Cody and Leah Young were excommunicated from the LDS Church last week. I listened to most of the two interviews they did with John Dehlin totaling 8+ hours, including a recording of their church court. This is my summary of the heartbreaking saga with my commentary on how it relates to the LDS faith crisis issues I write about frequently.
Cody and Leah Young are good people. You can’t help but fall in love with them through these interviews and relate to the heartache they experienced and the wrestle and purity they had with trying to do the right thing through this entire ordeal. They were active, faithful LDS, raising a beautiful Mormon family in Columbus, Ohio when Leah stumbled upon some “anti-Mormon material”. She read the CES Letter, as an attempt to minister to a family member who left the church over loss of faith due to church historical issues. Like many others, including myself, she started her research with full expectation that she would find the right answers, because, well, we all know “the Church is true.” And like many others, including myself, the research turned into a never-ending rabbit hole, where the questions mounted and the answers never came. Book of Abraham. Polygamy. Book of Mormon historicity, multiple First Vision accounts, etc.
Long story, short. Cody and Leah lost their belief in the truth claims of the LDS Church and felt compelled to leave the church. The pain and trauma they experienced led them to start a support group for other people going through the same experiences. They shared their experience with John Dehlin in a Mormon Stories episode. And shortly after, they were called into a church court and excommunicated.
I differ from the Youngs on a couple points, but most of what they did and said I think is exemplary and nearly exactly how I might have done and said things.
Where I have agreement or sympathy:
- In the court, one of the stake leaders was critical of their decision to not resign, “If you don’t believe, why don’t you just resign?” I think that was a bit of a flippant question. Their answer was perfect. Paraphrasing, they said, “We don’t believe anymore, and we’ve disassociated ourselves with the church, but we were raised this way, we still want to associate in some ways with our kids going to some activities, and we still have family and loved ones that would be deeply hurt if we resigned or were excommunicated.”
- Some Ex-Mormons are highly critical, even venomous, towards the Church. I did not feel that tone from the Youngs. At all. They occasionally were mildly critical. More critical than I would be. But compared to many, many others I’ve read online or heard in podcasts (including many who are still on the rolls of the Church officially as members), they weren’t harshly critical at all.
- They do not appear to be evangelizing to gain recruits to leave the Church. Their group was private and small and they didn’t appear to be encouraging anyone to leave. Nor did the stake leaders accuse them of such.
Black and White thinking
The biggest difference between me and the Youngs is that I see the potential for nuance and gray when it comes to these historical issues. Where the Youngs appear to only see black and white. It’s either ALL true historically, factually, religiously, and spiritually. Or it’s completely false. At one point, Leah said, referring to another person’s faith loss, that they tried their best to make it work but “the information is such that it just can’t work”. I understand that mentality, because I used to see it that way. And the Church seems to reinforce this binary thinking a lot of the time. But I disagree completely. Every religion’s origination stories are sketchy, historically. Every single one. But that doesn’t invalidate the goodness and value and truth and beauty a religion can have in the lived experience of its adherents.
The Youngs never once in the 8+ hours mentioned any attempt at a nuanced way of thinking. They never mentioned nuanced Mormon thinkers like Patrick Mason, Adam Miller, Richard Bushman, Terryl Givens, Dan Wotherspoon, churchistrue blog, etc. I’m very curious to know if they tried that and why it didn’t work for them. I know it may not work for everyone, but it’s sad to me it didn’t even come up in the conversation. This tells me the Middle Wayers are not doing a very good job making these perspectives more widely known. I’m motivated to work harder on this. Who’s with me?
Honesty was a big theme in the interviews, for the Youngs. They seem to equate staying with dishonesty and leaving with integrity. They felt if they didn’t leave the Church, they were being dishonest with their children and others. This comes out of the black and white thinking. I feel very sad that someone would think it’s dishonest to stay in a Church if they didn’t see everything the same as other members. There are challenges with staying in the Church after losing belief in many of the foundational claims, and how to handle things with children is one of them. But there are many who are doing that with integrity and honesty.
Promotion of known critics of the Church
I have a habit of going too far in criticizing Church critics in the ProgMo-ExMo world. I love my church. And I sometimes get overly defensive. I will try to be careful here.
The Youngs mention the CES Letter as a source that they apparently view as accurate and helpful for Mormons to understand difficult Church historical and scriptural issues. In my view, the CES Letter is slanted unfairly against the Church. It’s a long list of all the difficult issues without any counter balances showing the positive sides of any of the issues. It’s manipulative. In it Joseph Smith is accused of being a pedophile. I don’t disagree with all the facts in the CES Letter, but it’s not a document that should be shared among LDS Church members or lauded as a good source. Regardless of whether its creator or the people who promote it should be considered “Anti-Mormon”, the document is used as an “Anti-Mormon” document, specifically meant to persuade people against the Church.
The Youngs did the interviews with John Dehlin and frequently mention his helpfulness to them in their faith crisis. They promote him as a valuable source for those in faith crisis. This appears to be the primary reason they were excommunicated. The Stake President focused on this in their court. During the portion of the court where the Stake President listed the apostasy allegations, he focused on the relationship with John Dehlin.
You have linked yourself with John Dehlin, a former member who was excommunicated for apostasy, whose beliefs are clearly contrary to the Church. He openly promotes and markets those beliefs and seeks donations to continue his work, which constitutes priestcraft…You hosted a dinner for your facebook support group and introduced John at that dinner to your group. You allowed John to record a seven hour interview with you in which you provided further details of your faith crisis and your transition from the church. With your consent this interview has been posted on his website which serves to further his work of destroying faith…Throughout the interview, John Dehlin continues to promote his work. He stated that his objective is to reach new people who don’t know the truth about the Church. He mentions they have a billboard along 1-15 which asks “Was Joseph Smith a treasure digger?” He states that it drives people to his truth claims content and references his Mormon Stories podcast. John also suggests that his listeners create a facebook group like the Youngs did and that he will help them market it.
Many of us remember Greg Smith’s hit piece article on John prior to his church court. I thought it was unethical and disgusting. I don’t do include this next quote to pile on John. I do it to answer the question “what’s so bad about promoting John Dehlin?” I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the Church would be very concerned about its members promoting John as a resource to help those in faith crisis.
When John Dehlin announced the Youngs excommunication, he included the following rant in this youtube video:
The Mormon Church is scared. Mormon Church leaders are terrified. The Mormon Church is hemorrhaging members…The Mormon Church is collapsing, it’s in free fall…The Church is only growing in Africa and the Philippines where people are the most vulnerable…Pres. Nelson changed the name of the church because the names Mormon and LDS have become so soiled. It’s running from its own reputation…Women are waking up to the church’s oppressive patriarchy…The Church is being more open about its history, not because it has a desire to be honest, but because of Google, the internet [etc], and with a heavy dose of contextualizing, gaslighting, and continued deception through the Gospel Topics Essays. The Church is reversing its homophobic LGBT policies…but it’s not doing this out of love for LGBT people. LGBT people have simply been downgraded from worse than murderers, worse than rapists, worse than pedophiles to equal with murders and rapists and pedophiles…[due to backlash from millennials and Progressives] the Church is backtracking some of its most cherished, homophobic, anti-LGBT doctrines and policies (yes John actually implied the Nov 2015 policy was among the Church’s most cherished policies)…The Mormon church excommunicates its real prophets out of fear and out of some delusion that by excommunicating some of its best and brightest it will somehow slow the decline…The Mormon Church is trying to do what all unhealthy organizations do. They try to control their members through fear, through coercion and intimidation…By using fear, they control behavior, so ultimately they can control the thoughts of its members.
I invite John to try harder to see the good the Church does, try harder to see how Church leaders could be good, honorable, loving men doing the best they can to follow Jesus Christ, and to include balance–especially including nuanced and Middle Way views–when he reports on these stories. I think if you position yourself as a mental health professional who can help heal trauma and relationships during an LDS faith crisis, that you need to approach things more balanced.
I track these apostasy excommunications somewhat closely. I have often defended the Church by claiming that these sorts of excommunications have decreased significantly in recent years, and only done in rare cases where the member has repeatedly and vocally been very extreme and harsh in their criticism of the Church. This has been really hard for me, because I just don’t see that at all in the Youngs. I hope this is not a trend.
In the spirit of Elder Christofferson stating that it’s OK to disagree with the brethren, it’s just not OK to harshly criticize and oppose them, I will say I generally am against excommunication in these cases. Dehlin stated a few good reasons why he disagreed with the excommunication, which I happen to agree with wholeheartedly.
- Strategically, it backfires because through these high profile excommunications, more people become aware of the critical things the person is saying about the Church.
- Strategically, it backfires because many members have sympathy for people like the Youngs and it causes bad feelings for the Church that people have to struggle with.
- It feels aggressive and violent and doesn’t feel Christlike to harm members this way.
That said, I don’t know all the reasons, and I support and sustain the brethren, though I disagree generally on this point.
The Youngs plan to appeal their excommunication to the First Presidency. I hope they get the decision reversed. Our Church needs good people like the Youngs in it.
*Note, this article is reposted from the blog www.churchistrue.com/blog
John Dehlin and Leah Young made comments that I will repost here. John and Leah, thanks for your comments.
John Dehlin:
One correction – They were called in to meet with their Stake President about their support group BEFORE doing an interview with me.
Leah Young:
Dear Writer. Thank you so much for your time and generous words in sharing a bit of our story. I can most definitely honor and appreciate your nuanced views of the church and desire to still attend. In fact, we have a number of people in our support group who still attend, and we fully support them in their journey. I would like to offer clarification about the podcast detailing our personal faith journey with our family. Our decision to no longer attend church was not intended to point fingers at those who don’t. It was not a blanket statement suggesting what we think others should do – rather a retelling of what we decided to do in our personal unique situation. I do agree with your black and white title however – being raised in a church that taught us, consistently, to think in these terms (right, wrong, good, bad, church is true or it’s a lie) does contribute to the massive betrayal that one often feels, that we felt, when discovering that another side to the “right” and “true” story existed. Additionally, the CES letter was a small fraction of what we devoured over months and then a full year of study before the podcast, it was the “tip of the iceberg” if you will. I would recommend for members to study the church essays on LDS.org, in depth, including all resources cited in the footnotes. This was a good starting point for us. I will never go back on my/our personal experience that John Dehlin has helped us in such a valuable and priceless way, to navigate our faith crisis. In fact, during the three day Mormon Stories Retreat we attended in Houston, John was repeatedly quite generous in his remarks about the church, often pointing out the positives again and again to help ease the concern of those who were in split faith marriages or those with children and families who were very much in the church. Again, thank you for the time and effort and energy that you are putting forth to stay in a space that may, at times, feel challenging. I feel at peace knowing that every person has a different journey when coming to learn things they may have never known before about the church, and then from there, figuring out how they can best walk forward in a way that honors what is best for them, their family, their marriage, etc…
Wheat & Tares 
I think that the black-and-white thinking and the reliance on the CES Letter go together. I know that many people have expressed a lot of disdain about the CES Letter. They don’t think it’s a document that was written in good faith, and that therefore those who promulgate it are also not doing so in good faith.
