The concept of an Ombuds(man) (or woman) is a fairly recent development that has gone hand in hand with larger entities. You can read about the history and such about it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman
Quoting:
“The typical duties of an ombudsman are to investigate complaints and attempt to resolve them, usually through recommendations (binding or not) or mediation. Ombudsmen sometimes also aim to identify systematic issues leading to poor service or breaches of people’s rights”
“The major advantage of an ombudsman is that he or she examines complaints from outside the offending state institution, thus avoiding the conflicts of interest inherent in self-policing.”
“Many private companies, universities, non-profit organizations and government agencies also have an ombudsman (or an ombuds office) to serve internal employees, and managers and/or other constituencies … Organizational ombudsmen often receive more complaints than alternative procedures such as anonymous hot-lines.”
The essence of an Ombuds is that they give a voice to the powerless — especially those outside of a power or social structure. If you’ve ever been at a stake conference where every talk has five-ten minutes of the speaker talking about his or her connection to the other speakers and leaders and five minutes of a talk, you have been in a place where the power structure and social order have squeezed out almost everything else.
An Ombuds counteracts the feeling of dispossession and not-belonging that often causes organizations to shed members and become nothing more than an expanded social club, often combined with being large enough that it feels faceless.
While there were prototypes in many older societies, the essence of an Ombuds is that the society has outgrown the other forms of formal and informal appeal. For example, in the early church people were known to buttonhole Joseph Smith on the street and anyone could schedule a meeting with Brigham Young.
Later in the Church, all you had to do in order to talk to an Apostle was to vote no at Conference, something anyone could walk in and do. Not to mention, many people lived near general authorities. When the church had only a couple hundred thousand members (and a 5-1 child to adult ratio) that wasn’t too hard. Anyone had a voice.
Now this did lead to some headaches. We have comments and complaints from a number of church leaders about the types of problems they had to deal with, including the confessions of things that leaders did not feel bore even remembering, nonetheless confessing (a complaint Brigham Young had). Others have tired of “drama lamas” and those on both sides of issues constantly pestering them (Bruce R. McConkie bore a special animus for people who kept pestering him to speak out against chocolate and white bread). Some have attributed Elder McConkie’s tireless work ethic to a desire to avoid all the people who were buttonholing him and trying to get him to endorse their special cause or perspective.
If you read about the trials Moses had, where he was overwhelmed by the people (and then appointed captains of thousands, 50 and 100), you can see this goes back a long way in time. Leaders can get overwhelmed, especially by minutiae. [http://biblehub.com/exodus/18-25.htm]. The bigger the organization, the more complaints they hear, the more overwhelming it can get.
Now, in the present church, all complaints are referred back to Stake Presidents, unopened or un-reviewed except to figure out where the complaint is coming from so it can be sent back. The only way complaints make it up the chain is by surveys, personal contacts (much rarer) and when a problem is so common that State Presidents bringing it up with Area Authorities moves it up the chain.
The question that I’ve had looking at this is what method is available to allow for something more than what we do and do we need something more? That is two questions. Is there a solution is the one everyone asks, but the other question, do we need a solution, is also valid.
The question that I’ve had looking at this is what method is available to allow for something more than what we do and do we need something more?
The third question is: “What other venues for appeal do we have in the church as it is that I don’t know about, and that exist in the church as it could be?” Again, like my last post, I expect that the question will turn out to be more complicated than my essay and have more facets and things I did not know about.
There are problems that seem to be routed in local authorities basically being unchallenged. For example, those who have moved their funerals outside of LDS Chapels because they were told that one parent could not participate if they had left the Church. I don’t know enough to state whether or not or who was right or wrong in the case I blogged about, but I do know that the parents felt they had no venue for an appeal and the process caused some significant ill-will for the Church in the local community.
I’ve also heard from people who have cancelled baptisms rather than expose children with anxiety disorders to large numbers of people, or who have been told that their child’s non-member friends could not attend the baptism because baptisms were only for members and those committed to baptism themselves. They were told that a baptism was not a missionary event for exposing people to the Church and the matter stopped with the Stake President who did not believe in anxiety disorders (including those with formal diagnosis and treatment plans).
In the LDS Church the process of no appeal beyond a stake president is referred to as “leadership roulette” though often an Area Authority will involve themselves if asked (and they seem to be the natural person to serve as an Ombuds in the current system).
