Life offers plenty of intended consequences, where things work out just like they are supposed to. And there are cases where outcomes are highly foreseeable, at least to objective observers, although sometimes the primary person is blind to that foreseeable outcome. No doubt as a friend or relative recounts their story of misfortune, you have replied, “Well, what did you expect? I tried to warn you.” But there are a lot of cases where largely unforeseeable consequences follow from a rash decision or even a carefully planned decision. It’s not just that you didn’t see it coming — no one did. Let’s talk about unintended consequences in the world and in the Church.
Exhibit Number One: Ukraine. There is a very long list of things that Valdimir Putin didn’t see coming when he made the apparently unilateral decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine almost three months ago (Google tells me Russian troops crossed the border on February 21, 2022.) He expected a quick land grab and a quick regime change with little or no opposition from the West or the wider world. What he didn’t expect was for his Russian troops to get their butts kicked by a bunch of underequipped but highly motivated Ukrainian troops. He didn’t expect the reputation of the Russian military to plummet to zero. He didn’t expect Finland and Sweden to suddenly decide to join a newly energized NATO. He didn’t expect Russia to become a pariah state subject to harsh economic sanctions almost overnight. He didn’t expect McDonalds and other western businesses to close their stores all over Russia, then pull out of the country, probably forever. He didn’t expect the invasion to place significant pressure on world food supplies and prices. He didn’t expect to put lots of fish and chip places out of business (at CNN: “Thousands of Britain’s fish and chip shops could close within a year“). Let’s hope that this story doesn’t end with “He didn’t expect the nukes to start flying.”
I suppose there are other lessons to learn here. “Don’t start a war you can’t finish.” Or: “Always have an exit plan.” Or: “This is what happens when you make big decisions in an echo chamber.” But the one I’m pulling from this is the lesson of unintended consequences, and some of them can be nasty. Now let’s consider some LDS examples.
Exhibit Number Two: LDS Finances. At the end of this post, I’ll ask readers to add some LDS examples, which are obviously not as flagrant as the still-evolving tale of Putin and Ukraine but still worth some reflection. I’ve got two in mind. First, LDS finances. Somewhere in the 1950s (Google tells me it was 1959), the LDS Church in the United States released its last set of public financial statements. As a private entity, the Church is under no legal obligation to publish them, but it nevertheless did up until that time. You could argue the Church has a moral obligation to inform tithe-paying members what the leadership is doing with all that money, and perhaps that is why financial statements were previously published.
For whatever reason, that changed starting in 1960. I seem to recall there were some financial difficulties the Church was facing, possibly from an overextended building program, and they didn’t want that made public. They brought in a sharp business guy, N. Eldon Tanner, to clean up the financial mess, which he did. The leadership then apparently decided life would be easier if they didn’t resume the practice of publishing financial statements (although I know they are required to publish country-level statements in some other countries). This gives us the comical display of a Church auditor going to the Conference pulpit once a year and proclaiming that the financial statements (that no one is allowed to see) and its accompanying notes (which no one is allowed to see) accurately report the financial position and performance of the Church over the last twelve months. That’s a charade. It’s the appearance but not the substance of financial accountability.
What are the unintended consequences? Two that I can think of right off the bat. First, there is the Hundred Billion Dollar Fund. Like Motel 6 (which nowadays costs more like $69.99 a night, not $6 a night) that fund or collection of funds and portfolios isn’t just a hundred billion. It could be in the hundreds of billions by now. Someday it will probably be the Trillion Dollar Fund. Who knows? But I certainly know that if the Church had continued releasing financial statements over the years that showed large and growing surpluses in the billions, then tens of billions, then hundreds of billions, there would have been pressure to explain what’s going on. What’s the plan for the money? Perhaps too much tithing is being collected, since they spend every penny they can but still end up with huge surpluses? The Hundred Billion Dollar Fund is an unintended consequence of the decision to stop releasing financial statements.
