The text for today’s blog sermon is “The Evangelical Church Is at War With Itself,” at The Atlantic. The author interviewed several pastors and many congregants of various moderately conservative and rabidly conservative churches in Detroit, trying to understand and document this sudden burst of Evangelical strife and figure out what is causing it. Mormons are not mentioned in the article. The LDS Church is not mentioned in the article. But there are a lot of similarities, as well as some differences. I’ll pull some quotes or sometimes summarize, then give a “same or different?” verdict. My general sense is the conflict is deeper and more extreme in Evangelical churches, but it’s not just an Evangelical problem. It’s a Mormon problem, too. Go read the article if you have ten minutes (it’s a longish article), then let’s talk about it.
A Political Identity
I’ve spent my life watching evangelicalism morph from a spiritual disposition into a political identity. It’s heartbreaking.
Different. Yes, Mormons vote Republican quite reliably and many Mormons have become Trumpists over the last six years. Yes, the Church is more politicized and more political than it has been for a century. But I think the “Mormon identity” for the average church-going Mormon is still rooted more in our unique historical claims (Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, Nephites in America, etc.) than in current political battles. Yes, many Mormons are leaning toward an extremist political identity, but most haven’t stepped across that line yet.
Discernment
Quoting a moderate conservative pastor who opposes extremist conservative politics:
“The crisis for the Church is a crisis of discernment,” he said over lunch. “Discernment” — one’s basic ability to separate truth from untruth — “is a core biblical discipline. And many Christians are not practicing it.”
Same. I like that word and concept: discernment. I think discernment, the ability to separate truth from untruth, is maybe slipping away within Mormonism. I know there are critics that reject Mormon historical-religious claims who think a lack of discernment was baked into Mormonism from the start. Maybe you think that way and maybe you don’t. But it is certainly true that in the past only a small fraction of active LDS were ready to buy into conspiracy theories political and cultural. Now it’s a much larger fraction. The same pastor is quoted later in the article as saying, “Hands down, the biggest challenge facing the Church right now is the misinformation and disinformation coming in from the outside.” Maybe Evangelicals and Mormons are both losing their sense of discernment.
The Enemy Within
To many evangelicals today, the enemy is no longer secular America, but their fellow Christians, people who hold the same faith but different beliefs.
Same. Yes, LDS leaders still preach against “the world” or, in more colorful moments, rail against “Babylon” and the Devil. But increasingly, at both the general and local level, I get a sense that more leaders and more members see an enemy within as the real present danger to the Church, whether that enemy within is deemed to be liberals or dissenters or cafeteria Mormons or just (waving hands a bit) people who leave the Church. As a proselyting church, the LDS Church is organizationally attuned to growth. But in terms of church governance and regulation, the Church seems more focused on weeding out those who don’t measure up (to whatever arbitrary standard is applied) — that is, to shrinking the Church. These programs and approaches are not on the same page.
Flight to Another Church
Substantial numbers of evangelicals are fleeing their churches, and most of them are moving to ones further to the right.
Different. The only time Mormons switch congregations is when they move. But this rather rigid system of assigning people to particular congregations based on their physical address, with almost no exceptions, does have some advantages. Mormons rarely go shopping for a new congregation. The switching costs, as an economist would term it, are just too high. In any case, most LDS congregations are pretty much the same. You might have to search a long time to find an LDS congregation that is significantly more politically conservative than the one you’re in, and unlike most Evangelical congregations that might not be reflected to any degree in Sunday sermons. If anything, within the LDS Church it is not politically conservative members who are leaving. It is politically liberal members who are more likely to throw up their hands in dismay at the recent political drift of the Church (I’ll stop short of calling it “radicalization”) and just stop attending or even go find another denomination.
Covid and Closing Church
Again quoting the moderately conservative pastor:
When COVID arrived — bringing with it “a new flood of misinformation” — Brown and his leadership team wrote a letter to the congregation laying out their reasons for closing the church and specifying the sources they were relying on. Brown also launched a blog and a podcast, vying for his members’ attention at a moment when so many were suddenly stuck at home and swimming in hearsay and innuendo.
