This is a guest post from reader MTodd.
The announcement of Sam Young’s impending disciplinary court got me thinking again about the interview practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [1].
Over the last six years of my corporate career I have held various controls roles at a Fortune 50 company. In our company, some employees regularly have access to large sums of money. To prevent losses and avoid running afoul of regulators, these employees must follow detailed policies and procedures. The department I’m currently in writes these policies and procedures and then tests and monitors employees for compliance with these protocols.
Establishing an effective controls program
The first step in an effective controls program is to assess the inherent risk of a situation.. Inherent risk is understood by asking two questions: “How likely is it the event will happen?” and “If the event happened, how severe would be the impact?” Here’s a simple risk assessment matrix that illustrates how to use these questions to understand inherent risk.
For example, say I own a diamond retail business in Columbus, OH. If I had no controls whatsoever, it is very likely an employee would steal from me and the impact of employee theft could be major or severe, depending on how much the person steals. Therefore, the inherent risk of employee theft would be high. In contrast, hurricane-force winds could cause moderate temporary damage to my business, knocking power out for a week or longer; however, because of my store’s location, it is very unlikely that my store would ever be hit by a hurricane-force winds. Therefore, the inherent risk of hurricane winds would be considered low. [2]
After assessing inherent risk, controls can be implemented to mitigate that risk. The best controls are strong, preventative controls which seek to stop the risky event or situation before it can happen. Less effective, but still important, are detective controls which identify issues after they occur so changes can be made to address the situation. The remaining risk, after applying all controls, is called residual risk.
Concerning the risk of employees stealing diamonds, before hiring anyone, my company requires thorough background screening to ensure we hire only employees with no serious criminal history. Once they start, new employees must pass rigorous training to help them learn all the store’s policies and procedures. Tenured employees go through annual refresher training as well because, let’s be honest, even the best employees forget sometimes. Once hired, individual employees may access the glass cases displaying merchandise to customers, but to access the vault which secures most of our inventory, two employees must enter their unique passcodes; then one employee watches as the second employee performs any necessary business in the vault. This dual access requirement is a preventative control meant to minimize employee theft. Surveillance cameras, a detective control, monitor the entire store, including the vault. If employee theft occurs, video can be used as evidence to attempt recovery of some of the stolen jewelry (and to fire the offending employee). Random inventory audits also help to detect theft. Each of these controls alone is insufficient at mitigating the risk of employee theft; all together, however, they provide layers of controls that are relatively strong. Yes, there is still residual risk, but the controls in place significantly reduce the inherent risk.
How does all this relate to Sam Young’s Protect the Children movement?
First let’s assess the risk of one-on-one interviews. How likely is it that, without any controls, sexual misconduct would occur as a result of priesthood interviews? I’m sure that some department somewhere in the Church Office Building has the statistics needed to answer this question precisely, but based on my anecdotal information (i.e., my interactions with bishops as well as my wife’s), I’m going to guess that it’s very unlikely. However, given the instructions for prospective missionary worthiness interviews made public by MormonLeaks–“Worthiness interviews need to be specific and explicit (e.g., not just, ‘Do you live the law of chastity?’).”–I fear that the true answer may only be unlikely instead of very unlikely.
Pushback against the Protect the Children movement often focuses on this first component of inherent risk: “I have had hundreds of bishops and none of them ever asked me anything inappropriate. Same with my wife.” Responses like this fail to acknowledge the second factor in assessing risk: “If the event happened, how severe would be the impact?” I hope we can all agree that the impact of sexual abuse, the worst form of sexual misconduct, would be severe or catastrophic if it occurred as a result of a priesthood interview. I haven’t met Sam, but from his writings I imagine this second question, impact rather than likelihood, is what drives him.
On most conservative risk assessment matrices, a risk with possible severe consequences, even consequences that are very unlikely, would be rated at least a moderate risk, if not a high risk. Given the potential for harm to a child, the risk of interviews between adults and children should be considered high. As Christ warned, “If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matt 18:6 NIV) The risk isn’t just for the irreparable harm to a child; there is risk to the soul of the adult leader who harms the child. Surely this is a risk deserving of strong preventative controls.
Next let’s assess the strength of the controls the church has implemented. In June, after months of Sam’s organization publicly calling on the church to change, just before the Protect the Children demonstration at the church headquarters, the newsroom announced new guidelines for interviews with youth. These guidelines end with this admonition:
When a member of a bishopric or stake presidency or another assigned leader meets with a child, youth, or woman, he or she should ask a parent or another adult to be in an adjoining room, foyer, or hall. If the person being interviewed desires, another adult may be invited to be present during the interview. Leaders should avoid all circumstances that could be misunderstood.
Explicitly allowing a child to invite a second adult into the room if they wish is an improvement over the previous policy, which made no mention of this allowance. The question is, does this new policy effectively mitigate the risk of sexual misconduct during priesthood interviews? Having a second adult in the room is a pretty good deterrent against sexual misconduct. However, this control works only when the child thinks to invite a second adult. Because of the non-mandatory nature of this policy, in my opinion, it does little to mitigate the risk of sexual misconduct. In the previous example, our diamond business requires dual control; voluntary dual control would rarely catch theft. (“You only need to accompany another employee to the safe if you don’t trust them of have a bad feeling about them going alone.”)
This policy doesn’t go far enough because it does nothing to overcome years of cultural bias that have lulled parents (myself included) into thinking it ok for an adult to take a child alone behind closed doors. As Peter Drucker may have said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” [3] Or in other words, the new policy is unlikely to do any good because the current culture of trusting our leaders will easily counteract the benefits that may have come from the new policy. (“My bishop is a good man. I don’t need to worry about an interview with him.”)
I predict there will be more adoption of calling ourselves members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than there will be of youth insisting on having a second adult attend interviews with them. This name-change effort, though in my mind foolhardy, at least has the support from on high to make members want to alter their culture. Imagine if this new interview policy had been rolled out with President Nelson saying, “The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of protecting our children. We have to work to bring ourselves in harmony with His will. We should encourage children, youth, or women [4] to invite another adult to be present for their interviews with leaders if they so desire. Additional training on this important topic will be shared with leaders at all levels and discussed during combined Priesthood and Relief Society meeting next month which will include the youth.”
So what’s the church to do?
Protect the Children is advocating for no more one-on-one interviews between adult leaders and children, as well as an end to all sexual questions. This would not completely mitigate the risk of sexual misconduct, but the residual risk would be very small, much smaller than it is under the current optional dual-adult policy. I think making mandatory the presence of two adults during all interviews with youth is non-negotiable in order to have an effective control during interviews. [5]
Many online discussions about Protect the Children, even some that concede the need for mandatory presence of two adults during interviews, argue that the church needs to continue asking sexual worthiness questions to understand adherence to the law of chastity. Why the church needs to know more than a simple yes or no to the question of “Do you live the law of chastity?” is beyond me, but assuming the general church leaders feel that this change is a road too far, how could they design an effective control that allows this questioning to continue?
Remembering that two adults present during interviews is non-negotiable, the risk of sexual misconduct could be mitigated if leaders received better training. Leaders who conduct interviews should have to complete several hours of interactive training. Such training could include videos blended with online assessments instructing leaders what questions are or are not appropriate when conducting an interview, and then take the leaders through various scenarios of how to (and how not to) handle sticky sexual subjects. Furthermore, this training should be made accessible to all members of the church, not just leaders. If all members have been trained, when they act as second adult during an interview with a minor, they will recognize (and hopefully put a stop to) any discussion that is veering inappropriate. Also, if leaders know the other adult in the room with them has been trained, the leader is much less likely to get inappropriate in the first place
Again, remembering that two adults present during interviews is non-negotiable, the risk of sexual misconduct could be further mitigated if leaders at all levels did a better job of discouraging leader worship. [6] Leader worship creates a perfect environment for sexual predators. A critical aspect of grooming is developing a relationship of trust with the intended victim. They also work to gain the trust of the child’s parents in an effort to short-circuit doubts or concerns the parents may have. Leader worship teaches children an unwarranted sense of trust in the adults around them; it teaches them to trust men, not because the trust was earned, but because of a title or position. We need more General Conference talks that admit leaders are just good men who make mistakes sometimes. We need more fourth Sunday discussions about mistakes that leaders have made.
Other controls could add more layers of protection (e.g., background checks for any leader who works with youth, add windows to the bishops office) but in the end, mandatory two-deep adult presence during interviews, better training, and quashing the culture of leader worship would go a long way to building effective controls to combat sexual misconduct in interviews. And by removing interviews as an opportunity for grooming our youth, it would likely lead to a reduction in sexual abuse by Mormon leaders in non-interview venues.
