And the four words you heard at Conference are: “Stop protecting sexual predators!” Not from one of the speakers did you hear these words. Not in a prayer or as words in a hymn, but from a female attendee who shouted it out early in the Saturday morning session. She is quoted as saying that “recent allegations of sexual abuse in the LDS Church inspired her to act.”
No doubt if one of the speakers had been inspired to act by “recent allegations of sexual abuse,” a longer and more tailored treatment of the topic might have been delivered. It would have been nice if one of the Sisters had addressed this from the pulpit. It would have been nice if one of the Brethren had repeated President Hinckley’s admonition of ten years ago, strongly condemning all forms of abuse. But I’ll take the four words we got. It’s nice to get revelation from above, but I’ll settle for revelation from below. Stop protecting sexual predators. If we keep repeating it, we might hear it from the pulpit at some point.
In other respects, it was a remarkable General Conference. The LDS priesthood at the local level has been streamlined: just one quorum in each ward now. The keyless local High Priests Group Leader is no more. Home teaching and visiting teaching have disappeared into a new and broader program, “ministering.” You can still visit and teach and help and console, just call it ministering. Two new apostles will bring some novel views to the Twelve and seven new temples were announced. Most striking — and I haven’t heard anyone mention this yet — this was not the usual “every speaker chooses their own topic” approach to Conference that has been the rule as long as I remember. They planned particular themes for particular sessions and had the speakers address planned topics. Wow, planning. There’s a new sheriff in town.
Still. I understand there was a lot planned and they were eager to roll out these changes and new programs. I understand they don’t want to shine a spotlight on problems. I understand they don’t want the new president’s first address to be an exercise in crisis management. But the bottom line is this was a missed opportunity. Consequently, the most important four words spoken at Conference, the ones the Church needed to hear, the ones you will remember, were shouted out by some lady who was quickly thrown out of the session by LDS security goons. Stop protecting sexual predators! Next time, try devoting a session to that theme.
Wheat & Tares 
Wow!
Thank you for your thoughtful comments on this, Dave B. I must admit that (along with all of the good things which occured) I was disappointed that the “gorilla in the room” was not even discussed; with the exception of Quentin Cook’s truly awful statement about “nonconsensual immorality has been exposed and denounced”.
I was rather of the young lady who stood and made this declaration. Honestly, this occurence created a platflorm for some great discussion within our family! My hat is off to her!
Meant to say “I was rather proud of this young lady”….
Emotionally I just couldn’t watch conference as I was just too worked up with the PR spinning. I hoped to hear that something of substance would have been brought up, but I am not surprised. Back 10 years ago I don’t think I was cognizant of the shelf of items I subconsciously chose to ignore, but when it broke it was painful. Having thought some of the painful part of this transition was in my rear view mirror, it is disturbing to hear the sound of wood groaning under stress.
Call it rape not non-consensual immorality. That talk was so disturbing.
I watched parts of Saturday morning, but my attitude was pretty well shot from the Friday night news reports revealing the dossier with all the dirt on the MTC predator’s survivor, which was prepared by church lawyers and given to the predator’s son to fuel their mutually beneficial character assassination campaign against the woman.
I’m not surprised that it was the taboo topic; to address it badly would have fueled the news cycle, to address it well would require the church admitting to some level of responsibility. Not in this climate.
I quit watching, but still paid attention to reports, which helped my attitude. I’m glad for all those who still have functional shelves on which to park the problems. They had a refreshing conference experience. The announced changes are much needed and it’s good to see new energy and engagement. I even think that Cook’s unfortunate euphemism was poorly chosen in ignorance, and that he was referring only to perps and not to victims. Surely not referring to victims?
Calling rape “non-consensual immorality” is like calling murder “non-consensual suicide.” It’s a slap in the face, one I’m sure he didn’t intend, but if he thought about how that sounds to a victim, he’d realize just how bad that is.
It took amazing courage to shout those words from the congregation. Unfortunately, I feel like we’re in a liberal bubble here at W&T; I don’t know many people in my community who approve.
I, too, saw the contrast with Elder Cooks phrase about “nonconsensual immorality.”[Facepalm!] That isn’t even possible in mormonism, where agency requires the ability to choose. I’m really hoping they edit that in the Ensign when published.
Dear Church, You can’t properly or credibly address a topic if you don’t have the corporate guts to use the right words.
This women was out of line, rude and disruptive. There are ways to let your voice be heard through the proper priesthood channels. She thinks bullying and petitioning church leaders to her way of thinking is the way to change. God doesn’t subscribe to those worldly methods. He runs the church. Change will come when he says and in his way.
Is the use of ambiguous or made up phrases just a Utah provincial thing? I hear it a lot from church leaders and friends from Utah. They pray for “moisture” when they mean rain, use phrases like “same sex attraction” when they mean gay, or use strained alliterations in talks. Was Elder Cook just falling victim to this cultural phenomenon?
Either way I would like to assume positive intent and believe he was talking about the perpetrator rather than the victim. But it still does not make sense, how can a perpetrator’s actions be “non-consensual”? They made the decision to be immoral. The phrase actual does not make sense either way it is applied.
We need leaders who can just speak plainly.
