One thing that never ceases to amaze me are stories about what members will tattle on other members for, and the willingness with which some bishops seem to entertain slanderous gossip. But . . . that doesn’t mean there are no circumstances in which I would name names. How about you?
[poll id=”136″]
Would you talk with the member first? Why or why not?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I would not tell the bishop about abuse – I would call Child Protective Services.
It seems like most of these are just plain tattling and/or snotty judging. Doing yard work without garments? Are there really people who call up their bishop about this?
The other thing, though, is that I wouldn’t call the bishop about abuse, at least of children. I would call DCFS in a New York minute, but the bishop? I’m not sure it’s his jurisdiction unless the person wants to repent. Same with stuff like embezzlement or fraud. I’d call the police, not the bishop. What can the bishop do that I can’t do, if the person is unrepentant? And if they are repentant, they’ll go to the bishop on their own.
I might talk to the bishop informally if it was something that was affecting the ward. Like, “Hey, Bish, Sister so-and-so, the Gospel Doctrine teacher, is preaching we need to stockpile red beans and rice for when we live in the tent cities.” Yeah, he’d get a memo on that. Or excessive politics.
I think I’d make some comments in Sunday School or whatever about how maybe this is false doctrine or not appropriate where there are good Mormons who are Dems and Repubs, and heck, maybe even Socialists (!), but I probably wouldn’t talk to the person privately first. I’m passive-aggressive like that.
Of course you call the police about abuse. You can do both. A Bishop might be able to help the victims and he should know.
One reason for talking to the bishop either (before or after calling the police) is sometimes you simply want to know if the police have already been informed, or you want to know if the family is in counseling. Remember, all abuse is not cut and dried. If a wife casually mentions throwing something at her or hitting her husband and you know that they are a family with a lot of problems, you might want to ask someone who you know might know what is going on in the family and ask if someone is helping them with their problems. It is one thing to see clear cut assault that needs a 911 call, it is another to see a small part of the picture and not know what the whole picture is. If you aren’t a close friend and you aren’t sure what to do and if the family involved isn’t smart/capable/normal, you can wonder if calling the police is going to help or not. When someone speaks in relief society and hints at a mutually emotionally abusive marriage, you can’t exactly call the police. You can try talking to them and it can be even more confusing. At least if you know there is someone trying to coordinate all the efforts of support it can be helpful.
I wish mental health was taken more seriously and there were better resources in general for family counseling, rather than easy divorce and free incarceration.
If you see a crime, call the police. For anything else, if you want to be a good Christian, talk to the person privately and ask him to repent. The scriptures tell us how to do it.
Oh, and if you do go to tell the bishop, you cannot request anonymity — you must be willing to present your eyewitness evidence at a disciplinary council. If you’re not prepared to do this, then you shouldn’t tell the bishop at all.
I agree, if there is a crime call the police first then maybe the bishop. If I knew that someone was guilty of something that would put their church membership in question, I would not sustain that person to a new calling and I might privately inform the bishop why. Otherwise I might go to the bishop and discreetly and non-specifically tell the bishop that it would be a good idea to talk to brother or sister so-and-so. I would only do this if I felt it would genuinely help. Otherwise I would mind my own business. It is the transgressors job to report sins, not mine unless there is abuse.
There’s no such thing as a free incarceration.
Lady Gaga, of course I don’t mean only smart, capable, normal people deserve police protection.
The original questions says “ABUSE” which is NOT always a crime. It did not say physical/sexual abuse. Many, many people are in abusive, not criminal situations. Calling the police is not going to help in many cases.
When talking about families in these situations, there isn’t just a “victim.” There are victims and victims and perpetrators and many times they are both. When a parent needs education about how to raise a child, when a married couple needs help learning how to communicate in a loving way. There are people who did not grow up in loving families, who can barely read, who are not very capable in many areas of their life. They need help and support, not police officers coming around saying someone called the cops because you said you were screaming at your husband and threw something at him. There really are people who are not smart, capable or normal who are struggling at parenthood and it would be nice if we can help and support them, rather than sitting around waiting until it crosses some sort of line and then just calling the police.
