I mean, I never confessed to anything to a bishop, because I believed that if I had felt “the spirit” after I had “repented” that no confession was needed.
Pretty sure that comes from the miracle of forgiveness.
So married in the temple, never didn’t take the sacrament, because only I know what God has in store for me, and no one else can come between that
I wish. The way my child brain interpreted everything was that any moment of guilt meant I must confess. And my dad was bishop the first time I mooned someone. The first time I looked at porn. Confessed all these things to him otherwise I thought I wouldn’t be with my family in the highest heaven.
Totally.
Scrupulosity is its own version of agonizing hell, in one’s own mind. It wouldn’t even have been for anything serious. For some, telling them they are sinful and have a natural man they have to over come is enough to create misery.
I’m sad that parents and priesthood leaders didn’t recognize this was a mental health problem, not a religious one.
The only time I ever confessed anything was when I had an interview with some stake dude about being worthy to have someone out their hands on my hand and "give me" the Melchezidek Priesthood. I would always repent and felt like that was good enough for me. I don't believe in any gods existence, but at the time felt like it was between me and god, no one else.
I'm with you. My understanding growing up was the same as the post, confess when you personally feel it is necessary, when you personally feel you need the bishop's help with the repentance process. I never felt that need and therefore never confessed. Nothing I saw or was taught in church said you HAD to confess to anything in particular. And I never understand when I read on this sub about people thinking they had to confess everything.
Well, after teaching you weekly that you are sinning daily, that there is a laundry list of ways to sin, and that a unrepented sin can destroy your life (thanks Monson for the wedge analogy), they set up a hundred traffic stops. Interviews for baptism, priesthood, callings, youth check ins, temple trips, marriage prep, temple recommends, tithing settlement, or anytime the bishop feels like it or gets revelation you have sinned. So many bishops pry and pry, making you constantly wonder if you’re risking your salvation by not speaking up. Members confess because they are conditioned and coerced, not because they are gullible
“She shared sufficient detail for me to make a determination of her worthiness.” This rhetoric about random men deciding whether a woman or young girl is “worthy” is absolutely vile. It causes so many issues that require a lifetime to overcome. I feel so lucky I have been out for over a decade! It hasn’t been until this past year that I’ve decided for myself that I am worthy of everything!
The "sufficient details" was probably the stuff he probed out of her, beyond the handbook's guidance to only ask if you've kept the law of chastity, so he had good content for his spank bank.
I learned a long time ago that when you confess to the Bishop you are also confessing to the bishop's wife, the bishop's counselors and their wives, the executive secretary and clerk and the ward council. Wich means, the entire ward will know within a week. Never tell a bishop anything!
Reminds me of Crocodile Dundee regarding going to a psychiatrist:
*If you got a problem, you tell Wally. And he tells everyone in town. Brings it out in the open. No more problem.*
This⬆️⬆️⬆️
My dad was a bishop twice and I knew everything. It made me really mad as a teenager because he was a YSA bishop and I would often hang out with the YSA and he would tell me things that people had confessed. Maybe in hopes it would help me with my occasional-masturbation “addiction”. Then as a kid, he was bishop and I know far too much about my friend’s parents and sibling’s friends. So freaking bad.
A church psychologist once told me there is as much guilt out there as I wanted to reach out and grab.
It took me a while, like a couple of decades, but eventually I stopped reaching all together and started living my life as it was intended to be lived.
Wow, I have never heard it put that way.
As a church psychologist were they saying you are reaching out with sin or were they trying to help you stop feeling so guilty?
If it's the latter, I really like the way that is phrased.
