Paradigm shifts are very healthy for you. A paradigm shift is defined as “a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions”. Yet, paradigm shifts are rare. We are used to looking at things in the same way. Yet, with age and experience, perspectives can change. They seem to come in waves, as if one epiphany opens up others. Here are a few of my most recent realizations that I’d like to share with you about Prayer, Tithing, Fasting, Temple Attendance, Gospel Study, Revelation, and the Priesthood.
email - ScottRFrazer@gmail.com
Website - ScottRFrazer.com
S3E2 – Paradigm Shifts in Our Worship
This is the podcast Science and Scriptures - Discerning Truth from Error, Season 3, Episode 2, or “Paradigm Shifts in Our Worship”.
Hello everyone. This is Scott Frazer of the podcast Science and Scriptures. Once again, it is good to be back with you. I have found that after years of thinking about how I worship and obey commandments, I assume that I understand it all. For example, I’ve prayed in basically the same way since childhood. Should I try to see prayer in a different light? Actually, you should. I believe that paradigm shifts are very healthy. A paradigm shift is defined as “a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions”. Yet, paradigm shifts are rare. We are used to looking at things in the same way. Yet, with age and experience, perspectives can change. They seem to come in waves, as if one epiphany opens up others. Here are a few of my most recent realizations that I’d like to share with you.
Prayer
I started to view prayer differently after reading, and actually thinking about, Matthew 6:7. I quote…
“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
Then the Savior says, “After this manner therefore pray ye:” … And He proceeds to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Since he had just commanded His followers to not use vain repetitions, obviously He doesn’t want us to repeat the Lord’s Prayer every night. He was just giving us an example of good things to mention in a prayer.
But I want to focus on the statement, “…for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
For years, when I knelt down to pray, I pictured Heavenly Father, sitting on the edge of His throne, anxious to hear about my day, and considering my petition for the safety of my family, friends, and the world in general. However, if my Father in Heaven already knows what I need before I ask Him, then why do I bother to pray?
This is where my “paradigm shift” occurred. I had always thought that prayer was for God’s benefit, and He needed to hear my update of the day and my requests. In truth, we are the ones who need to hear our own prayers.Prayers are for us to hear and to contemplate, not Heavenly Father. Your prayer is rather like a rerun for Him. He already knew all this stuff before you mentioned it. If your prayers are like mine, Heavenly Father almost assuredly heard most of my issues from me last night or even earlier in the day.Ironically, YOU’RE the one who needs to hear your own prayer.
Does the Lord need to hear me ask Him to bless my family? No, probably not, but my soul and my mind need to remember how precious my family is to me. Priorities in life are easily confused. Prayer helps us to reestablish what is most important in our minds. What do you love enough to petition God about? I believe God pays attention to what you are praying about – not because it’s new information, but because it is what you find most important to pray about.
If Heavenly Father knows what I am going to say in my prayer, then I must conclude my prayers are more for ME – the only other person hearing them. When I pray for my family or friends, I think about what I might be able to do to help them.I may commit myself to talking to my spouse about something that seems to be bothering her. I may decide it is time to connect with a neighbor by shoveling snow off his driveway or something. When I pray about an upcoming decision I must make, I can review my options again. If the Spirit wishes to direct my thoughts in a particular direction, I welcome it. If not, I will make the decision on my own.
I hear many people, when they are contemplating a big decision in life, tell me that they are going to think and pray about it – as if those two activities were really different. Long ago, I had to get over the idea that if I was silently thinking while praying, Heavenly Father was tapping His foot, impatiently waiting for me to say Amen. However, with this new paradigm that praying is for my benefit, by thinking or meditating, I am doing what I often do in prayer – reviewing my life and making decisions about its direction. When I am in prayer, I have found that I can accomplish some very high-quality thinking.It’s quiet and I am not distracted.The Holy Spirit can nudge me if He wants. I have learned over the decades that my answers from prayer don’t come from hearing a voice. My answers come from having a thought and feeling good about that thought. Such thoughts can happen when I’m praying – or sometimes they occur to me while I’m driving. I never know if the thought or the good feeling comes from God or my own mind.In the long run, it doesn’t really matter. I always tried to do what I thought (or felt) was the right thing to do.
Once you start thinking along these lines you realize that a lot of what we do in prayer is for our benefit. Why do we kneel in prayer? Does God particularly want you on our knees when you pray? No, but kneeling does put you in the right frame of mind as you appeal to God in prayer. Kneeling helps us realize that we are requesting favors of a Being who is greater than ourselves. Interestingly, we don’t prostrate ourselves in prayer. God doesn’t want us to feel humiliated by laying on the ground.That’s not the right attitude for us to have either.
