In the Jodi Arias trial, a lot has come out abou the LDS church, both official doctrine and unoffical mores. I had a few further questions:
At age 30 you’re expected to be married, and it was made a big deal of the fact that the parties were approaching that age. How are you treated if you actually don’t marry by that date. How would I as a 40 year old single male with a protestant background be treated if I wanted to join the church (I spent a half hour chatting with a missionary at the Carthage Jail who wanted to know if I wanted some local missionaries to visit me). Does the church provide any offical or unofficial matchmaking, either in general or for people approaching or over 30?
Apparenly premarital sex in all it’s forms (despite Travis apparently saying the mouth or kiester was OK) is a no-no, but could you be excommunicated if they caught you with a coffee pot or a wine chiller?
There is no reason that the questions asked cannot be answered on a factual basis.
This is not a matter of discussing the “truth” of any given belief. There are specific questions about LDS teachings and protocols that can be answered without any snark or argument.
The Mormon church places a lot of emphasis on getting married. They have singles wards
to help people meet each other, so while they aren’t necessarily matching making, friends who have attended said that there were a lot of social activities to bring men and women together.
If the OP were to join the church, I WAG is that they would be encouraged to join a singles ward, if one were in his area.
Breaking the prohibition on alcohol or coffee isn’t grounds for excommunication, but it is grounds for other sanctions such as the loss of temple privileges and not being eligible for assignments and responsibilities.
Yes, there is a difference between debating the truth of a religion and asking questions about doctrine or practice such as whether there is an official teaching on X, and if so what it is, or if there is a general trend as to how Y is handled in practice.
The OP’s questions are no more controversial than asking whether Hindu temples generally provide light refreshments for worshipers or what the Greek Orthodox teaching on Hell is.
Also, the “hurry up and get married” attitude is found among some Protestants as well. I’m over 30 and being hounded to date date date now now now so I can stop living in an unnatural single state and start producing little children.
I meant to put it in GQ, but it wound up in GD. Since you can’t delete posts here I figured a mod would just move it if they wanted to.
Is calling them “Mormon” offensive, or is it something they just don’t call themselves but kind of expect from outsiders?
Protestants do kind of run the gamet on their attitudes. I’ve so far (at two different churches, one with thousands of members and one with a couple hundred) a complete lack of interest in “not young” single adults. Like they just completely write you off socially but still pester you to run the sound board or tithe or do stuff that’s usefull to them. To make it clear I have zero interest in joining the LDS, but based on my experiences the stuff I hear about them both from Arias and visting Nauvoo and Carthage has made me interested in some of their doctrine and group dynamics.
I also find it interesting that they seem to at least try to lead a church centered life. Something I’ve also noticed with a lot of catholics but seems to be missing from a lot of Protestant churches.
I do get the churches feel they shouldn’t run dating services, but at least they could provide social events for single adults, at least the larger churches. If you can’t find a partner at a church, and aren’t the perfect person of the type eHarmony apparently only accepts, where do find a partner? The downtown strip bar?
Says who? And who made it a big deal? I’ve been LDS for the majority of my life and I’ve met very many Mormons who’ve gotten married after they’re into their 30s.
In my experience, you’d be treated like any other member.
There are “Single Adult Conferences” and other activities run by the wards (congregations) or stakes (similar to dioceses).
Not offensive at all. Every Mormon I’ve met uses the term to refer to us and also expects the term as used by others to refer to us. That last bit is kind of a sticking point as too many times some media will use the term Mormon to refer to another group and thus, in the “mind” of the general public associate that’s group’s activities or doctrines with us.
I think that also “runs the gamut”. I’ve seen a few Protestant congregations that are basically a “Sunday tick the box” and a few that “walk the talk” of the Gospel as they see it.
As Monty said, that’s definitely one of those ‘depends on the individual’ things. I know plenty of catholics that go to mass every week just to fall asleep during the service, but otherwise live just like anybody else.
I would say that people feel sorry for those older members who, for whatever reason, are still unmarried as they get older. Mostly treated like any other member, but there are some differences. Single people cannot enter into"the highest degree of celestial glory", and cannot get leadership positions of Bishop (the leader of a ward), or above.
However, the church does believe in the possibility of marrige in the afterlife, so those who don’t find a partner in this life still have a chance.
They used to kick people out of the Young Single Adults ward at age 30, at least in Utah. Has that changed?
Exactly. I know a few single Mormon women age 30+. Plenty of people feel sorry for them, and they feel sorry for themselves. Other than being too old for the Young Single Adult wards, they don’t get ostracised. They have faith that if they never get married, then God will sort it all out “in the hereafter”.
Utah has the youngest median age of first marriage in the US (23.9 for men, 21.9 for women). I predict these numbers will drop even younger in the near future, at least for men; beginning last year, male missionaries are age 18-20 instead of 19-21. When a Mormon male completes his mission, he is often urged by his mission president, stake president, bishop, friends, and family to get married immediately. A returned missionary in Utah is jokingly referred to as a “menace to society” until he is married.
Being married is something they push for heavily, mainly due to the different kingdoms of god and the focus on Family. Also, and this is anecdotal, married people are more able to focus their… romantic energies in more acceptable ways per religious teachings.
The cutoff for the Young Single Adults wards is I believe 32 or 34 now. After that they do have some regional Single Adults groups and Wards but most just go to Family wards. During big holidays they usually have Singles events for both young and old. I heard that here in Seattle for NYE they had a huge dance for both Single adults and Young Single Adults. The had someone checking IDs at the door though because many of the older guys ted to try to sneak in and score a younger girl… kinda skeevy.
Just wanted to throw out that I find it interesting that you can’t be a Catholic bishop if you’re married and you can’t be a Mormon bishop if you’re single.
Next question: Would Travis and Jodi have been excommunicated if the church knew of their sexcapades?
it is possible they could be excommunicated, but more likely they would have first been counseled and have received a loss of temple worthiness and such.