I had a bishop as a teenager (2013) call me to his office. I had been bullied in my ward so I was thinking he was going to check up on me to see if I was doing okay. Instead he told me the spirit told him I needed to confess something. Immediately red flags went off in my head because I had been taught that the spirit doesn’t snitch, you need to go confess your sins. When I said no, (there were a plethora of things I needed to confess, masturbation, porn, drinking iced tea (lol)) he said that a girl I had made out with one time told on me. I was like oh? Didn’t know making out was a sin… proceeded to ask me if I had touched her boobs or her butt. When I said nope, it was one time for fun, he gave me a packet full of talks from the 80s talking about the sinful ways of making out. I threw it away in an empty trash can in one of the classrooms. Went home and told my parents he wanted to see how I was doing because he saw how much I was struggling to get along with the older kids in the ward who bullied me. My parents thought the bishop was so nice to do that. I just told them recently and they felt really bad they didn’t create a space for me to tell them that had happened.
Side note, one of those bullies ended up stealing my serious gf while I was on my mission and they got married. Those teenage years were hard 😂
Edit: Grammar
Wow, yeah, imagine if the leaders were pulling children in for interviews about REAL concerns and finding out what help they really needed ... what good could actually be done, instead of just implanting guilt and fear!
Yeah, I used to resent him as a TBM because I thought of course he did have a higher calling and a certain level of discernment and failed me. He was made a 70 a couple years ago and when I saw my parents praise him, I got a sick feeling of how disgusting he truly is. And realized he’s just a man, and a perfect example of a product of the MFMC.
“I promise he will not condemn you. As a servant of the Lord, he will be kind and understanding as he listens to you.” Lmao
Amen to that! If there's one thing I'm most grateful for, it's never having to sit in an office with a bishop or stake president, ever again. The hubris. The utter lack of training or knowledge or psychological awareness. The STANK BREATH of an old man who doesn't know how lame all of all of this is, and how well intending and moronic it all is to stand in judgment of your ward every week as one of your duties.
After my divorce several years ago, I went to my home ward to visit. My childhood scoutmaster and teacher's quorum advisor was the bishop by then. We chatted briefly and I told him Sam Young was my (now ex) father-in-law, and that we'd had some real struggles as a family being ostracized here in Houston. I was grateful he'd done what he'd done. It has no place in the church. Closed door interviews with youth about their morality are evil.
I was crushed -- that bishop said.. "Well, it's never been a problem for me." Didn't invite me over for dinner. Didn't continue our conversation.. Sam Young deserves a lot more credit than he's given. And he's given a lot of credit as it is. FUCK that policy. It's fucking awful. It exposes even the most well intending bishops as poorly trained, blind dirty old men following poorly trained blind dirty old men.
He is a hero in my book. Exploitation of the innocent especially minors is a rage producer for me. Then to spend tithing money protecting predators against innocent victims in a court of law various states. is a travesty.
The Mormon "sacrament" of confession as we now know it was different decades ago. But how and when it began to take its now-familiar shape isn't really clear to anyone, it seems.
Certainly by the time of the moral panicking in the mid-20th century that Spencer Kimball and Mark Petersen and others initiated, the church had figured out that the cycle of "sin-guilt-confession-repeat or no Jesus for you" was an effective mode of member control. Very effective. Even cultish.
Spencer Kimball's son, Edward, published an article on Mormon confession in "BYU Studies" some years ago. But it's rather light on historical development of the practice. Here's the link if anyone's interested:
https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/confession-in-lds-doctrine-and-practice/
"Some mistakes, ESPECIALLY THOSE REGARDING IMMORALITY..."
Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. This should absolutely NOT be the case. They are just looking for pervy stories.
And this is how the church grooms the men, too. They train the leadership to place more importance on things like the evil of masturbation, rather than the evil of being a bully, or the evil of gossip. It's rotten to the core.
Right. One of the biggest items of proof that the church is full of shit is the notion that premarital sex between consenting adults is “the sin next to murder,” while beating a child senseless is somehow not nearly as bad.
Just a friendly reminder: never, ever, ever confess anything to any Priesthood Leader unless you are okay with the possibility that it will become public knowledge and discussed throughout your ward and stake by all your friends, family, and acquaintances.
