In the wake of all of the essays being released concerning Joseph Smith’s polygamy, Kristine Haglund has offered a confession and an apology over at By Common Consent.
From the post, it seems there is backstory that I am missing (since I don’t find Kristine to be a particularly offensive or dismissive person), but the basic gist of the apology is this: in the past, she has dismissed certain others who felt betrayed by the church when they found out certain facts about church history. As she puts it:
I have been one of the people who has thought and said that it’s unreasonable for members of the Church to feel betrayed when they discover facts about Church history that they hadn’t encountered in the official curriculum. I’ve thought that such ignorance reflected intellectual laziness for not having done a little bit of homework to learn about our history, and/or emotional immaturity for “flying off the handle” in the face of the belated discovery.
I was wrong and I am sorry.
Having (for once) been smart enough to sit back and watch the reactions to the new essays on polygamy rather than diving into the discussion right away, I think I may have finally understood something that I had managed to miss for a few decades. Despite the Church’s monumental effort and achievement of Correlation, lived Mormonism is largely undomesticated. It changes in both temporal and geographical iteration.
(I think it’s worth pointing out that the response for which Kristine now apologizes — thinking that ignorance reflects intellectual laziness — is alive and well at conservative blogs like Millennial Star. But that is not the point of my post.)
This post is instead about a sentiment that I have been hearing hints of from several liberal or progressive Mormons. I don’t think Kristine carries this sentiment (in fact, a followup comment suggests she doesn’t), but still, here was the part that gave me pause:
We all assume that our experience is normal, and since we so often hear “the Church is the same everywhere you go,” we are quick to generalize from our experience of “normal” to a prescription for what should be normative for everyone. When we are wounded by a policy or its ham-handed implementation, we extrapolate the certain wrongness of the policy for all times and all places. When, on the other hand, the Church has helped us to flourish, we readily believe that all good-hearted and right-thinking Saints will flourish similarly.
First, I want to say that I really do appreciate Kristine’s post. I appreciate her willingness to apologize, to listen to the concerns of others and consider that her behavior in the past was wrong.
I also appreciate the message. I appreciate the message that if we generalize our experience with Mormonism, we are at risk to (whether consciously or unconsciously) diminish or dismiss differing Mormon experiences. I appreciate the message that when we become comfortable that people can have multiple experiences within Mormonism, we are more able to hear out their concerns and not have our own experiences be threatened by being so empathetic.
But, there is nevertheless something about the statement I’ve quoted above that sets off warning sirens in my head. I think I’m triggered thusly because of a comment that Dan Wotherspoon made to me in the discussion to my earlier article, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtains~!” He began one comment with the following:
More than anything, I’m not overly stressed when anyone decides to leave Mormonism if they still are open to spiritual journeying and exploring themselves beyond just the sorts of things that our senses and rational minds can work with. I also don’t like to let stand outright rejections of Mormonism when they originate from totalizing of one’s own experiences with a narrow brand/band of it and saying that small slice is the whole pizza. (I know in some ways I “totalize” from my positive experiences with what I see are rich Mormon resources, so call me a hypocrite there if you’d like. Know, however, that I do appreciate many great paths that are non-theistic and even fully secular.)
Additionally, in a separate recent discussion with Seth Payne on his post “An LDS Exit Narrative Without the Exit“, he had made comments that similarly set off warning sirens:
I certainly see where you are coming from and you are right that we do disagree on a couple of fundamental issues. I believe that Mormonism/Christianity is not defined by institutional action. As much as SLC would like to control all-things Mormon I don’t believe they can, or do. The LDS Church is not Mormonism. So I don’t have any concern for whether or not there is institutional support for any of my ideas or not. The LDS Church can’t control how individuals choose to behave — as much as it would like to think it can (in some cases). And as I say, if a person chooses loyalty to an institution over loyalty to the ideas of compassion and kindness, then I would say that is an indication of a moral flaw with the person themselves.
I reject the argument that the Mormonism Miller, and the Givens’ discuss isn’t the “real” Mormonism. There is no objective definition of what Mormonism is so on what basis can one make that claim? Mormonism, like all religions and sub-cultures, is a living phenomenon. Mormonism is what the Mormon people make it. There is no sole or final arbiter of what constitutes Mormonism. The LDS Church? Sure. Mormonism? No.