Dave – Oz, reminds me of a quote:
“Teach plainly – not only so they can understand, but teach so plainly that no one can misunderstand.” –Harold B. Lee
Dave – Oz, and everyone else:
These strange, and often offensive, circumlocutions aren’t without reason entirely. In much of the Intermountain West, “moisture” means snow more than it means rain – though I suppose a more enlightened person might say “precipitation” or “water.” “Same sex attraction” is a philosophically loaded term used in and outside of the Church to oppose the claim that sexual attraction is a matter of identity. IMO, “immorality” is more a relic of bygone Victorian-speak than anything else, but its meaning isn’t identical to “sexual intercourse.” It includes that, but also includes any other sinful sexual activity. So (going out on a limb here) presumably, Elder Cook’s “non-consensual immorality,” when translated to more contemporary language, is more accurate than “rape,” because it’s not just rape being exposed and denounced, but many other forms of sexual misconduct: harassment, abuse, assault, and battery. Perhaps he should have said “non-consensual sexual misconduct” or “rape, assault, and other sexual exploitation.” “Rape” is too small a net, though.
The invention of such a euphemistic phrase is just so discouraging. Maybe ‘rape’ or ‘sexual assault’ are words considered too strong for general conference.
I’m left feeling we will have to wait for this old guard to die off before we get any significant change. It’s inconceivable to them, and clearly unmentionable.
But it’s not to the next generation and that leaves them without a voice, and unsafe. I think they may well be voting with their feet.
Protecting the wrong people.
Gadflown. Thanks for the clarification.
However, an international church should not be constrained by inter mountain vocabulary or politically charge phrases understood by a few. Particularly when talking about issues that have an already internationally established terminology. Again just speak plainly.
Did a quick search for “sex” and “sexual” on the General Conference page at LDS.org and found numerous, numerous references. Not sure why Elder Cook felt the need for a euphemism.
Euphemisms are tried and trusted ways of manipulating the effect of language to avoid the obvious negative and make agreement or compliance more palatable. They are the standard of advertising and propaganda. Cook was not reaching backward — I doubt anyone will find a previous reference to “non-concentual immorality”. He was carefully and deliberately evading the responsibility for the church’s failure to investigate and take appropriate responses to the number of events in which vulnerable Boy Scouts and families and children and women have been abused in some way. He was choosing to further slime victims rather than addressing the actions of the perpetrators. [emphasis on the plural]
Furthermore, I hope Mark will elucidate the effective means of reaching higher authorities in the church when there is an existing policy to prevent anything critical from moving higher than SPs who routinely kick issues back to the bishops who have no authority to resolve them. It has become abundantly clear in the last decade that the only way to reach the Fifteen — by design — is publicly by petition, demonstration, news stories and, yes, shouting out in GC.
Alice: To be sure, Cook’s phrase is novel, but I really can’t imagine that it was meticulously crafted to address this issue in some subtle or rhetorical way. Rather, it was pretty obviously the case of an old, life-long-mormon man using comfortable euphemism unreflectively. Have you seen the Mormonleaks videos? I really don’t think the Brethren are quite so clever as you suggest (Heaven help the Church if they were. Small and simple things, etc.).
A wise man once told me that if you have to choose between someone having been clever and someone having been stupid, go with stupid. It’s much more common. And here, it seems like the natural choice (No, Elder Cook, I’m not calling you stupid, but it (obviously) was stupid to use that phrase).
Gadflown, I think “going with stupid” could be good advice in general. But the church has had the evidence in the Bishop matter for close to a decade (and one assumes, the Boy Scouts, West Virginia, the MTC doctor, etc. for similarly lengthy periods of time). Their lawyers have been all over it and disseminated the church’s defense/victim character assassination to others to do the actual sliming on their behalf so they can preserve their detached professional polish. In this particular case, I’d go with willful, pre-meditated, calculated and deliberate attempt to obfuscate.
Wanna make a wager? I’ve got a small farm I’m willing to put up.
Try for discussion, get invective. Peace out.
Gadflown
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Conference talks are now posted at LDS.org. Elder Cook’s talk, “Prepare to Meet God,” includes the following section, which may or may not be intended as a response or commentary on the Bishop affair. Here is the quotation, followed by a link to the full talk:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/04/prepare-to-meet-god?lang=eng
Invective?
It’s plain and direct speech by design and in keeping with the offensiveness of the expression in question. But invective? I can assure you that was not the intent.
OTOH, given the opportunity I’m not sure there’s anything I’d care to change. I wonder if the apostle could say the same…
In any case, as you say, peace out.
I’ll give Elder Cook the benefit of the doubt — he decried sin and immorality, both consensual and non consensual. A man sins when he commits adultery with a willing woman (consensual, two sinners) and with an unwilling woman (non consensual, one sinner and one victim), and vice versa and so forth.
Mark – I initially had the same reaction as you, that shouting in the conference center was not the appropriate venue for airing grievances. But then I remembered that a letter written to the church office building gets kicked back to the Stake President, and a concern from a woman gets kicked back from the Stake President to the Bishop. How else is a lady supposed to get Salt Lake’s attention? I ended up being rather pleased that she chose to celebrate a little Festivus this Easter weekend.