The Church doesn?????t understand grooming.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

What I find unfortunate is that I don't see the Church ever making a significant change in this area. One on one bishop interviews are too ingrained in the overall LDS Church culture.

I wholeheartedly agree that this needs to change. I'm just hard pressed to see how that change can happen, particularly since the Church is in denial that there is even a problem.

The only way I see a change possibly taking place is if every current LDS parent takes a stand, and insists that their children not attend these interviews. Of course, the backlash ends up falling on the kids in that case because they are denied callings, denied being allowed to go on youth temple trips, etc.

I think the best male role models I had in the LDS church were the ones who happily participated in the Scouting program. These were men of good character and were adventurous in spirit. They created opportunities for us to challenge ourselves and were pretty good mentors. That's exactly what I needed as a young male learning how to be in this world. I didn't need a dude pressing me for details about character 'flaws'. I needed to be mentored, led, guided in the ways of the world - finances, education, social situations, leisure, personal development, etc.

I don't think any organization can every really get away from bad leadership. We're talking about human beings after all. The problem is the organizational philosophy itself; that the Spirit will help a fallible man intuit the needs of his flock.

That's just nonsense.

Anecdotally, I can relate how the Church operates as being on par with military leadership. It really is a 'leadership roulette', and the idea that being set apart and led by the Spirit is complete and utter bull crap when it comes to the church. The idea behind leaders in the military, especially on the enlisted side, is that they have time and experience within your given field, within the military structure, and that they can pass on lessons learned, mentor younger Soldiers, and better the overall organization based off their earned experience.

When you take men and thrust them into a position of power, authority, or responsibility that is abstract, that deals with emotional vulnerability, and they have NO EXPERIENCE within that given field you're really setting yourself up for all sorts of problems. You make a man a leader who may have virtually zero experience, for example, with the female perspective on life and her particular challenges, and you're going to get a trainwreck unless the female accepts total emotional domination by the authority figure, and then you still get a trainwreck. This is precisely why the Relief Society was originally created, so that women could lead women, and mentor one another in the ways of female reality, because of their shared experiences. It was supposed to be on par with the priesthood.

The Church is toxic because it's a rigid system set up to extract resources from its membership within a narrow set of values that isn't designed to be responsive to its members' needs. It's a business, but it's not a people business. And while we see, so clearly, for the need to change, I don't see it changing its business model until its bottom line is threatened. Until those legacy families and their sources of income are drying up, they aren't going to change until they absolutely must.

We'll see how it goes...

- Doc

[_mcjathan]

The big issue for me is that my kids are being conditioned to think that there is a man who has the authority to determine if they are good people and they have to share anything about themselves that he demands. It could be sexual or non-sexual but it is still conditioning them to routinely cede control of themselves to others. I believe this is the grooming that IHAQ is referring to.

Edit: A kid walks away from a priesthood interview with the idea that there are people who have more of a right to decide what is good and right for them than they do. It is a bad idea to plant in them and makes them more susceptible to abuse in the future. I can tell you from personal experience that this made me susceptible to abuse from a companion on my mission and led to me being slower to extract myself from the situation that I could have been had I learned healthy ideas about boundaries as a child.

[_Jesse Pinkman]

What I find unfortunate is that I don't see the Church ever making a significant change in this area. One on one bishop interviews are too ingrained in the overall LDS Church culture.

I wholeheartedly agree that this needs to change. I'm just hard pressed to see how that change can happen, particularly since the Church is in denial that there is even a problem.

The only way I see a change possibly taking place is if every current LDS parent takes a stand, and insists that their children not attend these interviews. Of course, the backlash ends up falling on the kids in that case because they are denied callings, denied being allowed to go on youth temple trips, etc.

I think the best male role models I had in the LDS church were the ones who happily participated in the Scouting program. These were men of good character and were adventurous in spirit. They created opportunities for us to challenge ourselves and were pretty good mentors. That's exactly what I needed as a young male learning how to be in this world. I didn't need a dude pressing me for details about character 'flaws'. I needed to be mentored, led, guided in the ways of the world - finances, education, social situations, leisure, personal development, etc.

I don't think any organization can every really get away from bad leadership. We're talking about human beings after all. The problem is the organizational philosophy itself; that the Spirit will help a fallible man intuit the needs of his flock.

That's just nonsense.