But I would say (and I have also said this in the past), that the CES Letter doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Rather, CES Letter exmormonism (and the black-and-white, all-or-nothing mentality it espouses) is a mirror image on the sort of Mormonism that the CES itself promotes.
Many people do not find nuanced Mormonism sustainable because the religion they were raised with made much bolder claims, and perhaps even held the more nuanced views as being suspect.
Many people don’t process through
because these are not sources that the church leads with.
I’m not saying that the CES Letter is a slamdunk case against Mormonism in every form, or Mormonism in its best form. I’m just saying that it is a good way of targeting the particular kind of Mormonism that is normative for many people, and that the church continues to promulgate as the authoritative interpretation.
I think nuanced Mormonism gets attacked on both sides…obviously from the black and white disaffected perspective, but also from other believers who do think that the nuance misses something fundamental about the religion.
George, I think you nailed it. Patrick Mason says something like the CES Letter is addressing a different type of Mormonism than his Mormonism. It’s addressing a fundamentalistic, very literal, very black and white, childlike religion. I agree with him. But then as you say, that’s the Mormonism most people experience and the one that most people see on display at General Conference and in official church curriculum. Part of me is very sympathetic. Part of me says, so what, grow up, the world’s not black and white and we’ve all known that since we were 16. It’s apparent though, that if the Middle Way is going to happen, the Middle Wayers have got to start being more vocal about it. For me, it took several years to process Middle Way concepts until I became at peace enough to actually enjoy my engagement with the church from middle way perspective. The only way I lasted that long was due to my family situation which forced me to take it slow and also that I’m in a situation where the lived experience benefits are very apparent to me (ie privilege). They aren’t for everyone so the incentive to stick it out long enough to work out the kinks of the Middle Way process aren’t always there. I was particularly bummed (but not judgmental about it) that the Youngs bolted so quickly, because they also seem to be the type where those lived experience benefits are great.
Nice post and fair, balanced perspective. It’s sad that things like this happen, causing pain all around.
I also agree with Andrew. Black-and-white thinking is the order of the day, and is a fruit of the LDS Church’s efforts at correlation. If nuance is desired, then the LDS Church should lead with that.
I’d also add that the CES Letter, like FAIR, is a pretty good *list* of the issues, an at-a-glance resource; however, it should serve as a jumping off point to a more thorough examination of the sources and other material.
It’s just appalling that McConkeyism is appealing to any church members, let alone that it’s the prevailing form of Mormonism, and let alone that many top church leaders are its proponents. Yikes.
Puzzled by this.
If it is true that “Long story, short. Cody and Leah lost their belief in the truth claims of the LDS Church and felt compelled to leave the church.” then why is being excommunicated such a big deal? If they’ve already decided to leave is it really significant when the church agrees with their decision?
Angela: do you think it will ever improve or change? Not asking in a snarky way, I’m genuinely interested. I’ve realized that I’m starting to tire of waiting for an end to what you term “McConkieism.” It may not always be the dominant force in a given ward or leadership group, but it’s never far from the surface or general discourse.
Every time I hear Mason and others describe their beliefs, I think, wow, if those appointed to lead the church could do so without the fear, blame, and gaslighting (and whitewashing and correlating) that they do, and have the faith in Christ exemplified by the Givens, etc, what a wonderful place it would be! But the main principles of the gospel are sorely lacking. Faith in Jesus Christ should guide our choices, not fear that telling the truth will scare members or lessen our image. Not fear that LGBTQ persons having societal rights and freedoms will halt the work (it can’t) nor fear of diverse views and practices. Repentance is key- not “we don’t make apologies” not ignoring or glossing over serious issues. Or blaming members for not understanding that the things they were explicitly taught weren’t accurate. Unrighteous Dominion, using priesthood authority to manipulate and whip into line, blaming those that are hurts rather than repent and change, rather than gentle love and persuasion, comes down from the top. We need to have faith that if we do the best we can, it will work out, not consolidate power as absolute and squeeze until there’s no room left for the flock. Black and white authoritarian bulldozing comes straight from the top, and sooner or later those that struggle along the gentle nuanced path will be swept off. (And not everyone that leaves stops believing, some can no longer support abusive language and practices against our fellow saints. Especially the vulnerable on the margins.)
I’m sad when people leave the church. I’m sad when people decide the church simply isn’t what it claims to be. I’m sad when people lose faith in the Book of Mormon. But I don’t think it’s a mistake for the church to excommunicate people who participate in support groups to assist people on their way out of the church, nor do I think it’s a mistake for them to leave on their own.
If you have a company you’re trying to build, and you have employees explaining to customers why they shouldn’t buy your products/services and telling other employees why working for the company is bad, you fire them. Or, if they are honest (as you say Cody and Leah Young are trying to be), they should simply leave on their own. Having backbiters within your organization only embitters everybody, no matter how politely and reasonably, or even truthfully, the backbiting might be done. They should just move on, and if they feel obligated for some reason, they can attack the organization from without.
There’s plenty of space to work through one’s issues in the church, and the church needs to change and adapt, but if you decide it’s not for you, leave it for the people who feel it’s for them. Don’t sour the experience for everybody. If you’re ever interested in the church should it change (or your understanding of it change), you can always go back. Otherwise, just move forward and let everybody else do so as well.
Agree with Cody and OP on the CES Letter. I didn’t end up reading it until many years into my decade-long faith crisis (and years after it was written), and I recall my reaction being something like “how presumptuous!” (Which, Angela C, is incidentally what David O. McKay is rumored to have uttered when he heard the title of McConkie’s book).
It’s a good (if scary) starting place for newcomers to these issues, but it lacks sophistication for all but the least initiated. The danger, of course, is that people like the Youngs will mistake the Letter for the end, rather than the beginning, of the journey. In my view, they got off the train too soon – there is plenty of room for nuance, and you get to make fun of the McConkies of the world from the inside, which really makes it all worth it.
Ojiisan asks a reasonable question. Why would it be bothersome to be excommunicated if you no longer believe the truth claims of the church?
Simple answer: Family
That was the core of the answer Cody gave. Here is my perspective. My wife and I no longer believe the church’s truth claims and we no longer attend church. If we were the only ones in our family who were members of the church I expect excommunication/name removal wouldn’t be too big of a deal for us. Turns out, however, both our parents, siblings, and all our kids are still active members. The problem with excommunication is they are the ones who would suffer, after all, my wife and I don’t believe the church’s claims. Going into inactive status leaves the door of hope open for family. There is a finality with excommunication that isn’t present with just being in inactive status. I would just as soon spare my family as much grief as possible. That is why I don’t have my name removed.
Keep in mind there are plenty of members who don’t believe the truth claims of the church. Some of them even attend church. But the church doesn’t generally excommunicate them. If the church took time to understand who they really are damaging, I think they would excommunicate fewer members. If on the other hand the church’s intent really is to say “Tough, If you don’t want to hurt your family, stay” it tells us a whole lot more about the church than it does about people who no longer believe.
Martin, have you listened to the Young’s story? It sounds like you haven’t. Or that listening to their story a 2nd or 3rd time might be beneficial because the Youngs are not attempting to sour anybody else’s experience in the church. They are not assisting people on their journey to leave the church. As Leah states repeatedly, they are meeting struggling members where they are at emotionally and spiritually and helping them to navigate the difficult journey, regardless of whether that journey means an end to Mormonism for that individual or continued attendance at church.
Also, the Youngs are not “attacking” the organization, as you state. The Youngs are asking questions and receiving no answers. They are uncovering unsavory and partially hidden truths about the church’s history and doctrines and finding no comfort or support from church leadership. To continue to ask questions is not an attack.
“I have often defended the Church by claiming that these sorts of excommunications have decreased significantly in recent years, and only done in rare cases where the member has repeatedly and vocally been very extreme and harsh in their criticism of the Church”
Do you really think these sorts of excommunications have decreased? On what grounds?
This is an honest question, because to me they have seemed to be increasing over the last decade.
There’s a huge difference between excommunicated and simply just disengaged and inactive. Excommunication comes with a huge stigma. Excommunications have become pretty rare and people know that and assume “you must have done something pretty bad to deserve to be excommunicated”. It affects everyone the Youngs interact with, their family/friends, and also themselves and their kids. If you’re not acknowledging that you either have no understanding of Mormonism or you’re just being extremely unempathetic.
I think the point about black and white thinking is pretty spot on. And I think it shows that the church itself, which encourages black and white thinking, is in part responsible for the faith crises of folks who read stuff like the CES letter. It really is just a kind of un-nuanced mirror image of a lot of Mormon-think. That being said, it’s also pretty clear that despite the essays, the LDS Church really doesn’t have any answers when it comes to a lot of questions the CES letter (and other sources) raises. So the irony is that if nuance is the key to surviving/maintaining one’s faith in the LDS Church, the church itself is trying to squash the very kind of thinking that may stop at least some members from leaving. That’s truly sad. And, of course, as some people have noted, what I find particularly insidious is that the church tries to keep people as members using the kind of emotional blackmail that has been described, i.e. “Well, you better keep being a member of this church or there are eternal consequences.” That’s just insidious and unconscionable. It’s important to remember just how devastating excommunication is from the standpoint of what it cancels/makes void: familial relationships, friendship ties, etc. In my opinion, excommunication really should be carefully used as a weapon of last resort, which means not used very much at all.
I just want to comment on the shade thrown on John Dehlin in the OP. Having listened to many hours of John Dehlin content on Mormon Stories and his new podcast, Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis, John often expresses and supports the idea that there is much good in the church even though it’s clear he does not believe its truth claims any more. Though, yes, he occasionally does go off on a rant about the church, I don’t feel that it’s not representative of the larger principle of recognizing the good in the church that I feel is a common theme in his faith transition work.
Your reasoning here is correct if the Church is a social group, but not if it is what it claims to be. If excommunication is only about boundary maintenance and has the consequence of separating people from their culture or family, then that’s one thing. But if the Church is what it proclaims itself to be, then excommunicating someone who has no intention of keeping their covenants is a kindness such that there will not be an increase in condemnation. It is not kindness to leave someone in a position where they will continue to heap hot coals atop their own head.
Now perhaps you don’t see the Church in that way, but as a minimum you need to interpret the behavior of the disciplinary court in light of the likely fact that they see it in that way. And decry it as black and white thinking, or claim it as insidious, or say whatever else you want to about it — ultimately the Church has a valid Priesthood claim or it does not. If it does, then that should inform what is done within the Church.
“In my view, the CES Letter is slanted unfairly against the Church.” It’s also rife with factual errors. I also found its parallelomania with respect to Book of Mormon place names amusing and an obvious example of trying too hard. It stands to reason that if some kind-of-similar word or phrase exists among the Maya is poor evidence in support of the Book of Mormon’s authenticity, then some obscure place in New York sounding kind-of-sort-of like a name in the Book of Mormon is equally poor evidence that it is a fabrication.
Why is making a covenant, breaking the covenant, and then being excommunicated better than just making the covenant and then breaking it? When a person stands before God on their day of judgment how will being excommunicated work in their favor…? (I do see it as working in their favor if the excommunication happens as part of a personal repentance process, but that isn’t the situation here.)
@jonathan Cavender, 3:35pm, what you’re saying might make sense to me (from the believing perspective) if we were talking about withholding temple recommends, but I don’t see how people are more condemned by not being excommunicated.