One of the problems in our Mormon culture is our tendency to rush to tell the bishop. No! If I see a brother or sister in need (or in sin), I can try to help the person directly, personally, individually — or if I don’t have the needed resources, I can still go personally and suggest where he or she might find the resources. That’s my calling as a Latter-day Saint. It’s too easy, and doctrinally wrong, for me to wash my hands of my neighbor’s problem by going to tell the bishop so he can deal with it. In the parable of the good Samaritan, the good Samaritan helped the man in the road; he didn’t go tell the bishop.
Agreed that too often we self-righteously tattle on our fellow members. When on my mission as well, we had a saying: “Every member a mission President”. It seems that too many members can’t let the bishop do his job; they feel a need to “help” more than is required.
Still, some of the situations indicated either flagrant violations of Church policy, theft and/or abuse of Church property and/or funds, criminal behavior towards family members, or fomenting apostasy in the Church. IF one has personally witnessed such conduct, OR has RELIABLE evidence (and not mere hearsay, gossip, and rumor), then it’s not only a “right” but a duty to bring it to the bishop’s attention. Of course, hopefully the home teachers are already on it. After having giving testimony, however, one should avoid vendettas, especially if the matter needs to be handled by law enforcement, as often interference or meddling can hamper the securing of a criminal conviction.
Also, in too many cases in the wake of a divorce, one or both of the warring ex-spouses, in their otherwise understandable anger and bitterness, tend to hound their respective bishops (or, if the ex-spouse is in a different congregation, that unfortunate bishop) and expect the Church to in effect take their side in the dissolution of said marriage and/or assertion of their “rights”. Having been through this once before, and going through it again as of this writing, it’s important to remember that one can at best have their say in privacy with their own bishop, receiving wise counsel and spiritual comfort, and then let the leader(s) take action, or NOT, as he sees fit under inspiration.
Finally, for some fairly trivial matters, not only should members shut their freakin’ traps (ala “Family Guy”, thank you, “Brother” Griffin), but also bishops should NOT have other members “spy” on their charges over things like wearing of temple garments. This was done to me several years ago in a previous ward by a well-meaning but overbearing bishop who for all practical purposes felt that I should run a marathon and or “do the deed” in them (for the “latter”, pun intended, do the garments not have “strategically” placed openings? LoL). When said bishop asked me why he got “reports” that I often was seen w/o my “G’s”, I retorted, like Erin Brokovich, that as long as I have one ‘backside’ instead of two as do many of my fellow members, that I would wear what I pleased.
jks, when is abuse not criminal abuse? The police are going to have more resources to help victims than bishops. Most of the time the abuser is not arrested, as it takes extreme measures for abuse to hold up in court, but the resources provided offer victims a way out of their situation. Cops do more than arrest people.
Any act if fraud (and adultery because of the damage it causes the family) I would for sure confront them and give them the option of them confessiing or me contacting the appropriate party.
As for the nude sunbather, if it is a she and she is hot, why spoil a good thing?
I recently was called in to my bishop’s office because apparently multiple people have complained to him on multiple occasions that I have preached gay marriage in my Sunday school classes. I told him what I had said, and he said I did not cross any lines, but said I needed to be super careful, because this is a rather incendiary issue.
The thing that really pissed me off about the whole thing is that the various people couldn’t come to me and say, hey, I’m uncomfortable with what you said in Sunday school, let’s talk about it. Nope, they had to go over my head to the bishop. Awesome.
I am hard pressed to think of any scenario in which I would say something to the bishop. Even when someone has literally preached false doctrine, I could tell the difference, so I figure others can too. I just don’t look to the bishop to keep members in line. I might if someone was called to a calling and I knew that person was currently commiting a crime or adultery.
Spencer,
Nope, they had to go over my head to the bishop.
Have you ever considered teaching a lesson on Matthew 18:15-17? It seems that some of your students, and maybe even your bishop, are not aware of the correct principles taught there.
It might also be that you can no longer be an effective teacher, because some of your students obviously don’t sustain you and you cannot teach except in an atmosphere of trust. But you have to do the best you can.
