It announced updated questions that stake presidents and bishops are instructed to ask prospective missionaries, and it encouraged families to review the questions too. The new questions, I believe, were medical related.
Here's the link we are directed to: https://www.lds.org/church/news/church- ... s?lang=eng
I wanted to ask you all about this question, which I don't believe is new, but pre-existing, and which I believe clearly constitutes requiring a DOUBLE and TRIPLE re-confession of previously confessed and repented-of sins:
Does anybody here view this question as very disturbing and inappropriate, even abusive and denying the Atonement?5. Full-time missionary service requires living gospel standards. What do you understand about the following standards?
a. The law of chastity In reference to the law of chastity, have you always lived in accordance with what has been discussed? If not, how long ago did the transgression(s) occur? What have you done to repent?
b.
c....
This line of questioning is absent in the temple recommend interview. The relevant question in a TR interview is:
So imagine if you are a member who has had a law chastity issue in the past (maybe very distant past) and you've repented of it, and even confessed it. Now imagine being asked:Do you live the law of chastity?
Instead of:"Have you always lived in accordance with the law of chastity?"
These are entirely different questions."Do you live the law of chastity?"
Why the double standard? Why require young adults (prospective missionaries) to RE-CONFESS past, repented-of transgressions, and to require such a re-confession not once, but TWICE,...but not require non prospective missionaries to make similar RE-CONFESSIONS?
How do you feel about these interview questions? Nothing wrong here? Totally okay with no hint whatsoever of abuse? Or has somebody in SLC forgotten DC 58:42 and Isaiah 1:18 (just to name two) and the very essence of the Atonement of Jesus Christ? Why are teenage adults asked these abusive and intrusive questions, but adults (getting a Temple Recommend and not prospective missionaries) on the other hand are let off the hook with regards to past sins repented of? The Atonement works for older adults and not 18 and 19 year-olds?DC 58:42: "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more."
Isaiah 1:18: "...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
I'd really love for somebody to make the case that this is not institutional abuse, and that the questions do not deny the Atonement and the two verses I quoted. The floor is yours.
This should infuriate anybody (and there will be hundreds or thousands) who has to re-confess sins in the humiliating detail, when the Lord says He "remembers them no more." These abusive questions should infuriate parents who would see their children put through this abuse.
These questions have been carefully crafted, and perfected over the years. This is not a mistake. What is the reasoning and scriptural basis for asking a young adult to TWICE re-confess previously confessed and repented of sins?
Please do not naively claim the questions don't require re-confession. Please do not say the questions are a mistake. Please defend the questions, or acknowledge they are not only bad and inappropriate questions, but actually abusive in very nature, setting the Atonement at naught.