Hawkgrrrl’s “Neo-Apologists” post not only spurred Mary Ann to post about “#ShareApologetics: Every Member a Defender of the Faith?” , but also motivated me to dig into an issue that has been bothering me a bit, but I had not really thought about it enough to clarify what it was.
When I saw the opening image in HawkGrrrl’s post and the statement of “God Doesn’t Need Defending” it crystalized in my mind what had been bothering me for some time, but something I had not been able to articulate it enough to be able to write down as a definitive thought. To put it bluntly and simply: it feels to me that the leadership of the church does not convey that they have a strong faith that God and the Holy Ghost will guide people. It appears to me that they feel the need to cover up the unseemly issues/facts instead of facing some issues head on and starting the process of the church getting over them. They seem to be way too careful on contradicting past leaders. I assume there is concern about weakening overall faith in past leaders and therefore weaken faith in present and future leaders. I would agree there is some validity to this concern. But it seems that by NOT really addressing some of these issues, they are creating a growing situation where people learn the historical facts and feel quite betrayed. For many of these members the result of this betrayal is a full abandonment of having any faith in any LDS leaders (see https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/ for a never ending list of examples of this).
Be scared, be Very Very Scared.
I happened to be on vacation near Provo in 2016. While I was there I found out a relative was graduating from BYU and was invited to the Graduation commencement. Elder L. Whitney Clayton, Senior President of the Seventy, gave an address (emphasis added).
The faithless often promote themselves as the wise who can rescue the rest of us from our naiveté. One does not need to listen to assertive apostates for long to see the parallels between them and the Korihors, Nehors, and Sherems of the Book of Mormon. We should disconnect, immediately and completely, from listening to the proselytizing efforts of those who have lost their faith and instead reconnect promptly with the Holy Spirit.”
I remember hearing this and thinking, “that sounds like he is saying if you as a member feel threatened by what someone says, then you should shun them.” The issue I see with that is that much of church history that was not discussed will at first feel threatening to an average member. If you have a friend that defects from the church and every conversation you have they just pound you with, “let me tell you how you are wrong!”, I can see in that case you probably need to limit your time with them. Even if you take religion out of this and replace it with Uncle Bob that feels he needs to preach to you every second about how the government is putting chemicals in the water for mind control, you might want to “disconnect” from good ole Uncle Bob. For your own mental health you may want to limit your time with him. Of course a more mature first step in both cases is to setup boundaries. Let the other person know you wish to spend time with them and have a relationship with them, but not if they are going to continue to talk about certain issues.
I wonder if we want other religions to take this stance towards members of our church, especially our missionaries (that by definition proselytize)? Do we want preachers from other churches to say, “You can be friends with Mormons, but if they try to do much of anything to convert you, you should disconnect, immediately and completely, from listening to the proselytizing efforts of those that of that faith”?
What if a questioning member actually is reaching out with questions looking for answers? I can think of many honest questions one could ask that might come across as as tearing down a members faith. I fear that statements like that of Elder Clayton are going to make many members give the questioning member at least a cold shoulder. If a questioning member only gets cold shoulders and a bit of “just pray more and read the scriptures more”, quite often they will soon not be a member with questions, but a member with conclusions. These conclusions can be the opposite of what the top church leaders desire.
It Wasn’t Always This Way
It seemed that in the past that church leaders were much more confident in their teachings even if they were not popular. I am sure it would only take a few minutes on Google to find such as statement by Brigham Young. Neither he nor Joseph Smith seem to lack confidence in their statements. In January 1920 the Apostle Elder James E. Talmage was quoted in a Pennsylvania newspaper stating (emphasis added)
“The man who cannon listen to an argument which opposes his view either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding. And it has been wisely said that the man who knows only half of any question is worse off than the man who knows nothing of it. His not only one sided, but his partisanship soon turns him into an intolerant and a fanatic. In general it is true that nothing which cannot stand up under discussion and criticism is worth defending.”
To me Elder Talmage’s statement really comes across as someone that is confident of his position and willing to discuss with others – maybe even change his views on certain topics if a better argument is made. Someone wanting to know the truth.
If a faith will not bear to be investigated, if its preachers and professors are afraid to have it examined; their foundation must be very weak.
Journal of Discourses verse 14 Page 216 – Apostle George A. Smith
I contrast these two above declarations with statements being made from more recent church leaders. One such example is President Gordon B. Hinckley being asked if the church believes that God once lived as a mortal and answered with, “I don’t know that we teach it.” What? He seemed rather mentally lucid to me in his old age so I don’t really think “he didn’t know if we taught that.” Could he not have said, “we have had some church leaders teach that in the past, but we are not as sure about that as we once were and no longer teach that”? That could be considered more, “line upon line” refinement of doctrine. But to say he didn’t think it was taught it just doesn’t seem to be being forthright. At least Elder Bruce R. McConkie was candid when asked about his teachings about blacks and what seemed to be a change once the 1978 change in policy by essentially saying, “ignore what I said as I wasn’t correct.”
