MormonLeaks is making waves across social media again with their latest batch of leaked documents.[1]
I’ve been following MormonLeaks closely since my January blog post on their release of general authority salaries. I’m not wild about the organization. They’ve acted recklessly at times, and their choice of documents suggests a less-than-neutral position towards the church. But… I have to admit that twice now I’ve appreciated wider discussion resulting from specific leaks: the videos and salary information. And this latest batch has some promising material as well.
The Ethics of Church Leaks
As Hawkgrrrl discussed in yesterday’s post, people are usually supportive when confidential information is leaked to expose wrongdoing (whistleblowing). Opinions are mixed, however, when it comes to releasing sensitive details of legal and presumably ethical operations. In the case of Edward Snowden, releasing classified information about a legitimate operation presented a very serious threat to national security. For many, that was inexcusable.
In the case of MormonLeaks, national security is not an issue (if it is then I’m WAY out of the loop). But we aren’t dealing with a whistleblowing situation, either. Ryan McKnight, founder of MormonLeaks, freely admits he doesn’t believe the church acts illegally. For McKnight, it’s all about the virtue of transparency. According to an interview on RadioWest, McKnight believes that although the church may not have a legal obligation, it has an ethical obligation to release financial records as well as “corporate policies and procedures.”[2]
So McKnight helps the church meet an ethical obligation by releasing confidential documents without permission. Makes perfect sense.
Opacity of Church Financial Records in the United States
The LDS Church claims the right to keep financial records confidential as a matter of religious freedom. It has, literally, paid millions of dollars in settlements costs rather than release financial records in court trials. However, a lot of religious people agree with McKnight, that churches have responsibilities to be financially transparent.
A 2015 Forbes article quotes Reverend Frank Benson Jones, a strong opponent of “prosperity preachers,” saying, “I have heard of some churches that require the members of the staff to sign non-disclosure agreements, and that is a sure sign the church is doing something wrong.” The Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability accredits evangelical groups demonstrating compliance with high financial standards (including the release of financial records upon request). According to Wikipedia, the mission of the organization is not only to help those groups gain public trust through financial accountability and transparency, but also to “protect the donor public from possible unethical conduct in the management of the affairs of the charities.” Many religions deal with financial transparency issues in their own ways, including Catholics, Jews, and Muslims.
Okay, so if transparency is important, how much is adequate? In a 2015 blog post, “The Folly of LDS Church Financial Transparency,” Tim J. Gordon argues that releasing financial records doesn’t do a whole lot. He points to financial statements the church is required to file in the United Kingdom.
What do we learn from the UK financial statement, anyway? Well, the Church brings in more than it spends, and 97.66% of their expenses are related to “Charitable Activities.” It doesn’t tell us the most basic things us financial voyeurs need to know, like how much is spent on those amazing red and blue cleaning supplies.
We have a guy from the Church Auditing Department stand up in conference every year announcing that the church follows appropriate accounting practices. Do members really need (or want) more than this? So far, MormonLeaks has released financial records of some church units. I know it’s all in the name of transparency, but I really have a hard time caring when I look at the spreadsheets.
MormonLeaks Doesn’t Seem Neutral
McKnight and his team are committed to publishing documentation regardless if it reflects poorly or favorably on the church. Unfortunately, the organization is built around the idea of anonymous submission of confidential records without permission, which inevitably attracts more critical submissions.
One recent release struck me as odd, a bunch of temple ordinance data for a dozen or so prominent historical figures, including Adolf Hitler. The reports were from various years (Hitler’s was printed in 2000). As a family history consultant, I wasn’t surprised by the information, but I knew many people would find it upsetting. Just like in a lot of other leaks, more context would be appropriate. Like, how this is why rules have changed in the last decade to require people to share common ancestry with those they do vicarious work for, because idiots in the not-too-distant past kept doing work for famous people or random names in historical records. I was amused by the inclusion of Chief Massasoit in that list. There is a bronze statue of the man next to the Harold B. Lee Library on the BYU campus. I’d be shocked if his work hadn’t been done a dozen times by BYU students, let alone by hundreds of my Mormon cousins who all claim descent from him (I’m skeptical). But the most frustrating part is all members of the church have access to ordinance data for deceased individuals via FamilySearch. McKnight argues that the leaks are necessary because members have a right to know what the church is doing, but if every member could easily access this data already, who was this inflammatory release for?
McKnight rarely provides his own context for the documents beyond a sentence or two (in at least one case overlooking a fascinating backstory supporting the MormonLeaks mission). Pretty much all initial discussion and context for most of these leaks have been left to Reddit users. Not exactly “neutral” territory.
