Poll: What form of church discipline do I deserve? - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

CardiacCoug · 12-13-2008, 10:38 PM

Interesting post and discussion. My thoughts:

The fact that an unmarried person having occasional consensual sex qualifies as a "serious sin" making him a candidate for excommunication from a church is pretty bizarre by 21st century standards. It illustrates the inordinate emphasis LDS place on sexual "transgressions."

It seems to me that the purpose of excommunication is to prevent people from tearing down the Church from within or from hurting the Church's reputation by their continued association with the Church. I agree that it doesn't make sense to expel the penitent from the fellowship of the Saints at the very time that they need Church support the most. How is a member's history of sex with non-members harmful to the institution of the Church? Excommunication in that instance seems purely punitive and unChristlike, in my opinion.

The only way that I could see sexual sin as being worthy of excommunication would basically be for a sexual predator. I knew a guy at BYU who had told about 5 girls he would marry them and pressured them into sex before dumping each of them. He was finally kicked out of BYU and ex-ed basically to try to protect future LDS sisters from him. That makes sense.

I agree with those that say that Church discipline is applied very inconsistently. One of my high school friends shared some stories with his MTC companion about prior unconfessed sexual sins and found out his companion had similar unconfessed sins. The companion called his home Stake President to confess. His SP said not to worry about it, to go ahead and serve an honorable mission. This friend of mine took heart and decided to confess as well. His Stake President told him he needed to come home from the MTC immediately and humiliated him in front of the entire community by making him spend several weeks at home tracting with local missionaries.

My parents' ward has an extensive history of white-collar crime among members. Apparently you can swindle elderly people out of their retirement savings, go to prison, and have it considered less of a sin than a couple of teenagers fooling around. Again, that reflects the inordinate LDS emphasis on sexual sin, probably deriving somehow from our history of polygamy.

12-13-2008, 10:38 PM	#11
CardiacCoug Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 471	Interesting post and discussion. My thoughts: The fact that an unmarried person having occasional consensual sex qualifies as a "serious sin" making him a candidate for excommunication from a church is pretty bizarre by 21st century standards. It illustrates the inordinate emphasis LDS place on sexual "transgressions." It seems to me that the purpose of excommunication is to prevent people from tearing down the Church from within or from hurting the Church's reputation by their continued association with the Church. I agree that it doesn't make sense to expel the penitent from the fellowship of the Saints at the very time that they need Church support the most. How is a member's history of sex with non-members harmful to the institution of the Church? Excommunication in that instance seems purely punitive and unChristlike, in my opinion. The only way that I could see sexual sin as being worthy of excommunication would basically be for a sexual predator. I knew a guy at BYU who had told about 5 girls he would marry them and pressured them into sex before dumping each of them. He was finally kicked out of BYU and ex-ed basically to try to protect future LDS sisters from him. That makes sense. I agree with those that say that Church discipline is applied very inconsistently. One of my high school friends shared some stories with his MTC companion about prior unconfessed sexual sins and found out his companion had similar unconfessed sins. The companion called his home Stake President to confess. His SP said not to worry about it, to go ahead and serve an honorable mission. This friend of mine took heart and decided to confess as well. His Stake President told him he needed to come home from the MTC immediately and humiliated him in front of the entire community by making him spend several weeks at home tracting with local missionaries. My parents' ward has an extensive history of white-collar crime among members. Apparently you can swindle elderly people out of their retirement savings, go to prison, and have it considered less of a sin than a couple of teenagers fooling around. Again, that reflects the inordinate LDS emphasis on sexual sin, probably deriving somehow from our history of polygamy.