This even filters down to the local level. A good friend of mine was distressed about entire families leaving the church in his ward and stake. He asked the Stake President if some sort of meeting could be held to help give a place where “meat” could be talked about. The Stake President asked his leader and received communication from church headquarters. He was told that additional meetings such as what was being floated were not appropriate. Instead they should stick with the materials provided and the normal meeting plans. If I were a Stake President I am not sure I would have felt the need to “ask my leader” if this was OK. I just have a hard time seeing this exchange and feeling like the current church leadership has much confidence. At least not confidence to talk about hard things.
I just can’t help but read the quiet manner that the essays have been “rolled out” and almost never discussed as the leaders being scared and not thinking that God’s teachings need to be taught. Not too long ago Elder Ballard mentioned in a stake conference that he told a young man he would answer all the young man’s questions if he would just read the Book of Mormon. Supposedly the questioning young man came back in a few weeks and after reading the Book of Mormon consistently, he said he had no questions. I have trouble believing if this is a real story (see Is Whitewashing Continuing Today?) But even if it is true, for all of us that have read our scriptures, sometimes for years and years, but still have deep questions, why isn’t Elder Ballard as an apostle sharing the answers to those questions? He said he had the answers. Similarly, it was reported that Elder S. Marc Clay of the Seventy just a few weeks ago addressed a stake conference and told members to take questions they have and “put them in a box” and one day they would be answered. I don’t expect to have every question answered, but is seems there is never a direct answer to some of the significant and common “tough questions.” Just contrasting that to Elder George A. Smith’s assertion of, “If a faith will not bear to be investigated, if its preachers and professors are afraid to have it examined; their foundation must be very weak” leaves me feeling that many church leaders are “on a weak foundation.”
I don’t think I am alone in having this thought. Just earlier this week a comment on the post by Mary Ann on the Mormonleaks/Essays a comment by “felixfabulous” was:
Why not tackle the BOM issues head-on in an essay or Church publication? Why not do an Institute, Stake or BYU religion class on the CES Letter and really look at the arguments?
Which brings me to an issue I have had for a while. That of why is all the apologetic work by and large is being left to others that are not our ordained leaders? Why is that critical role being abdicated?
I could go on with other examples, but I do hope that this coming weekend I am able to hear more words that show confidence from the top church leaders. Confidence that hard issues can be discussed and that God will lead people to the truth. I don’t want to hear chicken soup for the soul type quotes, railing on “the wicked world is coming to an end” (when so many indicators contradict that), that religious freedom is under attack (I agree they are some attacks, but for mainly for Muslims here in the U.S. not for Mormons and certainly not for people asked to bake wedding cakes). I would love to see words even beyond, “There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles, or doctrine.” I would like to see a demonstration of faith that God will guide people when truth is spoken directly.
Wheat & Tares 
You’ve nailed down my feelings pretty well. Early on I fed into the ‘if it’s ‘anti-Mormon’ run!’ narrative but once the thought hit me that if the heavy claims of this being the ‘one true and living church’ with the ‘restoration of the fullness of the gospel’ was true then there shouldn’t be so much fear. (For the record, I never give my time to actual anti-Mormon propaganda.).
Fear of the unknown keeps too many at bay.
Happy Hubby, you’ve stated my own feelings on this matter perfectly. Both the silence of our leaders on difficult topics (and no, the essays at lds.org are not terribly forthcoming or illuminating) and the tack that many apologists take make me think they’re actually demonstrating their own lack of faith/belief in the gospel. As someone who asks a good deal of uncomfortable questions at church, I can confirm the shunning and shaming part of your observation. My approach has cost me a good deal of social capital in my ward, but as someone with a lot of sincere questions, my feeling is that if folks want to distance themselves from me, that’s fine. It’s just too bad that that’s the choice and that that’s what’s taught, as your Clayton quote illustrates quite well. My default thought when I raise questions in sunday school or wherever is “what are you all so afraid of?” If folks really did have faith, they wouldn’t see an honest question as a threat and something to be shouted down. Perhaps it’s because, as you say, no one really has the answers. It’s a shame, really. And what a titanic shift from Talmage to our current state. It really shows more than anything the doubling down the church has done on obedience and dogma. I think we lose so much when we do that.