The Benefits of MormonLeaks
In the RadioWest interview, McKnight admitted he didn’t expect the church to change policies or enact reform in response to leaked documents.[3] The real value in the MormonLeaks site, he contested, is the surrounding conversations. He talked about adding up the thousands of comments from news articles and Facebook posts, representing “both sides of the fence,” having conversations that finally don’t need to rely as much on “suppositions” and “faulty information.” This is a valid point. I have found these conversations valuable.
Leaked Videos
Discussions surrounding leaked videos last October raised important concerns about the relationship between Mormon politicians and church leaders, and I got to learn a new term: “Church-broke.” The video with an Oregon ex-senator, Gordon H. Smith, and an area authority, Ralph Hardy, vouching for him, was disturbing to me, but I’m distrustful of politicians, generally. As much as I disliked Smith’s actions, it became apparent later that he was not unusual. At a celebration of Senator Harry Reid’s retirement, the same Ralph Hardy extolled the virtues of “Brother Reid,” talking about how many times Reid had “gone to bat” for the church using his government position. It was a bit jarring to see the picture from the Inaugural Prayer Breakfast in January showing Ralph Hardy and Gordon H. Smith (now an area seventy) standing alongside D. Todd Christofferson. Turns out Ralph Hardy and Elder Christofferson worked together at a D.C. law firm for years. What I learned? The church is WAY more involved in national politics than I’d like to admit.
Leaked Salaries
MormonLeaks gave us a hard number: $120,000. Even though it was technically known that general authorities all get paid the same amount per a 2012 Bloomberg article (you really think the church would release new information?), this was the first time we found out what the church meant when they said “modest” figure. As we all know, modesty is in the eye of the beholder. I just about choked when I saw that $120k, but apparently it “merely reaffirm[s] the church’s reputation for frugality with its funds.” The ensuing discussion over at By Common Consent about whether the source of the funds to pay general authorities should matter was fascinating. What I learned? The Deseret News hates MormonLeaks. Really.
Leaked PowerPoint Slide
This leak from yesterday is something I’m excited about and hope will spark discussion. It’s from a presentation titled “Area Business Weekends” from December 2015. The header on the slide is “Issues and Ideas Leading People Away from the Gospel”, and then it shows a series of colored bubbles (some bigger, some smaller) spread across a spectrum. At the far left are more progressive Mormon concerns (disagreement with current policies, church history, secularism, Ordain Women, John Dehlin). In the middle are more “personal sin” concerns (pornography, Sabbath, chastity, lack of righteousness, lack of commitment). On the far right are conservative Mormon concerns (false prophets, doomsday preppers, church losing it’s way, needing “something more”, Denver Snuffer, Robert Norman). What I like about this chart is the recognition of many reasons for disaffection besides the traditional “personal sin” umbrella. A Mormon Stories podcast has already been posted on this topic, and I’m curious to see where the discussions will go from here (if any discussions develop at all). This is a chart I wish all bishops had in their possession. Too many get blindsided by these issues.
Update: Today (3/1/17) MormonLeaks received a legal notice from the church requiring the removal of this powerpoint presentation, citing copyright and other intellectual property rights. This is the first I’ve seen the church address MormonLeaks directly.
Questions:
- With regards to MormonLeaks, do the ends justify the means? Does the good resulting from the leaks outweigh the negatives?
- Do you feel it appropriate to discuss the leaks, knowing the documents have been procured and disseminated in a questionable way?
- Is there a leak you are particularly happy about?
- Is there a leak you are particularly unhappy with?
[1] Apparently it is not considered a breach of journalistic ethics to provide a link to illegally leaked material as long as “it is for the betterment of the story and the readers’ awareness.” How about that?
[2] About 6:05 mark.
[3] About 23:55 mark.
Wheat & Tares 
Discussion is appropriate.
1. A 2012 statement of annual GA “salary” of $120,000 is inadequate to provide any economic picture. It discloses nothing about the fees some are paid in connection with their sitting on boards of directors of Church-owned companies, to which boards they would not have been appointed absent their GA status. It says nothing about the scope or uses of expense accounts for what sometimes amounts to a lavish lifestyle.
2. The powerpoint bubble chart on Issues and Ideas Leading People Away from the Gospel shows appalling lack of insight, first because of its confusion of the terms “Church” and “Gospel”, but also because of the labels “Far Left” and “Far Right.” Those labels suggest, via the form of the chart, that political moderates’ Church commitment is more affected by language, cultural issues, and SIN, than are those whose politics may be far left or far right. Those labels also seriously ignore not entirely insignificant numbers of political (at least economic) conservatives (the “right”?) who disagree with Church policies. The labels make this chart mere evidence of ignorance and a judgmental, labeling mentality more than it is helpful to understanding. Makes one wonder who prepared it, for whom, and why. Interesting, that by color choice, “lack of commitment” is grouped with the SIN issues. Lack of commitment could as well have been grouped with a number of other issues, including, cultural issues and, for some, the misunderstandings resulting from a Church curriculum and style that never moves beyond the infantile to a recognition of complexity and ambiguity to encouraging faithful living in the face of complexity and ambiguity. Is “need something more” an attempt to categorize such problems resulting from Church curricula? If so, why is it on the “Far Right” and not also on the “Far Left”? I would like to think the chart maker intended to prompt just such a discussion of mislabeling. I can’t.