In dealing with problems like this, some churches have experimented with Ombuds (the sex-neutral term). Some have had Ombuds imposed from outside, especially in cases involving sexual abuse of minors, some have worked to consider them from the inside (the Church of England’s 2013 plan). Orthodox congregations have considered having ombuds who serve for a twelve month period who would report to leaders things that they were missing. The Catholic Church has had some difficult times with some systems:
You can read about the Catholic experience at http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=drlj
(Yes, while I do not know everything, I do know that some solutions cause problems as well as solve them).
Even non-church and non-government entities have had ombuds. Some that would surprise you.
Other churches have tried other alternative dispute resolution systems.
An example is here: http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/pdf/dialogue/AvoidingSplitsDianneMason.pdf
Other churches have a fully democratic form of common consent — except when they do not. For example, the Anglican Communion has the majority of votes held by African Churches that oppose gay marriage. They have grown quite adept at subverting the system to support gay marriage regardless of where common consent would lead them.
Now, I don’t have the answers. I can’t even spell Ombuds in a way that avoids my spell check and I’m not sure if it should be capitalized or not. I’m aware of lots of problems with such systems and the fact that such a system is no guarantee of uniformity or happier outcomes.
But, it is something I’d like to talk about.
So, without my having the answers, I’d like to ask some questions:
- What method(s) is available to allow for something more in the way of an appeal from a local leader than just sending it to the local Stake President, unread? Does the current Church system have structures I don’t know about that work and are available to most members.
- Do we need something more to do with complaints than just sending it to local leaders or is that really the amount of an appeal that is realistic, given the size and complexity of the Church? Should “leadership roulette” be a thing that is a feature, not a bug?
- Is there a system (Ombuds or otherwise) that would work with a church as large as the LDS Church currently is? You can tell I’m at a loss to even give much of a suggestion of a solution.
- What procedures would you suggest, what are the positives and what are the negatives you see in them?
All images are from Wikipedia Commons.
Wheat & Tares 
If the church were to have an ombuds system, it would need to be outside of the patriarchal system (A role for women!!?), otherwise it would have all the same leadership-worship problems we currently have. I love the idea of someone outside the patriarchy having the ability to mediate though.
^^^^ This ReTx. Excellent post. Excellent article as well of course!
I think we have/had a bit of an ombubs system, though it’s fallen into disuse and the centralizing leadership left unfilled – the Patriarchs. We seem to just barely hold Patriarchs in esteem, but rarely think of them for anything other than Patriachal Blessings. They used to be the means for going around the Priesthood hierarchy, to get things attention that needed them.. At the least, we should be pushing for people to use their Patriarchs for more than blessings and an old man everyone looks up to (if they think of him at all).
Absolutely we should have a Matriarch system set up as well, but we should push to make use of the Patriarchs we have.
I’ve heard that if we’re unsatisfied with the answers we get from ward/stake leaders, the next step is to talk to the area authority. That contact information doesn’t seem very accessible though.
Even if area authorities were easier to talk to, they’re not in a good position to acknowledge grievances from the rank and file. They don’t want to upset the stake presidents reporting to them, and they really don’t want to upset the higher 70s/apostles that might promote them someday. Most ombudsperson roles that I’ve heard of had some provisions for insulating the person from organizational politics.
Doctrinally, we’re supposed to also have the law of common consent to act as a check on abuse of authority. In practice, it doesn’t work. Members tend to view opposing votes as heretical, and if you succeeded in organizing a large number of people to vote opposed you’d probably get excommunicated.
Politicians have a similar problem to GAs, as they get more constituents writing and calling in than they can individually respond to. I could imagine church HQ or each individual apostle having a system like politicians’ offices use, where people’s comments are categorized and tallied by staffers, who might also create reports that highlight notable ones. Just forwarding the letters, unread, seems petty to me.
Also, we have no idea if “forwarding the letters unread” is what’s actually done. it’s only assumed to be because of the number of times a letter has been in the possession of a Stake President, but I know personally a few people whose job it was to read every letter sent to the GAs. Certainly not a job I could handle.
Frank, I’ve seen some of the stuff they deal with and it would be hard. And the moment people think someone is listening the floodgates open. Often both ways (think of just the number of people who want the music to be slower and softer and those who want it faster and louder).
Robert and ReTex—thanks.
Brent — those are very good points.
I don’t think common consent votes serve the purpose here. You really only get an opportunity to sustain or reject the leader, not whatever boneheaded decision he makes, and the leader can actually be a pretty good guy otherwise. I don’t know of an effective way to appeal past the stake president. Area authorities really aren’t accessible, and I’m not sure they’d be very responsive, considering all the wingnuts that undoubtedly still find their way to them. If I had an issue with the stake president, the only thing I could think of is to talk to his counselors and see if they couldn’t get him to see reason.
