While researching my post of a few weeks ago about the condensed version of the Articles of Faith found at the web site formerly known as Mormon.org, I came across the section on the Word of Wisdom. Since the WofW has been in the news lately and blogged about on W&T here and here, I thought I’d look at what the church’s official website for non-members and investigators said about it.
While many of us more nuanced members have moved the WofW from a health commandment to one of obedience and cultural “setting apart” (like Kosher is to our Jewish brothers and sisters), I found that mormon.org has doubled down on the health aspect of the WofW.
In the section on the first page called “Explore Healthy Living” is the story about the WofW. Then there is a slide show within this section that tells the “Do’s and Don’ts” of the WofW.
This is where the bait and switch happens. Put yourself in the shoes of a person that knows very little about our church. As you click through this list you find the following:
Do: Eat fruits & vegetables “Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanskgiving.” (D&C 89:11)
Don’t: Drink alochol “And, again, strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies.” (D&C 89:7)
Do: Eat Meat Sparingly “Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly.” (D&C 89:12)
Don’t: Smoke or use tobacco “And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man.” (D&C 89:8)
Do: Exercise regularly“To care for your body, eat nutritious food, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep.” (For the Strength of Youth)
Don’t: Drink coffee or tea “And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly.” (D&C 89:9)
Do: Eat grains “All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life.” (D&C 89:14)
Don’t: Use illegal drugs or abuse medications “Anything harmful that people purposefully take into their bodies is not in harmony with the Word of Wisdom. This is especially true of illegal drugs.” (True to the Faith)
Notice what they did here. All these are laid out like they have equal importance to members of the church. No where anyplace on the web site does it explain that we only enforce the “Don’ts”, and that the “Do’s” are rarely if even spoken about or taught in church.
So a very health conscious person will read this, maybe have some concerns about how tea could be considered bad, but puts it on her shelf and looks more into all these good things. Imagine her surprise when she is invited by the missionaries to a ward pot luck! No coffee, tea, alcohol or tobacco, but there is lots of meat, not a lot of grains, the main vegetable is potatoes in various forms, and fruit is scarce. But the dessert table is full and there is plenty of diet Coke!
Now, I’m being hyperbolic here to prove a point, and I’ve been to lots ward pot-lucks where there has been lots of healthy salads, and due to the cost of meat, it has been served sparingly in many meals I’ve attended. But if my hypothetical Pot-luck where to happen, nobody would bat an eye, it would be perfectly normal for an LDS setting.
So is the church selling one thing on its web site (healthy living in all aspects), only to change when it gets time for baptism and the missionaries explain that the “don’ts” are hard and fast to get baptized? Could you imagine if one had to do 20 sit-up and eat less than two serving of meat a week as part of the baptismal requirements?
The mormon.org page cites the 10 year old UCLA study that shows that Mormons that follow the word of wisdom live longer, but fail to mention the Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda. They actually follow the do’s in their health code (which is very similar to ours) and is one of just a few “Blue Zones” where people live much longer than the normal person. Is it any surprise that Provo is NOT a Blue Zone?
What are your thoughts? Is the “Comeuntochrist.org” (AKA Mormpon.org) web site completely honest? Or is this just the polished front end of our church that we want the world to see.
Wheat & Tares 
Interesting that your WoW post features an array of fruits and vegetables and my earlier W&T post featured a Big Mac meal. The truth is you can eat pretty much whatever you want, healthy or not, and still be a Latter-day Saint in good standing — as long as you don’t smoke anything except pot (with a doctor’s recommendation) and don’t drink alcohol, coffee, or tea. It has nothing to do with health, as you can eat plenty of unhealthy things but must abstain from arguably healthy things like coffee and green tea.
Bottom line: Yes, the blurb at ComeUntoChrist.org is at best misleading. It knowingly paints a false picture of what the “Word of Wisdom” presently taught in the Church consists of. And if they can’t be honest with something as straightforward as the present substance of the WoW as taught in the Church, how can anyone trust them to be honest with more complicated things like presenting the substance of LDS history or describing the process of receiving and communicating divine inspiration or revelation?
I thought that maybe the bait and switch you were going to talk about was the fact that at the beginning of the Do: and Don’t: the references were to D&C 88, but then it switched to using “For the Strength of Youth” and “True to the Faith”
On the one hand, the OP is a set-up from the title to the end to say the official web site is deceptive marketing. And needs no further comment on that score.
On the other hand, I believe the invisible hand behind Church PR is not omniscient nor omnipotent, and that opinions and points of view do leak through. I give some allowance for the aspirational. Sometimes the Church is described as someone in the workings would like it to be.
On the third hand, there is an argument that the Church is what we tell adolescents it is. That For the Strength of Youth IS the Church in a pragmatic real world sense. More recent emphasis on living worthy to attend the temple reinforces that argument. Judging by comparison to the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, the web site is a pretty fair summary.
I don’t know that I’d call it misleading. I also think one has to draw a balance between understanding the Lord’s original audience vs. the current saints, even though it’s just as much for us. My understanding is the meat warning was largely because of the fact that meat could easily spoil if not preserved properly, which is why it was eaten “in the season thereof.” Refrigerators have taken care of that. I think science will also tell you to be moderate with meat, but I don’t think the saints are too far out of bounds today with their meat consumption. We can do better though.