I am a huge fan of more transparency in the church. The amount of work the church goes through to keep their finances secret is absolutely insane to me. Living quite close to church headquarters and being involved in the accounting profession I know a number of people who have worked in various accounting positions throughout the church organization. Many of them have told me that they are often working on projects and finances that they have no background information for. There is very much a right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing mentality. I find that odd. I definitely think the church needs to be more transparent and accountable in its actions.
That being said, I’m not really sure what these leaks accomplish. From what I have seen almost every person I’ve discussed or seen (online) discussing the leaks falls into 4 basic categories:
1) They are disaffected from the church and every leak is “proof” that the church wrong, bad, evil, etc. They were right all along and here’s the evidence. Why can’t all those sheeple see it?
2) They are faithful to the church and every leak is a reasonable way to run God’s church. Clearly the leaders are inspired so how could any of the official things they do for the church be uninspired? If you really had any faith at all you would see that these documents are harmless and part of a bigger work that makes me proud to be a Mormon. If you question any decision made by the church you must think revelation is dead.
3) They have long since quit caring what the church says or does. They saw that there were leaks, but they didn’t look at them, don’t care what’s in them, and have no desire to discuss them.
4) What leaks? (The vast majority)
I think there are a few people who have ambivalent enough feelings about the church that they can look at the leaks without a preconceived judgment of the church and so can have intelligent discussion of the impact they really have. I think those people are few and far between and most of them have little to no influence over anything that goes on in the church. I don’t think the leaks make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things other than to provide for some interesting blog posts (that’s why I like the leaks!) and to further entrench people in their existing beliefs about the church.
Which thoughts and agendas of the Godhead should be kept secret and why?
So I feel that I’m neutral on the leaks. The videos last year helped me contextualize how a lot of things happen behind the smoke and mirrors. I like the leak of the document yesterday of policies on helping undocumented immigrants. This slide is interesting to me, too, although I like how the podcast contextualize that it was just developed by a middle manager and not necessarily from leadership.
I’m not invested, I’m interested. And I don’t think I’m necessarily anti-church…or wanting them to expose everything. I mean plenty of church’s release all their financial deets & its nbd. By and large I think lightening up a bit would do then a bit of good, but…maybe give then thirty years because I don’t see change coming anytime soon.
And all things shall be done by Common Consent in the church, by much prayer and faith and all things you shall receive by faith. Amen
Doctrine & Covenants 26:2
“nuff said
Isn’t there a problem when people violate the trust put in them by employers or friends? Secret leaking of the sort we’re talking about seems dishonest and disloyal. Any organization, any family, has some expectation of privacy in internal matters. Heroes? No.
I don’t see it as all black or white. For me personally, the leaks are important. Take the powerpoint presentation. It gave me a clear view of how the brethern see me and my POV. It helps me to know how to take what they say from the pulpit because I know where they are coming from. (I’m a far left (even though politically I am not) sinner.) So the things that I need from the church are ‘threatening.’
From the same leak, I learn that the solution to my concerns is more talking, which I take to mean more talking in order to convince me I am wrong in my interests/concerns. Which is also good to know. I see going over the same talking points as an ineffective way to increase trust in the church, but whatever. WIth that the Powerpoint also makes it clear that the goal is loyalty to Mormonism, not loyalty to Christ.
At the same time, I agree with JL. I can’t see the leakers as heroes. There is something deeply dishonest about a church employee turning on the church. I mean if you disagree with the church policies so much, then why are you employed by them?
So pretty much that either makes me stuck in shades of gray or a hypocrite. I’m happy with either label.
I would like to know why ‘language and cultural problems’ is in red and what exactly they mean with that ‘-ites’ it anyone has any ideas.
Thanks for the recap Mary Ann. The last few weeks have been pretty ho-hum for me, nothing to get excited about. Hitler was baptized. Yeah–knew that, along with lots of other sordid people. Church thinks John Dehlin’s a threat? Yeah that was clear when they exe’d him. No surprise in this slide. Didn’t put Kate Kelly on the list? Well that’s because she’s a woman and the church only cares about men. No big revelation here. (I do think her excommunication has hurt the Ordain Women movement big time, but that’s another topic.) Seems to me that Mormon Leaks is stretching and just trying to give the church bad PR. Lately the stuff has been pretty hum drum to me.