Leaders in the church are not perfect, members of the church are not perfect, and contrary to popular belief, the church as an institution is not perfect. Because the church is not perfect, its imperfect members sometimes need to take a stand and demand that the church be better. It is possible to protect our children. A better system can be created to protect our youth
Food for thought:
1) Do you agree that two adults should be mandatory during all youth interviews? If not, why not (and can you propose an alternative control that is equally as strong)?
2) Can you think of additional controls the church could layer on to improve their program for protecting youth from sexual misconduct?
[1] Look, Mom! I can follow the church’s style guide even if I think it’s dumb.
[2] Winds from hurricane Ike actually did make it all the way to Columbus OH and killed power in places for more than a week.
[3] This article begins with a brief discussion about how the attribution of this quote is under dispute. The article itself is a good reminder that leaders need to focus on managing culture. The church would improve if its leaders focused more on managing the church’s culture which is often pharisaical.
[4] Why the revised policy not include men? Do we not need protection? Are we chopped liver?
[5] Ok, actually I would be willing to admit that having two adults present during interviews is negotiable. It is not absolutely required, but the alternatives (e.g., audio and video recording of all interviews) clearly have significant costs and downsides and would not likely be as effective as mandating two adults during interviews
[6] An unhealthy culture strikes again.
Wheat & Tares 
There are locked lockers in the temple. That demonstrates in a very practical way that after all the vetting that the church does, no one is to be trusted. Let’s put the same emphasis on keeping children safe.
‘Worthiness’ (whatever that actually means, but that is a different comment) is currently self reported by both youth and adults anyway, so why the electorate checklist? These youth interviews have groomed us to reveal to, trust, and in a lot of cases lie to these lay leaders way beyond what is necessary and in many cases beyond what they are equipped to handle.
Open the temple to any youth that want to attend (that would be an interesting experiment). Or if there must be an interview, require two adults present and one question…about general worthiness or commandment keeping it testimony in the savior or something. And train the bishops and the members on the boundaries.
Great post. Thank you for this.
MTodd – I like your though process and fully agree. I think over time most of this is inevitable, at least in the U.S.
I had a bishop who thoroughly traumatized me by asking me exactly what was happening on dates with my boyfriend who was getting ready for a mission. He traumatized me by telling me that French kissing my boyfriend was oral sex and told me I was putting my membership at risk by engaging in such acts. It led to a few weeks of pure craziness until the stake president told us that ‘no, it isn’t oral sex and just stop making out because it could lead to sex.” The whole experience and the shame messed with my head for a very long time. I wasn’t sexually abused, but I was abused.
I just completed on-line the new Youth Protection training from the Boy Scouts as is now required (everyone adult leader in scouting, even if you’ve been in for years is required to take this new and improved training). It is about 1 1/2 hours with 3 modules and a 25 question quiz. It’s well done with professional counselors and others discussing the issues and problems of abuse (sexual, physical and on-line), bullying, and harassment. It teaches what to look for in youth who may have been abused, what to look for in potential abusers (adult and teens), etc.
My point is that I received more information that was useful and actionable about this topic than I ever received in any other church setting, including time in a bishopric. The scouting program has definitely done this type of analysis and is serious about it, as the consequences (the Impacts as you point out) are enormous. Unfortunately, they have a lot of other things going on that IMO are going to see them fade to a much smaller organization. The church will probably never do background checks like the scouts do, and it will be interesting to see what training they do when they dump scouts at the end of next year and do their own program.
As far as interviews go, this is the main reason my daughter and her husband resigned from the church last year. She was raped (not by any church member), but the interviews and questioning and shaming by the bishop were horrendous. Additionally, she told me that during her teen years, she had way too many, too personal questions from bishops that she felt so uncomfortable and shamed by that she doesn’t want her new daughter to go through.
As a 60+ man, who has had a radical prostatectomy and hasn’t had sexual function for years, I was a little surprised that my bishop asked if I mastur….ed. WTH?
I totally disagree that two adults in the room is non-negotiable. I think many people overlook the fact that difficult conversations often require confidentiality, and the risk of a breach of confidentiality increases dramatically with the presence of another person. Youth need a chance to talk to a trusted person not his or her parents in a confidential setting. I think a window between the bishops office and the clerks office would accomplish the same thing without risking loss of confidentiality.
I agree with the post. We should make having two adults in the room the norm. However, one potential concern has not been addressed…What about the youth that have sinned, need help in overcoming and repenting, etc. They already feel ashamed/embarrassed of having to tell their bishop. If it is mandatory that there are two adults in the room, then the youth may be even more apprehensive to confess and seek the help needed. It can be quite intimidating to tell two adults (2 against 1) about the what you did. Or what if the bishop invites his 1st counselor, but if the youth will confess it would only be with the bishop and 2nd counselor…that requires the youth to request a different counselor (or someone else entirely) and will then be further questioned….Maybe the youth simply wants to tell the bishop only…
At first maybe it makes sense to say that two adults are mandatory unless requested by the youth otherwise. But that makes everyone suspicious about the youth. Also, the leaders who are most likely to be sexual abusers may also be the ones that make the youth feel the most comfortable with in being alone, so that doesn’t always work either…
I agree that it seems a simple and reasonable safeguard to require that two adults be present during any interview. A youth can select any adult to accompany them (it doesn’t need to be a parent), but a default would be a counselor to the Bishop or perhaps the Young Men or Young Womens leader. Of course specific training on how to conduct interviews regarding sexual conduct should be required. Two adults may be intimidating, but there is no easy way to have these interviews. Two adults seems the lessor of the two evils.
I likewise had the strange experience before my mission when my Bishop asked if I had engaged in oral sex. I thought he meant French kissing, so I said yes. For a time all hell broke loose and my mission put at risk until it was finally clarified what he was asking and what I meant. This type of mistake should never happen.
@HappyHubby, agreed that much of this is inevitable. Unfortunately until the church leaders see it as a big enough problem, they are going to resist change. I fear it will take legal action to get them to move. It will take bishops being labeled as sex offenders for simply asking probing questions about masturbation. Once that happens, the church will spring into action. They are good at protecting their leaders.
@OftenPerplexed, I am sorry this happened to you. This is a perfect example of why change is needed. It also shows how windows alone will not eliminate sexual misconduct.
@Dsc, how does a window protect the youth from being asked whether or not they masturbate and if they do, what do they think about, and how many fingers do they use? These are details that a bishop should never ask, but I don’t see how a window protects the youth from this kind of sexually invasive questioning. (Don’t get me wrong; I think all bishops office doors should have windows, but I don’t think windows are a sufficient control.)
I told my children: Never confess anything to anyone. They will use it against you.
Why do youth need to attend the temple in the first place? Maybe the temple should be a place for adults to participate in ordinances that they have the maturity to understand. Worthiness interviews would then only take place between adults. The abuse of children would be prevented entirely.
As for boys, they could be baptized at eight and then ordained to the priesthood at age eighteen before serving missions. Is it really so vital for teenage boys to hold the priesthood just so they can pass the sacrament? Or is this just something cultural we are holding onto? Isn’t it more important to protect the youth?
Perhaps the youth should be given a copy of the questions before they are interviewed so they
1) Know what they will be asked
2) Can process how they want to respond to those questions.
3) Hold leaders to those questions only
IMO We should drop the focus on masturbation.
Confidentiality is a big problem in the church. Those interviewed should know that anything said in that interview will not travel to anyone else outside those who are present during that interview. If a breech happens that person should be released from his/her calling.
We should stop discussing specific people and families in meetings where there are multiple people.
Great post, MTodd! I like how it demonstrates that it’s illogical to keep things as they are. I firmly believe that children and youth should not be asked sexual questions at all, and that there should be a second adult in the room for whatever friendly conversation of “how are you doing and how can I support you?” that leaves behind.
Our strict emphasis on ticking certain boxes to be “worthy” to worship seems to be at odds with Christ’s declaration that they that are whole need no physician, rather them that are sick*. Or His merciful response to the father of the sick child who asked Him to “help thou mine unbelief.” To be blunt, I don’t see a lot of crossover between the Christ of the New Testament and anything about temple worship, but questioning the worthiness of fellow believers feels particularly pharasaical.
*Quotation marks eliminated because I’m too lazy to look up the exact wording.