I don’t see how you could have an ombuds group, though. I can’t see them being external to the church, and I don’t see how they could be independent of the hierarchy from within. But if it were put in place, it’s a job I’d be open to doing.
“And the moment people think someone is listening the floodgates open.”
So much of what is going on in the church (and in US culture) seems to come down to this idea of listening. We talk and talk (and post on blogs) and talk, trying to get ourselves heard. There’s something deeply powerful in being heard. But when everyone is busy talking, then no one is really listening. It seems like the brethern are trying to do better on this, but it isn’t filtering down very well. I think we live in a culture that doesn’t really know how to listen.
What an interesting post. There truly is no way to actually have a way to be heard and be able to move up the hierarchy chain with issues, thoughts, ideas, complaints.
For example, we all have heard that bishops/stake presidents should not deviate from the temple recommend questions, yet in my stake they would discuss with us that viewing p~rnography was violating the law of chastity. Then they would ask if we kept the law of chastity. Not a problem in my case, but I felt it was severe over-reach on the interpretation of said law. They also had us read out-loud to them a very detailed paragraph on wearing garments, and then ask if we wear our garments. I felt that the p~orn question was a interpretive stretch, but wasn’t about to risk any visibility by sending a letter to Salt Lake, just to have it returned to the Stake President (the very “offender” of the law), who may call me in and who-knows-what after that.
It just seems that in the leadership roulette, that you really do get stuck and sometimes you just have to wait out 5 or 7 years in order for something to happen differently. Luckily, (and I do mean LUCK) we recently got a new President, and now the p~orn question has disappeared. ???
This will sound very harsh and will offend some people. But after viewing the video of nurse Alex Wubbels and Detective Jeff Payne, I wish there was video surveillance or body cams or some other means to record the words and actions of church leaders as they deal with members unless the members and leaders mutually agree to turn the recording off. I have been on the receiving end of rather severe unrighteous dominion over the years, although I am still active. This would allow the concerned member to go back and review the incident with the leader more thoroughly and objectively rather than on just relying on imperfect human memories.
Tom, sounds like a rough time.
Paul—I don’t know how to address failures of correlation.
But you raise an excellent point.
In my experience, “p~orn questions” are there to catch the honest and conscientious.
Let’s face it. Porn and masturbation are things that it’s super-easy to lie about and (for many people) difficult to be caught doing. The consequences of telling the bishop you masturbated to a women’s fashion mailing while your parents were out are really, really severe, and involve public shaming; you can’t take the sacrament, can’t go on that temple trip, can’t get married or go on a mission or do all those coming-of-age rituals. So whether or not someone confesses has nothing to do with how much they do it, relative to their Mormon peers, and everything to do with how guilty the person feels after listening to Priesthood Conference.
Bishops pick up on that guilt, call their hunch the spirit of discernment, and decide that this person must be in pretty deep to feel that bad about it. (Maybe they even watch GAY porn!) So they withhold privileges, reduce them to tears, and maybe even threaten church discipline (like one of my bishops did).
Meanwhile, their peers in their age group just lie. And/or get molested by the YM leader, although I didn’t find out about that one until we’d moved out of the ward.
(That last comment of mine largely speaks to the “assigned male” experience; “assigned female” Mormons seem to have lots more trouble with being creeped on by the bishop or blamed for their own sexual assault.)
First local leaders only do what they are told from above, so no point expecting them to pass the word upward that change is needed.
The church is not that big or complex that it couldn’t take feedback. If we accept that there are 15m, and we have 15 apostles. Surely the staff of each could deal with feedback from a million?
I wrote to Pres Obama, and got a response to my question, admittedly not from him self, but a response.
You used to be able to send questions to HQ and answers would appear in church magazines.
One of the problems I see is a requirement that all Apostles not disagree. If for example a couple of them came out in s support of gay marriage. It would give those who do too hope.
I do not understand how you can be in the position the 15 are with no real feedback. Why could there not be an official site, where they asked a question each week (and members could send in questions), explained that they knew the primary answer, but wanted our honest answer. In this age it could be done easily.
How much trust would it generate, even to know they were interested.
We are told the top leaders are not out of touch, but as far as I can see they rarely speak to anyone lowrr than a Stake Pres. and very few of them would say there is a problem.