Tithing
Sometimes church members think that we are still living in the days when the church actually needed our tithing dollars to operate.In reality, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not need our tithing. The Church has plenty of investments that could finance its operations for many years to come. (In fact, the Church is coming under criticism yet again for its financial holdings.) So, we don’t tithe to keep the church financially afloat. We tithe so that we can learn sacrifice to show appreciation to Heavenly Father for our blessings. We tithe so that our minds and spirits become generous, appreciative, and humble. The Church is criticized from time to time on what it chooses to spend its money on.Some members seem to think that they should have a voice in how their donations are spent. That is not the correct attitude. I really don’t care if the church is burning its cash to heat the Church Office Building. That is not my concern. What the Church chooses to do with my donations has nothing to do with the reasons I tithe.
Most everything we do in the Church is to change ourselves for the better. Tithing changes much about our basic character. It’s an act that demonstrates faith and builds your willingness to sacrifice.
Fasting
Can we look at fasting in the same light as tithing? Fasting is difficult. The last hours of a fast can be miserable. Fasting, like tithing, is a sacrifice. By fasting, you force yourself into an appreciation of your physical weakness. It encourages you to put more trust in your spiritual self for strength to go on. I have heard it taught that fasting is healthy, which may be true, but it sorely that misses the true point of why we do it.
In Matthew 17, when the apostles couldn’t cast out a particularly difficult devil, they asked the Lord why they had failed. The Savior calls them to repentance, but then He admits, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” Both activities put you into a more spiritual mindset, allowing you to forget earthly distractions for a moment, and possibly have a greater ability to cast out devils. In any case, fasting is another demonstration of faith that changes you and your willingness to sacrifice.
Attending the Temple
Why do we attend the temple? One answer is that we are doing our work for the dead. While that is true, if you don’t do it, the work for your dead will be done by someone else, whether now or during the Millennium. We should attend the temple because it is a place where our spirits may be refined.First, in going to the temple, we remove ourselves from the world. That’s why a temple recommend is required to enter the temple. As far as possible, the church tries to keep the profane and mundane of the world outside of the temple walls. In the temple, we can ponder what we are learning on earth. We can rededicate our determination to enter the celestial kingdom…and we can start practicing for that eventuality when we enter the temple’s celestial room. The temple is a place for you to glimpse the afterlife and decide if it is worth your efforts on earth to attain it. Granted, doing work for the dead can be gratifying, but it is secondary to the work you are doing on yourself.
Studying the Gospel
You are responsible for keeping your mind and spirit fully engaged in learning the Gospel. This sounds easy enough, but the definition of the word “learning” has shifted for many members of the church. We are encouraged to read the Book of Mormon each day. You may think that you are studying the Gospel by doing that. I have always defined studying the Gospel as seeking to learn. Yet, if you have read the Book of Mormon for the umpteenth time, there is simply not much more for you to learn there. If, however, you look at reading the Book of Mormon as simply a way to put yourself in a spiritual frame of mind to start the day, reading it takes on a whole new meaning. You are carrying out a short, traditional reading as a spiritual touchpoint – you are not reading to learn new doctrine and truth.Spending ten minutes a day reading a few verses from 1 Nephi is enough to give you a spiritual lift. But it is not really studying the Gospel to learn its concepts, especially the deeper ones.
In studying the Gospel, it is your responsibility to keep your study interesting and engaging. Strange thought, isn’t it? You are responsible to never get bored with the Gospel. If you are bored in your study, then you need to expand your reading material. The Gospel is so grand that it cannot be compiled into four books, even if those books are our scriptures. We have other books which contain great knowledge and insight – such as the writings of B.H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, Hugh Nibley, Gerald Lund, David Ridges, church prophets, and other great Church writers.
In saying this, I realize that I am probably (as the saying goes) preaching to the choir. Listening to this podcast is proof that you are seeking different perspectives about your religion and beliefs. This is commendable and I hope that your mind and spirit are both interested and engaged as you listen to this podcast.
One more point to be made here. Learning is never a wasted experience. It changes you. It creates from you a being of increased capability. Read new books. Exposing your mind (and Spirit) to good influences builds you up – often in ways you would never consider. Speaking of the reason for learning, astronomer and author Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson said in an interview:
“People think that when they take math in school there’s a common response that “I will never need to use this for the rest of my life.” But it misses something important. It misses the fact that the act of learning how to do the math establishes a new kind of brain wiring in your mind, a kind of problem-solving brain wiring. So, it’s not about what you learned - it’s about what methods, tools, and tactics you had to develop in order to solve the problem that you may never see again for the rest of your life. But you will see [solutions to] other problems with these methods and tools [that] will become immensely valuable to you.”