Do I want the church to be more transparent? Yes. Will the leaks help that? I doubt it. Do the leaks start a conversation? Yes, and perhaps that is a good thing. But I don’t know what good this is really doing. Maybe they’ll get something really surprising, but to date, this seems like much ado about nothing. Give me something surprising, please, or these leaks are going to be mostly irrelevant.
The Issues and Ideas slide suggests the brethren are being spoon fed some of major issues implying they are relatively new subjects to them. I see that as a good thing. Anything that helps broaden their perspective or helps breakthrough their denial, apathy or dimentia is helpful to the church and I appreciate the leaked confirmation of this progress.
ji: “Isn’t there a problem when people violate the trust put in them by employers or friends? Secret leaking of the sort we’re talking about seems dishonest and disloyal.”
Yes, out of any context or justification it would seem so. However, the leaders of the church have repeatedly violated our trust in them to be truthful and not dishonest. Or, are we to blame all the dissembling and lies over the years as justified because they were simply following the Lord’s orders?
The “church” has only recently begun catching up, as they always have done–oh, so slowly–in the past (polygamy, women’s rights and respect thereof, evolution, the value of artificial birth control, blacks and the priesthood, respect for gays–though limited, etc…), with social justice and admitting the many errors, lies, and coverups the Church has promulgated regarding Mormon history.
I think truth and honesty have been sorely lacking in so very many aspects of our legacy as a church and in its institutional hierarchy. This deplorable aspect of the church/culture that I, otherwise, love was significantly reinforced in my mind by having just read, “Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History” by Gregory A Prince.
A subset of the Q15 have forever, so far, been adamantly opposed to the loss of their control over how our history and doctrine are taught…their way, or not at all.
The advent of the Internet has FORCED an enormous change in the public actions from this cadre and their insular, close-minded, authoritarian, anti-intellectual (because it always seems to lead to thoughts and information they consider dangerous), and paranoid mindset. “Leaks” are just a more pointed form of “truth will come to light…but at the length truth will out.” that aid in such progress.
While I have little doubt these men have/had honest and sincere motives…”the end justifies the means.” The ends they desire/desired are not, actually, righteous. I have always wondered how they interpret “and the truth shall set you free?”
Not so sure (commenter), in my first blog post here I got reprimanded for using the terms conservative and liberal without differentiating if I was referring to politics or religious belief. One commenter was angry because she is *very* conservative politically, but she considers herself more a progressive Mormon. So I think this slide is similarly merging the topics. Like when you look at “need something more” on the far right, it mirrors a major concern of Ordain Women on the left – women are feeling left out and are needing “something more” from the church in the form of greater visible equality.
So I tend to see the left as more Progressive Mormon concerns and those on right as more fundamentalist concerns. In a superficial sense, you could say fundamentalists believe the church has changed *too* much and the church has become too secularized. A more progressive concern would be that the church hasn’t changed *enough,* and is relying too much on tradition. Realistically, it’s not that simple, but it’s a simple framework if you are explaining to someone unfamiliar with common causes of dissaffection (like teaching the Bohr model of the atom, and then later helping chemistry students understand it’s an inaccurate, simplistic view). Realistically, both sides are angry about the bureaucratic, corporatized nature of leadership. Both sides believe the church is not receiving the dynamic revelation that characterized the early church. Feminists often seek spiritual interaction with Heavenly Mother, where many fundamentalist look for other “gifts of the Spirit” and more tangible interaction with the supernatural. Both complain about the staid nature of church worship and meetings. You’ll tend to get greater desire for discussion of historical issues on one side, while the other would prefer to focus on calling and election and end days rhetoric. Both want to incorporate closer relationships with Christ, though with different perspectives. On the left you’ll typically see a desire to denounce the priesthood ban and practice of polygamy as uninspired. On the fundamentalist side you’ll see a desire for denouncement of prophets kowtowing to government pressure to end polygamy, OR a desire to denounce polygamy as an abomination of the Brighamites that was a deviation of Joseph’s teachings. So a desire for current leaders to publicly denounce actions of previous leaders, but for different reasons.
ReTx, in the Mormon Stories broadcast, there was a general interpretation that it was a lot of concerns from international Saints, like how Americanized the gospel is. I think another commenter phrased it that people just don’t like Utah Mormons. Those are definitely possible, though I wonder if it could be as simple as people don’t feel comfortable in a particular ward because they literally don’t speak the same language, and there isn’t a special ward nearby that specializes in that language/ethnic group. It could even include those alienated by social cliques. I’m in a more elderly ward, so there has been quite a recruitment for service mussionaries. One of the criteria for working in the Spanish wards downtown was a nonjudgmental attitude, which I found interesting.