Anecdotally, I can relate how the Church operates as being on par with military leadership. It really is a 'leadership roulette', and the idea that being set apart and led by the Spirit is complete and utter bull ____ when it comes to the church. The idea behind leaders in the military, especially on the enlisted side, is that they have time and experience within your given field, within the military structure, and that they can pass on lessons learned, mentor younger Soldiers, and better the overall organization based off their earned experience.

When you take men and thrust them into a position of power, authority, or responsibility that is abstract, that deals with emotional vulnerability, and they have NO EXPERIENCE within that given field you're really setting yourself up for all sorts of problems. You make a man a leader who may have virtually zero experience, for example, with the female perspective on life and her particular challenges, and you're going to get a trainwreck unless the female accepts total emotional domination by the authority figure, and then you still get a trainwreck. This is precisely why the Relief Society was originally created, so that women could lead women, and mentor one another in the ways of female reality, because of their shared experiences. It was supposed to be on par with the priesthood.

The Church is toxic because it's a rigid system set up to extract resources from its membership within a narrow set of values that isn't designed to be responsive to its members' needs. It's a business, but it's not a people business. And while we see, so clearly, for the need to change, I don't see it changing its business model until its bottom line is threatened. Until those legacy families and their sources of income are drying up, they aren't going to change until they absolutely must.

We'll see how it goes...

- Doc

Thanks for sharing this, Doc. I absolutely agree with you. The threatening of the Church’s bottom line is what has ultimately been the catalyst for all of their policy changes to date. This includes controversial policy like blacks receiving the priesthood, polygamy going away, the elimination of the penalties in the temple ceremony, etc.

[_I have a question]

Has anyone heard of any member whose child has been groomed and abused that still supports the one to one interview? Of course not. Why on Earth a parent would wait until their own child gets harmed before acknowledging the danger and doing something about it, baffles me. It’s negligent parenting.

Exactly why the responses in this thread about these abuses just being "anomalies" are disgusting. If it only happens to other people then why should someone consider it an issue? Gross and ignorant...

The people on this thread excusing the abuses as anomalies are supporting the continuation of grooming. It’s unbelievable.

[_Meadowchik]

I don't think that would make me happy.

The big issue for me is that my kids are being conditioned to think that there is a man who has the authority to determine if they are good people and they have to share anything about themselves that he demands. It could be sexual or non-sexual but it is still conditioning them to routinely cede control of themselves to others. I believe this is the grooming that IHAQ is referring to.

Edit: [b]A kid walks away from a priesthood interview with the idea that there are people who have more of a right to decide what is good and right for them than they do. It is a bad idea to plant in them and makes them more susceptible to abuse in the future. I can tell you from personal experience that this made me susceptible to abuse from a companion on my mission and led to me being slower to extract myself from the situation that I could have been had I learned healthy ideas about boundaries as a child.[/b]

I totally relate. It took me such a long time to see priesthood leaders as people without some super special power over me. By believing that an elect chain of priesthood leaders had this super special power and wisdom, so many choices in my life were already decided and so many good experiences cast aside in deference to their authority.

It helped me break apart this mindset when I had a bishop in my age-range, someone who seemed not especially worthy or faithful, who became blatantly abusive in his behavior to us. It took PTSD-level trauma to break that emotional hold.

[_Jesse Pinkman]

I don't think that would make me happy.

The big issue for me is that my kids are being conditioned to think that there is a man who has the authority to determine if they are good people and they have to share anything about themselves that he demands. It could be sexual or non-sexual but it is still conditioning them to routinely cede control of themselves to others. I believe this is the grooming that IHAQ is referring to.

Edit: [b]A kid walks away from a priesthood interview with the idea that there are people who have more of a right to decide what is good and right for them than they do. It is a bad idea to plant in them and makes them more susceptible to abuse in the future. I can tell you from personal experience that this made me susceptible to abuse from a companion on my mission and led to me being slower to extract myself from the situation that I could have been had I learned healthy ideas about boundaries as a child.[/b]

I totally relate. It took me such a long time to see priesthood leaders as people without some super special power over me. By believing that an elect chain of priesthood leaders had this super special power and wisdom, so many choices in my life were already decided and so many good experiences cast aside in deference to their authority.

It helped me break apart this mindset when I had a bishop in my age-range, someone who seemed not especially worthy or faithful, who became blatantly abusive in his behavior to us. It took PTSD-level trauma to break that emotional hold.

Understandably so. I’m sorry you went through that. I went through similar experiences myself.