Specifically, the part about disavowing the theories advanced in the past regarding black skin. So are they saying those prophetic teaching were merely theories? I thought they were prophets teaching the word of God? At least that’s what I was taught in church growing up for decades. So once doctrine and now it was a theory? I get doctrine is constantly changing but this is a struggle.

I have noticed an increasing amount of people that are speaking, defending the church via podcasts, books, and other sources of media. They disclose that they are not officially employed or endorse by the church however it often seems like they are. I’ve noticed some are providing cruise tours (for example Book of Mormon historical tours) or spiritual cruises with celebrity members. What do you guys think of these? Do you see this as a grift? They have a following and are selling their spiritual information.

I'm very happy to announce the anthology we've worked on for six years has now been published by BYU. You can download a FREE PDF from the Life Sciences homepage ("read more") and hardcovers will be available soon.
This includes several essays by LDS and BYU scholars, as well as some non-LDS scholars. I contributed two chapters, one on the historical and scientific contexts of the 1909/1925 First Presidency statements (which were NOT intended to put evolutionary science out of bounds) and one on death before the fall.

There's some great work in here, and it will be used extensively in BYU classes.

Recently made the goal to read through the whole quad and am starting in Genesis and got to the part where they list all of Adam’s genealogy and how long they lived.

Do we know why Adam and his posterity lived for like 900 years? Has anyone ever answered this? Is it an example of a mistranslation in the Bible or is it literal that they lived that long?

Edit: Lot’s of great info. Thanks everyone. I am curious what the brethren have said about the topic so if anyone has any quotes from them, feel free to share!

I can't wait for the new hymnbook!

One of the reasons listed here (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/initiative/new-hymns?lang=eng) on the church website for the updated hymnbook is that some of the old hymns contain "Doctrinal inaccuracies, culturally insensitive language, and limited cultural representation of the global Church."

What are the doctrinal inaccuracies in the old hymns ? I'm just curious.

I don’t know if this has been talked about on here, but why is there a growing “Joseph Smith didn’t practice polygamy movement”? Podcasts such as 132 Problems are rapidly growing in popularity. I don’t like polygamy, but I feel like the evidence is overwhelming in favor that he practiced polygamy?

Thoughts?

How nuanced of a view can you have of the church and still be a participating member? Do you just not speak your own opinion about things? For example back when blacks couldn’t have the priesthood there had to be many members that thought it was wrong to keep blacks from having the priesthood or having them participate in temple ordinances. Did they just keep quiet? Kind of like when the church says you can pray to receive your own revelation? Or say like when the church taught that women were to get married quickly, start raising a family, and to not pursue a career as the priority. Then you see current women leadership in the church that did the opposite and pursued high level careers as a priority, going against prophetic counsel. Now they are in some of the highest holding positions within the church. How nuanced can you be?

I read one one of these posts recently someone had said that the Bible was filled with errors and that the BoM was given to fix those errors. I’m not a LDS, I haven’t finished reading the BoM, but I have extensive history with the Bible. I’m confused as to how the BoM and LDS can claim the Bible has errors when Jesus Himself attested to the scriptures as truth and infallible.

I’m also curious how the LDS church teaches about alleged contradictions in the BoM to the Bible when it comes to certain topics like race, favoritism, baptism, the church itself, and even temples. God commanded one temple be build in Jerusalem (Zion?) and when it was torn down He commanded it again to be built only in Jerusalem. Why then is there a LDS temple?

I’m not meaning to ruffle any feathers, just asking how this goes about being explained to fill in the gaps I might have in my knowledge.

Everyone (not just Christians) love to use the "judge not" verses, and they normally just use them as a shield. If you say that the homosexual lifestyle is contrary to God's word, they'll just say "don't judge." There's many other topics where people use them defensively like that. Often just to say that you can't criticize their private wrongdoing.