@Elizabeth St. Dunstan, I totally agree. As a friend of mine asked me last week, “Remember that time Jesus forgave the harlot after interrogating her about all of her sexual sins?”
MTodd, that’s a great outline for how the leadership might proceed if they were actually interested in protecting children and were prepared to make significant systemic changes to accomplish that. Personally, I think they are more interested in protecting the power of bishops and other local leaders over the members than in protecting children. They see reported abuses as rare and exceptional cases. They are not in the slightest degree open to the idea that sexually explicit discussions with LDS youth by bishops and stake presidents can be grooming or traumatizing to the youth even if the leaders are completely professional and nothing inappropriate occurs (apart from the sexually explicit discussion with a minor behind closed doors by an adult who is not their parent). They don’t see any problem with bishops who don’t have the slightest bit of training or education in sexuality, social work, or ethical interviewing practices conducting these interviews. They are not prepared to acknowledge there is anything wrong with the system, so they won’t change it.
Well, until they get sued and face million-dollar payouts as settlements or adverse verdicts. If anyone is serious about change, the solution is to set up a legal defense fund and gather lots of money to hire good plaintiff’s attorneys to help victims sue LDS perpetrators in states with laws that allow victims to pursue legal compensation for their injuries. Then publicize the facts that come out in court about how the LDS interview system grooms LDS youth to become victims and how LDS perpetrators use the system to groom and gain access to victims. Blog posts, marches, and hunger strikes won’t change anything. Legal action will.
Owing to the confession concept, in my ward we don’t require that a second adult be present in youth interviews, but we do require that the youth be asked if they would like a second adult of their choice present. In some cases where we know the youth has anxiety issues, we’ve allowed them to bring a friend instead. For the baptismal interviews (and any interview for a child under 12), the parent being present is non-negotiable. I also plan to push for annual meetings with youth and their parents explaining what to expect in interviews, when they can know that someone is crossing a boundary, and that they are under no obligation to stay in an interview if they are in any way uncomfortable.
Most of our older youth decline to have the second adult present. Probably a mixture of their own growing confidence and the fact that they’ve never been asked before. But we still offer it to them. Even when the second adult is declined, the door between the bishop’s office and the clerk’s office is propped open six inches, and a counselor, clerk, or executive secretary is parked in the clerk’s office for the interview (though not actively listening).
Lastly, we offer all of our adult interviewees to bring another adult with them. And the door is propped open regardless of the gender of the interviewee.
It never occurred to me until I was an adult that my bishop shouldn’t have been asking questions about my chastity. He shouldn’t have been asking about how I kissed or who I kissed or how long I kissed or what feelings I felt when I was kissing my boyfriend. The only people my kids will talk to about their “chastity” will be me and my husband. I had to have a conversation with a youth leader because the standards night presentation made sexual feelings sound dirty and wrong and like something that needed to be suppressed. I have little faith in others to have these conversations with my children.
@Benjamin, it’s geeat that you require all youth be asked if they want another person present and that the door is left ajar. This will undoubtedly reduce the inherent risk some, especially for the most egregious form of sexual misconduct (i.e., actual abuse). Still, I don’t think this goes far enough to reduce the risk of unnecessary prying into a child’s sexual psyche. But just the fact that your unit is thinking about this is a great first step.
Would someone please show me in the scriptures where Jesus Christ directed his followers to ask children sexually explicit questions; and or to discuss sexuality with them?
This sickening phenomena has to be man-made construct!
I simply can’t believe I EVER thought this practice was okay? It should end….and end now!
MTodd, thanks for this, it’s really great.
HappyHubby, interested why only inevitable in the U.S? What about the rest of the world’s kids.
DaveB writes: “Well, until they get sued and face million-dollar payouts as settlements or adverse verdicts. If anyone is serious about change, the solution is to set up a legal defense fund and gather lots of money to hire good plaintiff’s attorneys to help victims sue LDS perpetrators in states with laws that allow victims to pursue legal compensation for their injuries. Then publicize the facts that come out in court about how the LDS interview system grooms LDS youth to become victims and how LDS perpetrators use the system to groom and gain access to victims. Blog posts, marches, and hunger strikes won’t change anything. Legal action will.”
This alone is the reason why I no longer raise my hand to sustain the leaders of LDS, Inc. as prophets, seers, and revelators.
MTodd,
Proper training and policy (i.e., direct instruction not to ask specifics about certain topics) should be sufficient. There’s no point in debating policy if the presumption is that it won’t be implemented. Assuming some bishop wants to disregard policy, then the risk of being asked inappropriate questions is significantly to the left of other potential hazards on the risk matrix, so I don’t think other steps are necessary.
How likely is the event to happen?
Sam is giving us a stab at the answer to that question. He has collected reports of over 800 events. We have about 30,000 wards. There is a working first guess- estimate-once in 2.7% of wards over a lifetime. We have about 3300 stakes and it goes to once in 24% of stake over a lifetime.
It is inaccurate for a couple of reasons:
– Under reporting. How many people have even heard of Sam? We could measure that with surveys. He is in the news in the heartland of Morrmonia. He is almost unknown in the hinder lands where leadership is weaker and might result in more perps.People without access to computers can’t respond to his survey. Make some reasonable guesses. My seer stones are showing less than a quarter of the church even knows who he is. (Half speak Spanish and more than half of the rest live outside of Utah.) We might be over 10% of wards per lifetime. That seems pretty high.
Government statistics about rape show it is under-reported by a factor of 15 to 1 (1.3 million incidents on a survey and 85,000 reported to the FBI) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/rape-study-report-america-us_n_4310765.html- -(I don’t trust the Huffers, a bunch of left wing nut cases) . I don’t even know how to assess that data. Rape is worse and would be expected to be reported more often than pervy bishop’s snoopy questions. Could it be possible that Sam’s 2.7 % is closer to 40%? It is probably happening more than once in most stakes over a lifetime? Oh my gosh!!
-Perps tend to repeat- creating clusters of victims. Clusters can skew data- either way.
-People lie. Sam is about to join the ranks of apostates and we all know apostates are a bunch of liars. (Name that logical flaw). I think some misconduct is contrived and reported for other motivations .But I think it is a rare event. However, this is the strategy the church seems to be taking, make the messenger a liar and ignore the problem until it gets worse and more obvious. How has that worked out for our Catholic friends, eh?
I give it as my opinion that the event is more likely to happen than is suggested above. It is NOT a choice between “very unlikely” and “unlikely .” Try “possible” versus “likely.” Show me better data than above that clearly refutes my opinion. The damage is moderate to severe. That is why Sam is willing to face the fires of hell or is it the buffetings of Satan in this life to put a stop to this pernicious practice.
@Dsc, why do you feel training and policy are sufficient controls?
I should add that my controls officers would tell me that policy is not a control and training is important but is a weak control.
Can anyone point me to a scriptural justification of a worthiness interview or for a confession of sins to a bishop or stake president?
Outstanding analysis, MTodd. One particular suggestion you made stuck out to me:
“We need more General Conference talks that admit leaders are just good men who make mistakes sometimes. We need more fourth Sunday discussions about mistakes that leaders have made.”
I couldn’t agree more that this would be great, but I think this in particular would require a radical change in the Church. Many or most GAs seem perfectly fine with or even enjoy the culture of leader worship. Certainly Presidents Nelson and Oaks fall into this category. Elder Uchtdorf tried to speak against this (at least twice in Conference, he told the story where James E. Faust told him “don’t inhale” when he experienced worship from members), and we see where it got him.
MTodd
Isn’t two-deep leadership just a policy? What if someone simply ignores that policy and does a one-on-one interview anyway? Do you see how presuming people won’t follow directives makes for a pointless conversation.
Training and policy are sufficient to avoid inappropriate questions because the vast majority of bishops don’t have any interest in thumbing their nose at directions from Church headquarters. I think most bishops who ask inappropriate questions do so because they just don’t understand why those questions are inappropriate and they think by learning the details, they will be able to help someone avoid sin, no matter how misguided the notion. So if the First Presidency issued a letter to bishops that said in direct language, restrict questions about chastity to these particular questions, the vast majority of bishops would comply right away, and those that didn’t would be corrected by their stake president when a ward member complained. And when that fails, the consequences are uncomfortable and possibly damaging in the long term, but not nearly to the extent of other concerns.
Jules,
John 20:21-23
James 5:14-17
Mike,
I’m not sure what kind of event you’re referring to, but from my quick sampling of 20 stories, the vast majority of Sam’s collected stories do not involve a church leader actually physically abusing a congregant. Quite a few seem to boil down to the fact that the subject doesn’t agree with the Church’s stance on chastity issues.
