Praising God is a staple of Christian worship. In the various Pentecostal churches I’ve visited, I’ve found that people are more likely to greet you by saying “Praise the Lord” than by simply saying “hello.” In churches where higher levels of congregational exuberance are the norm, it’s not uncommon for people to call out “Hallelujah” or “Praise the Lord” during the sermons and to have bands spending a lot of time on praise songs (“Our God is an Awesome God”). Episcopalians are more sedate, but every Sunday mass has a song of praise at the beginning (though my parish tends toward more traditional music). “Glory to you, beholding the depths; in the high vault of heaven, glory to you,” we sing. Read More
Showing all posts in Spiritual Experience
When Good Spiritual Practice Goes Bad: Prayer, Rumination, and Revelations of Damnation
CW: brief mention of self-injury
I still have vivid memories of a particular day in December over a decade ago. I was in my second year of doctoral work at the time, and I spent an evening talking with some of my fellow students. We found ourselves disagreeing about a number of theological questions, including the topic of whether God’s justice would allow for universal salvation. I was the only LDS student in the group (in fact, I was the only LDS student in the doctoral program); the other participants represented a variety of religious backgrounds and theological outlooks. My memory is that people were trying to be respectful, but there was an undercurrent of tension, and I left feeling a little unsettled.
Finding God Again, Except Not Really; An Overly Long Narrative of My Recent Spiritual Journey
It was about two years ago that I decided I was done, that I was giving up on religion. This wasn’t just another predictable development in my on-again, off-again angsty relationship with Mormonism, which for a long time I half-heartedly claimed I was going to leave at least a dozen times a year. This was bigger than that. I felt done with religion altogether. After spending a huge chunk of my life absolutely obsessed with it, to the point of getting a PhD in the subject, I found myself thinking that maybe it was time to move on. I’ll find a new hobby, I told myself. This is over.
What Happens When Leaders are Duped by Predators, and Other Hard Questions about Spiritual Guidance
The Mormon circles in which I am active have been rocked in recent weeks by the stories about Joseph L. Bishop, the former MTC president who has been accused by two women of sexual abuse during his time in that position. Much of the discussion of this situation that I’ve seen has focused on the problems of systems which protect predators, and a culture which disbelieves victims. I think these are vital problems to bring up, and I’m glad to see them being discussed. But I’d like to raise another issue which I see as central to this whole mess. To put it baldly: how is it that church leaders who are said to have special gifts of spiritual discernment get duped by predators? In other words, why didn’t the many church leaders who must have been involved over the years in selecting Bishop for different positions ever have any sense that something was amiss? And this is far from an isolated instance. You only have to raise the issue of what happens when people report abuse to church leaders on a blog or a Facebook group to get story after story of victims who weren’t believed by their bishops and stake presidents. I’ve seen this firsthand, watching an abusive relative con multiple local leaders into accepting his extremely farfetched version of events. Yet I was taught again and again during my decades in the church that leaders had special access to revelation regarding those under their stewardship, that they were being guided by the Spirit in their judgments. How is one to make sense of all of this?
Spiritual Practices That Actually Work
Okay, this title is somewhat misleading, as rather than being a helpful list of spiritual practices that actually work—which is something I’m still trying to figure out—it’s an attempt to start a conversation about the subject. I’d love to hear people’s ideas and experiences about what’s worked for them. I find that I love the idea of spiritual practice in theory (and my therapist, of all people, is constantly telling me I need to incorporate more of it into my life), but I run into a lot of obstacles. (In my case, the challenge is often How to Be Spiritual When You’re Neurotic, but I’m interested in how people have addressed other issues as well.) Read More
Mood Disorders and the Spirit
I was inspired to write and make this post because of the series over at By Common Consent on Mormons and Mental Illness.
I’m a graduate student in my late 20s who’s suffered from bipolar disorder since my early 20s. I have no formal training in psychology, but one of my academic interests is psychology and emotion in 20th century American culture (one of my specializations is cultural studies). Typically I look at mood disorders and emotions as cultural and social phenomena (as was perhaps evidenced by my last post on this blog), but I thought I’d temporarily suspend that avenue of thought and explore some thoughts on mood disorders and spirituality that stem from my own experiences. Read More