A second consequence, somewhat related, is that it slowly extinguished any responsibility leaders felt to be accountable to the membership for how the money was collected, spent, and invested. This is evident in the publicly expressed opinion that proceeds from invested tithing funds (investment gains) are not tithing money at all. To LDS leaders, that’s just fun money, with no strings attached. Which is funny, because they basically regard straight tithing, the financial contributions collected every week, to be irrevocable donations with no strings attached either. But they apparently feel just a bit of obligation to the members for how straight tithing money is spent (although they do not honor that sense of obligation by actually issuing financial statements, just telling us they prepare them but give no one except a few senior leaders and a handful of sworn-to-secrecy auditors any access to them). They feel no sense of obligation about what is done with investment gains. Technically, of course, gains from invested tithing surplus are just as much a “member contribution” as the twenty-dollar bill you stuff in an envelope and give to the bishop. Any other view is just a version of money laundering, as if moving the money from the “tithing receipts” checking account to the “discretionary spending” checking account somehow severs any attached obligations. Another way to describe this second unintended consequence is that the leadership unwittingly damaged their own reputation for financial credibility and responsibility. If they won’t tell you about the Hundred Billion Dollar Fund, there are an awful lot of other things they aren’t telling you about. To believe otherwise is simply naive.
Exhibit Number Three: Missionaries Are Getting Younger and Younger. In 2012, President Monson announced that the age of eligibility for LDS missionaries dropped to 18 for young men and 19 for young women. That was a big change. The immediate consequence, perhaps partly unintended but certainly foreseeable, was a surge in new missionaries, particularly young women. By now, ten years later, things have settled back down. Were there any unforeseen and unintended consequences to this move?
One is the rise in the number of missionaries who return home early due to health challenges or depression or whatever. I certainly hesitate to throw out the term mental illness or even mental challenge, although there are a few cases of this, no doubt. Really, what technical term can you put on the state of mind of a young LDS missionary who comes to the realization that they just don’t want to be there anymore and they want to terminate their service and go home? In most cases, that’s sanity, not mental illness. Honestly, it’s the kid who says, “I don’t want to be here anymore, I hate it, but I’ll soldier on for another 18 months,” who is better described as suffering from a form of mental illness or is a victim of blatant manipulation. The kid who says, “Hey, I gave it a good shot, I tried very hard, but it’s just not working at all” — that’s not a sign there is something wrong with the kid. Maybe there is something wrong with the program. Maybe it’s just not a good fit, that kid and that mission. However you describe it, the significant rise in young missionaries returning home early is, I believe, an entirely unintended consequence of the age drop, as younger missionaries find the challenges of missionary service even more challenging.
Here’s a second consequence that might be lurking out there but has been much less discussed. A lot more young women are serving as missionaries. They have a lot of responsibility and serve with a great deal of dedication and energy. Then they come home and … get called into Primary to teach six-year-olds? There are just so few avenues for teaching and leadership in local wards for these talented and motivated returning missionaries that there must be a lot of frustrated young LDS women. Women in today’s world can serve in the military and climb the officer ranks, they can work in business and climb the corporate ladder right up to CEO, they can work in all the professions on relatively equal terms with their male colleagues … but they encounter mostly closed doors and glass ceilings in the Church. It seems like there ought to be a lot of church-frustrated returned sister missionaries. But I haven’t heard or read any accounts of this. Either they are suffering in silence, or quietly walking away, or maybe this is, in point of fact, not a consequence at all. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree. Maybe they aren’t frustrated, at least not yet. Or maybe it’s a silent but real negative consequence that hasn’t really emerged in public view yet. I hope readers can add some thoughts or experiences here. There are tens of thousands of female twenty-something LDS returned missionaries in the system. What is their experience and state of mind? Inquiring minds want to know.
Conclusions? Leadership cadres that operate inside carefully cultivated echo chambers are no doubt more at risk to make decisions that produce unintended negative consequences. That certainly describes some LDS decision making. Here are some questions to consider in the comments.