Same. Or maybe different. It sounds like Covid disruptions hit some Evangelical congregations very hard. Yes, shutting down LDS sacrament meetings for six or eight months had an effect. Some previously active people didn’t come back. But that might be because they still have health and exposure concerns, not because their testimonies died while not enjoying uplifting talks and informative lessons every week at in-person church. Plus it seems to me that many LDS congregations managed to maintain some continuity and activity even without in-person services on Sunday. Wow, after years of stubbornly rejecting the idea, the Church sure embraced Zooming church and meetings, didn’t it?
Losing the Youth?
The article describes the son of a high-school history teacher as “deeply conservative, a Trump voter, a consumer of right-wing media.” The son is on the verge of leaving the family’s moderately conservative congregation because … it’s not conservative enough. The kid is upset his pastor is criticizing those responsible for January 6 and that his pastor has endorsed Covid vaccines.
Different. All evidence suggests LDS youth and young adults are leaning into civil rights and LGBT issues, not against them, and are on the verge of leaving the LDS Church because it is too politically conservative, not because it isn’t politically conservative enough. This seems like a fairly significant distinction. I wonder if this difference will lead, in a decade or two, to different political trajectories for the LDS Church and Evangelical churches. That hasn’t been the case at all in the recent past.
So that’s enough quotations. What do you think? Same or different?
- Has the onslaught of Trump- and Covid-related misinformation and disinformation rocked the LDS Church to the same degree as it apparently has most Evangelical congregations? Or is the LDS Church different enough that this time of troubles will have no lasting effect on the LDS Church?
- Here’s another angle. The post I quoted was published in the print magazine under the title “How Politics Poisoned the Church.” Has politics poisoned the LDS Church? Or is politics just more noise that members are able to fairly successfully tune out, maintaining positive fellowship with other members and retaining confidence in their local and senior leaders.
Wheat & Tares 
We’ve always had progressive members who have issues with various aspects of the Church. The low hanging fruit for them (and many others) is polygamy and blacks and the priesthood. And they have been concerned about other issues. Growing up I remember hearing about certain members of the ward who were outspoken about certain issues. Their criticism was almost always from a liberal / progressive point of view. The strict hardliners from the right didn’t say much.
In more recent times, we’ve seen two other developments that have lead to the expansion of internal criticism: (1) the Internet (2) the Trump movement. The Internet has afforded those of us who are amateur historians the opportunity to research from our desktop information that was previously very difficult to find. So folks like me with inquiring minds couldn’t unsee what we’ve seen and it changed our perception about the Brethren. For me, I never had a faith crisis but I definitely experienced a trust crisis.
But the new development since 2015 or so has been the Captain Moroni crowd attached to the Trump movement. Growing up I never remember hearing about members on the right who were critical of the Church for not being strict or conservative enough. Maybe they existed but I never saw them. And now? They are all over (Deznat, etc.). I’ve talked to some of them and here’s what I have gathered:
1. The Church is far too progressive on social issues (women, blacks, LGBTQ)
2. The Church has been inappropriately influenced by liberal historians in the History Department
3. BYU has turned into a liberal bastion
And here’s what’s even crazier from my point of view: For the first time in my life I am hearing life-long TBMs critical of the Church and the Brethren and the Prophet (RMN). The climax of this behavior was when RMN started talking about vaccination and masks. Members who were previously inclined to defend the Prophet until the death are now saying he (RMN) is “speaking as a man” with respect to Covid. I really get the impression that for the first time in their lives, some members view their politics above their religion. You didn’t see this even in the Reagan era and certainly not with the Bushes. The Trump thing really is cult-like.
Maybe my observations are simply anecdotal. I don’t claim to know what’s going on everywhere in the Church. I’m just telling you what I’m seeing and hearing as a conservative / libertarian who is more and more estranged from those movements as the Trumpsters take over.