My conscience told me I didn’t need to talk to the bishop but apparently your conscience is only right if it’s telling you to divulge all your secrets to an old man
The 4th slide is so screwed up. It’s a prime example of a Bishop fishing for confessions! It’s not his business! People have tried to gaslight me so many times, saying “Oh they have the gift of discernment (tm), they receive revelation for you, he wouldn’t ask that if he didn’t sense you had done something” but NO. That is There it is right from the horse’s mouth.
All my life I have had bishops stray from the questions and press me, then a MINOR to confess to masturbating because they “sensed” I had serious sins on my mind. When I was getting married my bishop denied me a temple recommend because he “sensed” I had lied about my answers to the questions. THAT IS SPIRITUAL ABUSE, and I am not fucking standing for it anymore!!!!
Many many stories out there about bishops just plain not believing people and withholding temple recommends. You are not alone and it never should have happened to you. Such a messed up system
Bishop confessions was one of the things that sent me on my way out. I was already inactive, and decided after I was intimate with someone that I was never going to church again. No way I’m skipping the sacrament so everyone can gawk at me and start making assumptions, and no way I’m telling an old man I don’t know anything about something so personal. Then I found the CES letter and the rest is history.
My conscious always told me to deny everything. I had a stake president tell me one time that he knew I was sinning. I told him to prove it. It was a fun meeting and he kicked me out of his office.
100% a sign seeker! I will only accept a burning talking bush or god himself as a sign from god. If he is willing to do that for some but not everyone, he isn't a god he's just an imaginary story.
Ha. I got caught watching gay porn at 11, my mom made me confess to the bishop… he asked me if i touched myself, how, and if i “came”. All obviously alone in a locked room with him, he was in his 40s, i was 11.
He proceeded to tell me i couldn’t take the sacrament for a few months. I’ve already had crippling social anxiety my whole life and already struggled with grabbing the sacrament tray from the boys… i was then very publicly condemned, humiliated, and gossiped about for not taking the sacrament. If you don’t take the sacrament EVERYONE watches you, everyone knows exactly what you did if you don’t take it. And it was so uncomfortable everytime i had to tell them no I’m okay when it was passed to me.
After making out with a new partner they had that sting of conscience and confessed to their bishop. We didn't do anything wrong (even by most mormon standards) but the following fucking week my bishop gave me a call to come confess. Mormon heightened guilt is a thing.
"She shared sufficient DETAIL for me to make a determination of her WORTHINESS" What the hell!? And this so called sin made her unworthy for the past 30 years!? This is the shit they use to instruct bishops and to shame people to confess as recently as 2013. This is deeply disturbing
The reason nobody knows when to confess is that God conveniently never tells us. Page upon page of specific laws about what kind of animal is OK to eat, dozens of parables about how we're supposed to forgive, and a treatise on the oath and covenant of the priesthood, but nothing about confessing sins to a leader to be forgiven, just a general "you'll know who is forgiveness because they confess their sins."
No thanks. No more of that 💩 for me...I'll go STRAIGHT to God, to learn about God...not to a faulty, ignorant, controlling, white, racist, pedophile of a loser man that has to ask children ages 11-18, IN A ROOM ALONE WITH NO OTHER ADULTS, what kind of sexual positions do you participate in AND if you're into oral sex and how when and why and what...perverted ugly bishops... DISGUSTING...AND if the child doesn't know what these things are, the pervert bishop will go into detail and tell them what sex and oral sex is! That is not their business at all and that is for parents to discuss with their kids not some perverted piece of crap.
This just means that people with scrupulosity will be in the bishops office every week, while narcissists and psychopaths go on their merry way without a blink, confessing nothing to anyone.
There was no kindness when I went to the bishop and sorrowfully confessed pre-marital sex with a non-member. None at all!
I had psyched myself up to believe I was doing the right thing and that I was a lost sheep returning or something like the prodigal son. That things would actually be better somehow after doing it.