I agree with ReTx here — I don’t buy the idea that excommunicating somebody reduces their condemnation. Excommunication can be a valuable tool to motivate repentance and re-baptism can give someone a new start, but from my limited perspective it never helps unless the person is already starting to repent before they’re excommunicated. The Youngs were excommunicated in order to protect the church from their influence. It was boundary maintenance. Sure, church leaders and well-meaning members might think that excommunication is necessary to help the Youngs repent, but I don’t see how it is going to help change their minds — it most likely just cements their position. But their position sounds pretty well cemented in any case, and it isn’t all about them (despite how a 8+ hour podcast can make it feel — good grief).
Questions I’ve been asked: Is it really a covenant if formally entering into it was induced by misrepresentations, however, innocent of bad intent? Is it really a covenant if it is not understood the same way by both parties? Who actually knows how God understands the temple endowment covenants? What is the effect of changes in endowment covenants on the covenants made by people who entered into them prior to the changes? As to priesthood, why is actual authority necessary rather than mere apparent authority (as defined in Anglo-American law and, where applicable, just as binding on the principal as if his agent had actual authority)? What is the meaning of authority to bind in heaven when that claimed authority has been used to excommunicate some and reinstate them posthumously with no evidence of repentance [of whatever]?
Jonathan’s ” It is not kindness to leave someone in a position where they will continue to heap hot coals atop their own head.” seems to presume answers to some of these questions that are not self-evident. I don’t have answers to share here.
I’m always amazed how you can pinpoint where people are at in fowlers developmental model of psychological stages of faith with their concrete vs nuanced approach to religion/god.
John would be most honest to rebrand to “ex-Mormon stories” but I’m betting that would diminish his persuasive abilities and influence.
As someone who went through a “faith crisis” years before it was pop culture and could have written the CES letter with the amount of interesting stuff I studied and the emotions I experienced through that time, in hindsight I can say it was part of my journey that lead to a deeper level of faith. In many ways I have a well-defined agnostic core but still genuinely like the mythos of Mormonism. Religion can’t be proven.
Nowadays I can’t help but be equally critical about the self-indulgent nature of the people like the youngs who feel the drive to market their experiences as I was of “the church” when I was in my concrete stage. “The church” has a mission and it isn’t to promote nuance- that’s up to the individual.
Martin: Why is excommunication a bad idea? My opinion is that it’s not just protecting the hopes of family members, but also if we believe that the ordinances are necessary for salvation, then the question is whether a person who doubts is more likely to return to full activity in the future if they were excommunicated rather than simply letting them go inactive. The answer to that question is pretty obvious. Almost nobody comes back to full membership after being excommunicated for “apostasy,” which means that if we apply excommunication liberally or as flippantly as suggested above, either we 1) don’t really believe in the importance of ordinances, or 2) hate those who are apostate (or doubters) so much that we want them to be damned.I
“There’s plenty of space to work through one’s issues in the church” Really? What space is this exactly? The church does not even attempt to accommodate nuanced believers, let alone doubters. I’m a lifetime member, and I think you’re nuts. The ward I grew up in was more welcoming of a variety of believers, but we were a struggling branch where everyone held 3 callings and there were more democrats than republicans. That’s not at all the norm.
Bro. Jones: “do you think it (the prevalence of McConkeyism) will ever improve or change?” I used to have some hope that it would, but I too tire of the black and white narrative. It really doesn’t have to be like this, but it seems to be 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. I think those who have a black & white mindset are certainly a vocal 40% at least. I think there are another silent 25% who are full-on doubters, and then the remainder are probably somewhere in between: bored and apathetic but generally unquestioning, engaged with the gospel fully but nuanced like the Givens, think they are believers but really have one-off beliefs (e.g. crackpots), or just buried in their own life complexities (parenting, marriage, disabilities, depression, etc.) and too wrapped up to give it much thought.
Let me ask you, churchistrue, do you participate openly with your nuanced mormonism? After my initial faith crisis, I tried for over a year to do nuance. I felt either I couldn’t be open about it, which felt suppressive for me, or if I was open there would be consequences.
For example, I told my stake president that I didn’t believe the Book of Mormon to be historical but I still found value in its teachings. He released me from my calling (EQP) and told me I couldn’t exercise the priesthood to baptize my son. It was awful. He also said if I ever shared any of my “nuanced” (he actually air quoted this with his fingers) views in church that it would be grounds for discipline.
I recognize leadership roulette in this, but my opinion is that there is currently no space in mormonism for open nuance. Which means those who are nuanced have to hide their nuance. Maybe this works for some, but for me, it felt dishonest. I couldn’t do it and when I tried to be open, I was basically kicked out.
What’s been your experience?
Full disclosure: I am a member of the private FB group setup by the Youngs. It’s great. They are not actively trying to lead people in or out of the church. It really is just a community for people who don’t believe in a traditional way or who have left the church.
Martin claims, “There’s plenty of space to work through one’s issues in the church.”
let me share a few counter examples:
I was EQP when my shelf broke (thank you PoX). I let my Bishop know where I was at and that I was willing to keep serving. His response was basically, “I would like you to keep serving, but this is a Stake calling.” So I had to meet with my Stake President, the man who just ex’d Cody and Leah. He is a good man, trying to do right by the Lord. He felt inspired to release me (which was ok). But then because of my faith crisis, he felt inspired to release my active wife as seminary teacher (not ok). Because of this inspiration my sons stopped going to seminary. Well they tried going for a month, but the new teacher accused them of not having a testimony because they suggested that maybe Nephi was wrong to kill Laban. (After that, their mother and I gave them permission to stop attending.) I tried to meet with the Stake President to discuss this and twice he agreed to have his secretary schedule something, but that never happened. Sure I could have called to schedule… but after not hearing anything for a few weeks, I admit I began to wonder if I ever would hear or if he was just avoiding me. (For the record, it’s been almost two years.)
There is not a lot of safe space in the church for nuanced believers. If the examples with my Stake President and my kids’ seminary teachers isn’t enough evidence, as EQP I taught a lesson once where I dared to state that I thought prophets sometimes make mistakes. Someone was offended and told on me to the bishop. My next PPI, the loving but TBM bishop spent several minutes making sure I knew not to use language like, “the prophets get things wrong sometimes”.
Doubting Tom. I’ve been deconstructed in my beliefs for about 12ish years now. I have for a long time wanted to get to a position where I could be more nuanced with my beliefs openly. But at the same time, I don’t have a strong need to do that in the three (slash that) two hour block. I feel Sunday meetings are for worship and spiritual connection and not necessarily a place to tout unorthodox views. I’m there for what I have in common not what I don’t have in common. And I feel responsibility somewhat to conform in order to make the Sunday experience good for everyone. I don’t know if you know much of my personal journey, but I recently “came out” and changed my facebook profile from my pseudonym to my real name. I recently gave a talk in sacrament where I was a bit more open. I talked about BOM and New Testament intertextuality, and I also shared in my testimony how I had been through deep faith crisis for many years and came out of it with reconstructed views and likely see things differently than most members, for example I take more things metaphorically than literally. But I love the restored gospel, etc. Here’s a link to that talk. https://www.churchistrue.com/blog/devotional-talk-on-charity-comparison-of-1-corithinthians-13-and-moroni-7/
I think there is room in the Church for “nuanced believers,” to use the term used here. I expect a wide range of personal beliefs among Church members. But there is a difference between a church member and a church officer — shouldn’t we expect church officers, who are sustained in their offices by the members, to publicly honor and even actually believe the official message?
As part of the stake high council, I have been involved in church courts that included excommunication. In most cases, the SP worked tirelessly to help the individual stay connected to the church in order to assure the blessings of the spirit even in cases of apostasy. But, in my experiences, there was a very real belief in the two way relationship of he baptismal covenant . If the individual refused to try to stay engaged with the gospel, it was seen a merciful to release them from the consequences of not living up to their baptismal covenants. It was seen as if, should they remain members, they would be under condemnation. This may seem ridiculous to non believers , but if your believe in a real priesthood and real covenants, such an excommunication is an act of grace.
Churchistrue,
I think that’s great that you can be more open and still actively involved in a meaningful way. In my case, I was not openly talking about anything – just to my stake president privately about where I stood with my beliefs and that was enough for him to prohibit me from continuing to participate fully. And this is while I was still entirely orthoprax. Until the church officially holds space for nuance, those who are not entirely orthodox in their views will continue to be confronted with the choice of self suppression or risk being labeled and treated differently by other members or leaders.
This is the corner the church has painted itself into and I don’t know how they will get out of it. This black/white false dichotomy is the church’s own doing for decades. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. If I can’t participate meaningfully, hold callings, participate in ordinances, speak my viewpoints in discussion in class, then participation is too painful. At least it is in my current local environment. Perhaps if I was in your ward…
@Gilgamesh that it’s a fascinating perspective, and I take you at your word. Thank you for sharing.
However, nothing I ever believed or remember being taught led me to believe that an excommunicant had any less responsibility to their covenants. On the contrary, I believed people were responsible according to the highest law they had ever learned. The idea that a person could be made responsible to live a lesser law is new to me.
Angela, I agree that excommunicating people like the Youngs makes them less likely to come back (though maybe not all that much less likely), but it’s not all about them. I’m all for leaving the 99 and seeking out the 1, but if the 1 has pointy ears, sharp teeth, and is nibbling at the flock, that’s a wolf, not a sheep. Mosiah 26 is pretty clear that there are times to blot out names from the records of the church.
Besides, I don’t believe church doctrine supports the idea of dead works. Yes, the covenant of baptism is required for salvation, but it will do you no good if you don’t believe in it and don’t keep it. If you decide you believe in it again, you can always get re-baptized. Even if excommunication is more likely to keep you from coming back to church, that has to be balanced against the harm you might cause. The Youngs are not more important that those they might lead away. I actually think the Youngs would be better off if they sought out a baptism they could believe in — at least they’d be seeking salvation honestly.
As for having space to work through one’s issues, I go to church every Sunday with members of various belief levels, including those who pretty much don’t believe any of it, but like the good values and camaraderie. I also attend with a gay man (his fiancé doesn’t come) and at least one heterosexual who co-habitates with a partner. All of these people are welcome and have friends. Some of them disagree with church doctrine and hope it will change. I’m also friends with some non-believing non-attenders. None of them are being run out of the church. I’m not aware of any of them participating in activities to assist people with a transition out of the church.
I believe the main function of a church is to gather people to strengthen each other’s faith, whatever faith level they have. If someone is more interested in showing how my faith is bunk, there’s not much point in us attending together, and I don’t want them influencing the people I love. Part of the reason John Dehlin has as much influence as he does is because he wasn’t excommunicated earlier — because “he was just asking questions”. In his self-appointed role as high priest of the faith crisis, anybody struggling with their faith would feel like he was an honest broker because, after all, he was still a member of the church. We all know how all those interactions would have gone. At least now, those who seek him out know they’ll most likely be leaving the church.