Dr. Tyson makes the point that we should seek knowledge – academic or religious – to improve our outlook and understanding of life. You create in your mind new pathways that will help you understand concepts that may have been beyond your reach in the past. You are responsible for building both your mind and your spirit. You have the resources before you. Please consider a change in your paradigm.
Understanding Revelation
Revelation has been received by the church for centuries, but I, like many members I believe, have a fuzzy understanding of the process. I have heard there is a special room in the Salt Lake City temple for receiving revelation, but I don’t know. I once thought that the Lord initiates all such revelations to the church, but I don’t believe that anymore. We have seen too many time when it was apparent that church leaders had pursued a change – such as the restoration of the Priesthood to all worthy men - and the Lord came to agree with it.
For example, in 2012, President Thomas S. Monson announced that the Church was lowering the minimum age for missionaries to 18 for young men and 19 for young women. I heard many people comment that they were so happy the Lord had given that revelation, seemingly out of the blue.
However, for years the church had distressed about the many young men who graduated high school – and then went inactive in the church in the year before they could leave on their missions. Lowering the minimum age so missionaries could leave on their missions right out of high school was a practical solution to this problem. I believe that Thomas S. Monson took this suggestion to the Lord and asked permission to implement the change. Obviously, the Lord approved the change – even though I don’t believe that He initiated it.
I believe in revelation from the Lord. However, I believe 95% of the revelation the church receives is God approving proposed changes by church leadership. In a very real way, it is Church leadership’s job to consider changes to their programs and take those ideas to the Lord. On my mission to Mexico, we were given numerous new programs for us to try, all of them touted as ways to significantly increase baptisms. Some worked, but most didn’t. Now that I work at the temple, changes in procedures also occur there from time to time. Some changes stick while others only last for a few months. In both cases, church leaders are doing their best to make programs efficient and successful. The Lord approves of such efforts – but that doesn’t mean they will be successful.It’s a learning process for Church leaders. We learn as some programs simply don’t work and are changed out for others.
Let’s look at some other changes of the past few years.I believe that the reduction of church services from 3 to 2 hours was partially to give families more time for Gospel instruction in the home. However, I also believe that it occurred because our young adult, Millennial church members were leaving the church because they felt that three-hour church services were too long. Reducing the time for services was a practical solution to addressing this social change, making LDS worship duration closer to that of other Christian churches.
As Church members, we often tend to ignore the practical reasons for the actions of the Church. We like to think that every action taken by our leaders is inspired by God and therefore must be spiritual in nature. But this would be an impractical way for God to lead His church.Church leaders must make decisions, try new solutions to problems, and learn from those experiences. God allows us to do this. Since we are on this Earth to learn, God will even allow bad ideas to be tried and mistakes to be made. By the way, with that understanding firmly in place, it is actually much easier to understand Church history.
Priesthood
Of all the paradigm shifts that need to be discussed, the Priesthood is probably the most important. As recently as a couple decades ago, brethren considered their priesthood to be a declaration of their lone leadership in their family. This was a serious misinterpretation of the principle. So, for several years, President Hinckley gave the same talk in almost every Priesthood meeting of General Conference. Time and again he told the brethren to treat their wives with love and respect, explaining that the family was presided over by two parents – not just the Priesthood holder. It’s taken a couple decades – change comes slowly after all. Yet, I believe most brethren today realize that being overly patriarchal and trying to reign like a king in the home is long outdated and frowned upon. The new paradigm has been recognized by most. Yes, on one hand, the Priesthood is a power. However, in this life certainly, the Priesthood should be considered to be simply the authority to carry out certain church responsibilities.There is no glory attached to holding the Priesthood; there is only eventual glory for carrying out priesthood responsibilities. This is not different from the women of the church. In giving a sister a calling in the ward, the bishop is giving her the authority to carry out certain church responsibilities.
In the Church, we are asked to carry out a wide variety of responsibilities. We can be asked to teach in the Primary or asked to be a stake president. Some of those responsibilities require the person to hold the Priesthood. There is no disrespect intended towards woman in this fact! It is simply a part of the organization of the Church on the Earth.There are still critics of the Church – and maybe a very few brethren - who have not yet recognized the paradigm shift regarding the priesthood that has occurred in the Church. Yet, we seem to be making progress in our understanding of the priesthood.
So, that is all I have for you today. I hope you will consider the paradigm shifts that I have suggested. As always, thanks for listening to my podcast. If you have a friend who might benefit from this discussion, please share this episode with them. Hopefully you have subscribed and are being notified when new episodes are posted. This is Scott Frazer from the podcast Science and Scriptures. Take care, have a good week, and may God bless.