It’s my belief that the reason we don’t hear the things that you mention in your final paragraph you’d like to hear is because there is, quite clearly, I think, a great fear on the part of our leaders that, given the dwindling membership numbers/activity rates, speaking the truth about our past, our history, etc. would cause the hardline, TBM members to leave. And the numbers bear out the fact that there are far more active TBMs in this church than folks who exist at the margins or who have serious questions about such things as the historicity of the Book of Mormon. So I think it’s really kind of a numbers game at this point. Which of course in some sense makes it even worse, I suppose. I think the leaders are trying, but really, the world is changing much faster than the church anticipated, which makes the tired, irrelevant phrases you mention seem even less useful. I hope you hear something that is heartening and uplifting for you during this conference.
Aren’t honest doubters true seekers of the “Word”? I’ve asked my bishop to make the essays the focal point of adult education but to no avail. I love the idea of a special stake meeting to address the CES letter. Why not devote an entire General Conference to the essays. Who’s our current “Defender of the Faith” as Elder Roberts was called? Heck, I miss Elder McConkie’s diatribes even though I seldom agreed.
Thank you for your post. I also have many of these same questions and concerns. How does, “We should disconnect, immediately and completely, from listening to the proselytizing efforts of those who have lost their faith and instead reconnect promptly with the Holy Spirit.”, apply to people like me who are looking for answers to faith questions? Does talking about and questioning Joseph Smith’s polygamy, BoM historicity, multiple versions of the First Vision, racism in the Church, etc. count as “proselytizing”? Apparently it does as I have been shamed and shunned for these very questions. My own spouse has told me I need to stop considering these “anti-Mormon” issues and focus on the prophets and apostles. Her approach (like so many of the Brethren) is that reading the BoM and praying will answer my questions and restore my faith.
How am I to trust and have faith in “prophets, seers, and revelators” when the current ones condemn and call the teachings of past “prophets, seers, and revelators” apostate teachings [Brigham Young’s Adam God Theory]? And what about “prophets, seers, and revelators” who for decades preach doctrine and then say, “Sorry, I was wrong. Forget everything I said.” [BRM, Blacks and the Priesthood]. I know these individuals are fallible and human, but should they not be held to a higher standard given the priesthood and keys they are said to hold? How does a person maintain faith and belief in a system which has no consistency? Did not Jesus himself say, “I am the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow”?
The denizens of the bloggernacle seem to think that the issues that are so pressing to them and their family members are pressing to the church as a whole, and I’m not convinced that’s correct. We’re so locked into this echo chamber where we’re constantly rolling around issue after issue and I don’t think most members are interested in that. They don’t know the answers, but they’re more focused on their own day-to-day issues like raising their kids, keeping them chaste and off drugs, celebrating family events and marking rights of passage. I also think that church leadership views a great number of those leaving the church through inactivity are doing it for reasons other than your average blogger, ie., that the lack of participation/faith isn’t due to difficult issues in church history but due to apathy, sin, or lack of self-discipline, and I think they’re probably right. The other thing is that I don’t think our current church leaders feel they have all the answers either, so they hardly feel qualified to correct someone they may have known 40 years ago and recognized as a spiritual giant.
I’ll also say, in defense of Elder Clayton, that a lot of disaffecting church members aren’t just asking questions, they’re giving answers. They’re debating to win the point, not explore the possibilities. Not only that, they’re often very hurt and very angry, and they wield their pain and suffering like a weapon, attempting to shame the average member to their way of thinking. Your typical church member is no idiot, but engaging with such people is like walking into a buzzsaw, especially when your typical church member wants to help so badly. I feel like Elder Clayton is simply telling them to put the oxygen mask on their own face first before trying to put them on their neighbors.
That said, I mostly agree with the post.
I think Romans 14:1 might be helpful in understanding why some faithful members do not engage in some of the discussions sought by those in the bloggernacle. Testimony and carrying on with the work may be more important and more fruitful than casuistical discussions.
This is a tough one. I do feel that church leaders haven’t entirely caught up and literally don’t know the answers to some of these issues (and in some cases don’t know the questions either). Putting them in charge of apologetics is a recipe for disaster, IMO. Some of the people doing apologetics aren’t up to the task either. Let scholars and historians do the work of scholars and historians. The rest of them are no better than we bloggers are with our OPs. Everyone’s got an opinion, after all. But decades as an active church member have convinced me that 80% of members don’t know or care about deeper issues. To me, that’s a cause to improve their engagement with these topics, not to avoid the topics altogether.