Purely anecdotal on my part, but as an active member of the Church living in Utah County, the work team I’m on (has varied in size from 6 to 12 members over the years) currently only has only two active members; myself and my supervisor. I’ve worked there since Obama’s third year in office. Since that time, I’ve watched the majority of changing active members on my team stay mostly the same politically, while inactive and nonmember coworkers drifted slowly to the right during Obama, continued slowly to the right under Trump, and then have accelerated even further to the right under Biden. I know Utah is rapidly becoming less synonymous with the Church, but I still think Trumpism in the Church is overblown, with many of the left using it as a scapegoat for right-wing movements in Utah.
Assuming Trump runs again, if there is a small government conservative to rival him in the primaries (Trump was a big government conservative more than many of his fans will care to admit) with even an ounce of more politeness than he has, most conservative members I know will vote for the rival in a heartbeat. Of all my friends inside and outside of social media, I can only think of two that I would call Trump loyalists. Admittedly, one is an active member, the other has LDS fringe ideas, but both are very pleasant to be around.
But no, to answer your question, I don’t think it’s rocked the Church to the same degree as Evangelical congregations. And no, I don’t think politics has poisoned the Church (unless you believe the generally conservative ideology of the Church and its members of the last century to be poisonous).
The youth question is an interesting one. I have a relative who disagrees with the Church’s LGBTQ+ policies, but has had enough experiences with the Holy Ghost and the truth claims of the Church that she doesn’t appear to be planning on going anywhere. I honestly don’t know how many of the youth of the Church will take a similar position.
Conversations with my conservative friends align with Josh h’s observations. There was very real criticism leveled at the First Presidency. President Nelson’s support of the NAACP has drawn fire. So have the compromises regarding the LGBTQ communities. I also question the notion that teens and young adults are poised to leave because of the conservatism within the Church. They are frequently more loyal to church leaders than their conservative family members. Those who leave will leave for increased secularism on their part, not due to conservatives within the church.
I mostly see what Josh sees, but with one slight caveat. Church members have *always* viewed the Church through their political lens, not the other way around. Their political views have simply become more strident as the Overton window on the right has moved further to the right, and as the pandemic (and Trump’s unceasing bashing of his opponents) has fomented more discontent than we have had for a long time. This isn’t just a US phenomenon either. Our friends in Spain were talking about the exact same trend there, Church members who were far right extremists arguing that Pres. Nelson was off script and needed to shut up because in their minds he was the one who believed a conspiracy, that the vaccines were a good thing.
I probably see equal numbers of youth leaving the Church because it’s so so bad on women’s issues, LGBT issues, and basically the wrong side of history on almost every issue, as I see those who are doubling down on the far right views. Mostly I think that aligns with their families’ views in the case of those on the right, but those on the left are often to the left of their parents’ views. That much gives me a tiny sliver of hope. Personally, I find it intolerable at this point. Every ward is different, I’m sure, but I’m hearing the same type of thing from friends all over the country and even further.
The LDS Church used to be unique but since it has drifted into the Evangelical circle it has lost not only its uniqueness but it’s identity. Evangelicals have always dismissed or even persecuted the LDS church so why would they accept them even if the LDS Church becomes them. It would be better for the LDS Church to become unique again and actually follow Jesus Christ instead of the conservative far right.
While you may not think these issues are present, I’ve experienced ALL first hand; I’ll point out two.
We had a Bishop during the quarantine who openly preached COVID-19 was a hoax, was just a normal cold, masks were useless, and if you showed up to the zoom broadcast, you were welcomed to stay. The entire ward leadership followed his lead – I was astonished. I told him I felt there was more to it than what he was saying – didn’t go well. The RSP made it known in a zoom meeting that President Nelson was wrong on the vaccine.
I know several young women who are completely disinterested in the church because of the hard lined, then wishy-washy stance on LGBTQ+. I really don’t think the leadership anticipated the damage the gay ban did – and then the reversal – especially to the young women. Closely behind that are the church’s lip-service to women’s issues and the “nothing to see here, folks” regarding prior church leader’s actions. This approach served us well in the 70’s and 80’s, maybe even the 90’s for most part, but today those cheap answers are a slap to the savvy, but oddly a bouy to the ultra devout.