I’m in those shades of gray and recognize I’m hypocritical. I like some results of MormonLeaks actions, but there’s a lot I get frustrated about. There have been some docs leaked (like personal letters) that could’ve realistically been submitted by their owners (or descendants of those owners). But I have to lump it all in the category of tainted goods because *everything* is anonymous – you have no proof of any motive, so you must concede it could be bad. Yet, I still want to talk about it, even with that provenance.
I’m not sure that human beings necessarily owe the same ethical and moral duties to organizations as they do to other human beings. And when it comes to obligations in general, I think we can reasonably ask questions about where the obligations come from, what creates them. What is the moral or ethical principle being violated by a leaker? Loyalty? Is a person always expected to be loyal to their employer, or is there some reciprocity involved? When you take home a paycheck, are you simply being paid for your labor, or are you also being paid for your loyalty? What are the bounds of that loyalty?
Or is it an honesty issue? Was a lie being told here? But we excuse lies for the greater good all the time (undercover police work, for example).
What makes one mole good and another mole bad?
I’m not suggesting that these questions are unanswerable. Just that they are the questions that lurk in the background when we make moral judgments, even when we come from a standpoint of generally clear moral standards.
That slide about “Issues & Ideas Leading People Away from the Gospel” (that should say “The Church” not “The Gospel”) isn’t great. I think the continuum is interesting, although also problematic in some ways (is “the gospel” really on a political right / left spectrum? Or is it just being run like US politics?). It looks like it should be a bubble chart but doesn’t show any real justification for the size of each of the bubbles. Does the bubble size reflect the percent of people “led away” from the church for each of these things or something else? It can’t be comprehensive, but these bubbles don’t look right either. The labeling is also strange. Rather than an actual graph, I suspect it’s a brainstormed list put in bubbles to make it look more like an infographic when it’s not one. The slides before and after it also demonstrate a lack of powerpoint and data crunching skills.
So, given that this is a leak with no context, the real question is what we can safely conclude. Not a whole lot, and that’s the general problem with the leaks. We don’t know if this slide is anything more than some random dude’s rambling presentation in the COB. We don’t know if they thought he was a genius or an idiot or somewhere in between. We don’t know if anyone agreed or disagreed or what the point of the presentation was or what their take-aways were. But I tend to agree with Mary Ann that it’s valuable to start the discussion with the leaks.
I find it interesting to think that the church is as concerned with fanaticism on the right (the way I view Snuffer’s ilk and the Doomsday Prepper types as they are with social criticism on the left. And the issues with laxity / sin in the middle are interesting if oddly worded and vague. Here are some of my questions after reading this slide:
– Why is “pornography” not lumped in with “chastity”? Is that evidence of poor social skills among the pornography set (pornography doesn’t require you to hold a conversation)?
– The utter obsession with pornography is just not good. I’m not a fan of it either, but sheesh, are we even talking about the same thing? I’ve heard folks in Utah County refer to a billboard for Victoria’s Secret as “pornography.” Is the pornography-meter so heightened that there are hyper-sensitive people out there trashing their marriages over minor human weakness?
– What on earth does “-ites” even mean?? That’s a weird thing to put in here. And what kinds of language and cultural problems are creating issues with people leaving the church?
– What’s the difference between Lack of righteousness and lack of commitment? Why would “lack of righteousness” lead people out of the church? I would think we’re all there and nobody is truly righteous, so would it be our lack of tolerance for human weakness that’s driving some of the sinners out while making others feel smugly superior?
– I have to point out that “incredulity over church history” implies that those who are “credulous” (meaning gullible) are not driven out by it. Odd word choice.
– People disagreeing with “current policies” is absolutely the definition of “church” vs. “gospel” unless the discussion was “do we have some current policies that people feel conflict with the gospel?” And we definitely do. People on the right AND the left might feel this way, though.
– Likewise, wanting “more” could be on either the right or the left. The manuals are water thin as we all know. Milk before meat that never comes.
Anyway, lots of weird stuff on that slide, and while I’m not sure the ends justify the means, that’s largely because I suspect the ends will not be affected. Maybe, though. I usually don’t think anybody in COB cares what we think. They don’t act like they do.
Hawkgrrl,
Excellent q’s . . . here are my thoughts FWIW . . .
– Why is “pornography” not lumped in with “chastity”?
Sigh*** Because “porn” is a hot topic with the brethren.
-Is the pornography-meter so heightened . . .
Yes and yes and yes.
– What on earth does “-ites” even mean??
I would hope that it addresses sociocultural problems in the church- namely rich and poor. I hope that this means that the church KNOWS that there are deep divisions in the wards (prophesied by their namesake in the BoM and based on materialism). There are cliques in the YM/YW, divisions between enlisted members and officers, rich and poor, neighborhoods, SAHMs vs working moms, blue collar and white collar men, etc. I hope to G** that the church recognizes this and uses the word “ites” to describe it. There is a second slide that was not shown here that originally had this circle as being “institutional racism”. (It appears to me that the slides were either updated or that one or the other was a draft.)