@Dsc, yes, two-deep leadership is just a policy, but it has definitely strengthened the controls of the Boy Scouts and it would strengthen our controls too. One of the reasons it works in the BSA is every one is taught the two-deep leadership policy so everyone holds everyone else accountable. The church can do the same and reduce the amount of sexual misconduct.
As for the scriptures you quoted John has nothing to do with interviews and James does have to do with confessing sins one to another, but does not necessarily have anything to do confession to clergy. In fact the second half of verse 16 invokes the generic term “a righteous man”. This scripture could just be saying we should not try to pose and pretend that we are perfect, instead confessing our errors to one another.
Finally I am disheartened by your casual willingness to accept a bishop emotionally scarring a youth in the long run.
Dsc:
Agreed that we have not defined what constitutes a bad outcome from these unnecessary interviews.
Did you listen to the podcast about the bishop who used olive oil to repeatedly bless the xxxx of a small girl? The few accounts I read were horrible, unrepeatable.
Your perspective makes my point stronger. (In my mind of course). A bishop wants to go into a room alone and ARGUE with a young person about chastity issues? How is this not going to cultivate resentment, anger and revenge? How long before these wayward youth figure out how to destroy the bishop’s reputations with false accusations? Add disagreement or conflict to the equation and the need for two witnesses goes through the roof.
On the other hand- the libertarian part of me says: if people are stupid enough to subject their youth to this danger, let it be upon their heads. As long as I can do what I want with my children. I already fought and won this battle around the year 2001. At the climax, after quite a bit of escalating back and forth with my bishop and friend, I told him if he took my daughter into a room alone with my expressed disapproval, I would call the police and charge him with kidnapping or at least disorderly conduct.
Another aspect not mentioned is the opinions of the youth. My daughter is strong-willed. Not only did she refuse to submit to these “icky” interviews, she convinced about a dozen of her peers to stand in support of her. The bishop had a beehive revolt on his hands with all the hysteria typical of that age. I guess we skipped the lesson on submissiveness in FHE. The next generation of youth may take the control of this situation away from us..
Benk – I was thinking that it was inevitable to be forced in the US, and then probably rest of world. But now that you ask about that, I am not sure that the US would be first. The U.S. is very litigious, but I could see some European countries possibly enacting laws preventing this before the U.S.
MTodd,
I don’t see how anything you’ve said rebuts the notion that a window in the Bishop’s office and better training would accomplish the same thing as two adults in the room without sacrificing valuable confidential communications.
Regarding the scriptures, in John, Christ gave His apostles authority to forgive sin, which is a pointless authority without a mechanism to hear sin. It clearly gives the ecclesiastical structure a role in the repentance process. James is given in the context of going to the Elders. Perhaps I could have also cited other scripture regarding prophetic authority in the latter-days.
Finally, I’m not accepting bishops emotionally scarring youth, but I am being realistic about the relative dangers of inappropriate conversations vs abusive actions, and weighing them against the very real benefits of youth having opportunities to confide in a trusted adult. Of course I don’t “accept” bishops scarring youth. For you to say as much intentionally distorts what I said and introduces bad faith into this converasation.
Dsc said, “And when that fails, the consequences are uncomfortable and possibly damaging in the long term, but not nearly to the extent of other concerns.”
Can you elaborate on how I’m supposed to read this other than you being ok with a control that may regrettably lead to consequences that are possibly damaging in the long term?
Dsc,
Thanks for the attempt. James 5:14-17 is describing healing by the « prayer of faith » not by authority. In addition, confessing « one to another » is not to an authority
John 20:21-23 Christ is directly and personally giving specific people the ability to remit
Sorry pushed send before finishing.
It’s not a managerial process that can be repeated and passed on from man to man.
HappyHubby — Thanks for the response. As one of those Europeans the (growing?) tendency not to enact church wide policies on these things baffles me. More so that what is resorted to is what can be got away with legally in each locale. When the two-deep policy for classes involving children and youth was announced we sent it round the Stake, and my mother-in-law, who was the Stake Primary President, made a big thing of making sure everyone knew. A couple of weeks later after a CCM meeting which the Stake President and Stake Relief Society President had attended, they presented in the Stake Council what was presented there: the two-deep policy is only for the US and Canada, the lawyers have been on it, we’re fine here. It’s kind of a sad situation, especially in light of what a big thing we make of the church being the same everything and the correlation of (shoddy) lessons etc.
MTodd,
I don’t know how I could be much clearer . When it comes to inappropriate questions, with proper training, the probability of harm is low and the magnitude of harm is moderate. To implement a mandatory two-adult interview sacrifices benefits that outweigh the risk of harm. That is not to “casually” accept the harm.
You can disagree with my assessment of the level of the magnitude of harm or the benefits of confidential interviews without assuming I’m some calloused person with no regard for children.
Dsc: additionally, I get the sense from those scriptures that they are discussing voluntary confessions. There’s a difference between voluntarily approaching clergy to seek guidance on the path of repentance, versus clergy actively trying to elicit a confession from people in order to trigger a repentance process. The second doesn’t seem to have any scriptural justification that I can think of.
I really like this post. And that’s saying something. I haven’t genuinely liked a post on an LDS blog in a while. I find myself terribly cynical and wondering if everybody is a brain-dead automaton. It has driven me nuts that seemingly nobody would talk about Sam Young or Protect LDS Children. Or, if they did, like over at M*, it was exactly the sort of mean spirited crazy talk I didn’t want to continue associating myself with. So, thanks! Sincerely.
For those who haven’t seen it, I recommend watching this video of Mark Malan speaking at the Protect LDS Children march earlier this year. What he says matches perfectly with my own experience. Related to the question of how frequent this abuse occurs, if my own experience is an indicator, it happens quite a lot. A lot more than we realize. I was physically abused in one interview. Which is what Dr. Malan refers to as “overt” abuse. But in addition to that, I was subjected to what he calls “covert” abuse countless times by numerous other leaders who were well-meaning but wrong.
The scripture in James is pretty clearly in the context of “calling on the Elders”. “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” The scripture in John sets forth the authority given to the apostles, which the entire foundation of Mormonism teaches is a commission given as part of the priesthood. Doctrine and Covenants 107:72 gives the responsibility for earthly judgment of transgressions to the Bishop. In Mormon 9:29, Jesus commanded the disciples (the called ecclesiastical authorities) to “see that ye are not baptized unworthily; see that ye not partake of the sacrament of Christ unworthily”.
I’ll concede that one could take an alternate interpretation to all these scriptures, but the question originally was whether there is a scriptural foundation.
I also think there is a misunderstanding of what these interviews are or what they should be. They are an opportunity for the Bishop to minister to the congregation on an individual basis, to invite introspection, to teach key commandments and doctrine, and provide an opportunity to confess such sins. They should not be, and in my experience in more than two dozen wards, generally are not an inquisition.
Benk: The same also holds for temple wedding/sealing ceremonies (have to be civilly married outside the US, but not inside of it) and financial disclosure (many countries, including Canada, require full financial disclosure from religious organizations, but the US does not). I agree that this represents a disturbing pattern.
@Dsc,
I have a couple problems with what you’re saying. I agree with and see value in having a mechanism for confessional and absolution of sin, feeling supported and forgiven, etc. That’s great. Why can’t we approach this in ways that are more similar to how other Christian churches approach it? Why, for example, must youth be subjected to MANDATORY bi-annual interviews? It’s one thing if a child, on his or her own, approaches an adult they trust to have a conversation about sex or any other subject. In such a circumstance I frankly don’t have a problem with this trusted adult engaging and responding in a mentoring kind of way. That’s not what is going on here. These interviews are contrived and awkward situations. Often for both the leader and the one being interviewed. A “trusted” adult cannot be assigned any more than a friend can be assigned. These interviews are terribly uncomfortable for a large majority of people. They don’t enjoy them. They don’t want to go.
My opinion is this. Youth should be able to enter the temple without needing a recommend. As has been pointed out, they have locked lockers for a reason. And I’ve heard stories about stuff being stolen from inside the temple. Let’s get real, people who aren’t worthy to enter the temple, according to our modern definition of worthiness, enter it every day. If Mike Norton has proven anything, he’s proven that. I don’t see them demolishing and rebuilding any of the temples he’s entered. People will walk out of an endowment session or a sealing having had the most spiritual experience of their lives, and it was a session Mike recorded and posted on youtube. So this idea that no unclean thing can enter the temple is rubbish. If some kid who masturbated enters the temple, a hole will not open up in the earth and swallow up the temple and everybody inside. The spirit will not depart. This kids presence in the baptismal font will not ruin the day of a couple getting married in another part of the building.