What is it that is setting off the sirens in my head? I think it is a combination of a few implicit claims between these posters.
- Given that there are different experiences within the church, one cannot make any larger statements about what Mormonism is or should be from one’s own experience.
- Either the LDS institution does not or should not have a meaningful impact on one’s Mormon experience or one should not extrapolate one’s Mormon experience as being a representation of institutional concerns.
Both of these claims bother me.
Although I don’t necessarily think Kristine thinks (or thought) this way, what bothered me about her statement was this idea that she might actually think that the wounds some face from certain policies and the flourishing others might achieve from other policies might be comparable — that one can’t really tell whether one or the other would prevail if the two were weighed against each other. This came through in Dan’s message — it’s this idea that the things that might lead someone to reject Mormonism outright are a small slice of the pizza, or a narrow brand or band of Mormonism. From Seth, the idea that there is no objective definition of Mormonism is one thing, but this populist/democratic idea that Mormonism is what the Mormon people make of it and there is no sole or final arbiter of what is Mormonism? That’s something else.
And of course, with the Millennial Star post, it comes out like this: if you didn’t know these aspects of history, it surely isn’t because of the church (other than the basic fact that M* concedes that of course, the church wouldn’t focus on “lurid details” because that is not the point of Sunday School), but it’s because you did not do your due diligence.
When Kristine says (from my earlier quote of hers) that “despite the Church’s monumental effort and achievement of Correlation, lived Mormonism is largely undomesticated“, it seems like she is blaming the incompleteness of correlation, the lack of correlation, to explain why everyone didn’t have access to the same information, the same ward experience, and so on.
But what if it’s the case that correlation, though it undoubtedly is incomplete and not all-encompassing, serves to create much of the problem?
What bothers me about quotes like these (and I don’t think either Seth, Dan, or Kristine are necessarily doing it, or even intending to do it) is that it seems like it’s easy to use these quotes to say that because there are different experiences, then we can’t speak about what is normative, or modal (if not also “model”) Mormon experience.
But what if there is a normative/modal/model Mormon experience, and that sort of thing is precisely what is driving people away from Mormonism? The wounds from policies aren’t just random things that happen, but are systemic. It’s not just a “small pizza slice,” but a part of the entire crust.
And as far as the idea that correlation is just too anemic…Even if Correlation hasn’t (and probably never will, for a variety of reasons) reached down into every stake and ward, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a correlation ideal. And though we may disagree on what that ideal looks like, we can at least attempt to speak out how various experiences line up to that ideal.
I think when many disaffected folks speak about “priesthood roulette,” it’s not simply a matter of there being ‘good’ ward experiences and ‘bad’ ward experiences. It’s also about a perception that the stakes (pun fully intended) are biased toward ‘bad’ ward experiences because institutionally, correlation supports the more conservative/orthodox/literal/rigid approaches that the disaffected chafe against. (And of course, the conservative/orthodox response is that this is simply the divine order.)
I mean, I and many others have said that we would love a BCC ward, a Bloggernacle stake.
But the issue is not simply that our actual ward experiences, what things we are exposed to growing up, etc., are much different…but the sense that those ward experiences we dislike — and not the ward experiences of bloggernaclers that we envy and desire — are normative and modal for Mormonism.
What do you think?
- Can we speak about a generalized Mormonism, or is every ward and every stake is simply so different as to be incomparable?
- If we can speak about a generalized Mormonism, what can we say about it? Is it conservative? Orthodox? Accepting? Informed on the critical issues?
- Do you think Correlation helps create a more informed, accepting membership?
“1. Can we speak about a generalized Mormonism…”
Yes. In my experience, (2 wards in Ohio, 2 in Houston, 2 in Provo, 1 in Las Vegas, 2 in Phoenix) the level of tolerance (and therefore, frequency) of non-orthodox comments in classes, testimonies born, talks in sacrament mtg. vary, but only slightly. The most common sentiment is “sustain our leaders, don’t speak ill of the Lord’s anointed, the scriptures don’t say that,” etc)
“2. If we can speak about a generalized Mormonism, what can we say about it? Is it conservative? Orthodox? Accepting? Informed on the critical issues?”