– What’s the difference between Lack of righteousness and lack of commitment? Why would “lack of righteousness” lead people out of the church?
It just looks intellectually lazy to me. Powerpoint “lists” like this often get sloppy. Although I can see ‘lack of commitment’ as being something unique. Gen X and Millennials are noted for having a lack of c. to social organizations like churches and clubs. They are much more individualistic and needs-based.
– I have to point out that “incredulity over church history” implies that those who are “credulous” (meaning gullible) are not driven out by it. Odd word choice.
It means “Unwilling or unable to believe”. There are many who struggle to understand the story that Mormonism tells. I think it is interesting that they put that in the “left” category instead of the “personal” category or even the “right”. This slide (and the other one) seem to do a good job of widening the divide between the right and the left and attaching “sins” to each side when I think that each circle could probably be represented on both sides, with slight tweaking.
– People disagreeing with “current policies” is absolutely the definition of “church” vs. “gospel” unless the discussion was “do we have some current policies that people feel conflict with the gospel?” And we definitely do. People on the right AND the left might feel this way, though.
Agreed.
– Likewise, wanting “more” could be on either the right or the left. The manuals are water thin as we all know. Milk before meat that never comes.
Amen.
BTW, Kate Kelly posted on Facebook that it was interesting that she as a woman was the only one who wasn’t mentioned by name (OW was used instead), but all the other “apostate” men were named (even though ‘Mormon Stories’ or the other organizations might have been listed.) She noted that it didn’t surprise her that the woman’s name was the only one they forgot.
Mary Ann,
With regards to MormonLeaks, do the ends justify the means? Does the good resulting from the leaks outweigh the negatives?
Yes. The church has been cloistered for too long. There was never supposed to be (IMHO) any distance between the members and the servant-leaders and the church, but the church has become too big.
The GAs have become a Pharisees, a paid and separatist religious ruling class. They aren’t “Brother Joseph” to us any more. I think that this overly corporate, overly correlated and overly (excuse me-) stuffy approach to faith is unhealthy for the leaders and the rank and file. The lack of transparency is toxic for all. We need to be authenticity. After all, we’re truth-seekers and teachers and guides. If we can’t truthfully assess our faults, how can we guide others?
Do you feel it appropriate to discuss the leaks, knowing the documents have been procured and disseminated in a questionable way?
I wish there were a better way. The problem is that the church is so big that it can’t communicate anything to the members without saying the exact same thing to its enemies. Without “trust” is there any wonder that we rarely speak of revelations? We scrub communication so harshly that we barely say anything at all. The saints are starving from drinking too much thinned out milk, and nothing else.
So what is there to do? Sadly, not much has worked and the GAs continue to recluse. (Writing letters doesn’t work, Protesting doesn’t work, resigning doesn’t work, raising heck in your ward/stake does little.) This is a last resort. Right now, we know they are doubling down their tech security and crafting policy to prevent more leaks, but the question should be, “why in the world are the saints becoming wikileaks ninjas? What do they want to know? Why are we keeping all this stuff secret anyway? What would it hurt to be more transparent?” And, “gee, might (just might) this all be caused by a trust and communication issue with the leadership?”
Is there a leak you are particularly happy about?
Financial data, these powerpoints, and the briefing videos of the GAs.
Is there a leak you are particularly unhappy with?
We need facts and documentation, not inerpretations. There are leaks that come from disgruntled persons who are malicious. They paint context that intentionally evokes emotions and stirs the pot. (Warning, pulling emotional triggers is often a sign of fake news, and in the very least an indicator of bias.) Cool, calm facts are what is needed.
Mortimer, the slide that had “institutional racism” was one Kate Kelly did in response to this leaked powerpoint slide. She did her own version of the slide, and I saw another version that John Hamer did associated with the Mormon Stories podcast. I’m positive more alternate versions of the slide will pop up.
Incidentally, the church has now sent a legal notice to MormonLeaks concerning the leaked powerpoint presentation, per the MormonLeaks website. It has been taken off the internet right now since the church owns the intellectual rights (and they don’t own the rights to other leaked documents?). MormonLeaks is trying to get it back up. So, we’ve got a developing story here…
I kind of like the leaks, which might be surprising because I’m very much in the Church’s camp on most things. But I’m also full of contradictions. On the one hand, I don’t understand how anybody thinks they have the “right” to know what the Church’s financials are. People claim a lot of rights that I shake my head at. When I feel like irritating people, I just call that the “entitled left”. But on the other, I’ve also got a bit of an anti-privacy streak in me. Why is privacy a right? I mean, sure, people shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with your lawful life, but I don’t have a problem with them acquiring information about you so long as they don’t interfere with you while collecting it. I just don’t think that they have a right to keep that information to themselves, either. Thus, if the government is collecting information, I don’t have a problem with it so long as everybody knows they’re doing it and has access to the same information. (This worldview utterly collapses when you consider how much information is out there and how impossible it would be to guarantee everybody equal access, but still).