What are we so afraid of?
Or, as has been suggested, make it a very low-fuss interview. Basic questions like serving and loving your fellow man. I wouldn’t ask about “chastity” at all. I would ask about what’s in their heart. It’s funny how we are so obsessed with works and goodness, yet focus on the most superficial features of human behavior. As if the first commandment was about touching your wee wee rather than loving your neighbor. Who cares if you’re a nice person that does good unto others, we just want to make sure you don’t touch yourself in the shower. Srsly?
Or, don’t let minors enter the temple at all. Why do youth need to attend the temple? Instead of doing baptisms for dead people, how about doing actual service projects instead? Go work at the soup kitchen, visit people in prison, whatever. Do something that is actually meaningful and let them feel what it is to do real service.
And then if a youth wants to confess something, or they want to ask a question or have a discussion in confidence, then they can be the ones to make an appointment with the bishop or ANY OTHER LEADER themselves. Maybe they don’t want to talk to the bishop about sex, maybe they’d like to talk to their young women’s leader instead. Who’s a woman, and has children, and understands things from the female perspective. Maybe the male youth doesn’t want to talk to the bishop either, he’s more comfortable with someone else. Or maybe none of these people. Maybe a youth wants to talk with the parent of a friend at church who they spend a lot of time with at their house. Mentorship happens organically, it is not assigned. And that’s not what worthiness interviews are supposed to be about. We could get into the history of worthiness interviews and how they have evolved over time. Their doctrinal basis. I have serious reservations and question whether we are even acting in a way that is in keeping with our own scriptures. Over and over I see people justifying youth interviews for reasons of mentorship, that youth need an opportunity to talk about sex and other private things away from their parents. Really? That’s the point of these interviews? To give children a safe space away from their parents? Since when? I’m baffled, frankly, that people aren’t upset by this reasoning. The bishop does not exist as a kind of parental police.
And let’s also not forget who the bishop is. The lack of training has been mentioned, but that’s an understatement. This isn’t just a matter of a lack of training. How much training? Licensed therapists go to school for years, they then have to work for thousands of hours, monitored by someone else who is licensed, to get their own license to practice independently. Even after that it can be hit or miss, whether someone is a “good” therapist or not. There are a lot of very bad and ineffective therapists who can’t stay in business because they can’t keep clients. We’re not talking about a quick training program the church could put together. Bishops are random volunteers plucked from the local congregation. And not chosen by the local congregants because those local congregants trust and respect this person. But chosen by the church for “whatever” reason. Because he’s successful and active and pays his tithing and gets up in fast and testimony meeting more often that the other men. Outside of church he could be anything. A high school teacher. An engineer. A painter, a plumber, a doctor. A professor. A business guy. Maybe he runs a pesticide company or owns a car dealership. Yeah, let’s assign that guy to talk to our children about sex. Makes total sense!
MTodd, I think your analysis is spot on. Regrettably, the entire concept of “worthiness interviews” isn’t about “helping people be better people” but about overt control over people through sexual shaming. People are inherently “worthy” regardless of consensual sexual behavior. It is in expressing “non-consensual” behavior where emotional damage occurs and takes place in the form of grooming, power imbalance, inappropriate questioning, non-consensual touching and other behaviors up to and including forcible rape.
The emotional damage as so easily dismissed by DSC for what can only be referred to as “sexual shaming for thought crime”, has far longer and deeper impact than most members want to acknowledge. The so-called “worthiness interview” is a coercive process, geared toward “digging out sin” rather than providing guidance to a person attempting to navigate the difficulties of life. The shaming inculcated by the “worthiness interview” process creates lifelong marital issues where intimacy cannot be achieved to any real depth. From 12 to 18, children in Mormonism are taught that sex is evil, “even the sin next to murder” and then after a ceremony and a piece of cake suddenly “sex is wonderful.” They human psyche doesn’t work that way. Now as adults they are left trying to manage the emotional dichotomy. It results in people with deep and long lasting intimacy issues…which then get passed on to the next generation. The Mormon church sabotages every single marriage through their assumption of sexual control.
This is why the one-on-one interviews and sexual shaming must be eliminated. This issue eventually destroyed my own marriage, and now I’m watching my children (who are married to good, decent people) as a lack of intimacy begins to take its toll on them and their marriages.
First…I love and support Sam. But this article highlights why I believed from the beginning his cause would be ignored by most of the church. The evidence for physical abuse seems extremely rare. In addition physical sex abuse is criminal behavior and therefore a problem with criminals and not the church.
The REAL issue we need to be talking about is the one with HIGH PROBABILITY AND HIGH IMPACT. In my opinion…what fits 15+ on the risk chart is the shaming, guilt, and resulting worthlessness that occurs as the churches program of worthiness interviews. Literally almost ALL of the members which I talk to, who are willing to be vulnerable and honest, have an experience of themselves or a loved one who was shamed or made to feel worthless or unworthy due to a bishops interview. Maybe it was masturbation, fornication, porn, not serving a mission, unwed pregnancy, not married in the temple, word of wisdom, unmarried……whatever the reason they went in to talk to the bishop….the result was the problem was made worse by untrained bishops giving uninspired, untrained, sin shaming counsel.
The way Mormons judge children’s worthiness in these interviews is emotional and mental torture. And kids don’t understand what has been done to them. They blame themselves. I’m a 40 year old man and have had years of therapy to undo the mental and emotional damage.
This is the huge problem with the church. We should attack this.
“The companionship principle requires two priesthood holders to be actively involved in opening the donation envelopes, counting the money, and recording the amounts in the Church financial software. Having one person open envelopes and count money while the other person does something else is not adequate. Two persons, a member of the bishopric and a clerk, or two members of the bishopric open each envelope together to verify that the funds enclosed are the same as the amount written on the Tithing and Other Offerings form.”
There are policies in place to protect the church from risk already.
DSC: I suppose you can whatever you want with your children and grandchildren in terms of the power and authority you grant to a Bishop or Stake President; our local CPA, Dentist of Lawn Care Specialist. However, if ANYONE tries this again with any of “mine”…..I’m “going a hunting”……..
@Dsc, I am sorry if I offended you by saying that you “casually” accept long-term harm to some youth.
I will concede that two adults vs. one adult may initially make it less likely for some youth to confide in their bishops. That said, I have faith that if we act to protect the most vulnerable, god can make the two adult process sufficient for our needs. Who knows? (There may be unforeseen positive benefits?)
Let me try a different approach to help you get where I’m coming from. When I was 15 I went on a backpacking/camping trip. When I showed up, no other youth were there. So it was just me and my scoutmaster. He was great; we became good friends. I look back on that trip with fondness and appreciate the time I had alone with him (why he converted to the church, why he studied physics, etc). He was a good man so nothing untoward occurred.
That said, we have learned so much about how to keep our children safe. Two-deep leadership is now a requirement in BSA. I’m never going to say, I wish my kids could experience that alone time with their scoutmaster like I did, because I recognize that two-deep leadership protects both the scouts and the adult leaders. This same shift could add a much needed layer of protection for worthiness interviews. Yes, we will lose something, but we will also gain protection. We will adjust and in the end, god will compensate for whatever is lost.
Peter, you hit the nail on the head. Confession is 100% scriptural, and we do ourselves a disservice to claim it’s extrascriptural (Mosiah 26:15-32). But there’s nothing in those verses about mandatory interviews, and especially not for minors. If someone of any age wants to attend the temple or obtain a temple recommend, that person should schedule an interview with the bishop. No need for bishops to hunt them down in order to get them to conform to an arbitrary standard of “worthiness.”
“I think making mandatory the presence of two adults during all interviews with youth is non-negotiable in order to have an effective control during interviews.”
Concur. It has been a requirement of Boy Scouts for many years, a requirement I attend to carefully but I get credible reports that compliance is less than perfect.
Advocates for things like “Protect the Children” make me suspicious. He protests too much, I think, maybe some skeletons in his closet.
“Why the church needs to know more than a simple yes or no to the question of Do you live the law of chastity? is beyond me”
What is chastity? My daughter wrote in her diary “Today I had sex”. She was six years old and kissed her boyfriend and was all giggly about it. Some people feel guilt unnecessarily while others commit grievous sin with no guilt whatsoever. It’s also a binary question with no distinction made between rape or masturbation; the result being that 99.9 percent (*) of young men would have to answer “no” (or lie about it).