Conservative politically (to a fault), Orthodox–definitely to a fault, Accepting: not so much. Informed: only a very few of us–most don’t care to be so informed by those of us that are.
“3. Do you think Correlation helps create a more informed, accepting membership?”
While members are overwhelmingly friendly and kind, they will covertly shun those that are too far from the “Correlation” norm. Or, even overtly at times.
As I commented on BCC…”The Church, in this “Reformation” or renaissance it is going through officially, needs to officially teach the members it is ok to think and learn more. Rather, as Jay said earlier, “[the] Church has switched from whitewashing its history to whitewashing its handling of history. I’m seeing it happen before my very eyes.” It will take many, many years to make real progress on this–if it ever truly happens.”
ONLY when members more commonly learn from sources in addition to the manuals and the party line, will more diversity in thought and beliefs about various elements of our doctrine, our policies, and our history come to pass.
The first comment pretty much describes my experience too. I have had a bishop try to excommunicate me for Apostasy and another withhold a TR, both because I was not conservative enough about peripheral issues like gay marriage, and euthanasia, and legalising them. This in Australia.
I have been a member since 1958 and had no idea about any of this stuff until the last few years when I started following blogs. I did not know about the priesthood ban for 10 years.
The church has been actively deceptive, and this undermines its credibility, to my way of thinking.
An example. we have JFS lesson 19 about being “in the world but not of the world” there is no mention that JFS was church historian and an Apostle and defended Racism, (which was of the world), there is also as current exhortation “modesty for women”. Our definition of modesty (dress standards) has nothing to do with scripture and is purely “of the world” or at least the Utah conservative part of it.
So I think the institutional church has been a large part of the problem, and I think most of the 15 would be happy with that. The change to honesty is coming from the more progressive ones, and is still being resisted.
I think there is hope that we might overcome the conservative culture being preached as Gospel and get back to the real Gospel as the Apostles who are over 80 die off, and we get to Holland Uchtdorf etc.
What’s wrong with you? Why weren’t you curious enough and proactive enough to seek out extra curricular material as a member of a church that fundamentally and repetitively teaches you to become like little children, follow and be teachable?
The very concept of this argument is red herring, strawman apologetic!
In temple square you’ll find a statue of Joseph and Emma holding hands. Gee, where are the statues of his other wives?
I think a lot of members take pride in being esoterically mormon. They get to condescend on the Mormon that looked at the art depicting Joseph holding golden plates while translated. They can wink wink nudge nudge over it. Then, when those that were fed those images from infancy are surprised that is an ‘artistic rendering’ (of an event that never happened), they can go True Scotsman and call them less Mormon. It makes for a replication of social strata that human’s can’t seem to help perpetuating in any social group. I can’t stand it. The fact is, correlation did a good job of obsfucating a lot of details, and when you live in a country whose only access to Mormonism is via correlation (pre-internet days, without Deseret Book, or access to archives of US religious writings) your religious education is horribly limited. To believe those people as less committed to their religious education is short sighted, and I just don’t see how you could possibly hold that perspective if you have any experience with the LDS church outside of it’s birth country.
Wow, that’s a lot of typo’s. Sorry. My own fault for trying to deliver a comment while tending to children.
naomi, better than trying to deliver children while tending to comments! (That would be the worst OB-GYN ever)
I have been sick with a cold for the past 2 days. My husband and I come from many generations of “follow the prophet” (or Salt Lake). I have spent this time reading all the Journals of family all the way back to Joseph Smith. I see how it was a constant theme. The brethren said this and we must follow. Once true church. Disappointment if didn’t follow prophet.
I am not sure I can have agnostic mormon views (if their is such a view…lol) and fit at church anymore.
I later called my brother today who lives in Idaho and asked him lots of questions.
Why didn’t the blacks hold the priesthood? How was the Book of Mormon Translated? What is the Book of Abraham from? Do you know about any topic articles on lds.org? When did polygamy start? How many wives of Joseph Smith? and many others. It was a great conversation as he is a very tolerant person.
It was interesting as a busy father of 6 kids under 12 he has all the same views that we had been taught as kids. He just does not have time to worry about it. It is simple. Go to church and repeat. He is to busy to even think or remember what he was even taught at church. It is just what our family has done for generations. The siblings who fell away did because of drugs and living with boyfriend and doctrine was not even an issue.