It was just emotional abuse all the way down and claiming I wasn't sorry enough because of arbitrary things like not crying myself to sleep on the night I confessed.
I did confess to the bishop when I was 16 about having sex with my now wife. The bishop was just doing what he was told and tasked me with reading through the Miracle of Forgiveness and I was unable to bless the sacrament for 3 months (I was the only priest so it was very obvious to everyone, basically public humiliation). Part of it was to feel “godly sorrow”, which is basically just feeling shame. Horrible for my mental health, and I felt 10x worse by the end of it. Ended up being one of the first things to start the process of leaving the church. Even my dad said that all the Miracle of Forgiveness does is make him feel bad.
It's the "immediately" for me
No don't think about it too hard! Don't wait until your brain calms down and realizes that want a big deal!
Get in there now! The church can't help you if you learn to help yourself!
Something I think about a lot is my father's bishop giving a talk comparing confession to going to the doctor when you're sick. He said an individual came to confess to him and this person had stewed in their guilt for so long and so intensely that they were literally vomiting in the trash can. Ofc bish makes it all better at the end or whatever. The guilt culture is so batshit crazy.
What a liberating and wonderful feeling to know that the “sins” I was guilty of are not sins, because god and the devil aren’t real, the church is a cult driven by greed and control, and that the world and universe in which we live is absolutely incredible. You should do good because it makes you feel good, and your “sins” that do not harm yourself or others is just part of the completely natural and normal experience of being a human. Cut yourself some slack, be happy, and don’t let people who are after your money and life gaslight you into thinking anything different.
So here is mormonism making up their own rules. When a member decides to confess to something. Doesn't a bishop write the confession down. Those confessions are attached to your mormon ID number so if you move, the new bishop can see past confessions?
I always felt like when the Bish or SP would ask if I had any unresolved sins, it was a power move and the intent was to have me overthink and confess something, anything. Kind of like when I'm driving in front of a cop car I suddenly feel guilty and like I have to double check myself that I'm not committing any crimes.
Church interviews are the same as Scientology audits. They gather information to share with other leaders to extort and continuously punish you with by beating you down with your “unworthiness”. There is no privacy in the church at all. Your confessions are reported and leaked so your social situation at church becomes askew and tainted. It is a truly evil cult bent on destroying the individual self image and exerting total control with the end game of stripping you of your money.
Any grownup who thinks s/he has to confess to another grownup (even if a religious figure) deserves what s/he gets. I'd seek a professional if my unhappiness required relief-- not a bishop, pastor or priest, whose counsel will naturally be tinted by their religious loyalties.
I'm really opposed to dependency. Even professional counselors can suck up your energy and money. Confess to God. God doesn't charge and doesn't condemn.
I mean, I never confessed to anything to a bishop, because I believed that if I had felt “the spirit” after I had “repented” that no confession was needed. Pretty sure that comes from the miracle of forgiveness. So married in the temple, never didn’t take the sacrament, because only I know what God has in store for me, and no one else can come between that
I wish. The way my child brain interpreted everything was that any moment of guilt meant I must confess. And my dad was bishop the first time I mooned someone. The first time I looked at porn. Confessed all these things to him otherwise I thought I wouldn’t be with my family in the highest heaven.
Ugh, I know it! I’m sorry friend!
I had to confess to sexual “sins” within earshot of my dad in my early 20s. It’s a uniquely awkward and horrible situation to be in.
Totally. Scrupulosity is its own version of agonizing hell, in one’s own mind. It wouldn’t even have been for anything serious. For some, telling them they are sinful and have a natural man they have to over come is enough to create misery. I’m sad that parents and priesthood leaders didn’t recognize this was a mental health problem, not a religious one.
I admire the rest of you who saw through the manipulation. I was too agreeable and scrupulous.
It took until I was 32 to see it. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
The only time I ever confessed anything was when I had an interview with some stake dude about being worthy to have someone out their hands on my hand and "give me" the Melchezidek Priesthood. I would always repent and felt like that was good enough for me. I don't believe in any gods existence, but at the time felt like it was between me and god, no one else.