* That’s a guess, a figure of speech.
Spencer W Kimball writes “the words necessary to clear up thinking in one person puts thoughts into another.” The example given in the book was of a bishop that asked missionary candidates if they had ever had sex with animals. A few had never considered it possible but having had it put in their minds were drawn to experiment and subsequently did not go on a mission.
More recently have been reports of bishops asking couples of they have oral or anal sex and for a time people were declaring from the pulpit at testimony meeting how they had conceived their children through their garments. They probably thought it was a virtue signal; an answer to the question do you wear the garments day and night? Yeah, probably even during open heart surgery doncha know.
Parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children. If you don’t trust your bishop, don’t put your children in there with him. If you DO trust your bishop, but not your children, don’t put your children in there with him. If you trust everyone, well, perhaps you shouldn’t. It isn’t your childrens’ choice to make whether you do your duty and protect them.
Too much emphasis is placed on “But Jesus did not say…”
Who knows what Jesus said or did not say? His mission lasted about three years and apparently wrote nothing personally.
If you wish to do something, then do it; if you wish to not do something, then don’t; but please do not make it about what Jesus said. The modern prophet can declare and revoke policy and procedure. If you don’t believe that then why are you a Mormon?
MTodd,
I still don’t think you quite understand my objection, although I feel we’re getting closer. To be clear, I’m not satisfied that current policies are enough, based on the risk matrix. I do strongly believe that no interaction in the Church should involve two people behind closed doors outside the view of a third person. Although I think the probability of misconduct is lower than Sam Young believes, and I suspect I think the probability is lower than you believe, as you acknowledge, the possible harm is too great to take risks when no one can see what’s going on in the room. I also recognize that the potential harm for awkward, probing, and inappropriate questions is nontrivial, but I think that the harm caused by these kinds of inappropriate actions are enough of a smaller magnitude that better training, clearer policies, and the option of having another adult in the room make that kind of verbal misconduct (ill-intended or otherwise) unlikely enough to make the risks acceptable in light of what might be given up. Much of that depends on gut instincts and personal experiences, and I understand why someone might disagree, but I strongly believe that mandatory three-party interactions deprive youth of a critical avenue of communication.
Peter,
I understand and empathize with much of what you are saying. I particularly agree with the notion that these interviews can and should be low-fuss. But I think confuse bi-annual interviews with worthiness interviews, which they are not.
Youth interviews are certainly not mandated by scripture, but they are Church policy because they help fulfil the mission of the Church by helping minister to the one:
“Bishops and their counselors have a sacred responsibility to lead, teach, and inspire youth. Effective personal interviews are one important way they do this. During these interviews, the bishop and his counselors teach youth about becoming disciples of the Savior. They help youth consider how well they are following the Savior and His teachings. Interviews should be uplifting spiritual experiences.
Interviews provide an opportunity to reaffirm each youth’s limitless potential as a child of God. Interviews also provide an opportunity to inspire youth to develop plans to draw closer to Heavenly Father and to improve in all areas of their lives.”
…
“Key matters for discussion include the growth of the young person’s testimony of Heavenly Father, the mission and Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the restored gospel. The bishop and his counselors emphasize the importance of keeping baptismal covenants. They teach youth to prepare to make and keep temple covenants through daily righteous living. Bishopric members encourage youth to pray regularly in private and with their family and to study the scriptures. They also encourage youth to stay close to their parents.”
I was recently released as ward executive secretary, and I suspect part of the reason was that I had extreme difficulty getting the youth to come in for their interviews. Very few of the youth wanted to go to them, and their parents mostly were uninterested in setting up the appointments as well. This was before the recent Protect LDS Children blowup. I don’t think any abuse was happening, but I wonder of most of these families just didn’t see any value in the interviews. I certainly don’t think they were up to the standard that you describe, Dsc.
I wrote a longer post that disappeared, basically saying something similar to ATT. My kids dislike their interview and have a keep-your-mouth-shut, let-the-Bishop-get-his-speech-out, and just-endure attitude about Bishop interviews. Which isn’t to say some kids aren’t having the experiences Dsc describes. But I’m pretty skeptical that those numbers outway the risk of kids having negative experiences. I wonder what research the church has done on this or if someone just decided that they kids MUST be having positive experiences.
I am a mother. I am a Gospel doctrine teacher. My husband has been a bishop and currently serves in a bishopric. I suffered for years after.a bishop asked me about my sexual feelings and kept meeting with me to talk about my “oral sex” issue with my boyfriend. He was either ignorant or perverted or both because as it turns out French kissing isn’t oral sex nor is it from the devil nor does it drive away the spirit. What he did ruined intimacy for me for years. And I never understood how much shame I carried around until I got married. My poor husband!! I do not know why a bishop who had no training or expertise in counseling was trying to counsel me about my dating life. I had loving parents who I could talk to. I do not need the bishop to mentor my children, especially one on one and ESPECIALLY on matters of human sexuality. At a recent book club meeting with sisters from my ward, I was shocked to learn how many of them had been asked about or counseled about specific sexual practices when they were youth. It often happens after a YW responds, “I think so ” or “I guess so” to chastity questions. Hesitation or confusion seems to open the door to discussions of sexuality. There is so much shame involved in going down that road with a bishop. He is untrained and sometimes sexually uneducated himself. My children who are in the youth program will never have these discussions with a bishop. I firmly believe that mentoring interviews can happen with two in the room and unless there is a voluntary confession, no church leader should be talking to children about their sexual behavior and even confessions need to involve another trusted adult. I know of one instance shared at the book club where a bishop used a voluntary confession as leverage to spend a lot of time having inappropriate and sexually exploitative conversations with the 15 year old confessor. I understand that physical sexual abuse has been the primary focus of most concern, but I want to testify that based on a group of 10 random active LDS sisters last week just sitting around chatting about a book, 6 of us had a form of emotional abuse perpetrated against us by inappropriate sexual conversations during interviews.
I agree these interviews need to stop. The lower risk for serious damage from sexual abuse is not worth it and the higher risk for emotional shaming and exploitative conversations is even less worth it.. The tactic taken so far has focused on how this harms the members of the church. This tactic is not working.
Another tactic would be to explore how these private interviews hurt the leaders of the church. Youth are changing and some are getting wilder. I think it is growing more dangerous for bishops to be conducting these interviews. False accusations are possible and will probably increase. It isn’t the strength of the evidence that destroys a reputation but the seriousness of the charge, Sexual misconduct in the bishop’s office has got to be near the top of the list of serious charges.
So I say to bishops, if you are stupid enough to keep conducting these private interviews, then let it be upon your heads. You risk loss of status in the ward, your marriage relationship and the respect of your family and friends. It is not worth it . You are not on the fast track to apostleship. If you ever do, or are perceived to do, or are falsely accused of doing anything inappropriate- then too bad for you.
MTodd, this Risk Analysis is excellent and should be required reading for all in church leadership from the top down. I heartily agree that the nature of the impact is severe and even if unlikely, warrants a multilayered approach to mitigate serious risk.
Sadly, though, I think OftenPerplexed and Mike also state important arguments that the probability of risk is higher than many in the church recognize. I think part of the reason so many perceive interviews as low risk is because many people involved may not see the behavior as abusive at the time of the incident. OftenPerplexed’s anecdote reveals the complexity of not recognizing the invasive nature and the inherent boundary crossing that happens as part of such direct inquiry; though this may not be sexually abusive immediately, such questioning is still very traumatizing and many members may not recognize the full impact until years later, well into adulthood. We seriously need to take this on and the voluntary two-adult accommodation is not a real safeguard.
I have also seen important critiques of interviews at FMH, which I link here in case anyone is interested in seeing those:
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2018/03/a-mental-health-therapists-critique-of-worthiness-interviews/
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2018/02/a-theological-and-pastoral-critique-of-worthiness-interviews/
Though I personally have never had any questionable interviews with bishops (perhaps due to my own male privilege), I still feel that the act of subjecting myself to regular worthiness interviews was inherently emotionally abusive in retrospect. Why, you ask? Because submitting to these regular interviews teaches youth that they are not their own agents, instead their morality and worth (quite literally, after all these are “worthiness” interviews) depend on conforming to others’ expectations of gospel practice. Your own personal judgement means nothing when we give bishops free reign to ask whatever he wants whenever he wants–and this message is internalized. One of the hallmarks of an abusive relationship is that you need constant validation by the other party in order to know where you stand, and that is precisely how I’ve come to see my relationship with the church. It is only now at 40 that I am learning that I truly have my own agency to reject the parts of the church’s practices that result in bitterness. And I reject it.
