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The Sabbath Day
Pope John Paul speaks out about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, eschewing 'secular diversions'.
This caught my eye, because I don't generally hear much about Sabbath day observance from leaders of other churches. Good for PJP to speak out about remembering God on Sundays, although I wonder how many Catholics actually listen to the Pope these days...
Along with watching R-rated movies, Sabbath Day observance is probably the most 'divisive' issue in the Church. (What does divisive mean? Bring two active church members together at random and ask them both about what you can and can't do on the Sabbath and just see how long it takes for an argument to break out...)
So, can/should you watch sports on Sunday? Movies? Any TV at all? Get together with friends?
What if your wife likes sports too, and you watch it together?
Can/should you do homework on Sunday? What if it's homework from a BYU/Institute religion class?
Does online shopping on Sunday break the 'don't buy things on the Sabbath' rule? Should you even be on the Internet on Sunday anyway?
And so on, and so on... I dreaded seeing the Sabbath lessons come up in the lesson manual when I was teaching; when was the last time a Sabbath discussion in class was actually productive?
One personal experience: one weekend in college I was visiting my (non-member) mom. We got all the yardwork done on Saturday, and then Sunday after my church meetings we were sitting around reading. Suddenly, my mom remembered something we had forgotten to do in the yard the day before. She immediately got up, went outside and started working (she didn't ask me to do anything). I kept reading for a minute but then thought:
a) I'm not 'supposed' to do yardwork on the Sabbath
but b) exactly what 'great and wonderous' purpose am I accomplishing sitting around inside the house?
I went outside and helped my mom.
Would my decision be criticized by many church members? Of course... But my personal philosophy is: what's the best thing I could be doing at this exact point in time? In that case, I decided helping my mom was the best thing I could be doing right at that moment. Since we have our free agency and it's 'not meet to be commanded in all things', then we need to use it to make our own decisions and then stick by them. Want to watch TV on Sundays? Great! Don't want to watch TV on Sundays? Great! Just make a decision that represents your ideals and goals towards observing the Sabbath and growing closer to God and family, and then live by it and let others do the same...
March 26, 2004 in Religion | Permalink
Comments
Comments on posts at my blog about the Word of Wisdom typically elicit a similar lack of consensus among members. Especially when discussion turns to things like the excessive eating of meat, or drinking cola drinks. Whenever there is a lack of specific instruction, the interpretations run the gamut.
That being the case, I agree that we simply need to allow all members the privilege of keeping the Sabbath "how, where, or what they may."
Posted by: dp | Mar 27, 2004 1:33:00 AM
WOW is another good example, you're right. On my mission, our mission president got calls from irate members who witnessed missionaries drinking Coke. Interestingly, he told us in zone meetings that this was becoming a problem despite the fact that Coke was not (technically) against the Word of Wisdom. (Hmmm...now that I think about it, this is also related to the 'perception vs. intent' issue discussed in the other post from yesterday). At the end, he told us NOT to not drink Coke, but rather if we were going to drink it, make sure no one was watching.
(We had a funny image of missionaries ducking nervously into alleys and bringing out cans of Coke covered in crumpled paper bags from their coat pockets...)
Posted by: The Baron | Mar 27, 2004 7:08:23 AM
Why drink acid on the Sabbath or any other day? Are not our bodies a temple unto Yahweh?
Regarding the above, I'm surprised that Scottish Presbyterians outdo the Mormons when it comes to observing the Sabbath. Surprised and saddened.
Posted by: Brandon Rich | Apr 2, 2004 11:50:55 AM