I hear of people who struggle with the doctrine and still make Mormonism work. Live their other life regarding doctrine at church. Isn’t that what it is about. Prophets speaking word of God because they have keys restored in latter days. Isn’t that what we are founded on that we have a living prophet. It just seems silly to say. Follow the prophet if what he says makes sense to you. What they say does not make sense to me any longer.
I used to only read lds.org, conference talks, or scriptures, or deseret book store books. That was my only source of education until I decided to study the science of creation when I was teaching primary Old Testament. That was the rabbit hole of evolution, race, priesthood, polygamy, polyandry, Book of Abraham, cain/abel, science, archeology, anthropology, biology, physics, translation, seer stones, magic, and on and on. This is hard to process from extreme correlation.
Correlation provides a common language across the church. It does not by itself create a more informed, accepting membership. That is up to the individual members (whether it should be up to the members is a different discussion). The most accepting wards I’ve been in are wards that are made up of individuals of wildly different backgrounds — having that variety of life experiences working together in a common language of Mormonism naturally produces (IMO) more accepting members. Being a needy member while serving other needy members tends to create common ground, regardless if you’re from the Mormon Corridor or West Africa. The most informed wards I’ve been in are filled with individuals who love seeking knowledge from a variety of secular and religious sources. Again, correlation provided the point of commonality, the expectation to actively seeking out the truth of the doctrine in personal study and reflection came from the collective attitudes of the surrounding friends/members. Most of the suburban wards I’ve lived in are pretty comparable to each other (all in red or pink states). They don’t really compare well to my experiences in student wards or inner-city urban wards.
Certainly by definition there is a modal Mormon somewhere. However, none of really have either the capability or the necessary data (from experience or other methods) to really be accurate about it. And of course it depends on how you define Mormon. The modal baptized member of the church isn’t active, definitely doesn’t pay tithing etc.
However, another way to look at this isn’t about what members are modal but what are the characteristics that give one status in the community and decrease social sanction and friction. Here I think we can paint a decent picture of what this Mormon might look like and act like. The I am Mormon campaing an Meet the Mormons speak to this. While these norms can be localized (I have lived in two wards where there have been inversions of standard norms, where being “liberal” or “progressive” was the high status position for example. It led to higher liklihood of teaching callings, high status callings etc.) for the most part these norms remain much more consistent across wards than the actual attributes of the individuals in them. We can start to list some of these attributes:
1) Clean living
2) Clean cut appearence
3) Outwardly friendly
4) Busy/active
5) Focused on self-betterment as a core value
6) Gender Role normative (men in good, family supporting careers; women
dedicated homemakers)
7) Political conservative but not overly politically active
We can break down farther, but on this list you would be hard pressed to find a single ward where there aren’t significant social returns to displaying these attributes. This might be a better way to think about what is going on than what is “modal”.
rah,
Great comment. In a sense, I was conflating description (“modal”) with prescription or ideal (“model”). But it’s probably right that the two would be different, since I definitely think that without any qualifiers, the modal Mormon is, as you say, probably not even active.
But obviously, that isn’t model Mormon behavior or personality. Your list sounds reasonable to me, but I’m also interested in what others think.
Leave it to someone to pose mostly positive attributes as a negative. And leave out important ones like willing to service people they don’t know, try to be a positive impact on the community and raise children to be good people.
Correlation in my mind was meant to get the basic Mormon story straight in order to spread the Gospel to all the earth, especially outside of mostly homogenized Utah and the western US.
As one can attest, they may have taken it a bit too far in trying to overly control the message.
History is history and I doubt anyone would not be shocked to learn details they were not aware of in their country’s history, their family and their closest friends.
The real question is how important is it in the grand scheme? Would you abandon your family if you found out something you didn’t know? Maybe you would….
Those that seem to be stuck on this infallibility/inerrancy business just were not paying much attention. Having respect for one’s leaders and considering their counsel is not the same as blind obedience. One does have to be a bit mature about these things.
If the Prophet told you to jump off the roof……
Correlation in my mind was meant to get the basic Mormon story straight in order to spread the Gospel to all the earth…
Great theory! Until one compares the very low efficiency of proselytizing conversions to the very high efficiency of correlation’s effect on internal control of existing members.