@Dsc, I totally understand what you are saying. What I’m saying is let’s implement the strongest control for our kids and know that God will make up for any perceived benefits lost.
@Anon this time, you have perfectly captured how my teenagers feel about worthiness interviews. They think discernment is a joke because they know that if a leader ever asks them anything beyond, “Do you live the law of chastity?” if the leader wants to to their masturbatorial habits, they can lie. That’s what I did when a creepy bishop at BYU asked me detailed questions that were none of his damn business. Guess he didn’t have the spirit of discernment.
@OftenPerplexed, I’m sorry that so called worthiness interviews affected you this way growing up. But as a sidebar, can I just point out that it’s great you have s book group where, besides discussing books, you can confide in each other and have candid discussions about topics like this. It’s awesome and I wished men could have a club like that.
@Harry B., thanks for your comment. You said, “It is only now at 40 that I am learning that I truly have my own agency to reject the parts of the church’s practices that result in bitterness. And I reject it.” Good for you!
That pretty much sums up where I’m at with the church (though I’m 43).
Dsc- one of the many difficulties abused people struggle with is that those who have not experienced it or anything like it, and have never had such thoughts cross their minds, simply can’t imagine how devastatingly damaging it can be, and can’t imagine how commonly it takes place. I can recall at least two incidents from my childhood and one quite recently, of sexually motivated abuse by clergy. I’m sure in the most recent case he would see himself as a Gatekeeper. The experience was of a normal social taboo being crossed, and this infringes sexual and social boundaries. We all need to be clear that this is not acceptable behaviour in order to keep ourselves and others safe.
Such experiences also carry the very likely risk of loss of testimony, as well as loss of capacity for normal relationships in the future and possibly for generations. I just fail to see how this is a risk worth taking.
I’m horrified that I ever colluded with this. It was just the way things were.
MTodd: You said it, my friend. I’m SO THANKFUL for this blog site and the good people who interact here! It’s been so helpful to me.
I don’t see any reasons for these biannual intrusive interviews. Raising children is the responsibility of parents. Interviews may be okay for priesthood advancement etc. but they don’t need to be so intrusive. If there is a worry about protecting the children against abusive parents, then the Church should have a trained therapist/counsel on retainer.
I also don’t like the current concept of confession. In th 1960s, I was taught that confession was between you and God, thru Christ. The Catholic model was rejected. Now we are starting to emulate their model. But our version is even worse. The LDS bishop can use your confessional info against you.
rogerdhansen writes “I don’t see any reasons for these biannual intrusive interviews.”
Presumably you do not participate in them and thus do not suffer consequences.
“Raising children is the responsibility of parents.”
So it is. I joined the church at 14; my parents, divorced, had no religion of any kind and thus were not able to fulfill a portion of a duty they did not choose but which I chose. Who is going to counsel me? As it turned out, my seminary teacher.
When I interview Boy Scouts for rank advancements, I do not ask about negative things. For instance, I may ask which of the 12 points of the Scout Law describes the candidate best but I never ask which is their weakness; I don’t want to know and they don’t want to reveal.
Some parents, and I have no sense of how many, do not instruct their children AT ALL about matters sexual. A good friend of mine reported that on his wedding night, he and his wife got undressed and she pointed at his penis and said, “What is that?” You are going to do WHAT with it?
I have a doubt this is a bishop’s problem, but it is a problem.
I have been mulling the sermon by Dr Mark Malan over in my mind.
The doctor describes two kinds of abuse, covert and overt. I think he says that the covert abuse is rare and involves physical contact and is characteristic of untreated pedophilia. Obviously having a chaperone would prevent most of this.
The overt abuse is more about shaming and bullying and exploiting the youth verbally. It may not seem to be that bad or wrong to the bishops doing it. The overt abuse is much more common and it is more damaging than is generally appreciated.
Here is my question: How does having a chaperone in these interviews stop the overt abuse?
It doesn’t. Really. I think it most likely will make it worse. Can you imagine a bishop asking a young man or woman about their solitary sexual activity and having the previous relief society present lady sitting there saying , yeh, are you participating in that filthy activity? And the bishop saying, you need to confess and stop it or you could become gay. And the the lady saying, you will never find a decent young woman/man who wants to marry you .And the bishop saying, you will go to hell for it, you know that. Both of them raising their judgmental voices at the same time against the quivering youth with a wet spot forming in his or her pants.
Hey church moles- this is a great idea. Why have one authorative adult shaming our youth alone in a room? Why not make it two adults , one of each gender, ratcheting up the guilt in all the youth for their sexual wickedness? Make them howl until they repent!
As far as my control extends, these interviews have ended already. Period.
***
Michael2 above -concerning the problem that is doubtfully a bishop’s problem :
You know the old story about the Mormon couple who checked into a motel on their wedding night and after a few hours, they called 911 because they couldn’t figure out how to do it.
@Mike, you raise good concerns. As I mentioned I don’t know why these interviews need that discuss anything sex related. But if the church feels this is necessary (again, I don’t think it is but if they do think it necessary), the biggest control benefit of two people in the room is realized when the church puts out training that details what can and can’t be discussed AND makes this training available to everyone. In fact, it would be great if the put out specific training for witnesses (confidentiality, how to handle a leader “going off script”, etc.) I personally don’t think leaders should be asking sexual questions, but if they do, we need to train any adult in the church who may be a witness; train them how to be an effective witness
@Michael2,
Multiple times I’ve seen this same argument you are making about parents failing to fulfill their own duties to their children re sex education, etc. I think that to a great extent that’s true, this is a thing in the church. That’s how it was for me growing up. IMO, this is a situation which is caused by the church, not one which the church is merely responding to. Church culture makes sexual topics dirty and taboo. People are embarrassed to discuss them, which is an attitude they then take home with them. Similar to the temple. People say you gotta go to the temple to have a discussion about the temple. Yeah, nobody ever does that. An additional solution to all this, in my mind, is talking about sex at church. Eliminate the stigma. Instead of restricting discussion to ecclesiastical inquisitions, how about group discussions? Talk about things like orgasms. It’s a travesty that girls in particular will go into marriage without having a clue how their body works or any healthy expectation of what they should expect from their husbands in terms of their sexual relationship. Likewise, the boys in the church go into marriage never having heard concepts like “ladies first.” It’s insane how many women in the church, decades into marriage, have never even had an orgasm, or it’s a very irregular thing. In a very broad sense, people in the church simply aren’t healthy when it comes to sex. People who do have a healthy relationship, it’s because they went off on their own, exploring, doing research, reading books or listening to LDS sex podcasts like the one Jennifer Finlayson-Fife does. When I got married my mother gave me a book and said “I wish something like this had existed when I got married.” That’s all she said. It was an LDS sex book, but controversially the book promoted female masturbation without calling it that, referring to it as “self learning” so that she could learn how to experience pleasure herself. This is all stuff we should have learned well before getting married. But we can’t talk about it. Just like the state of Utah has outlawed basic sex education. Because we’re freaks and raise people to be fearful of sex but then somehow expect them to figure it out when they get married. And if they don’t know how to use birth control, even better, the church loves accidental tithe payers equally with the planned ones.
Ending my rant, I’ll also point out that in principle the logic of this argument of the church picking up parental slack is weak because if true that means the church would be enabling such behavior and making the situation even worse. It’s the same sort of issue we see in public education. The argument goes that the schools need to do such and such because they are responding to problems in these kids homes. In Japan where I served my mission they have a different approach. If you don’t make the grade, they kick you out. Behavioral issues, whatever, they don’t put up with it. They kick you out of the school and then it becomes a problem for the parents. We’ve created this system where kids are at school from sunrise to sunset, it matches perfectly with a long 8-5 work schedule, rinse and repeat. We work longer hours today than anybody in the history of the world ever has. Our forefathers did not spend their lives enslaved to their jobs like this. If schools refused to act like daycare facilities then parents would be forced to deal with certain issues themselves. Which would then force them to push back on employers, and so on. It’s a big collusive system. So, point being, even if it’s true that parents in the church are failing their children in this regards, the proper solution to that is not be for the church to assign the bishop to try and fill in that gap with these interviews.