It seems like there isn’t much room for nuance to me. The culture we have built is one where if you can’t stand up and say the church is true, the BOM is the most true book ever, and the Joseph totally restored the gospel, then You probably won’t get a calling. I had a conversation with my wonderful stake president once where I said that I felt that polygamy was wrong. He followed up in my temple recommend interview about whether I felt like Joseph was wrong to have initiated polygamy. I said that I did. After an hour of discussion later I left with a temple recommend but he is super concerned about me, and concerned that maybe I shouldn’t be in good standing. I haven’t had a calling since.
Think about the temple recommend questions. There is no room for nuance there and we have to declare our beliefs to two church leaders every time it gets renewed.
Brian G., Sorry you lost at local leadership roulette re callings. It doesn’t work that way here. Of course, if I were asked in a temple recommend interview whether I felt Joseph was wrong to initiate polygamy, I’d probably say “that’s not one of the authorized questions and this isn’t the context in which to discuss it.” Some find plenty of room for nuance in the temple recommend questions — some don’t feel compelled to understand the questions the same way the interviewer does and don’t feel compelled to discuss them to discover if there are differences in understanding. That approach probably doesn’t work for all.
I agree that what we’re calling the “black/white dichotomy” is the problem, but I wouldn’t say it’s the Church’s doing. It’s just part of belief, IMO. For example, if it were Church-specific, how could Fowler write so insightfully about the very transitions we’re discussing here, while relying entirely on non-Mormon faith experiences? I agree that the Church has failed to address the problem adequately, but it did not create the problem – it’s always been there.
JR – I really do think my stake president is quite wonderful. I appreciated that he wanted to have a real conversation about what I believed. I am not sure what other venue is better for such a conversation. They are there to judge me for my answers, like it or not. We discussed a number of things by email afterwards and really I think I won the local leadership roulette – my leaders have been supportive of me and my unconventional family.
I tried the middle way for several years. In the end, it just became too difficult for me to enjoy the good things about the church when none of the truth claims could stand up to observable evidence and some/many of the doctrines “felt” off anyways. So the church was failing in both my heart and my mind.
Does that make me a black and white thinker? I find some of the comments to this post to be a bit unfair to those who leave the church in implying we are just black and white thinkers and can’t handle nuance. I guess that hurts a bit because I tried nuance for a very long time.
I reread George Orwell’s 1984 recently. The following words from the character Wiinston came to mind as I read the comments from MTodd:
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
If we are not allowed to state obvious things in our community, we really are not that much different than that situation depicted in 1984. My wife was released as a seminary teacher after being pressed by her students to share her true thoughts on polygamy simply said , “she didn’t feel that great about it”. Parents were outraged and wanted her out. It’s not black and white thinking that made us leave. We just were not able to live comfortably in the community without toeing the line of black and white thinking.
I agree with Andrew S’ comment. Nuanced believers do get attacked from both sides. As an apostate, this type of belief draws more ire and belief in fundamentalism. At least fundamentalists have sincerity on their side. In my opinion, New Order Mormons do not fit within a Brighamite context. They should find another church that allows their style of belief, without the the threat of excommunication being ever present. New Order Mormons within a Brighamite context are a non sequitur and wholly dependent upon hiding or having “understanding” local leadership. The basic problem is the “one-true-church” claim. The Community of Christ have dropped that claim (as far as I can tell), as a condition of being allowed to join with other Christian churches in the NCC.
The one-true-church claim is very black and white. Pretending that it is not there is weak and long term unsupportable. If Nelson’s church is not hearing your voices about grass roots issues, then head to the exit. If you like being in a prejudiced anti-feminist, anti-LGBT, anti-intellectual, anti-humanist environment, then by all means, keep singing “Praise to the Man.”
[Mosiah 3:19] For the *natural man* is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
Those who think that Brighamite mormonism allows room for dissent are dead wrong. Pick an institution that matches your internal sense of morality. If you can’t pry yourself out of the pews, then at least allow everyone in the house to make their own decisions, per the Eleventh Article of Faith.
I’m in strong agreement with Dan and my experience mirrors his. For many of those of us who walk away, it’s not necessarily because we can’t do nuance or handle non-binary thinking. It’s because our personal experience in engaging with the church from a nuanced paradigm becomes deeply unsatisfying. If I’m not personally fulfilled in my participation, and if I’m not adding anything to other’s experience, and probably detracting from it based on how me and my ideas are treated, then it becomes somewhat fruitless to continue to try and stay.
For now, I’ll find my personal enriching experiences in environments that welcome me and my ideas, where I do not feel compelled to self-supress, where I am not treated as a social pariah for having the gall to question the church’s dogmatic all-or-nothing truth claims and where I can actually contribute in a meaningful and fulfilling manner.
I truly respect those who can make it work but my experience has been that nuance is not welcome and continuing to engage where I am not welcome is painful. Too painful to continue to try.
As the comments of Doubting Tom and Brian G illustrate, there isn’t much room for nuanced belief or The Middle Way in the LDS Church, at least at the local level where actual people are in actual wards with actual bishops and stake presidents. In the fictional world of Neo-apologetics as preached by Givens, Mason, and others, there certainly is room. In Conference talks by Pres. Uchtdorf, there may be room. In this or that ward with a more diverse LDS population and a compassionate or sympathetic bishop, there may be, at least until a new bishop is called. But really, the only way to be a nuanced or Middle Way Mormon in 98% of wards and stakes is to fly under the radar.
And as Brian G’s comment shows, it’s not just that we’re still dealing with The Church of Jesus Christ of Bruce R. McConkie, it’s that many local leaders are still mentally living in the world of Joseph Smith’s and Brigham Young’s polygamy. Anyone who doesn’t want to practice polygamy (but, for the moment, acknowledges that they can’t) isn’t really welcome in the Church.
Dan, I certainly would never accuse all or even most Exmormons of not trying the nuanced way. I did bring that up in this blog post, because in the 8+ hr interview, that topic didn’t come up at all with the Youngs, and the way they described their journey, their exit seemed so abrupt that it seemed like they didn’t attempt it or maybe even not aware of the possibility. I do have some criticism for long term critics like John Dehlin who know of the many who are doing a Middle Way and refuse to acknowledge it’s a valid path and reinforce a false dichotomy that it is either all true or all false. I feel like in an exit story like this, you have to at least ask the question “this meant so much to you for so long, did you try at all to make it work like many others do in a nuanced way, acknowledging that many of the historical claims are off, but that’s not so different than every other church, and you might try to stay with a nuanced belief set?”
Churchistrue, I felt like you were actually quite gracious in your approach to those who leave. Thank you.
I did the nuanced view for years but still felt turmoil with it. It didn’t work for me. I feel more peace being able to say I don’t believe the truth claims at all. You say post Mormons shouldn’t evangelize their view and you may be right but you evangelize your view. Also, I don’t agree with your disapproval of those who are critical of the church. History shows that voices are instrumental to change in the church. Over time, these voices have a butterfly effect and enough people begin to think differently and change happens. The Lowry letters are amazing. I applaud those who are brave and voice their criticisms even at the threat of excommunication. Also, perhaps the church did deeply hurt an individual and it’s apart of their grieving process and healing to advocate for what they see as unhealthy in the church. I am now in a mixed faith marriage. My precious children hear Nelson say time is running out and hear him detail the separation of families. They sat up and listened to the prophet. What did they feel? Worried and stressed. This matters. Nuance isn’t helping my 12 year old girl when she’s told to listen carefully to the prophet.
At the end of the day anyone who supports ETCOJCOLDS with either time or money contributes to an organization whose teachings contribute to the hardships of our LGBTQ family, which includes suicide. I hope life and death isn’t to black/white for you OP
Dan,
When you say:
I want to address this from two perspectives, which probably won’t satisfy everyone or anyone
I think that your bit here gets at what I was trying to get at that nuanced Mormonism gets attacked from both sides. That is, even if people want to “live comfortably in the community without toeing the line of black and white thinking,” this is seen as suspect. This is definitely a big part of the issue.
…but — and I know this is going to be taken the wrong way — I think that ‘stating obvious things’ is not really the nuanced approach to begin with. I’m not saying that nuanced thinking requires ignoring “obvious things” — but there’s a sort of discretion, discernment, or diplomacy in even discussing “obvious things”.
I hear this often as a frustration with folks like Dan Wotherspoon/Mormon Matters, by the way. And I mean, as a totally nonbelieving, non-practicing exmo, I get it. I hear what Dan and other nuanced folks are going for, say, “Well, that’s nice,” but that wouldn’t be enough to make going each Sunday worthwhile for me. I don’t have the patience for it.
4blockhead,
To expound upon my comment to Dan, I want to work with what you said here:
Part of the CRUCIAL things about moving away from black and white to the nuanced middle is *renegotiating* one’s relationship with the institutional church.
So, when you say, “New Order Mormons do not fit within a Brighamite context,” this is precisely the sort of statement to me that assumes that one’s involvement is to be determined based on a top-down criteria. That is, find “a church” that from the top down “allows for one’s style of belief.”
…but the crucial shift that has to happen in the nuanced position is that one takes personal authority for their own beliefs — meaning that it’s not about what is “at risk of excommunication” or not.
From the outside looking in, it looks like hiding or priesthood roulette. And I totally get it!
But from the inside looking out, the nuanced Mormon has just very different criteria. It’s blue and orange, not black and white.
Of course the one-true-church claim is black and white! So, nuance means to reject the question. Not to accept it, but say, “Well, the church is false” (an “obvious thing”), but to reject that “one true church” is even the right sort of question. Of course from a black-and-white perspective, this will be seen as illegitimate. But that’s the thing about the nuanced perspective — it shouldn’t be getting its cues from the black-and-white perspective anymore.
George, you got it. Can’t wait to see you back at church! 🙂
i mean, i definitely sympathize for people who can’t make it work. i feel like I have a good “head” understanding of what it would take to make it work, especially because I can acknowledge that
I don’t have what it takes.
That’s why i wrote (and write, ongoing) a lot about it. Because I don’t think you can choose to “have it,” and I also want to hold nuanced Mormons to task for this when they imply that it’s something people can choose to live into or whatever 😉
If you have the temperament to make it work, and the independent spiritual testimony to bolster you in what is a very misunderstood, lonely path, that’s great, but a lot of people would rather go to a place where they are accepted as normative and I can’t blame them.
Churchistrue,
Would you ever consider doing an interview with Dehlin promoting your middle way? I, for one, would appreciate hearing a thoughtful voice discussing how you do it and what it’s like to be in that space in a church that doesn’t formally recognize that path as a valid one.
George. OK, darn. I can at least hope. I agree the Middle Way is not for everyone. I hope to be more active modeling it and popularizing it so it can be more accessible to others. And hopefully over time it becomes easier.
Doubting Tom. Would I do an interview with Dehlin? Uh no, I don’t want to get excommunicated. Or maybe you didn’t read the OP. 🙂
John may not remember, but we had some discussion over the possibility of me taking over his StayLDS property. He invited me to come on Mormon Stories, and I told him I’d consider it, if he would allow me to be critical of him and emphasize the stark differences in our approaches. He initially said he thought that was great idea. Those talks broke down, and it’s been quite a while ago. I think it’s probably not a good fit. He’s since blocked me on facebook, and our relationship appears to not be that great. I am trying to come up with ways to publicize my approach more visibly, but I need to be careful about the channels.
To Andrew S.
