"Where Else Would I Go?" - Darrin Simpson (2020)

Darrin tells how, while washing dishes, he "woke up and did something more than dream of his mansion above," loving the doctrine of "change," and how Matthew 22 teaches us about the divine design of interdependence.
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"Why I Stay" is a faith-based podcast exploring the lives and experiences of members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This podcast is not produced or endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All rights reserved.

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I love how he acknowledges that there are some tricky topics surrounding the church, but makes the important point that this trickiness is not unique to the church and in fact is often better here than elsewhere. One thing that comes to mind is how we occasionally hear stories of child abuse within the church, which is awful and should never happen ever. The fact is, though, we are dealing with people, and the only way to eradicate problems completely is for God to remove our agency, which He has demonstrated is against His design. I listened to an interview with a woman who studied child abuse, and she said that she went through the Boy Scouts records because that was one place where such records are accessible. She found that although the church had 30% of Boy Scout troops and leaders, the church only had 5% of Boy Scout abuse cases. She said that many of the church’s standard practices actually serve as defenses against abuse. I knew having church callings by assignment was one, but she said even things like ward boundaries and keeping membership records, while possibly instituted for logistical reasons, serve as protections to ward members against those who might be unscrupulous.
I do believe that things are better in the church than in the world. We all have work to do, but one of the things that the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us is to stand for His truth and to serve His children. As we come unto Him, we can improve the world at large as well as the church. It works!