@Peter
I agree that sexuality is a part of the human experience, and that normalizing it in our culture will go a long way to improve the feelings of shame, the opportunities for grooming and “keeping secrets”, etc. NOTE: this is not just Mormon culture as is implied in Peter’s comment, but in American culture generally there’s a general unwillingness to speak openly about sex–aside from standard tropes about idealized roles (who’s sexy?), though I do see this evolving and slowly becoming more open.
However, I strongly disagree with the idea that the church needs to be involved in providing our sexual education. I have no problem with the church emphasizing values (love, commitment to shared goals, mutual respect for each other’s feelings/needs, CONSENT) and discussing how this can play out in intimate relationships. However, in my view, we should NOT look to the church to be our authority on puberty, sexual development, family planning, masturbation, sexual orientation, etc. I know this is the way many of us were raised (parents don’t talk about sex, schools covered sex superficially, and church was really where you learned about sex and the values associated with them), but I think this is an awful system and makes it inviting for sexual / emotional abuse. Not only are most bishoprics / youth leaders not experts on sexual education, putting them in positions of authority where they are expected to provide your sexual education and then sending our kids to sit in private rooms to have one on one conversations with them will present multiple opportunities for grooming and abusive behaviors. ABSOLUTELY NOT!
My perspective: teach values, don’t police behavior. If someone wants to confess sin to change, we can create a safe environment for that (two adults mandatory; I’d be happy to have other adults to choose to whom one confesses, not necessarily the bishop). I’d be supportive of dismissing all routine youth interviews entirely.
If the church’s position is that interviews are necessary, this is my view: Interviews for important milestones (class advancement) feel relevant and useful, but they should be considered formative experiences to support youth development and should not be checks on “worthiness.” The half-yearly interviews are extraneous and should be dismissed entirely to mitigate risk to youth. If the church feels some standards are important to maintain and a gatekeeper function is necessary (e.g., temple recommends) we should adopt standard questions that are appropriate and specific to youth and we should adopt a different label instead of “worthiness” (maybe “preparedness”?).
For anyone still following this thread:
https://invisiblescubit.wordpress.com/2018/09/14/verdict-is-in-the-envelope/
Until I saw this post I didn’t know about this movement to protect children. I’m grateful for those people who have raised the issue. I was wondering why the edict came down for 2 deep leadership in all youth classes and activities. I agree that the next logical step is to change the youth interview process. I feel bad for this man who may be excommunicated for pressing the issue. I know our leadership has made it next to impossible to communicate our concerns to them. I truly understand why so many people vote with their feet.
I see four outcomes of worthiness interviews.
1. The best is if the child (or adult) has a close relationship with a empathetic bishop and the interview is a way to reaffirm ties to the church and commitment to principles. This was some of my personal experience, as a youth, and some of the experience of my children.
2. Next best but not ideal is if due to anxiety or wariness, or not trusting the bishop for good or bad reasons, the interviewee does not disclose much to the bishop. This has been most of my personal experience as an adult. The interview is a fairly meaningless hurdle to a temple recommend which requires what feels like a minor violation of integrity by not being completely open.
3. A negative outcome is if a youth does not disclose or outright lies to a bishop they do not trust, and decides that the bishop has no discernment, or that the bishop doesn’t care if they lie, or that the church only cares about outward appearance. This was the experience of some of my children, who became over years openly contemptuous of the worthiness interview process and of the church.
4. The worst outcome, which I often see in my psychotherapy practice, is when an anxious child (or young adult, or missionary) develops scrupulosity with overwhelming obsessions of unworthiness, and requires constant compulsive “confession” to their bishop or mission president to function at all. These folks end up coming to me for a long and arduous exposure and response prevention program which is not always successful.
I don’t know what proportion of church members fall into each area, but all of own children fell into #3 and #4, and none (and none of their children) are currently in the church.
I just saw a Facebook post from one of my “active” and “faithful” friends that Bishop Young was excommunicated. She openly expressed her disappointment because she knows him and what a great heart he has. And she too feels worthiness interviews for children need serious changes. His ex-communication has really shaken her. She posted the question–when her personal revelation conflicts with policies and positions of Church leadership is her only remedy to leave? She has been staying in the boat but now she is ready to leave. I’m in shock and I feel shaken! These things needed to change and need to change. Why did the Church do this?
Peter writes well. My own experience at church was relatively stress-free although I was cautious about who I told what.
Sex education at home in my youth consisted of my father (atheist, do keep in mind) parading his step-daughter, naked, in front of the boys, bend over and show your parts. That’s what a girl looks like. It was embarrassing for her, embarrassing for me. I have no memory of what she looked like; I think I turned my eyes down. My sister ran away from home to get away from him.
Y’all seem quick to blame Mormons; but really it is a human failing and I suspect quite common in western society.
My father did not impart any values to go along with sexuality. To him it was an annoyance of the human body, an itch to be scratched. Religious teaching seems to take the other extreme; all values, ignore that itch. For me it was extremely difficult to get married. All doubts vanished abruptly on wedding night when I discovered that love and lust go really well together.
But I am still cautious about who I tell what.
“People who do have a healthy relationship, it’s because they went off on their own, exploring, doing research, reading books or listening to LDS sex podcasts like the one Jennifer Finlayson-Fife does.”
So it seems and it was certainly so for me. I am familiar with Jennifer Finlayson-Fife although most helpful to me was Anne Hooper.
“the proper solution to that is not be for the church to assign the bishop to try and fill in that gap with these interviews.”
Concur. He ought to be a good listener but extremely cautious with meddling.
OftenPerplexed asks “She posted the question–when her personal revelation conflicts with policies and positions of Church leadership is her only remedy to leave?”
Probably yes. No man can serve two masters and there’s a possibility that it is so for women. It is also more honorable in my opinion for a person that is not going to subscribe to the package deal, for that is what is is, to not pretend to subscribe for the social benefits.
If you want change, how you go about it makes a big difference in whether your plea is sympathetically considered. The government of the church is top-down, so is the military and for the same reason; chaos otherwise. My oath of enlistment in the Navy requires me to obey lawful orders. They can be stupid orders and still lawful. Failure to obey orders is really serious business and you’d better have a solid gold reason for your mutiny.
Good thing the church is not the Navy. OftenPerplexed has hit upon me of the biggest challenges. We have been taught to obey church leaders when they are speaking as prophets. The trouble is, when they are speaking, it’s hard to tell if they are speaking as prophets or speaking as men. The only surefire way to tell seems to be wait 25-50 years and see what isn’t emphasized any more. That is them speaking as men.
*upon ONE of the biggest challenges
I knows sister missionary who recently was feeling guilty about some pre-mission friskiness with her boyfriend, so she went to her mission president to confess. About the same time her rm boyfriend back home went to see his bishop too. He got off with less than a slap on the wrist and she nearly got sent home from her mission.
How can that be? I have reason to believe they recounted events similarly. But she suffered weeks of guilt, believing she has made a big mistake, was a failure and had let everybody down. And he just went on his merry life. Soon thereafter a Dear Jane arrived (good).
Worthiness seems so arbitrary, so much in the eye of the beholder.
@Eugene, I’ve seen that too. My freshman year at BYU, a friend and his girlfriend had sex. They both confessed to their respective bishops at the same time. This was her second boyfriend with whom she had sex; it was his first time. However 5 months later, she was on a mission, but he suffered public shaming and had to wait more than a year before he could go on a mission.
Leader roulette is a real thing, which is why better training and more standardization is needed.
Just in case you or others are not clear Michael 2, THAT was sexual and emotional abuse. Your sister did well to get out.
I don’t believe the church does enough to protect children. I am speaking from first-hand experience. I saw a woman physically abused two children and was told she had abused others. None were her children. These incidents happened during Sacrament meeting in the foyer, in full view of anyone in the foyer or sitting on the back row. When I attempted to speak with her about it, the response from some 9 other ward members, including the RS president, high priest group leader, and 1st and 2nd counselors in the Bishopric, was to defend her, verbally abuse me and trap me in a hallway. Hands were placed on me to keep me from leaving. I had a small baby and suddenly felt that we were both unsafe; I wouldn’t have been able to protect us had.they decided to assault me, which seemed likely to happen. I managed to escape and haven’t been back since. I reported this to the Area Authority but nothing happened. The husband of the abuser was called as the next bishop, so I suspect the ward members lied to protect her. I was not given any form of support from the Area Authority, no offers of counseling, nothing. What I wanted was for them to tell me they’d protect me, for them to make sure church was a safe place for me and my child. They couldn’t. I feel like I’ve had to choose between my soul and my child. It is worth giving up my exaltation for my child, but oh, how I hope God will be a.God of mercy!