- Any other examples you can think of where an LDS program change or big decision has led to unintended and unforeseen negative consequences?
- For the contrarians out there, try and think of a decision that led to unintended positive consequences.
- How do we reform the echo chamber? Appoint a particularly bold GA to be a devil’s advocate required to give a formal critique of any proposed new LDS policy or program? How about a rule that a change to any women’s program requires consultation and feedback from LDS women? How about a rule that a change to any youth program or missionary service requires consultation and feedback from LDS youth?
Wheat & Tares 
One of the unintended consequences of saying that “every member is a missionary” is that many of us feel a natural inclination to tell others that the Church isn’t what it claims to be. We are accused of leaving the Church but not leaving the Church alone. But that goes back to our training. I try to resist the urge to set the record straight with my LDS friends because I don’t want to be the obnoxious x-Mormon I used to despise. But still, the urge is there.
Many x-TBMs don’t care about the organization one way or another. They are completely ambivalent about it. But I have discovered that I still care a great deal about what the Church says and does even if I’m not an active member. I guess I’m concerned about how the Church continues to harm some folks (LGBTQs, women, etc.). I’m also interested in staying current on how the Church changes its narratives. It’s a fascinating social studies case study. But again, I was trained to care. You can take the TBM out of the Church but it’s much harder to take the Church out of the x-TBM. People like me are probably the Church’s biggest concern: people who care as much as I do but on the other side now. Talk about unintended consequence.
Dave, would the Gospel and Church History Topic essays fall under this rubric? While apparently written to attempt to staunch some of the questions raised by non-Church sources about Church history and doctrine, I think they had the unintended consequence of verifying troubling information and helped some to decide to leave the Church. A least a few folks on this very blog (in the comments at least) have suggested some of the Q15 have regretted the decision to publish them, though I have no idea how they would know that.
Dave, you must not frequent the feminist blogs and discussion groups, because that is where you would hear from the female missionaries who comeback and resume being treated like second class citizens, or just notice on the mission how they are treated, with little boys bossing them around because he can be zone leader and they can’t. Then they have a feminist awakening, struggle for years with “does God love me less than he loves men” and eventually give up and either leave the church or hang in for years hoping that the sexism will change.
The “traditional family is the center of the Universe” mantra has left the majority of the Saints without a good understanding of where they or their life fits into the Church. Which, I think, leads to many of us wondering, if I don’t fit in, why should I stay?
As for a (maybe) positive unintended consequence, I would add that the significant emphasis on obedience to authority (including missionary service) and the Word of Wisdom has made several of generations of Mormons prime targets for government and military service (though I’m sure some will question the positivity of having so many of us with a hand on the wheel of government). At least it dispelled the lingering suspicions of disloyalty the 19th century Saints often generated. I sincerely doubt that was part of the plan when Heber J. Grant began rigorously enforcing the Word of Wisdom nor do I suspect it was even a secondary reason for the push to have every worthy young man serve a mission.
“Then they come home and … get called into Primary to teach six-year-olds?”
That’s pretty much the case for most of us; that’s the work that wards need. My first ward calling after the mission was to teach the 13-year-olds’ Sunday School class. Over the decades almost all my callings have been that sort, callings that you could find women called to do before or after me. Most of us aren’t needed or cut out for the stake presidency, and the bits of leadership we do handle are not imagined by anyone to be more significant than comparable tasks handled by women in the church.
Dave B. asks: “How about a rule that a change to any women’s program requires consultation and feedback from LDS women?” I would like to add “approval” to “consultation and feedback.” Although approval is not the same as authority, it could provide a greater say to the demographic affected by proposed changes from outside the group. Better yet ( a woman can dream…) have women in the Q15 to begin with.