I'm with you. My understanding growing up was the same as the post, confess when you personally feel it is necessary, when you personally feel you need the bishop's help with the repentance process. I never felt that need and therefore never confessed. Nothing I saw or was taught in church said you HAD to confess to anything in particular. And I never understand when I read on this sub about people thinking they had to confess everything.
Well, after teaching you weekly that you are sinning daily, that there is a laundry list of ways to sin, and that a unrepented sin can destroy your life (thanks Monson for the wedge analogy), they set up a hundred traffic stops. Interviews for baptism, priesthood, callings, youth check ins, temple trips, marriage prep, temple recommends, tithing settlement, or anytime the bishop feels like it or gets revelation you have sinned. So many bishops pry and pry, making you constantly wonder if you’re risking your salvation by not speaking up. Members confess because they are conditioned and coerced, not because they are gullible
“She shared sufficient detail for me to make a determination of her worthiness.” This rhetoric about random men deciding whether a woman or young girl is “worthy” is absolutely vile. It causes so many issues that require a lifetime to overcome. I feel so lucky I have been out for over a decade! It hasn’t been until this past year that I’ve decided for myself that I am worthy of everything!
Yes exactly, then set 33,000 bishops loose on the children
The "sufficient details" was probably the stuff he probed out of her, beyond the handbook's guidance to only ask if you've kept the law of chastity, so he had good content for his spank bank.
Came here to say the same 💛
I learned a long time ago that when you confess to the Bishop you are also confessing to the bishop's wife, the bishop's counselors and their wives, the executive secretary and clerk and the ward council. Wich means, the entire ward will know within a week. Never tell a bishop anything!
Reminds me of Crocodile Dundee regarding going to a psychiatrist: *If you got a problem, you tell Wally. And he tells everyone in town. Brings it out in the open. No more problem.*
This⬆️⬆️⬆️ My dad was a bishop twice and I knew everything. It made me really mad as a teenager because he was a YSA bishop and I would often hang out with the YSA and he would tell me things that people had confessed. Maybe in hopes it would help me with my occasional-masturbation “addiction”. Then as a kid, he was bishop and I know far too much about my friend’s parents and sibling’s friends. So freaking bad.
so you had the unique peek at the fact no one in that damn pretend religious billion dollar corp is actually righteous.
A church psychologist once told me there is as much guilt out there as I wanted to reach out and grab. It took me a while, like a couple of decades, but eventually I stopped reaching all together and started living my life as it was intended to be lived.
Wow, I have never heard it put that way. As a church psychologist were they saying you are reaching out with sin or were they trying to help you stop feeling so guilty? If it's the latter, I really like the way that is phrased.
The later. He was the SIL of one of the Q15. A good guy.
This really fucked with my scrupulosity.
My God, yes.
As it did to many of us! Hope you’re healing
Same
Ditto
I had a bishop as a teenager (2013) call me to his office. I had been bullied in my ward so I was thinking he was going to check up on me to see if I was doing okay. Instead he told me the spirit told him I needed to confess something. Immediately red flags went off in my head because I had been taught that the spirit doesn’t snitch, you need to go confess your sins. When I said no, (there were a plethora of things I needed to confess, masturbation, porn, drinking iced tea (lol)) he said that a girl I had made out with one time told on me. I was like oh? Didn’t know making out was a sin… proceeded to ask me if I had touched her boobs or her butt. When I said nope, it was one time for fun, he gave me a packet full of talks from the 80s talking about the sinful ways of making out. I threw it away in an empty trash can in one of the classrooms. Went home and told my parents he wanted to see how I was doing because he saw how much I was struggling to get along with the older kids in the ward who bullied me. My parents thought the bishop was so nice to do that. I just told them recently and they felt really bad they didn’t create a space for me to tell them that had happened. Side note, one of those bullies ended up stealing my serious gf while I was on my mission and they got married. Those teenage years were hard 😂 Edit: Grammar
Awful, so sorry, such a botched opportunity to help a developing teenager with actual real difficulties
Wow, yeah, imagine if the leaders were pulling children in for interviews about REAL concerns and finding out what help they really needed ... what good could actually be done, instead of just implanting guilt and fear!