Unfortunately, this is a fantasy world. When people question the truth claims, especially in public, they’re brought in to make an apology and take down the offending material. The pattern set with Dehlin has repeated itself with Waterman, Maloufs, and Reel. The Youngs are merely the latest to be subjected to “boundary maintenence.” Who will volunteer to put their neck on the block next? I know people don’t like to be marginalized, and it hurts to be tossed out of one’s community. People would like to stay in an atmosphere that they feel comfortable with. When I attended Community of Christ for two years under a post-Brighamite context, I was very surprised that there were so few nuanced refugees from the Salt Lake City wards. I came to two conclusions:
1. When people debunk Smith’s religion, all organized religion goes out of the window at the same time. If one is raised to believe all other churches are an abomination, then the well has been poisoned.
2. People are tribal. They don’t like the unfamiliar. No new thing gets an audience. That’s too bad because I found a lot to like at Community of Christ. Their apple doesn’t have nearly as many worms in it. It has some, and I didn’t join because of it, but a lot fewer.
Brighamite mormons should vote with their feet and wallets and support institutions that match their values. There was a good letter to the SL Tribune that hits the nail on the head. If that is black-and-white, then so be it. I see the harms and they begin with Mosiah 3:19 and continue all the way through his new Abrahamic religion based on obedience first and foremost, finally landing at D&C 131-132. It’s not worth saving and Fowler’s stages of belief do not apply.
more…
Martin, the church does not have space to work through issues with truth claims when the church maintains there is only one righteous and valid answer.
My family lived in pretty dogmatic wards. When my wife would question a doctrine or teaching, for instance polygamy in a relief society meeting, invariably one sister, with one or two more piling on for good measure, would emphatically bear their testimony of the truthfulness of the doctrine. They would finish with the admonition that more prayer and scripture study would get my wife on the right path. Long before she left the church for good my wife stopped attending Sunday School and Relief Society. These were dangerous, toxic environments for her.
My wife stopped attending the church a year before I did. Out of the entire family, she was alone in her un-belief then. She thought she was going crazy because she didn’t see the world like the rest of us. The distress she was experiencing was real and the church wasn’t able to help. Right after I informed our Bishop my wife wasn’t coming back to church, the Relief Society president sent her a text that essentially stated, “Don’t worry about whatever you’ve done, we still love you.” I’m sure the RS president meant well but the text’s “whatever you’ve done” implied my wife needed to be fixed. What never happened, even to this day, was anyone in the church or extended family, besides me, who expressed any interest in discussing her reasons/feelings/concerns about why she left. Not once. Fortunately, my wife found a PostMo group that provided support and validation that she wasn’t going crazy. Thank God for people like Leah and Cody Young.
My wife and I were in a mixed faith marriage for a year. That has all sorts of ramifications from the LDS eternal family perspective. For most of my marriage I had been very TBM. I was constantly in EQP, Bishopric, HP group, and YM leadership positions. My wife was very concerned about what her leaving would mean for our marriage. It was the same issue Leah and Cody Young initially faced. My wife asked me to watch their first interview with John Delhin specifically to see how they approached their initial mixed faith marriage.
What I see the Young’s doing with their Facebook group is similar to the Good Samaritan helping the victim on the wayside. Except in the case of the Young’s they weren’t outcast like the Samaritan. They were still members when they started the page. They were in the position of the Levite, but instead of ignoring the man in need, they helped. It is hard for me to not see the message the church has transmitted with the excommunication of the Young’s. Like the Priest, the church leadership bypasses victims – those struggling with faith claims who don’t reach the church’s correct answer – on the side of the road. But that isn’t all, church leadership, at least in Columbus Ohio, won’t even stand to have their members provide support to such unclean people. Instead, people like the Young’s must be cast out, ironically like the Samaritan, if they insist on ministering to those who need it.
Andrew S. I am not sure my comment will be allowed to see the light of day here.
I’ve said what I want. And I hold with Phil Ochs who famously sang about the deep convictions of liberals and how similar actors in the civil rights movement said, “go slow!” To me, this kind of liberalism amounts to fair weather friends. Don’t go too far, lest we see you in a church court! To pretend there are no lines that can be crossed is a fantasy world.
It is not fair to fault John Dehlin for failing to legitimize the middle way. The church itself doesn’t legitimize it.
1. He was living the middle way when he was exed.
2. The church claims to be the one true church of Jesus Christ and the only one with authority and revelation. John has no ability to change the church’s claim, only to react to it.
3. RMN claims to speak for Jesus, therefore his actions and the church’s should be judged by the Jesus standard, not by the ‘men doing their best’ standard.
4blockhead,
Fished your comment out of the filter and approved it.
We’re not speaking about the same things. Dehlin, Waterman, Reel, the Youngs, want to proclaim “obvious things.” Obviously, this is going to put them at odds with the institution. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. it can still be a necessary thing.
I’m not disputing that the things they are proclaiming are obvious. I’m not even disputing that the things they are proclaiming are true.
I’m just saying that part of the nuanced path is discretion, diplomacy, and discernment. Its concerns are fundamentally different than the concerns you have. Its preoccupations are fundamentally different than the preoccupations within your post.
These are definitely part of a black-and-white mindset, so I don’t disagree. From a black and white mindset, *no* religion is going to stand up to the grandiose claims that the LDS church put for it. So when the LDS church falls, all of them do go out the window. If one still buys into the framework that the LDS church has set (that all other churches are an abomination), that same basic framework isn’t deconstructed just because one disagrees that the LDS church is true.
Part of what it means to go nuanced is to reject that framework. Part of what it means to go nuanced is to live into the unfamiliar. This is going to set one apart (literally) and most people don’t like to do it and don’t want to do it. Most people aren’t fit for the middle way.
Part of what it means to go nuanced is to find that there’s something more to “Smith’s religion” than literal truth claims and authority claims and whatnot. That somewhere in there is a core of communications with the divine, and the way that humans have continually screwed up interpreting and processing those communications. This core doesn’t have to look like what the institutional church *wants* it to look like, but if you try to tell *them* that, then you’re not going to win any friends. Obviously.
I mean, this is black-and-white. I’m not saying I don’t see the harms. I’m not saying that voting with feet isn’t a valid path. I’m just saying that the continued involvement by nuanced Mormons doesn’t fit this same analysis. It’s not that that don’t see the harms. It’s that their participation isn’t based on the same framework that you (or the church) think it must be based on.
Andrew S. For sure, we’re talking past one another. Liberal mormons have some imaginary utopia that defines their framework. They may think that they can change things. I think that is a very risky proposition because parents bring their children along with them. Those children are pressured into baptism before they’re ready. Tyler Glenn’s Trash video includes some on point lyrics. Parents have the where-with-all to only hear the parts of the message that they’ve decided fit their world view. In general, children lack those critical thinking skills. They’re likely to get a full dose. They’re unable to eat around all of the worms in the apple. In some instances, from reading many posts at reddit, there are some children who can question the premise. Is 1 Nephi Chapter 4 good scripture? Is Genesis 22 good scripture? Is absolute obedience a good thing? In the Judeo-Christian thought, it is not only a good thing, it is the only thing. Every knee will bend and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Christ. Joseph Smith will be standing alongside as his right-hand man. Those who don’t believe in that premise have redefined the church as unrecognizable. If they state their apostate views in public, then they will be called in to answer for themselves. The LDS church is very much like the defunct totalitarian state, German Democratic Republic. I look forward to Nelson’s church and the rest of the Brighamite splinters to join them in the dust bin of history.
The average Brighamite ward is not a safe place for humans of all kinds, especially not safe for humans with developing minds.
4blockhead,
I would put it even more starkly.
For people to participate primarily to think they can or will change things is probably a sign they will burn out. That cannot be the primary motivation for middle way.
But
is an extremely narrow understanding of Judeo-Christian thought, holy moley. “The only thing,” lol.
I am not disputing this is how the LDS church institutionally promulgates it. I’m not disputing that other positions will seem unrecognizable and apostate to people who buy into the framework from within the church (and unrecognizable and like mental gymnastics for people who buy into the framework from outside the church). But there are soooo many other ways of going through Judeo-Christian thought, of interpreting what it means for “every knee to bend” and “every tongue to confess.” that don’t amount to how the LDS church institutionally interprets it.
This populist wave of deconstructing religion is cross-continental, cross-cultural, and cross-socioeconomic. The Crux of this problem it’s not necessarily solvable in the immediate landscape. The internet, for good and bad has granted us access to unlimited amounts of historical information. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has to let go are these sanitized version in regards to its history. No matter how well-intended its leaders and organizers are… they are either being “willfully blind” or lying to themselves and everyone else by trying to maintain the traditional Narrative of inaccurate and sanitized history. That is not to say that anti literature holds history accurately either.
The church is absolutely hemorrhaging its youth but so is most all religion as atheism and agnosticism is on the rise. It doesn’t look like this trend is going to slow down anytime soon. That being said, in this deconstruction we are left with a massive meaning crisis which is partly expressing itself in an abundance of suicide and drug overdose. People are throwing the “baby out with the bathwater” in abandoning these systems far to quickly. As they leave their social networks and or are “excommunicated” from their social and family networks they feel alone, despondent, and adrift. The two most secure systems in their life, the two which are the bedrock of group and personal identity all the way back to when we were hunter-gatherers, (religion and family) has been deconstructed and has abandoned them and lost their trust. Thus, the meaning and connection crisis we see today.
There is something to save here, and there is still value in these interconnected communities. Even great value in the traditional multi-generational and community framework of the church. That being said, if we are not honest with ourselves and our history this hemorrhage will not be slowing down anytime soon. The cat is out of the bag and we can’t put it back in. Yet, in this new landscape of information we can still be collectively centered around a higher moral theme. These highly integrated Community Networks can still do this. But not with the traditional model of Orthodoxy or its traditional and inaccurate historical claims. Also the toxic perfectionism centered around ritualistic practices like the scribes and Pharisees of old cannot be maintained or sustained in light of current evidence.
We need to evolve and build stronger family and Community Networks around principles and Concepts of love and forgiveness and not ritualistic practices, whitewashed history or orthodoxy. Again, there is still something of value here and it is still worth saving.
Dave C, I realize that two life-long members of the church can have vastly different experiences depending on the wards they live in. I’ve undoubtedly had a better experience than your family. I also believe that many of us long-time members tend to project our experiences onto the church as a whole, which isn’t necessarily accurate.
In reading the exchange between Andrew S. and Churchistrue, I’m wondering if I don’t use “blue and orange” instead of “black and white” thinking without really acknowledging it. I don’t consider myself a middle-way Mormon, but I am a nuanced believer, and my views don’t always line up with… well, pretty much anybody, probably. I have had ward members express discomfort with some of my opinions, which I tend to express more strongly than is generally appreciated. Perhaps I get more leeway than others because nobody can really doubt my commitment, and perhaps I get more leeway because I just haven’t had to deal with as much opposition as you’ve described.