To say the church isn’t slowly shifting apart is complete ignorance.
The things we do for love…
Since January of this year, my wife and I have been attending a local Episcopal congregation. Contrasting our new experiences after lifetimes of highly active and exclusive Mormonism has been fascinating. For example, politics plays virtually no role in either the worship services or the weekly ‘linger-longers’. By and large, people attend based on a genuine desire to congregate and worship rather than out of misplaced guilt or being stuck in a routine.
In response to the number of transitioning Mormons in attendance, there are weekly discussion groups designed to help cure LDS PTSD. Topics include how to shed Mormon guilt, maintaining family relationships, and carving new, more optimistic lives. For us, it has been a process of taking off the blinders and opening up to a more Christ centered worldview.
The music is sublime. Easter services included excerpts from the works of Bach and Sibelius. Music truly is the purest form of worship – and paid musicians are worth every cent. To our delight, the Episcopal hymnal has no traces of ‘Praise to the Man’.
The less than subtle overtones of politics, obedience and correlation present in Mormon worship are nonfactors in Episcopal services. Our LDS ward has devolved into a cesspool of divisiveness and passive aggressive behaviors. It has been refreshing to be spared the guilt inducing comments referencing politics and proper underwear.
So the answer is yes – politics and provincialism are ruining the LDS Church.
Great insights and food for thought. Evangelism and the Mormon Church, while having some similarities, are hugely different. Evangelism stems from a combination of Calvinism, Puritanism, Congregationalism, Christian Revivalism, and the Great Awakening. Influential figures of the 1700s such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards helped create the religious landscape for American evangelism to thrive. Evangelism does not have human authority and relies to some degree on Martin Luther’s concept of sola scriptura. What this means is evangelical preachers have to compete with each other for followers and attention. Consequently, their congregants’ attitudes and beliefs have much more influence on what the preachers say and do than in Mormonism, where local authorities are appointed and high authorities derive their authority from a chain of authority going back to Joseph Smith. The Mormon church is much more top-down. And its top-down influence has served to stem the tide of baser political influences entering the church.
Now, far right politics did enter the Mormon church much earlier on, largely with Ezra Taft Benson, who was Secretary of Agriculture under Eisenhower, a John Bircher, and conspiracy-fevered anti-communist. I think whatever political sentiment exists in the Mormon Church today is due in large part to the lingering effect of Benson. Additionally, the Mormon Church became active in politics in 2000s and 2010s with same-sex marriage coming to the forefront of political debate. But Mormon leaders did not allow Trump and Trumpism to take over congregations, the way the Trumpist and Qanonist diseases have infected Evangelism.
Another difference between Mormonism and evangelism is that Mormonism’s leadership coterie is filled with highly educated, wealthy people. Mormonism is also largely shaped and defined by people at its leading university, BYU. Mormonism is hugely influential in the politics of the very wealthy state of Utah. Evangelism, by contrast, thrives among the less educated and rural folk, where Trumpism also thrives. A good core of Mormonism in the Mormon belt is traditionally rural and poorer. And I think there you get Trumpism and Qanonism. But less and less so. The Mormonism of 35-50 year-olds now has been increasingly wealthy and educated. Evangelism doesn’t have a geographic home or center the way Mormonism does. Evangelical universities do not command prowess and prestige the way that BYU has and does.
Good post. The pandemic and Trump accelerated the decades-long rightward drift in the Church and in other Evangelical institutions. People who claimed to love truth enthusiastically embraced lies and immorality when it was politically expedient. Church leaders see the trend. I’d imagine it concerns them, but they don’t want to openly condemn the most faithful. I suspect the departure of moderates will only reinforce the broader trend.
I submitted a comment earlier today on this post that got put in moderation. Could you check on that? Thanks.
Down with “moderation.” Presumably we’re adults.
It was a pretty anodyne comment. I’m assuming it was just a weird glitch.