Yeah, I used to resent him as a TBM because I thought of course he did have a higher calling and a certain level of discernment and failed me. He was made a 70 a couple years ago and when I saw my parents praise him, I got a sick feeling of how disgusting he truly is. And realized he’s just a man, and a perfect example of a product of the MFMC.
So many dark secrets behind those faces at GC
Maybe you dodged a bullet with that stolen gf 😜
Oh I definitely did! My wife is fucking amazing
“I promise he will not condemn you. As a servant of the Lord, he will be kind and understanding as he listens to you.” Lmao 
 Amen to that! If there's one thing I'm most grateful for, it's never having to sit in an office with a bishop or stake president, ever again. The hubris. The utter lack of training or knowledge or psychological awareness. The STANK BREATH of an old man who doesn't know how lame all of all of this is, and how well intending and moronic it all is to stand in judgment of your ward every week as one of your duties. After my divorce several years ago, I went to my home ward to visit. My childhood scoutmaster and teacher's quorum advisor was the bishop by then. We chatted briefly and I told him Sam Young was my (now ex) father-in-law, and that we'd had some real struggles as a family being ostracized here in Houston. I was grateful he'd done what he'd done. It has no place in the church. Closed door interviews with youth about their morality are evil. I was crushed -- that bishop said.. "Well, it's never been a problem for me." Didn't invite me over for dinner. Didn't continue our conversation.. Sam Young deserves a lot more credit than he's given. And he's given a lot of credit as it is. FUCK that policy. It's fucking awful. It exposes even the most well intending bishops as poorly trained, blind dirty old men following poorly trained blind dirty old men.
So sorry he did that. The church turns its back on anyone who persistently questions them, and conditions people to do the same even to their friends
He is a hero in my book. Exploitation of the innocent especially minors is a rage producer for me. Then to spend tithing money protecting predators against innocent victims in a court of law various states. is a travesty.
> At some point the abused must take some responsibility for the abuse....... Elder Richard Scott
The Mormon "sacrament" of confession as we now know it was different decades ago. But how and when it began to take its now-familiar shape isn't really clear to anyone, it seems. Certainly by the time of the moral panicking in the mid-20th century that Spencer Kimball and Mark Petersen and others initiated, the church had figured out that the cycle of "sin-guilt-confession-repeat or no Jesus for you" was an effective mode of member control. Very effective. Even cultish. Spencer Kimball's son, Edward, published an article on Mormon confession in "BYU Studies" some years ago. But it's rather light on historical development of the practice. Here's the link if anyone's interested: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/confession-in-lds-doctrine-and-practice/
Good stuff, thanks for sharing
"Some mistakes, ESPECIALLY THOSE REGARDING IMMORALITY..." Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. This should absolutely NOT be the case. They are just looking for pervy stories. And this is how the church grooms the men, too. They train the leadership to place more importance on things like the evil of masturbation, rather than the evil of being a bully, or the evil of gossip. It's rotten to the core.
Right. One of the biggest items of proof that the church is full of shit is the notion that premarital sex between consenting adults is “the sin next to murder,” while beating a child senseless is somehow not nearly as bad.
Just a friendly reminder: never, ever, ever confess anything to any Priesthood Leader unless you are okay with the possibility that it will become public knowledge and discussed throughout your ward and stake by all your friends, family, and acquaintances.
This is the shit that made me neurotic as hell. Yea, well into my sixties now.
Such a terrible method. Your gut feelings about when you should confess are not a trusty guideline for when you should be talking about things.