At risk of using a really bad metaphor — I took a college chemistry lab course. In it, I was often frustrated that the experiments didn’t always yield the predicted results. It seemed there was an element of randomness that kept getting introduced, and it was affecting my grade. Consequently, before doing the labs, I would sit down and do all the calculations for the experiment before I did it, in order to know what the results should be at each step. When the results didn’t line up, I would run the experiment again until it did. Yes, I was accused of cheating, but I wasn’t cheating. If the results weren’t what I expected, I would clean the beakers more thoroughly or use reactants from a different source (those TAs didn’t always mix them meticulously), or do whatever it took to eliminate the random error that was messing up my results. If I never could get the results and my calculations to line up, then it always ended up being my calculations which were wrong. Basic chemistry never was.
I think I approach the church claims in a similar fashion — ie., from the perspective of how they actually might be true, as opposed to how they’re not true. I don’t know how to describe this, exactly, but I think it’s an attitude, or a way of approaching the difficulties. I think many might uncharitably view it as self-delusion, but I don’t think it is. I don’t want to suggest that the gospel is the same as chemistry, because chemistry is taught in recipes and the gospel is taught in poetry. I do want to suggest that when experiential results don’t line up with expectations, one or the other is wrong, but the fundamental theory can still be sound. Over time, I’ve developed enough trust in the basics that even when I’m in the middle of some question that doesn’t line up, I have faith that I’ll eventually figure out where my metaphorical experiment or calculations are screwed up.
By the way, I know you can extend that metaphor to pointing out that new physics is discovered exactly when experiment and calculation can never be made to line up with theory, and I’m sure many here feel they’ve gotten to that point. I just haven’t. And my spiritual life has so much work to do in Newtonian physics, so to speak, that I don’t yet have a need to dive into spiritual relativity or quantum mechanics.
I’m not saying this to argue that I’m right and everybody else is wrong, it’s just that I still have a strong faith in the church, even knowing as much as I do about things which I feel are wrong. Maybe this faith is what allows me to get away with my strong opinions that don’t fit the norm. But I also see many others who don’t share my faith and seem to feel comfortable at church.
Andrew S.
There was a bit of the old Vince Lombardy-isms in my response. However, if people don’t believe in those premises, then they’re not “Latter Day Saints.” The US Constitution and the UN Declaration of Human Rights declares the right of religious freedom. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments in the First Amendment and free expression. When they give up those rights, under pressure from bishops and authority figures in the Brighamite-structure, then that is also their right.
I suppose we’ll just continue to talk past one another, but I have evidence on my side. Those who speak out are silenced, by force and by restraining order if necessary. I am sometimes reminded of the scene in the movie, [Mutiny on the] Bounty where Captain Bligh is set adrift. Bligh wishes Christian good luck organizing the rabble of mutineers. Bligh said he had trouble and the law was on his side. So far, the mutineers withing mormonism are only a small rabble and don’t amount to much of anything. The “cat” can be used to keep them inline. The mutineers are no threat. Bligh/Nelson/Oaks/Bednar can come in and lay down the law, and the minions in the local wards will dutifully comply.
What is a threat is the next generation not wanting to participate in prejudiced and rapidly aging frauds.
4blockhead,
yes i understand that from a black and white perspective, the institutional church would like people to think that. i’m saying that middle way folks don’t accept that even *that* premise.
I suppose I’m some sort of middle way Mormon, but I suspect we all are in some way. Over time I’ve moved from a deterministic mindset to a more probabilistic approach to life. I believe some church truth claims gave a greater probability of being true that others, and try to focus on those. I stay in the church because I believe doing so will increase the odds of longterm wellness with my loved ones. Does that make me a hypocrite or am I hiding? I don’t know, not am I terribly concerned. I do what I believe is the best for me and those I love.
John Tani, beautiful comment thanks.
Martin, I really like your analogy. That makes a ton of sense to me, even though I’m an utter heretic. 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to lay it out so clearly.
Wonderful post and valuable discussion, thanks to the OP and to all who have contributed thus far. As a lifelong member who resigned my membership just this month I want to add my two cents to discussion on “The Middle Way” and why it didn’t work for me. I understand that the OP is concerned the Youngs didn’t fully explore this nuanced route and I agree it has been helpful for many, however I fear there is a growing perception that this Middle Way represents some sort of long term solution to these growing institutional problems which would be more adequately addressed by institutional solutions as opposed to the ongoing mental gymnastics of those who are so troubled by these problems.
I largely echo the sentiments of DoubtingTom from above. I understand how and why many members are choosing to stay by walking the Middle Path. There is much that is good about the church and it is easier to focus on the good when we have taken thoughtful steps to understand and minimize the impact of the bad. As an avid reader of Adam Miller, the Givens, Patrick Mason, and Richard Rohr and as a faithful listener of Dan Wotherspoon I feel that I gave nuance a real chance. I walked the Middle Way for two years before determining that, for me, it is not sustainable.
The core problems were:
1. I had nowhere to practice the middle way. As has been discussed above, it is rarely accepted by those in local leadership as valid which made holding callings impractical which in turn only served to distance me from my ward family and marginalize my voice and perspective. Further, average members are made uncomfortable during Sunday School, mutal activities, or ministering visits discussing nuanced perspectives and it is certainly not being taught from the pulpit in conference (some mildly nuanced and very rare talks notwithstanding). While sites like this provide validation for this nuanced approach it certainly is not an accepted nor enculturated way of thinking or practicing. In short, I didn’t have anywhere I could actually practice my religion. I believe orthodoxy and orthopraxy are valid perspectives and I have no desire to impede anyone from believing or living that way. The problem is that same courtesy was not extended to me by the church and it’s culture, which ultimately made staying a nonviable option for me.
2. The Middle Way is not taught by any “valid” sources (and by valid I mean correlation sanctioned lessons, scripture mastery verses, conference talks from Q15, etc). Nuance, real nuance, can’t and won’t be a sustainable solution until institutions within the church offer it as a solution. If my stake president would allow me sustain Uchtdorf as a revelator but decry Oaks as a Pharisee while still honoring my desire to attend the temple, that would be nuance. If my wife could have an iced coffee at a Relief Society activity without getting wide-eyed glares and navigating awkward conversations , that would be nuance. If in conference the prophet acknowledged it is appropriate and healthy for single adults to masturbate, that would be nuance.
I recognize these are inflammatory examples but I chose those intentionally to illustrate how challenging nuance is in our rigid culture and how far away we are from actually being able to live it openly and authentically. Obviously we are not there yet nor are we going to be any time soon. This is why this Middle Road concept may function well as a finger in the dyke of a millennial generation exodus but it is unlikely stop the dam from breaking. For those of us who see the church for what it is; a well intended but tragically flawed institution who purports that its message is for everyone but whose policies and practices are by definition exclusive and whose wounds are consistently self inflicted, the middle road does not offer a viable long term solution.
“Long story, short. Cody and Leah lost their belief in the truth claims of the LDS Church and felt compelled to leave the church. The pain and trauma they experienced led them to start a support group for other people going through the same experiences. They shared their experience with John Dehlin in a Mormon Stories episode. And shortly after, they were called into a church court and excommunicated.”
This framing continues to be deceptive. A more accurate framing would be: 1) They formed a support group. 2) They were called in by their stake president and threatened with excommunication for starting a support group, 3) they interviewed with Mormon Stories, 4) then they were excommunicated.
The order is important. Please consider correcting if you care about truth and honesty. as you seem to claim.
” I do have some criticism for long term critics like John Dehlin who know of the many who are doing a Middle Way and refuse to acknowledge it’s a valid path and reinforce a false dichotomy that it is either all true or all false.”
Churchistrue.- You know nothing about me. I recommend the middle way to doubting Mormons LITERALLY weekly.
I point my coaching clients and attendees at my retreats and workshops to this document LITERALLY weekly:
http://staylds.com/docs/HowToStay.html
My default advice to anyone who asks me, “Should I leave the church?” is:” You should stay in the church for as long as you can.”
I sponsored mormonmatters.org for over a decade. I still sponsor staylds.com. I interview “Middle-way” Mormons regularly on Mormon Stories Podcast.
https://www.mormonstories.org/episodes/top-25-faithful/
I don’t remember why I blocked you on Facebook, but it’s probably because you are sloppy and deceptive about how you characterize me.
John, thanks for the reply. I’m glad that you endorse Middle Way options when you do your workshops. I’m reporting on what I observed in the 8+ hr interview with the Youngs. I thought I was pretty generous with you in how I reported that. I was disappointed you didn’t ask a single question about why they didn’t consider any kind of Middle Way or nuanced view of historical issues. I was also disappointed with your general black and white and overly critical representation of the Church during those interviews and your reporting of the excommunication. But I hope I can be disappointed and you can hear that criticism and we can engage without making it personal.
I resent disbelief being labeled as “nuance.” Most of what people label “nuance” is hardly nuanced, complex, or complicated at all, it’s simple disbelief. Own it. People want a kind of Reform Judaism, where none of the truth claims are true, but it’s still a good social club and part of tradition/identity. If that’s the Middle Way, again, just own it as disbelief.
Ben,
“simple disbelief” gets put in its own bucket. “simple disbelievers” just leave.
I think the middle way is significantly more complicated than “none of the truth claims are true, but it’s still a good social club and part of tradition/identity” but I’d say that even that statement is not “simple disbelief,” because a simple disbeliever wouldn’t stay even if it were a good social club.
Lots of “simple disbelievers” happen to find Mormonism to be a pretty bad social club, anyway.
John Dehlin, I just barely noticed your first comment. For some reason, I missed that earlier. I’m sorry you think my post was deceptive. I disagree. I appreciated your polite initial comment at my churchistrue site, which I perceived as a small addition not a reversal of a deceptive summary. And so therefore, I kept the original post but included your comment in the body of this post for clarity.
The middle way works for a time. Then you leave. You have to, because you can no longer be complicit in the fraud.
My feeling after reading through the posting and the discussion comments would be for me to just go back and to listen to Santa in the *Miracle on 34th Street.* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMg4x3M_5XE
“I think the middle way is significantly more complicated ” Really? Can you offer any kind of definition or guidelines of what it constitutes? Your assertion doesn’t match up with my observations.
Ben – As someone who isn’t a fan of labels, but would probably be lumped as middle-way for most purposes, Andres S describes above what my faith looks like. I’m not saying all middle-way believers sit here, but I absolutely do. It’s a place where I find peace in ‘uncertainty’ and faith in searching rather than in ‘knowing.’
I spent 10 years in a faith crisis which ended with rejection of the entire idea that human beings have ‘certainty’ when it comes to God. I’ve spent the last 5 years living in uncertainty and have no plans to change that. I’m active.
I will absolutely agree that it is not an easy path, and I totally get why more people can’t make it work. There really isn’t any space in a ward for a middle-wayers. For me (while I have my frustrated moments), in a practical sense I find that I just don’t care whether there is space for me made by strangers I happen to go to church with. I’m going to live my spiritual life the way that suites me anyway and use the ward as an opportunity to practice that.
Ben – Here’s what Andres S. wrote previously. As MWM, I will say he nailed it.
“Part of what it means to go nuanced is to reject that [black and white] framework. Part of what it means to go nuanced is to live into the unfamiliar. This is going to set one apart (literally) and most people don’t like to do it and don’t want to do it. Most people aren’t fit for the middle way.