I think the discussion generated by the leaks are good, but only because they cause people within the church hierarchy to take a look at themselves and their behavior, and how it is perceived. I think the resulting furor is probably mind-expanding for them. On the other hand, I’m not convinced those who generate the furor get anything out of it. Everybody simply uses those leaks as evidence to support the worldview they already had, including me. For example, I loved the Gordon Smith video – that’s simply politics in the US (or anywhere) exposed, and I really liked the guy. I get a kick out of how false prophets and end-of-the-world bubbles on the right are so much larger than John Dehlin and Ordain Women bubbles on the left. Not only does it make me wonder what the heck is going on in Utah, but it also has got to be a hit to John and Kate Kelly’s egos (I love how when Kate Kelly wasn’t named, she spins that as the church disrespecting women even as she’d always claimed the organization was bigger than her — guess she didn’t mean it). So, all my biases are confirmed. I’m sure everybody else’s are as well. So, I’m all for the leaks while simultaneously disdaining the leakers, and it’s a bit uncomfortable. It’s like liking the porn and hating its creators.
So much to comment on, so little time.
As a general policy regarding large organizations, I tend to favor disclosure over secrecy. The larger the organization, the greater the impulse for the organizational imperative, the more diffuse the moral accountability and the greater the impact on the lives of individuals. Since the risks for significant harm are so high, disclosure acts as a check on the worst behaviors that tend to be incentivized by the organizational imperative. As the organizations gets smaller, the risks of large scale harm are much smaller and the benefits of privacy increase. Thus governments and large NGO’s (including the LDS church) should be the most transparent, while families and individuals should be entitled to the greatest privacy rights.
I think Mormon Leaks strikes a right balance between organizational transparency and individual privacy. The personally identifying information on many of the documents have been redacted, with some exceptions that identify Q15 members. Since they are the decision makers, identifying individuals would be necessary for organizational accountability.
My personal take on the leaks themselves is that they really don’t reveal much that anybody with reasonable intellectual integrity hasn’t already figured out. For example, from the videos confirm a number of obvious deductions. 1) They Q12 operates like a corporate board. 2) They do try to stay up on current issues, but because of their cultural isolation struggle to fully understand the lived lives of the average member. 3) Certain members of the Q12 have their particular pet issues. 4) The call in favors from elected LDS officials to help further their agenda. 5) No one in the Q12 had any idea who “Jack Sparrow” was until a few years ago.
Regarding the GA compensation. A few years ago it was around $120k, so it will be a little bit higher now. Meh. Non-issue. A lot of those guys could easily be making well over $200k as business managers, lawyers, financial analysts and other high paying jobs in the corporate world. To me it looks like many of them take a significant pay cut when they start to work for the church. Now it may be made up in side benefits such as free tuition for their kids at BYU and such. However, I do think that they should stop using the term “modest compensation” and use the term “reasonable compensation” instead. This would be more accurate wording, since “modest” implies something closer to the median salary, which is closer to $50k these days. “Reasonable” communicates that the compensation is within an morally acceptable range for the specific job and responsibilities.
Last comment is regarding the bubble chart. I don’t think the left/right distinction is meant to be read in the context of the contemporary U.S. political climate, but more in the general context of moral philosophy within a given organization. The left is made of the “revolutionaries”, or those that try to take the norms and customs of the organization in a new direction. The right is made of the “reactionaries”, of those that try to return the organization to past norms and customs. Taken within this context the bubble chart makes sense. The left includes Mormon groups that advocate for changes such as women ordination, new order Mormonism and contemporary method of treating history. The right advocates a return to strong millennialism, pre-pioneer church structure and strict adherence to pre-1900 policy. The middle section is the more catch all for daily struggles that average saints that are more or less content with the church as is.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts. Shutting up now.
“At the far left are more progressive Mormon concerns (disagreement with current policies, church history, secularism, Ordain Women, John Dehlin). In the middle are more “personal sin” concerns (pornography, Sabbath, chastity, lack of righteousness, lack of commitment). On the far right are conservative Mormon concerns (false prophets, doomsday preppers, church losing it’s way, needing “something more”, Denver Snuffer, Robert Norman).”
Well at least the slide this gives me something to point to if my “prepper”-tendency brothers express concern about my liberal views!