OK, adults who wear crocs & sweats and lurk around 7-11’s scoping out the hotties – but adults nonetheless
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
I found the missing comments from John W and Dazed and Confused in the filter and posted them.
I don’t really have any responses or anything to add to what’s in the post or comments. I just read the book Jesus and John Wayne, which paints a fairly unflaterring picture of Evangelicals. Again, some parallels to the LDS experience and some differences. In that book, the author sees less of a divide (as if it is 50/50) between mainstream or traditional Evangelicals and the newer Trump-worshipping Evangelicals. It’s more like the Trumpers have politicized and taken over the Evangelical movement, which is now more of a political identity than a religious one. The full Evangelical embrace of Trump, who embodies values that are 180 degrees opposite to traditional Evangelical values, underscores that point. Most Evangelicals still think they worship Jesus. Pathetic.
I wish we had kept Mormonism weird and not bent over backwards to mainstream ourselves in evangelicalism over the past few decades. Im most concerned about the symbolic alignment- adoption of Christian rock/gospel styles, imitative art, movies/tv, and other cultural markers that signal alignment. I doubt a political/theological push would have been successful without this virtue signaling. And the signaling (including the MoTab singing Drump’s praises 6 years ago) has been frequent and unmistakable.
We cozied up to Evangelical conservatism, and can’t escape the consequences.
Every ward that our family attends (6 total) has been ravaged socially, politically, and spiritually by this schism. Every one.
What is the Evangelical Church? John W provided some of its historical influences. I read a Wikipedia article Approaches to evangelism, also the link there to evangelism.
It is still more vague than definitive. Evangelism seems to go beyond just a religion spreading its interpretation of the gospel.
I have a sense that one link of Republicanism in my lifetime (several decades) to religion has to do with racism. More particularly, using racism to further policies (low taxes, decreased regulation) that largely benefit wealthy individuals and corporations, leading to greater wealth concentration.
Since wealth concentration obviously benefits few individuals (even the top 1% pales next to the top 0.1%), the racism redirects resulting ire of those harmed by it (most everyone) to minority groups. I see it in arguments, like raising wariness about race-based affirmative action college admissions, but ignoring legacy admissions (Jared Kushner is an example).
Which churches lean more Republican, and what other things besides racism do they have in common? Anti-feminism, anti-LGBTQ, wariness of academia (they want to be their own authority). More?
I do think trumpian politics is poisoning the Church in Utah. I’m a well-educated (PhD) white female professional who moved to a rural town after retirement. I was shocked when, despite Pres. Nelson’s urging us to wear masks and get vaccinated, more than half my ward refused to wear masks (including a member of the bishopric) and likely refused to get vaccinated. I don’t know for sure about vaccinations, but the county I live in has one of the four lowest rates of vaccination in Utah (about 40%), so I’m assuming the rate is low in my ward. I’m not a Republican but I became a RINO to help Becky Edwards defeat Mike Lee, who I think is one of the most poisonous Republicans currently on the national stage with his comments about “Captain Moroni Trump,” his saying trump’s actions on Jan. 6 deserve a “mulligan,” and his texts to Mark Meadows asking how he could help subvert the election. Yet where I live, Mike Lee is the favorite candidate for the Senate anyway, which clearly implies his pro-trump stance is just fine with LDS people who should be appalled at the immoral and corrupt character of donald trump. I frankly am having a harder time than ever going to church. I feel like the church has been stolen from me, hijacked by the trumpublican party.
This last poster echoes my thoughts. How is it members whose daughters have quotes the YW beliefs including “Integrity” deign to support DJT? He has NONE. How can they reason away our MD prophet’s counsel about healthcare? How can they support the violent attempt to steal a rightful election? THEN accuse Dems of stealing the election when EVERY state has shown no fraud, and/or was controlled by Rs?. We left our own 40yr stake after a mission, because it saddened us to see former ward members we were close to lose their minds.
Btw, we moved. we didn’t leave the Church. We had decided to move to another state post mission. We have had no real overt Trumpism rear it’s head thus far, and we were here during 2020. I refuse to let this craziness make me miss out on my own eternal blessings