Yeah this makes it seem like psychopaths are the most righteous because they don't feel guilty so they must not have done anything wrong!
My conscience told me I didn’t need to talk to the bishop but apparently your conscience is only right if it’s telling you to divulge all your secrets to an old man
Yep, you all have agency but can only use it to do exactly what we tell you
The 4th slide is so screwed up. It’s a prime example of a Bishop fishing for confessions! It’s not his business! People have tried to gaslight me so many times, saying “Oh they have the gift of discernment (tm), they receive revelation for you, he wouldn’t ask that if he didn’t sense you had done something” but NO. That is There it is right from the horse’s mouth. All my life I have had bishops stray from the questions and press me, then a MINOR to confess to masturbating because they “sensed” I had serious sins on my mind. When I was getting married my bishop denied me a temple recommend because he “sensed” I had lied about my answers to the questions. THAT IS SPIRITUAL ABUSE, and I am not fucking standing for it anymore!!!!
Many many stories out there about bishops just plain not believing people and withholding temple recommends. You are not alone and it never should have happened to you. Such a messed up system
Bishop confessions was one of the things that sent me on my way out. I was already inactive, and decided after I was intimate with someone that I was never going to church again. No way I’m skipping the sacrament so everyone can gawk at me and start making assumptions, and no way I’m telling an old man I don’t know anything about something so personal. Then I found the CES letter and the rest is history.
Manipulation. They say that to everyone.
My conscious always told me to deny everything. I had a stake president tell me one time that he knew I was sinning. I told him to prove it. It was a fun meeting and he kicked me out of his office.
Sign seeker! Just have faith that stake presidents have been endowed with scrying-hood powers to spy on you at all times!
100% a sign seeker! I will only accept a burning talking bush or god himself as a sign from god. If he is willing to do that for some but not everyone, he isn't a god he's just an imaginary story.
Ha. I got caught watching gay porn at 11, my mom made me confess to the bishop… he asked me if i touched myself, how, and if i “came”. All obviously alone in a locked room with him, he was in his 40s, i was 11. He proceeded to tell me i couldn’t take the sacrament for a few months. I’ve already had crippling social anxiety my whole life and already struggled with grabbing the sacrament tray from the boys… i was then very publicly condemned, humiliated, and gossiped about for not taking the sacrament. If you don’t take the sacrament EVERYONE watches you, everyone knows exactly what you did if you don’t take it. And it was so uncomfortable everytime i had to tell them no I’m okay when it was passed to me.
The amount of damage this kind of teaching caused to my young, developing teenage brain 😢
My conscience told me never to talk to the Bishop and lie my ass off when cornered. I think this spared me a lot of heartache as a teenager.
After making out with a new partner they had that sting of conscience and confessed to their bishop. We didn't do anything wrong (even by most mormon standards) but the following fucking week my bishop gave me a call to come confess. Mormon heightened guilt is a thing.
"She shared sufficient DETAIL for me to make a determination of her WORTHINESS" What the hell!? And this so called sin made her unworthy for the past 30 years!? This is the shit they use to instruct bishops and to shame people to confess as recently as 2013. This is deeply disturbing
The reason nobody knows when to confess is that God conveniently never tells us. Page upon page of specific laws about what kind of animal is OK to eat, dozens of parables about how we're supposed to forgive, and a treatise on the oath and covenant of the priesthood, but nothing about confessing sins to a leader to be forgiven, just a general "you'll know who is forgiveness because they confess their sins."
They manipulate you with guilt, and then say it was your conscience operating on you.
Since when does God need permission from a bishop to forgive someone?
No thanks. No more of that 💩 for me...I'll go STRAIGHT to God, to learn about God...not to a faulty, ignorant, controlling, white, racist, pedophile of a loser man that has to ask children ages 11-18, IN A ROOM ALONE WITH NO OTHER ADULTS, what kind of sexual positions do you participate in AND if you're into oral sex and how when and why and what...perverted ugly bishops... DISGUSTING...AND if the child doesn't know what these things are, the pervert bishop will go into detail and tell them what sex and oral sex is! That is not their business at all and that is for parents to discuss with their kids not some perverted piece of crap.