“Kate Kelly posted on Facebook that it was interesting that she as a woman was the only one who wasn’t mentioned by name (OW was used instead), but all the other “apostate” men were named” Hate to say it, but that’s because Kate Kelly may have been exed, but she wasn’t the movement. In John Dehlin’s case, he’s a cult of personality. He’s not a single movement. He has many different vehicles he oversees. He’s more like the Ariana Huffington of disaffection, creating groups and retreats and podcasts and so forth that are under his umbrella. These are his enterprises, and they have a broad spectrum, and while they are under his name, he really doesn’t even run them anymore–although he does benefit from them monetarily. He puts agents in charge of them. He’s built an empire of sorts. People didn’t flock to OW because they loved everything Kate Kelly did and wanted more of her products. She was just the sacrificial lamb for the movement (as well as a founder), but the movement then immediately reorganized and continued on without her. JD has name recognition. I remember several years ago in Singapore that a woman in the ward was star struck that I knew him. She said she loved everything he did, although I’m sure it was mostly Mormon Stories and that she didn’t really know all the different media outlets he set up.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that the GA’s have meetings like this. But it smacks of manipulation when they say “the Spirit directed me” instead of “hey we had a meeting and here’s what we’re concerned about.”
Ah, MH, that’s not fair. Just because a meeting starts off business-like, or has a silly left-right bubble chart, doesn’t mean that the Spirit can’t inspire/direct the conclusions. I’m not saying they’re never guilty of what you say, but I’ve even heard sacrament meeting talks with cringe-worthy openings that ended up with some (imo) clearly inspired content.
I’m not sure if your comment is meant in jest or not.
I’m positive the meeting started with a prayer, and likely ended with a prayer asking for the spirit to be with them to be guided. The person putting the slides together may well feel that the spirit was directing him.
Nonetheless, when an apostle gets up and says “The spirit directed me to come to Boise” as if it was a spur of the moment thing, that is a much different connotation than “hey we saw this PowerPoint and know there is a big problem in Boise. We feel inspired to come here and talk about some things.” I don’t see a problem with the second statement at all. It’s factual, the Brethren probably did feel inspired to come up to Boise. However the first statement makes one sound like this was an intimate prompting, and leads people to think that the prompting was more miraculous than it probably was. That’s manipulative. There is nothing wrong with the second message and it’s more truthful without the manipulation. The first statement leads to idolizing the Brethren which I don’t think is healthy, though I’m sure ego-boosting, and I’m sure they Brethren are trying hard to show they are in tune with the spirit by saying it that way; the second statement seems more accurate and less miraculous than the first.
So the ‘-ites ‘thing in the red bubble. Being someone who has complained about the imposition of US culture by the church, I do think it would be less of a problem if leaders could appreciate the good parts of all cultures by deed not just word, and exhibit less determination to shove us all into similarly shaped boxes.
I just can’t get past the golden rule. I wouldn’t want this done unto me….
But frustration is too high to dismiss the whole discussion just because privacy was violated. Random examples of the need for control: The church won’t place its own dang essays *firmly* in the curriculum. Wouldn’t have a meeting with OW back in the day. Is happy to have civilian-life Facebook posts used against people in church courts, but expects deference in return. Etc., etc.
JLM, “… regarding the bubble chart. I don’t think the left/right distinction is meant to be read in the context of the contemporary U.S. political climate, but more in the general context of moral philosophy within a given organization. The left is made of the “revolutionaries”, or those that try to take the norms and customs of the organization in a new direction. The right is made of the “reactionaries”, of those that try to return the organization to past norms and customs. Taken within this context the bubble chart makes sense. ”
I think you have succeeded in giving the bubble chart a charitable reading so far as the left/right distinction is concerned. However, the use of the terms “far left” and “far right” is either intentionally or somewhat ignorantly misleading. If the chart maker had even thought of your reading of her intentions, she should have known to use different terms like “revolutionaries/reactionaries” or “so-called progressives/so-called retrenchers”. Of course, there are plenty of other things about the bubble chart that make no sense – relative sizes of bubbles, colors, failure to recognize that some things identified to left or right can also affect the opposite side, and perhaps most seriously, the wholly improper use of the term “gospel” when clearly “Church” is meant. It is no wonder that someone in the COB wanted this power point pulled from Mormon Leaks. Too late – at least for the unfortunate bubble chart preserved elsewhere. I suspect (a) use of a bubble chart was merely an attempt to make the presentation visually more interesting than a mere list (b) little thought about implications of bubble size, location, or color (c) utter carelessness with labels, perhaps because the chart wasn’t really supposed to convey anything except “here’s a list of some of the things that sometimes lead some people away from the Church”. That’s about the best I can do for a pseudo-charitable reading.
Mary Ann brillant work. Thank you