Part of what it means to go nuanced is to find that there’s something more to “Smith’s religion” than literal truth claims and authority claims and whatnot. That somewhere in there is a core of communications with the divine, and the way that humans have continually screwed up interpreting and processing those communications. This core doesn’t have to look like what the institutional church *wants* it to look like, but if you try to tell *them* that, then you’re not going to win any friends. Obviously.”
I don’t find the descriptor of “literal truth claims” terribly descriptive or useful.
In any case, by your quotation and expounding, if the defining characteristic of Middle Way is rejection of black and white for grey and complicated, then most of the folks I’ve read or am familiar with at, say Book of Mormon Central or Dan Peterson or a number of General Authorities qualify. And since I suspect that rings wrong to you, there’s something amiss in the description.
Having now listened to the podcast and recording, I have some thoughts.
1. The stake president changed the definition of apostasy from simple disbelief when he was talking to the Youngs alone, to the handbook definition when he was speaking in the disciplinary council.
2. He added a number of arguments in his talk in the disciplinary council that weren’t discussed earlier, as far as we know, so the Youngs had no chance to prepare for them.
3. The SP spent a good deal of time using guilt by association with John Dehlin, and attacking JD and Mormon Stories. Some of his information was questionable at best.
4. There was no discussion about the merits of the attack on JD and whether they were relevant to the Youngs.
5. There is no reason to think that the high council members assigned to ensure a fair process had any understanding of items 1-4 above.
6. As part of discussing baptismal covenants, the SP read the scripture from Mosiah about mourning with those that mourn, including the part about standing as witnesses of God at all times and in all places, essentially making that part of the requirement for the Youngs to fulfill if they were remain members in good standing
Based on his comments during the disciplinary council, I think that the following could be considered apostasy by this SP:
– being a leader of a book club that reads Rough Stone Rolling, and allows open discussion
– posting on a blog that allows open discussion of difficult church history topics
– providing marital counseling that supports a couple in a mixed faith relationship, if there is any implication that it is okay for one partner to leave the church
– participating in a podcast, blog, Facebook, or other social media discussion that includes some one who asks for money (priestcraft)
– participating in a podcast, blog, Facebook, or other social media discussion that includes some one who has been subject to church discipline
– participating in any podcast, blog, Facebook, or other social media discussion where people are allowed to say negative things about the church without challenging them
– participating in a podcast, blog, Facebook, or other social media discussion after your stake president has told you to cease
– failing to testify of the truthfulness of the church when your local leaders expect you to
Also fwiw, it was John Dehlin a few years ago who took Reform Judaism as the kind of Middle Way he envisioned, which was criticized here, among other places.
Ben,
To the contrary, I would say that even traditional apologists are probably middle way. (I have actually on my personal blog tried to divide middle way into 3 typologies. I dunno if I’ll get around to writing about it here, but I think they would fit my 1st categorization.
They would not see *themselves* as being any sort of differentiated Mormon, but *others* talk to them, then they are going to say something like, “Yeah, they aren’t espousing exactly what comes out of the manuals.”
I think people often speculate about certain GAs being “privately” in the Middle Way, giving crumbs at General Conference but not able to fully rock any boats.
The thing about MWM is that I don’t know that it is useful to use it as a way to define someone else. It’s more a place you find for yourself.
ReTx
lehcarjt/ReTx,
I don’t know if I would fully agree with that.
Even though it’s difficult to really put a pin down on what “normative” or “traditional” belief is in Mormonism, we have a sort of constellation of concepts and beliefs that works fairly well. And it’s fairly easy to point out when people don’t line up to that constellation of beliefs.
What about people like me?
Nuanced? It is not part of my family culture. We say what we mean and spice it up with swear words. I’m only 3 generations removed from J Golden Kimball. ( I wonder what he would say today) .I don’t understand the difference between mealy mouthed and nuanced.
Middle way? I hardly understand the edges. Black and white doesn’t work when you know white is wrong. Where the heck is the middle? Lost my way- that feels more honest.
The problem I have with realizing what a bunch of lies and manipulation ( and quite a bit of good) that has been dished up to me by the Mormon church for 7 generations, is that I have serious problems and decisions. Life is hard. My career is in the toilet and killing me. My adopted daughter is going through a divorce.with no way to support her children. Everybody needs money. My health is deteriorating. Child rearing united my wife and me. But now that they are gone we find we don’t have much else in common, especially since she followed Jesus into another and obvious better church and I don’t believe half of what they teach either.
I want to follow the Lord (come follow me).But I don’t know what the Lord wants me to do. The current chaos and boring mediocracy and pettiness at my Mormon ward does not enlighten me. It doesn’t bring me closer to the Lord. It is a huge and emotionally exhausting distraction.
Mormonism seemed to work for most of my ancestors, but is not working for most of my cousins and their children. I fell prey to the sunk cost logical fallacy. I feel too old now to change much of anything. I want to play out my few remaining days in a way pleasing to the Lord. I need more than forgiveness and grace. I need moral clarity. But I am lost and confused.
Nuanced=confused?
I think being a mature adult means being able to hold two opposing concepts at once and agreeing with both while internally battling at least somewhat with what that means. I think the nuanced Mormon believers think someone like me was not capable of dealing with paradoxes. For example, the paradox of having a prophet who speaks for god and yet allowing him to be imperfect (some revelation is wrong). I believe that I am capable of this thinking and it worked fairly well for me for a long time. But there is also the possibility that god was not involved with the Book of Mormon in any way. What if God wants us to think about this. I’ve always been one to see both sides. Regarding the church, the issue was too much evidence revealing to me that logically god was not involved with the Book of Mormon or any of the restoration. Ultimately, Ocams Razor lead me to this conclusion rather than using all kinds of intelligence and explanations to keep me believing. I understand that getting really nuanced means rejecting nearly all truth claims but accepting faith in God and then it doesn’t matter what church you attend. I still like that idea but the damage of orthodoxy to many children and individuals is too great. It doesn’t feel right to me to pay tithing or support the church in any way. I’ll support my people, yes.
So while holding opposing truths, I also still want to allow myself some clear convictions. I can’t have all the answers for everyone else and I would not tell anyone to leave the church, but I’m feeling okay about sharing my thoughts on the harms of orthodoxy. I simultaneously see there is a good side to orthodoxy. It’s self discipline. This isn’t something I should throw out and maybe I should be kinder with the orthodox view. I feel I see both sides but my heart is more convicted to one. Many people (maybe not everyone) are hurt deeply by orthodoxy and dogma over and over again.
I see the value to religious community. With the rise in suicides nationwide perhaps everyone leaving religion plays a role for some people-loss of cronnection,community, hope. In a utopian world we would salvage the community and change the religion. Religion has always been changing. There was a time when it was all hell fire damnation, purgatory taught from the pulpits of all churches. It was all about God’s wrath. Its been moving towards the love of god and freedom to believe the truth claims in a way that makes sense to you (not literal bible) but it’s looking like religion didn’t change fast enough. Not fast enough for me. I can’t support the Mormon church. I don’t want to belittle someone for the way they believe and practice their faith, but for now I feel peace with the way I share and feel towards Mormonism. I think having my teenage kids be affected by it has made me more passionate. They have seen their mom fall away and they feel some of the stress of dogma and orthodoxy. Do I mitigate it? Hopefully yes, but of course there is still some pain for them. I know it will be okay and their would view will only be more kind and compassionate because of it, yet I still feel okay being pissed about it once in awhile.
How about searching and seeking? I sort of want to add ‘with an honest heart’ to that, but that phrase is a bit poisoned in some ways.
I’m sorry for you’re situation (I hope that doesn’t come off as trite). Sometimes life sucks and sometimes the church makes it worse rather than better.
Andrew S. – I can see your arguement, but what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t really help someone in a faith transition to be told by someone else where they fit. It’s figuring that out for oneself that is so important (and freeing, of the black/white paradigm).
Sorry about the name swapping. Blogs hate me (even with weekly emails back and forth to askimet).
Glory….excommunication seems a very poor way to minister to those mourning the loss of their faith in a church. They do not sound like courts of love at all.
The LDS Church has brought additional shame upon itself for excommunicating these good people. I know that I’m ashamed of “the Church” and it’s leaders for acting in this manner. What an archaic, cruel and inhumane practice used upon people who only want to know what’s really true and have the courage to question. Another “plug in the dike” has been pulled out…and the foundation will crumble even more quickly.
I think it is truly remarkable that John Dehlin lives “rent free” within so many different minds (maybe in churchistrue’s as well – I don’t know). But, the reality for me and my family is that John Dehlin and Mormon Stories, has been a life-saver for us. If we want to use terms like “blessings” than it has been a blessing to gain the understanding and perspective that I (we) were not alone in our discoveries of the dark underbelly of the “one and only true church on the face of the earth”. And, that our minds, our intellect and our spirits (if you will) could easily discern truth and falsehood – as successfully as anyone else; even “the chosen” ones in SLC. Long live and God Bless John Dehlin and his Team. I’ll take these good folks ANYTIME over a puffed up, overblown and condescendingly self-righteous “LDS Leader”.
“…hold two opposing concepts at once and agreeing with both…” (Two? How about twenty?)
This can be made to function in the world of thought. But at some point you have to either do or don’t do certain things. You ditch your crappy job and take the seemingly better job on the surface in Bismark, North Dakota. Or stay put and be miserable. You buy the house on the lake or the one on the hill or rent. You ask the girl to marry you or you don’t. At some point she marries someone else. You are married and meet someone interesting and you either get more emotionally involved with him/her, which may or may not lead to sex but it is at least mild cheating; or you keep it entirely platonic in both your thoughts and acts. You either pay an honest tithing, assuming you make money in a way that you can calculate that, or you pay less or nothing at all. You either show up to clean the stinking church or you don’t, regardless of whether you are passive or vocal about it.
For Mormons, these decisions start early. Standards are either kept, stretched or ignored. Early morning seminary is often a parting of the way for Mormon youth not living in the corridor. The big one for guys is a full-time mission or not. It is impossible to serve a nuanced mission- unless you have a morally neutral condition and not too severe. Another big decision is temple marriage, although that one is easy to refurbish later. But for everyone who marries, there is a first wedding day and it includes a temple ceremony or not.
We are judged by our deeds and our thoughts.. Mormonism seems to amplify the deeds part of the equation and does not nurture nuance.
Definitely, definitely, definitely thinking of several nuanced Mormons I know who are or have been on missions.
Your analysis of doing things or not doing things makes sense at some level, but it fails to account for *how* things are done, which allows for a lot of variation and, yes, nuance.
I find it interesting that even though you acknowledge that *how* you do something is a material consideration, you bracket it. For example, you say:
But the discussion about the middle way is in part about *how* one shows up to clean the stinking church. Because whether one is able to do it sustainably, week in and week out (or however regularly one is committed towards it) is for so many extremely dependent on how passive they feel they are forced to be, how vocal they feel they can be, and so on. And in many cases, the nuanced or Middle Way Mormonism isn’t in a position to say, “Well, here’s how you can be more vocal,” but rather a position of: “Here’s how you can be OK with cleaning the stinking church *even if you can’t be vocal about it and this bothers you*.”
For Mormons, these decisions do indeed start early. But over a course of a life, the reasons for the decisions change. The how of the decisions is called into question. If you’re only thinking about it as far as “either do or don’t do certain things,” then when the original reasons and how’s don’t make sense, then it might seem obvious to “not do.”