Jeff,
Not sure who “someone” is, but I definitely think that the fact that the attributes encouraged by Correlation (to the extent we can agree about what Correlation is doing) can be seen both positively or negatively is ultimately why I suspect the status quo will probably continue for a while (or that we will continue going in a similar direction.) Staying the course alienates some people…but changing would alienate another set and take effort to boot. The church will probably self-select for people who find its approach and message positive, and the people for whom that will not work out will continue to bleed out, with minor or major personal and interpersonal drama over it.
Hawk – unless you’re a Real Woman, because Real Women can multi-task, amirite
I think correlation, from the 60s to the 90s, probably squeezed the distribution curve so that there was a much narrower definition of what it meant to be a mormon, or a modal mormon. Sure, there were those Sunstone and Dialogue mormons, but they were pushed to the fringe by correlation.
The internet, the bloggernacle, the international church, and an increasingly mobile world population have probably caused the mormon curve to expand and flatten in the last 20 years. Correlation pushes on the edges to try to unify the mormon experience, but other forces push down and out, broadening the possible mormon experiences.
But while there is more room for a variety of mormon experiences, the institutional church still exerts incredible control. It publishes and approves all church material that is used in classes, seminaries, and institutes. It gives general conference addresses which are then published in church magazines and repeated in local talks and lessons. The local leaders all serve at the pleasure of the institution. Callings happen top down, and local leaders who get too far out of line from the institution are removed. Members are subject to church discipline. The church institution essentially owns all the property and controls all finances from SLC headquarters. And “follow the prophet” is one of the most frequent, emphasized messages put out by the church institution. That institutional force has a very powerful effect on molding the average or modal mormon lived experience. And it marginalizes and drives out mormon experiences that stray too far from the mormonism it seeeks to promote. We are not the Community of Christ.
Correlation has had many bad attributes, I agree. As I stated before, I had my own run-in with “them” many years ago. The GAs sometimes grouse about “them” as well.
What may have started out as a positive has had a downside as the power to control the message has really been concentrated in a few unknowns.
And if you run a foul of them, you cannot speak directly to “them.”
But, it’s not all bad. We all still have our agency.
What may have started out as a positive has had a downside… I think we agree here. Mormon doctrine is scattered and contradictory, in addition it includes doctrine that goes well beyond common Christianity making it much more complex. So organization and simplification offers an improvement but it got out of control when it crossed the line as it began to change and obscure the facts, codify practice and consolidate hierarchical power. I think the problems are the predictable fruits of scribes and pharisees.
Oops forgot the /em.
There’s a wide spectrum of what is accepted and what is shunned. I’ve had 5+ wards in Rexburg, 2+ in Las Vegas, 1 in Iowa, and one in Virginia.
When you live in a higher concentration, ie Mormon Bubble, the rhetoric about the evil “world” creeping into your life and destroying everything you hold dear is constant. I had a friend in my Rexburg ward tell me that was the message they got from conference in April and that the Spirit told her that’s why she can never raise her family anywhere but Rexburg. The evil world is too much everywhere else. My response? “Huh, I didn’t get that from conference.”
My wearing pants to church wouldn’t have been plastered all over the front page of the newspaper *anywhere* else. Literally. My first time in church in Vegas I was a teenager from Idaho never out of mo-valley and I saw girls in miniskirts, short shorts, women in pants; I almost fell out of my pew. And no one there blinked an eye.
I do know the more diluted the mormonism is, in my experience, the less afraid you are of the world; because when I was the only mormon at work – and was nowhere near the most religious or most-christlike; I came to admire a LOT about other people and what they could teach me about being a better person. And they were the “world.”
Same thing my first job out of college (BYUI) in Las Vegas: I remember being shocked at how close of families all those athiests or gay people had. I had always been taught that the “world” was destroying families and didn’t value motherhood – and I looked around and didn’t see it. Well, on some areas in las vegas I saw it, obviously; but all my life I’d been taught about “the world” and my life experiences the next 15 yrs never matched those teachings.
That’s a long way to say, I think the average is in the middle; if you seem safe and normal, you’re accepted. If you have different ideas, just keep them to yourself.