The problem is that since our near total alignment with the GOP, there’s been too much reliance on authority and not enough on personal seeking. That means we rely on believing we have the answers rather than questioning or trying to understand, and what it really means is that we are relying too heavily on the arm of flesh. Leaders are flesh and blood, just like we are. They can’t and don’t know or understand everything, and in 2017, they have huge blind spots, exacerbated by the lack of diversity among leadership. I wouldn’t expect older white men mostly from a Mormon bubble to be at the cutting edge of women’s issues or understanding the experiences of minorities or gay people, and we don’t get answers to questions we aren’t asking. We don’t recognize answers we get if we don’t first have the question. My only option is to bypass church leaders on these issues and go directly to the source, seeking my own answers. That should be how things work in the church anyway. Even E. Oaks talks about both the “priesthood line” and the “personal line” for revelation. I’ve just never found the former to be very reliable on the topics most important to me.
@Tyler & Bro Sky – I somehow figured I wasn’t the only one.
@rcb1820 – I wonder if there have been any stakes that have engaged the essays. I assume I would have heard a bit about it.
@Martin – I am not going to dispute that those with questions are in the minority. But I certainly see some pain and anguish with people going through a faith crisis. Since they get no help (and I would argue they get rebuked) most of these people from what I can see end up leaving. Just like in business it is less costly to try and keep a customer than gain a new one. I would suggest that SOME of the time of the top church leaders goes not to the 99% that are fine without significant questions and give SOME help to the 1% (analogy intended). I can concede there is some truth to what Elder Clayton is saying. There are some people that absolutely would love to burn down the whole church. Many of these individuals have attended church regularly, attended seminary, gone on missions, held many church callings. Wouldn’t a bit of compassion and help from the top leaders help prevent people going from TBM to angry ex-mo? An ounce of prevention might go a long way. Couldn’t even a mention from one of the top leaders in conference say, “I have found the words of Patrick Mason, Thomas Wirthlin McConkie, John Ogden, and Terryl Givens to frame some questions well”?
@Angela – I am not sure I have ever heard anybody tell me to see if FAIR, the Maxwell Institute, or even a book from one of the authors I just mentioned above. I had to find out about those on my own. I don’t feel I have been giving ANY instructions from top church leaders other than, “don’t trust Google”*, “pray/read/obey”, “put your questions in a box”, or “doubt your doubts.”
I too have reached a point where I feel I can’t trust the top leaders and I have no choice but to just work on my relationship with God directly. I just feel when I am going to be judged I will be asked, “Did you ‘come follow me’?” and “I listened to those guys!” isn’t a good enough answer and not what he said to do.
* Google isn’t the issue. It only points you to information. Maybe I should trust Bing instead as they have not preached against that.
Bing?! That’s the most apostate thing I’ve seen in this whole thread.
@Happy Hubby, well said! Well said. This has been my frustration for years. I literallly begged the visiting general authority of the 1st quorum of the 70 while in our stake presidency meeting before stake conference to address the historical issues that had causes several families to leave the church in the past few years. He had asked, “is there anything I could speak about that would be of help to members in your stake?” So that is what I suggested.
He become a bit agitated and asked with a raised voice “were those families reading anti-Mormon literature?” I told him I had no idea. He then said “I can ensure you that they were and that they had stopped reading the Book of Mormon!” And he didn’t ask a single other question about what their actual concerns were. We just moved on.
I was shocked. I was very let down. I truly had thought he would want to talk about the single biggest concern we had as a stake presidency. Actually, that is not true. It was my single biggest concern. I could never get my stake president to engage in those concerns of mine either. I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like constant talks about temple work and family history is really what is on people’s minds ( which subjects we were obsessed with for a few years.)
As for that stake conference: the general authority spoke about obedience to the prophets and actually said he wasn’t there visiting to gather feedback for the prophets but was there to tell us what the prophets wanted us to do. The irony to me was that he never actually said what the prophets wanted us to do other than to obey them. It was one of the biggest disappointing weekends of my church leadership life. I felt like we had really let down the stake not to address what was ailing them.
The leaders have no answers because there are no answers. If you study the issues long enough you will conclude that the only reasonable explanation that ties it all together is that Joseph Smith made it all up. Period.
Let me just say upfront, Whitney Clayton was one in charge of Prop 8 campaign in CA, so I don’t have a lot of faith in his judgment.
“Showing some backbone”
Yes.
I believe there are many authoritarian-follower types in our church congregations who will follow church leaders no matter what. If church leaders wanted to be more up front about church history–these followers would remain steadfast. They are not the ones leaving.