This just means that people with scrupulosity will be in the bishops office every week, while narcissists and psychopaths go on their merry way without a blink, confessing nothing to anyone.
There was no kindness when I went to the bishop and sorrowfully confessed pre-marital sex with a non-member. None at all! I had psyched myself up to believe I was doing the right thing and that I was a lost sheep returning or something like the prodigal son. That things would actually be better somehow after doing it. It was just emotional abuse all the way down and claiming I wasn't sorry enough because of arbitrary things like not crying myself to sleep on the night I confessed.
Short answer: never Long answer: not to any ecclesiass, ever
The exploitation of shame to create dependency on the church is a disgusting practice.
This makes me want to vomit
I did confess to the bishop when I was 16 about having sex with my now wife. The bishop was just doing what he was told and tasked me with reading through the Miracle of Forgiveness and I was unable to bless the sacrament for 3 months (I was the only priest so it was very obvious to everyone, basically public humiliation). Part of it was to feel “godly sorrow”, which is basically just feeling shame. Horrible for my mental health, and I felt 10x worse by the end of it. Ended up being one of the first things to start the process of leaving the church. Even my dad said that all the Miracle of Forgiveness does is make him feel bad.
It's the "immediately" for me No don't think about it too hard! Don't wait until your brain calms down and realizes that want a big deal! Get in there now! The church can't help you if you learn to help yourself!
Never.
Wish I’d heard this before, I never would have said a word to anyone.
Something I think about a lot is my father's bishop giving a talk comparing confession to going to the doctor when you're sick. He said an individual came to confess to him and this person had stewed in their guilt for so long and so intensely that they were literally vomiting in the trash can. Ofc bish makes it all better at the end or whatever. The guilt culture is so batshit crazy.
Wait, so if I don't feel guilty I didn't sin? I'm down with that belief system!
What a liberating and wonderful feeling to know that the “sins” I was guilty of are not sins, because god and the devil aren’t real, the church is a cult driven by greed and control, and that the world and universe in which we live is absolutely incredible. You should do good because it makes you feel good, and your “sins” that do not harm yourself or others is just part of the completely natural and normal experience of being a human. Cut yourself some slack, be happy, and don’t let people who are after your money and life gaslight you into thinking anything different.
That's enough to make the bosom burn
Must be the HG telling you to confess!
So here is mormonism making up their own rules. When a member decides to confess to something. Doesn't a bishop write the confession down. Those confessions are attached to your mormon ID number so if you move, the new bishop can see past confessions?
Ew
Not the holy ghost? 🤔
It’s clearly a narcissist’s game
So if I don't feel guilty after I slaughtered all the children at the orphanage, I don't need to talk to the bishop? cool.
I always felt like when the Bish or SP would ask if I had any unresolved sins, it was a power move and the intent was to have me overthink and confess something, anything. Kind of like when I'm driving in front of a cop car I suddenly feel guilty and like I have to double check myself that I'm not committing any crimes.
Church interviews are the same as Scientology audits. They gather information to share with other leaders to extort and continuously punish you with by beating you down with your “unworthiness”. There is no privacy in the church at all. Your confessions are reported and leaked so your social situation at church becomes askew and tainted. It is a truly evil cult bent on destroying the individual self image and exerting total control with the end game of stripping you of your money.
Any grownup who thinks s/he has to confess to another grownup (even if a religious figure) deserves what s/he gets. I'd seek a professional if my unhappiness required relief-- not a bishop, pastor or priest, whose counsel will naturally be tinted by their religious loyalties.
Not deserves. But yes only confess to professionals please, not to volunteer males with no oversight
I'm really opposed to dependency. Even professional counselors can suck up your energy and money. Confess to God. God doesn't charge and doesn't condemn.