Nuance is about recognizing that sometimes you can change what things you do, and sometimes what is far more important about *how* you do something.
“And I think it shows that the church itself, which encourages black and white thinking”
This comment IS black and white thinking! “The Church”! As if all 16 million members, except you of course, all think alike and can be moved this way or that if only your wisdom was known to The Leaders.
Lefthandloafer writes “The LDS Church has brought additional shame upon itself…”
Shame exists only in the mind of judges (that be you). “the church” has no place to stick shame or pride. It is a container word for 16 million people some of whom merit your disapproval.
(The Other) Mike writes “I don’t know what the Lord wants me to do.”
Nothing! About the only useful thing I have gotten out of that chaos called Thomas Aquinas Summa cum gentile or something like that, is that an omnipotent God cannot WANT anything at all; the instant he wants something, he has it! That leaves YOU. What do you want?
Suppose I operate a carousel at a carnival. Do I *want* you to ride it? Probably not. I don’t care if you ride it. It’s not for me, it is for YOU.
When I go to church, I do not concern myself much with anyone else, what they are doing or not doing. I go more to be of service to others than to be served by others.
Decide what YOU want, and find a path to it. Church, such as it is, exists to reveal paths and perhaps assist you along the way if you are lucky enough to have people on the same path but a bit farther along. But at my age and apparently yours, we are now the guides for those just starting out. Life was simple, now it is not; but I suspect that is true of every generation for thousands of years. Life is simple and black-and-white as a teenager; there’s good and evil and nothing in between. Before you die you realize that very nearly everything is between good and evil.
Joseph Smith started his own church because none others were correct. If anyone here believes similarly about the church you are in, start one that is exactly to your liking if you cannot find one that is exactly to your liking. If that means separation from friend and family, that’s a choice that you cannot escape! You are walking a path, you cannot avoid walking a path, it may be that family and friend are not on the same path. Church exists to try to define a path, but cannot force anyone to walk it.
Irony:
“…rejection of the entire idea that human beings have ‘certainty’ when it comes to God.”
Of that she is certain.
<b?Joseph Smith did not embark on a nuanced or middle way Presbyterianism.
If I were flying an airplane I would have very accurate distance and bearing calculated so I would arrive at the destination. A nuanced or middle way of aviation is to generally head east because I don’t really have a destination and I don’t care how far I go.
Suppose you have a doubt about your Navigator’s skill and he says to go 2000 miles on course 73 degrees but you have an enemy telling you to go 173 degrees for 1000 miles.
The middle way therefore is 123 degrees for 1500 miles. There you be out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean wondering where to go from here?
Moral of the story: If you doubt the skill of your Navigator, do not embark on a journey! If you already embarked, well there’s another saying, don’t change horses mid-stream. Especially if it isn’t your ship in the first place.
“how challenging nuance is in our rigid culture and how far away we are from actually being able to live it openly and authentically”
Cultures are not nuanced. If you have millions of people each free to engage in cafeteria-ism, it is not a culture per se; it is a loosely cooperative network of overlapped cultures.
You have some specific ideas about right behavior and attitudes and wrong behavior and attitudes. You express discomfort with people whose attitudes differ significantly from yours. That’s normal! But it also means there cannot be a “church” of people who are all over the map as to attitudes and beliefs (Episcopalians come pretty close).
Out in the “mission field” the core beliefs of “the church” are not many and each convert brings to the chapel rather a lot of his or her own ethnic culture. The movie “Meet the Mormons” is an example of this and I think was created to help separate actual church doctrine (which is not all that pervasive) from local church traditions (which ARE pervasive and sometimes intolerant).
Chris Porter comments: “1. He was living the middle way when he was exed.”
There is no “middle” way. instead there is your way, and my way, and 16 million other ways. Each president of the church also has a way; sometimes the way changes with each new president but hopefully the destination does not change.
“3. RMN claims to speak for Jesus, therefore his actions and the church’s should be judged by the Jesus standard, not by the ‘men doing their best’ standard.”
Quite right, and as you and I are not Jesus our own judgment should just stop.
Decide your destination, find a path, embark!
In reply to Nancy (April 26, 2019 at 9:58 am), I choose my path and consequences, you choose your path and consequences. I am not responsible for your choices or consequences. It is a manipulative trick to suggest that somehow I am responsible either for your happiness or lack thereof, or even of life itself. I accept that Jesus has counseled for charity and doing good deeds, but it is not for you to define what those good deeds ought to be.
“Of that she is certain.”
No, you misunderstand. The number one thing I have had to learn is to endlessly question my own self. I’m not exempt. Neither is anyone else. Learning, understanding is a journey not a destination.
ReTx
Cody and Leah Young violated the “order” of the church. And, I too was excommunicated over 12 years ago, for the very same reason. I was told to cease from discussing my concerns about a church position. I didn’t obey that directive. I was out of order and excommunicated because of it.
Here’s the deal. People expect the church to be a house of “love.” Cody and Leah thought this. But, the church is not a house of love. The church is actually, rather, “a house of order.” Joseph Smith declared, in the D&C, that the Lord’s house is a house of “order.”
Cody and Leah possess the Spirit of love. And, the church doesn’t accept this Spirit as valid. Hence, this explains why the concept of love is not mentioned in worthiness interviews, it’s not mentioned in the church’s sacrament prayers, and it’s not mentioned in the temple.
The church is all about worthiness and blessings. Members are judged “worthy” of blessings, through their obedience. Love, on the other hand, is a blessing that isn’t associated with worthiness. Loving others, doesn’t require that we be worthy in any way. Also, those who are blessed by love, aren’t determined to be worthy of that love, but yet, are recipients of that blessing.
Because love isn’t associated with worthiness, it’s not a principle that the church seeks to emphasize or help people exercise faith in. Rather, the church focuses on people developing testimonies of the principle of order, which includes worthiness, obedience, and promised blessings.
Joseph Smith declared, that “all blessings” come from obedience to laws of God. Yet, I’ve just explained, how the blessing of giving and receiving love, of possessing a heart filled with love, has nothing to do with obedience, and hence, proves this idea that all blessings come from obedience is incorrect.
It’s interesting, that disciples of Christ are to be known, not by their obedience, and not by their orderly conduct, but by their love. But, the Church that claims to be the “true” church, doesn’t even mention love in their worthiness interviews, in their sacrament prayers, or in their temples.
When I inquired of the Lord, regarding what His house is based on, I was told something different than what Joseph Smith taught. I was taught by the Lord, not that it was a house of order, as Joseph Smith explained, but I was taught, “my house is a house of love saith the Lord.”
Another thing to consider, is the motivation of church members. They’re led to seek for blessings. Their motivation for obedience, is to qualify for, obtain, and retain blessings. However, this is the opposite of exercising faith in the principle of love, which is not about seeking to be blessed, but is all about seeking to bless the lives of others.
My hat goes off to Cody and Leah Young, who felt it more important to love, to seek to bless the lives of others, than to retain the blessing of church membership and all that is associated with that, including the church hope of eternal marriage and eternal life.
If there’s an eternal marriage and eternal life, Cody and Leah, in my opinion, will be given such. Those in the church, who won’t adopt the Spirit of love, who rather, because of their faith in the order of the church, who obtain, nourish, and retain the Spirit of order, will be denied such, in my opinion.
Aaron McMillan’s comment saddens me, both because of those church and local unit cultural and policy matters he describes and because his analysis missed what seems the most important of the teachings of the church:
“Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God.26 Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. Or thinking that after paying rent for our home, we now hold title to the entire planet earth. … we obey the commandments of God—out of love for Him!” President Dieter Uchtdorf, 2015
JR, let’s think about President Uchtdorf’s comments. He didn’t say that obedience isn’t required. He’s just saying that obedience can’t buy salvation. The church believes that salvation is obtained by both obedience and the atonement.
The well-established article of the church’s faith states, “We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.”
And, one could argue, from the teachings of Joseph Smith, that obedience is the currency of salvation, because it was declared “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”
Also, let’s consider the famous Book of Mormon teaching, that we’re saved by grace, only after all we can do, which implies that if we don’t do enough, then we won’t receive that saving grace.
Here’s my take on all this, JR.
The law was given, prior to Christ’s coming, and everyone fell short in obeying that law, except for Jesus. Thus, without an atonement, which Jesus offered, none except Him would be saved. Thus, the law was fulfilled, in Christ. And, there was introduced, a new covenant.
Long before Christ, Jeremiah prophesied, that this new covenant wouldn’t be written in stone, like the old, but under this new covenant, rather than obeying law, the laws of God would be written on people’s hearts, by the Spirit.
A new commandment was given, that we would love one another, as Jesus loves us. And, this can only be done, as people are led by the Spirit, for without empowerment of the Spirit, we can’t love as Jesus loves.
Paul taught, it’s by grace that we’re saved, through faith, and not of works, lest anyone should boast.
It’s by grace, that we can enjoy the companionship of the Holy Ghost, which saves us, which enlightens and empowers us to live continuously with a heart filled with love, which thus, through the grace of God, enables us to love as Jesus loves.
It’s not that we obey the command to love as Jesus loves, for without the Holy Ghost, we aren’t able to keep this commandment. It’s about learning how to be in tune with the Spirit, which then enables and empowers us to live according to this commandment.
It’s a belief in the atonement, faith in the atonement, that saves us. With saving faith, believing in the unconditional love of God, comes the companionship of the Spirit, which empowers us with the same unconditional love toward others.
It’s not after all we can do, that God grants us this grace. We’re to live, and walk, in this grace, where we’re led in all things by the Holy Ghost.
And, contrary to what the Church teaches, that one must be worthy to enjoy the companionship of the Holy Ghost, it’s those who always consider themselves unworthy, who actually enjoy that companionship, through their perfect humility.
After reading your comments, JR, I continue to stand by my previous post, that the church is all about order and seeking blessings through obedience, even seeking to be worthy of the Holy Ghost through obedience, which prevents its membership from actually experiencing this gift of God’s grace.
Aaron, I appreciate your comments. The only part of your most recent comment that I must clearly disagree with is this: ” the church is all about order and seeking blessings through obedience.” Even that disagreement depends upon whether you mean “all about” in standard English or in current American jargon. In what I’m calling standard English the church is not all about order and seeking blessings through obedience — not that those things are not commonly taught in church, but because I have heard the rest of what you’re preaching also taught in the church. Note also, there is more than one way to understand Nephi’s “after all we can do”. I recommend jettisoning one of the common understandings that you seem to have adopted; it may be a straw man, however common it is.
Most people who are having a faith crisis would do better talking to a licensed clinical professional who is not so obviously biased.
He is a disaffected Mormon who currently makes money (he charges more than my therapist for his “coaching” sessions) off of “faith crises”. How convenient for him.
As a licensed therapist, John Dehlin should know better than to take advantage of vulnerable people by charging $200 an hour (Cash only, insurance companies don’t cover this for good reason) to “Coach” someone who is having a faith crisis. It is unethical. If someone is truly having a faith crisis, a few sessions of honest therapy will help far more than any “coaching”.
I have to hand it to him, it’s a great con. He helps people to create a faith crisis in their lives and then he offers a way to “help” for $200 per hour. Nice.