One of the most interesting parts of the leaks about finances is the story that an aging Elder Packer went to EPA to get information so he could do some planning in case he became the president of the church. But he was turned away and died not knowing much more than I do, apparently. I think that means that except for the president of the church and the presiding bishop, no one actually knew how much money was there and there were zero internal discussions going on about what to do with the money. The whole thing was more than half the time on autopilot since the president of the church has been often debilitated (Kimball, Benson, Hunter, Monson) as the financial setup did its thing. It’s like a scifi episode where some machines on a newly discovered planet have been running the same program for millenia long after their masters left and Captain Kirk slowly figures out that no one is home. I think the basic scheme was set up and then left just keep doing the same old hide and invest thing no matter what. That is what it looks like to me but Dallin Oaks thinks that the church money in the bank is a sign of God’s favor (a guy who reads as fast as possible when he gets to Matthew 13:22)
I hope that the decision to scrap Scouts and the Personal Progress programs only to replace them with absolutely no structure at all was an unintended consequence. I mean, they clearly did it deliberately, but I’m trying to charitably assume that the people involved in that decision assumed that the increased flexibility would be a good thing? From where I stand, the new program of “Make some personal goals that no one is ever going to follow up on” is a disaster. I’m glad to have left scouts behind, but . . . couldn’t we have come up with . . . something?
Next one: the Elder’s quorum and High Priests group were combined and now meet half as often. (These changes weren’t made at the same time, but were fairly close to each other.) I know combining the groups makes the men’s programs match up better with the women’s (RS), but for me, the unintended consequence is that I feel less engaged in my ward than ever before. My second hour at church every week is sitting on a hard metal folding chair on a basketball court in a class where even a quarter of the people can’t possibly make a comment because there are too many people. Men largely suck at socializing, and I’m an introvert, but EQ used to be a small weekly meeting with men roughly my own age where we were forced to engage with each other. Now, it’s too many people on a basketball court where everyone sits as far apart as possible.
Dave, great post and I”m looking forward to reading all the subsequent comments.
I just wanted to ask if you or anyone else is aware of where the $100 billion figure is coming from in reality. When I look at the Ensign Peak Advisor’s SEC quarterly statements, I’m typically seeing a figure more like $50 billion. I think the EPA whistleblower (from back in 2019) mentioned $100 billion, but I’ve never been able to find information about the other half (besides the EPA portfolio that we can now see in the SEC filings). Just curious if you have any clue as to the discrepancy.
And just one other minor thing, regarding tithing revenue being used to pay for all the temple construction: Do we have any idea just how many temples are actually financed by wealthy members (both in terms of donation of real estate and actual financing of the construction, apart from the mainstream tithing dollars). I guess I’m wondering to what degree do we end up building temples with non-tithing dollars in reality.
Thanks again for stimulating excellent conversation on the law of unintended consequences.
Slava Ukraini!
Your comment about there being no accounts of women feeling frustrated about the Church not wanting their actual talents (leadership, etc) and instead just wanting to relegate them to child care and cleaning the building, well, you clearly haven’t read my mission memoir. In the memoir I share the story of when my companion and I had to stay overnight in the mission office, and I wandered around, looking at how things were run and organized and thought how cool it would be to be a mission president, making “personnel” decisions and giving feedback, opening areas and overseeing the district, before I realized that it was never going to even be an option at all just because I was a woman. So instead of “leaning in,” like most women with an ounce of ambition and talent, I had a successful career and invested less in trying to use my talents in church leadership where my sex was a bar to entry. I guess the Church won that one anyway, though, due to the tithing dollars. Despite not valuing women’s contributions, I have never been offered a refund for my ill-gotten gains (due to women + career). Not only was I not able to be a mission president in the Church, but when I served sisters were never assigned to the mission office and had no leadership roles at all beyond being a trainer, which I was for half the time I served. The proliferation of women RMs is definitely making the problem I experienced much more common than before, but maybe the Church will finally figure out that women aren’t just good for birthing and cleaning.
I have to believe the overall response to the 2015 Policy of Exclusion (POX) represents a case study in unintended consequences. From suicides to broken family relationships, the results were disastrous. The lukewarm attempt in 2019 to walk it back offered little solace and certainly did not undo the damage.