How about growing and smoking marijuana? Yes, in my Ward we had a family that did this and tried to recruit members to petition SLC to allow members to use marijuana, for medicinal uses, of course. But they were growing it AND selling it. So much for the medicine aspect, especially when they had no medical need. But every Fast Sunday a tithing envelope stuffed with thousands of dollars was enough to keep the Bishopric from telling authorities, in my opinion. They had children, and none of them respected authority of any type. Anyone visiting them would leave their house feeling somewhat light headed/high.
Obviously someone went to the Bishop about me because I was released as Primary Pres. after only 6 months, but yet the marijuana smokers and growers were alright. The Bishop would not tell me what the problem was. He was an arrogant jerk.
“jks, when is abuse not criminal abuse? ”
Emotional abuse such as silent treatment, screaming/yelling, controlling behavior, etc. The line between abuse and crime is hard to see. For instance, it is a crime to hit someone but how many of us call the police when 5 year old siblings have a little fight. So there are crimes we tolerate as not being real enough to call the police, and there is abuse that is real abuse but not actually a crime, at least not until it gets to a certain level. Meanwhile, someone is being torn down and controlled by an emotional abuser.
Also, when it is a wife abusing a husband it is more difficult to understand if it is abuse.
Also, when is it clear cut who is the abuser and who is the victim. There are many mutually abusive situations. You can talk to someone like that and not be sure what is going on…..you want them to get family counselling and education.
How many people here would actually call the police if a woman friend of yours admits she threw the remote at her husband last Saturday because she was totally stressed out and her husband was being a jerk.
So while we like to give lip service to “call the police” are we really understand the actual real live situations people come accross and how easy it is to make the wrong judgement call?
When a child said something to me about sexual abuse, I spoke to the mother. I took her word for it that the police had already been notified. I hope that was the right call.
When a friend said she threw something at her husband when we were all newlyweds 20 years ago I didn’t think to call the police. Their relationship seems pretty good and I think they got better at communicating.
In neither of those situations did I go to the bishop. I have only gone to the bishop for one thing ever.
In neither of those situations did I go to the police. I find it telling that it was far easier to call 911 when there were two cars in front of my house and one person was standing outside the other car yelling and yelling and yelling and yelling. Far easier to call the police to take care of that mysterious situation than to send them to question a friend or acquaintance since it wasn’t happening right then and there.
JR,
In states where marijuana crimes are not enforced (or non-existent), there is little reason to turn in someone. Of course, if the family has a leadership calling that is different.
Getting released from Primary president may not have had a specific reason. There might have been a counselor or other PEC member (or their spouse) who just thought that a change would be better. They worked on the Bishop until he agreed.
jks,
Abuse is abuse. It up to the police to determine if there is enough evidence.
Also, some states have laws about the mandated reporting of suspected child abuse.
#19 – the term “abuse” is often overused and wrongly applied, and doing so trivialize the cases of true abuse. It’s not necessarily “abuse” to be a jerk or a bitch, though behaving thus is obviously cause to repent.
#21 – having not served as a bishop, I can’t say as to what would mandate reporting. Some things are obvious, others less so. Though I laud the intent of mandatory reporting laws, what I fear they cause, since heavy civil and criminal penalties weigh as a “Sword of Damocles”, then a bishop would be inclined to err on the side of “caution”.. ergo, what keeps himself out of trouble. That, IMO, is unreasonable to ask a man who gives of his time and energy while still being the head of his family and laboring to support them.
The reason for mandated reporting is that people don’t have the expertise/authority/resources to determine what is against the law. That is why you report and then let the experts do their job to determine if a law was broken.
I seem to remember that in the days of Brigham Young the Mormon credo was “Mind your own business”. I wonder what those days were like.
#24 – And so many lambaste Brother Brigham. The man had more wisdom in his pinky finger than most carry about them, so considering his rather large frame, imagine the sum of his collective wisdom.
I’ve called the bishop when a wife was being physically abused. The police already new, that’s how I found out. The call wasn’t to help the abuser repent, but for someone to help the wife be supported and helped to re-build a life free of that.