Heavenly fatherliness #20 - Guidance

According to popular wisdom, a good father offers guidance, words of wisdom, and aids in making better decisions.

In Mormonism we say that God gives us prophets to speak to us for him and the Holy Spirit to guide us. We have all sorts of guidance through the wise words of Holy Writ and numerous aids in the religious leaders who care for us and lead us in righteousness.

If this is the case, I would argue that Heavenly Father has given us too much. Too much conflicting guidance, that is. Our scriptures contradict themselves and each other. Our leaders also contradict themselves and each other. Everyone's looking for answers and no one seems to have them, including the people who claim they've heard it straight from the horse's mouth. And that's just within a single faith tradition; we haven't even started considering all the other possible advice God might have for us via other traditions. 

Thanks, God. Thanks for confusing the hell out of everyone.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father

Blind leading the blind

Mormon stake presidents, bishops, and branch presidents, just like the vast majority of Mormon clergy, receive essentially no practical training when it comes to their very sticky counseling duties. With little more than a secret rule book, a few life lines, and good intentions, lay Mormon leadership the world over take to advising and guiding in matters they often have no experience in and no professional competency. What results are endless stories of bad advice given to members by their ecclesiastical leaders that will either make you laugh or cry or both. The material's good enough for a parody blog all its own. The joke has been made that if the Church were not true the missionaries (the Mormon clergy with perhaps the most formal training) would have ruined it years ago. The truth is that the well-intended stake presidents, bishops, and branch presidents have never needed any help destroying the lives and faith of their congregations.