As for grain, my wife recently finished reading a book about the engineering of wheat over the years. I had no idea what all they’ve done to it. Long story short, a woman with wheat intolerance was able to get her hands on some non-engineered wheat, and had absolutely no problems with it. If I recall, weight gain also went down in a number of people. In short, I don’t think the grain of Section 89 is as abundant or the same as the grain of present day..
There’s a part of me that wishes the Lord would add a bit more clarification beyond what the brethren have done. But we are warned of conspiring men (and some who had good intentions), and, as my wife has done her own research, coupled with the Spirit, she’s gained her own wisdom and treasure as to what’s best for her, and it appears to be working. It’s an example I think many saints could follow.
So while the Church may have listed some specifics largely open to debate with respect to content and presentation, I think it trusts that knowledge-seeking members will come to a conclusion not too far removed, but also adapted to the world we live in.
I think the mormon.org listing is a decent explanation of our understanding of WoW. It doesn’t fail in understanding; it fails in enforcement. Personally, I think the enforcement aspect is flat out stupid for all the reasons already discussed and to be honest I pay it little attention or bother. The actual WoW as wisdom is a great thing and I have no problem teaching it hand-in-hand with taking ownership of our own lives and health.
If the Brethren can modify (eliminate) the priesthood ban, plz tell me what is so damn hard about WoW?! This defies common sense. FIX IT to reflect the 21st Century and the knowledge we’ve gained in the meantime, and let us move on. Maybe we can tackle gun violence.
It’s just easier to enforce don’ts than do’s. Most people don’t want to keep a log of all their fruits and vegetables to make sure they get enough. We have a hard enough time just agreeing what is a fruit or vegetable. Tomatoes? Legumes? I like to claim the cocoa bean as a favorite vegetable.
The weird thing to me is not why certain parts are enforced and not others, but why it was ever enforced to the point of keeping parents out of their children’s weddings. If you want to call it a bait and switch for converts, my question is how many converts know they could be kept out of the temple (and therefore miss weddings) for drinking green tea?
I really think that the OP’s argument – that the church is engaging in bait-and-switch because investigators are taught about both the DOs and DON’Ts of the Word of Wisdom, even though the church does a better job enforcing the DON’Ts, is rather weak. All organizations find it easier to enforce the DON’Ts, and individuals with a desire to make the DOs just as important in their own lives are perfectly free to do so.
I very much doubt that anyone on this site wants to see the DOs enforced the way the DON’Ts are – there would underatandably be a lot of complaints if someone got excluded from the temple because he was unable to convince his bishop that he had eaten enough vegetables.
Where the church’s website really goes wrong is in adding things to the Word of Wisdom that aren’t actually in there at all, namely:
1) Exercise, which nobody had to be told to do in 1833.
2) Drug use, which is not mentioned in the Word of Wisdom, though the Greek New Testament contains five passages condemning “pharmakeia” – translated as “sorcery” or “witchcraft” becauae historically, all mind-altering substances, legal or otherwise, were associated with the dark arts.
Now, do I think the leaders of the church ought to talk more about the DOs of the Word of Wisdom? Of course – like the OP said, if we followed it the way the 7th Day Adventists follow their health code, we would be, well, healthier.
Over 20 years ago at a Biology seminar at BYU, the visiting (non-LDS) speaker was talking about diet and different populations, and she mentioned that in her studies she had found one religious group that had much better health than others due to their religious dietary observance. We in the audience sat up in anticipation of hearing ourselves congratulated for the Word of Wisdom and its effects. You could have heard a pin drop when she said that it was the Seventh Day Adventists who eat lots of fruits and vegetables and very little meat.
Lately when I’ve renewed my temple recommend, when the interviewer has asked if I observed the Word of Wisdom, I’ve responded that I don’t eat enough vegetables and I eat way too much sugar. I know that’s not what they’re after, but I want to make sure they see how silly it is to be asking just about the don’ts.
I have always taught my children what I’ve told non-members who ask: the W of W is not about health, it’s about obedience. That explanation allowed me to side step the arbitrary contradictions (example: I can dring a 44-oz Diet Coke every morning but my daughter can never drink a Green Tea). I was very comfortable admitting that the W of W was far from complete as a health code. So why then would the Church double down on the health aspects of the W of W by calling it a “law of health” (per the recent Church statement on Mormon Newsroom). As a health code, it’s a joke that Green Tea is specified as a no-no but meanwhile I can down my daily 44 oz Coke Zero.
You know what I expected from President Nelson? I expected a kind of “we teach correct principles and ask members to govern themselves” mentality. But no, we are going old school and mentioning Green Tea. It’s really kind of embarrassing explaining this to my kids and non-members with a straight face and calling it a health law.
To me the Adventists have adopted a very mature approach. From their website: “The Seventh-day Adventist Church recognizes the autonomy of each individual and his or her God-given power of choice. Rather than mandating standards of behavior, Adventists call upon one another to live as positive examples of God’s love and care.
Part of that example includes taking care of our health—we believe God calls us to care for our bodies, treating them with the respect a divine creation deserves. Gluttony and excess, even of something good, can be detrimental to our health.”
They freely admit that some of Ellen White’s ideas were products of her time and don’t hold up now. They also don’t require strict observance for fellowship, but everyone is focused on health as an important value. I think this would be such a better approach to the WOW and actually have the intended result of making people healthier.