This topic really hits home for me because I recently ran into a buzzsaw–a Stake Leader–whom I thought I was friends with–when I shared with her a couple of sincere questions swirling around in my head these past few years such as how much or how little does God really intervene in people’s lives and if someone (of a different faith) describes a spiritual experience they had in the same way we in the church often describe similar experiences could it also be from God? (I also shared I was unhappy with the LDS amicus brief for the Masterpiece Bakery case). She got very angry. (I was smart enough not to bring up historical issues).
Really, I still doubt my doubts but I also doubt a literal view and have many questions which are on “the shelf” for now, which I mostly keep to myself. This recent encounter just widens the gulf between me and the church. What the response should be to people like me is we value you, we love you, stay with us in your faith journey as we all continue to grow and learn.
Instead we are afraid of questions and the questioners. So we need to drive them out.
Good luck with that.
Church leaders seem to have pretty much ceded the field to historians and apologists. I get it, they are busy running a corporation, come from backgrounds in primarily law and business, and are probably surrounded by sycophants. They don’t understand the issues. But I would argue that, if there are any people within the church who have an obligation to try and understand the issues, it is them. Any MBA can run the real estate conglomerate. Turn it over to them and begin the healing process. Learn the issues, talk to real people with real concerns. Be a minister, not a manager.
The reason the majority of the membership do not worry about the same questions is because they aren’t aware. It is their ignorance. A combination of the Church’s use of correlation, Clayton-esque admonitions, shutting down open history in the 80’s, ‘some truths are not useful’, ‘you can only trust church published materials’, etc.
There is a reason the bloggernacle constantly discussed these issues. It is the only place where we can.
The members didn’t choose with their agency to not care. They never knew. That decision was made for them for the leadership.
Great post, with lots of food for thought.
Well I don’t know if Elder Oaks reads my blog posts, but it sure seems that he came out and told it just like he thought it is. Hmm. Watch what you ask for?
Just found a quote that I wish I had when I wrote this:
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” – Augustine of Hippo
I have to admit that I am surprised that I am blogging. I am much more comfortable writing computer code where the syntax rules are very logical (no special rules for “i before e except after c”, etc.). As eloquently as I try, I can see others that can express things much better than I can.
I just found a paragraph in the blogpost http://zelophehadsdaughters.com/2017/10/25/stepping-out-of-the-big-tent-the-possibility-of-leaving-mormonism/ commenting on someone at peace with their beliefs isn’t threatened by someone else’s different set of beliefs. I think this can be phrased another way, When member react “poorly” to someone deciding to leave the LDS faith, it is fear that is driving this. They need to feel that the “truth” they have found IS the truth and when someone rejects this it scares them. Here is the paragraph that says this so wonderfully. She is talking about possibly leaving the church:
Given my own experience, I can understand it if people have negative feelings about such a decision, and I want to make room for that. At the same time, it means a lot to me when people are able to see the positive things, too. Possibly the response I got that touched me the most when I started talking about the possibility of converting away came from an old, dear friend who is deeply committed to the church. In essence, she said that the LDS church had brought her so much happiness, and that if I had found another community that was doing that for me, she was just thrilled and excited. I’ve thought a lot about that—especially a few months ago when I read an article by a member of the church who was JUST SO HAPPY to be LDS that she absolutely had to write about all the terrible failings of those who leave and thereby RUIN THEIR HAPPINESS. That sort of happiness feels suspect to me. My observation is when you’re genuinely at peace with your decisions, it often leads to a certain generosity, a willingness to acknowledge that other people might find different decisions to be right for them.
This is lovely and I entirely agree. I remember when my first family member left the church and I was terrified to talk to him about it. I was afraid he would influence me and I wouldn’t be a believer any longer, that he would tell me things that I couldn’t reconcile and thus I would feel stupid. Emotionally, it was much better to just avoid anything leading that direction. As a long term strategy, that just didn’t work for me. I ended up with so much Cognitive Dissonance that I had to start dealing with it.
This was a great article, and you nailed the troubles that arise from not having the confidence to let church history and other difficult topics be examined in the full light of day. Your analysis of the L. Whitney Clayton talk was spot on. I was one of those doubters who was told over and over again to simply have more faith, pray more, read more scriptures, forget myself, not to look for evidence, and simply to “not think that way”. After years of this, I finally became quite bitter, and felt deceived. I don’t think it has to be that way.
Your quotes from James E. Talmage and George A. Smith were great! It wasn’t until my doubts were really solidified that I ever learned about quotes like that from church leaders. I thought the “pray, pay, obey” approach to faith was the only way. I think if I had approached my faith crisis from a perspective in which hard questioning, deep thinking, and following my own conclusions were considered OK I would have had a far less damaging experience.
For what it’s worth, here is a collection of similar quotes from LDS leaders that support a deep, honest, critical search for truth:
https://ldstruthquotes.tumblr.com/