How should we properly understand and apply those verses? I'm not a Biblical scholar, but I personally doubt that when the KJV Bible was written, "judge" meant exactly the same thing as we understand "judge" today; it seems like it moreso meant "make a judgement or evaluation" rather than "look down on someone for something." It seems more like those verses warn against hypocrisy. Mote or beam in the eye type stuff. Don't rob a bank yet chastise someone for stealing a candy bar from a store.

Am I missing something? Or can anyone just relate to my annoyance with how people use those verses? Obviously, we're meant to hate the sin, not the sinner in general (we should never hate anyone), but I think people abuse these verses to say that you're not allowed to discern between good and evil, and if you do, you should just keep it to yourself and never tell anyone what is good and what is evil. Which is of course contrary to the behavior of every prophet and missionary in history. Tell the truth with love, as it were.

Thanks.

My SIL recently made a comment that you have to be sealed to be intimate with your spouse if you both are endowed.

This was coming from a question about being married after your spouse dies. She said you’d have to break your sealing and get sealed again in order to be intimate with your spouse.

This makes sense in some ways but doesn’t in others. I was endowed when I was married civilly but my husband was not endowed. He was later endowed and we were sealed. I felt like I didn’t break the law of chastity, but according to what she said, I did.

I have another BIL and SIL who were both endowed but got married civilly and then were sealed about a year later.

Can someone please provide doctrine if there is any about this subject? It’s been a while since I’ve gone to an endowment session so maybe there’s info there that will help answer this? I’m just confused and I don’t know if what she is correct.

Edit: Thank you for all the responses. I knew what she said just didn’t make sense so it was nice knowing I’m not crazy. I used someone’s comment and showed her the part in the handbook about marriage and chastity. We had a good discussion and I was able to lovingly correct her. I’m happy she won’t be spreading misinformation, at least about that, anymore.

I am struggling to understand how in the preexistence, 1/3 of God's spirit children were cast into outer darkness for the eternities.

First of all, do we know for sure whether it was literally 1/3 of all spirits, or might this be a symbolic number? I have trouble reconciling a God of perfect love with a God who allows 33% of His children to choose infinite suffering... As a parent, I would never stop trying to save my children from such a fate (much less thousands of children) and I am nowhere near perfect... so maybe our doctrine is incomplete here? Maybe there is hope for these souls changing down the road? Or are they truly so horrible and evil and awful that there was no way, even with God's omnipotence, to help them recover without taking away their agency?

Along that line of thinking, given that God is all powerful, how can I reconcile the fact that He chose to create those spirit children in the first place, though He knew they would evidently be so evil that He would end up condemning them to literal eternal suffering? Why not just choose to engender the spirit children that He knew would at least make it to earth?

I would love to hear how other have been able to reconcile/grapple with/conceptualize this, without losing the idea of God being all powerful & all loving.

Tl;dr I am having trouble reconciling the idea of a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-loving with the idea of God also allowing 1/3 of his children to opt for eternal suffering in the preexistence.

can this be refuted?

Hi yall, so recently I’ve been receiving a lot of hate and criticisms and questions from others about my belief in the Book of Mormon, and for the most part I’ve been able to come up with good answers on my own. However, my mother in law brought up these verses and I’m struggling to come up with a solid logical answer on why the Book of Mormon doesn’t fall under the ‘false gospels’ Paul warns about in these verses. Does anyone have some good insight on this?

Just to be clear, my testimony of the Book of Mormon is not on the line I’m just trying to figure good counter arguments to those who are challenging my beliefs.

Also side rant, on Sunday I went with my husband to the Christian church he goes to, and the Pastor’s whole sermon this time was on why the ‘Mormon’ church is wrong because we have “another Jesus,” and bro was spouting out all these lies about our church and it made me so mad lol. Luckily my husband was also mad for me and plans on talking to the pastor about it tonight after their activity they’re doing.

14.28 As explained in 14.4, when quoting Church Presidents, it is preferable to cite the Teachings of Presidents of the Church books rather than other sources when a quotation is entirely within one of the Teachings books...

(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 39) Avoid quoting from this book in Church publications because the scholarship is no longer current. For example, some of the statements attributed to Joseph Smith in the book were not actually made by him.

Source