Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:42 pm
I have a small sidebar question for you. Do you have any sense of your culture or cultural identity being erased by Mormonism? If so, in what way?
- Doc
Wow, great question.
First, I want to talk about an incident: when I graduated from BYUH and went back home, one day I was at a big church conference, and there was a talk I believe by one general authority member. He emphasized an idea, "If your culture conflicts with the church's teaching, you always need to obey the church's teaching" or words to that effect.
At that time, due to 2 incidents at BYUH, I had already started having doubts about the church, and this talk just upset me more. I couldn't help but think, "How is it different from cultural invasion?" I can see some bad cultural practices should be abandoned (e.g., binding feet in China a long, long time ago), but sometimes the church's teachings can lead to family problems. For example, in Taiwan, it's very common to worship ancestors at home, but the Western thinking is, "That's worshipping idols!" The thing is: the main point of this practice is NOT exactly worshipping idols, but respecting and remembering the ancestors (though we more or less do "pray" to them to protect the family). If we listen to this teaching and refuse to "worship ancestors," the older generations will be saddened, angered, and disappointed. Do we want to cause tension in the family? Isn't family the most important thing in our lives? Shouldn't we exercise our best judgment?
Another experience: when I was in seminary, one day the teaching was about Zion. I opened a book for the lesson, and it showed us a map of the USA, asking me to point out where Zion, the new and only promised land was. At that moment, I was, to be honest, offended: "How do I know this is not an American religion trying to sell us something? That it is saying only Americans are the chosen people and the USA is the only promised land?" I mean, even Jesus isn't White, he's a Middle-East Jew! I started feeling: Is Christianity "White-washed?"
So to your question, I think more or less, indeed, I had to change the way I behave or think in order to "fit in" to the church's culture. The scenarios described above, along with some other situations, did happen to me when I was an active Mormon, and I did experience some discomfort. Not to the point of an identity crisis, but it was uncomfortable.
On the other hand, however, I think I have been "Westernized" to a high degree, so I don't necessarily experience a lot of "conflicts." In some way I was lucky, cause my grandma, who was a traditional woman worshipping ancestors and Taoism, changed her religion to Christianity (not Mormon though) due to some very strange incidents, so she didn't give me too much hard time.
But maybe I was in the Mormon church too long, I didn't even recognize my change of identity.
I don't know if I've 100% answered your question; I feel like I didn't (sorry), cause at this point all I could think of was some "practices" or incidents that just scratched the surface. A person's identity is so complicated and profound; this is a very deep question that needs to take a long time to ponder.
Appreciate the question; it's very good.