The responses from my family and friends centered on a common theme: How can a religious organization supposedly centered on the teachings of Jesus Christ even consider establishing a policy of EXCLUSION? The unintended consequences are still piling on.
Talk about a shelf breaker.
Prop 8 in CA whas a huge miscalculation on the part of the church. 1. They said they didn’t spend very much money on the campaign but wouldn’t reveal financial statements. The numbers they did release were so ridiculously low that they were dismissed as lies because they didn’t take into account the volunteer time, the phone lines, or the building space required for the numerous phone banks in Utah and CA and maybe even other states. 2. The way people were called to the phone banks either in a private interview or over the pulpit to meet in the relief society room for an important message left many people out who were not part of the secret meeting and hence realized they were being labeled as liberal or democratic or something else and hence not worthy of being a part of something the church was doing. As a consequence, many people left the church virtually immediately after that because it was obvious they were not valued.
Later in conjunction with that the statement by the church that children of same sex marriages could not be baptized, treated much more severely than children of polygamous relationships, caused many people who knew or had family members in same sex marriages to leave the church or question its authenticity. The reversal of the same policy shortly thereafter just confirmed what a mess that policy had been and caused even more to fall away.
The constant flip flopping on statements about LGBTQ issues whether pushing them away in general conference or inviting them back and saying how much they are loved in press releases days after has continued the exit from the church by not only the LGBTQ youth but their families as well.
Finally with all the miscommunication about LGBTQ issues, the ward members still pushing away kids that are different and labeling them is there a correlation between that and the suicide rate among teenagers in Utah. It being one of the highest in the nation. This has been noticed and talked about in the LGBTQ community but either ignored or glossed over by the church because it won’t specifically address the root causes. Not only does Utah have one of the largest Pride Festivals in the nation with a parade as large as the days of ’47’ and three days of celebration for hundreds of thousands of community members, it also has the Loveloud Festival put on by former LDS or marginally LDS members who are part of nationally known rock bands who have experiences all these issues in their journey coming out as queer in Utah. Even the church is invited to “pull” some individuals back after they have “pushed” them away in April or October Conference.
Pardon another post, but for me the OP is a great topic. How about the unintended consequences of correlation? I submit this was the death knell of sanctioned independent thinking. Class discussions and talks became exercises in repeating general conferences topics. Talk about GA hero worship..
Mormonism has become the McDonalds of churches. Bland and uninspiring – but predictable. Correlation is the antithesis of critical thinking.
This is a fascinating post and topic.
I think the pandemic had immediate unintended consequences as people quickly realized that their lives improved without weekly church attendance. Also, it really backfired on the Brethren when they tried to talk out of both sides of the sacrament ordinance, telling traditional families how important it was to administer the sacrament weekly while simultaneously telling the less traditional families that the sacrament wasn’t important and the last time they took the sacrament was sufficient to see them through. Gimme a break.
It’s probably impossible to manage every unknown scenario. But this is exactly why Boards and companies are diversifying. A broad range of people bring their lived experiences to the table, challenging leaders to think these things through. But the Church doesn’t appear interested in a diverse board of folks. So I’m not hopeful that things will change.
I had to process all the stages of grief when I went through what the Brethren like to call my faith crisis. This included a phase of really hating the church. Luckily my time there was brief. Now I just want the church to be healthy for its members, including the members who don’t realize it’s unhealthy. I would be happy at the prospect of helping them. But they won’t ask. Even though I’m the right gender. Oh well.
That being said, my SP did ask me to be a high counsellor last year. I told him he probably wouldn’t like what I had to say and he replied that he wanted me to challenge him. Ultimately I turned him down. I had a ward calling with my son, the lone deacon, who needed me, plus the calling sounded like too many meetings for my taste. But sometimes I wonder if he truly would have appreciated me challenging him or not. Perhaps in a parallel universe there’s a version of that I can view one day.
As I study the real estate and financial holdings of “the Church”, I find myself viewing the leadership (and the organization) with absolute disgust and contempt; to even pretend that they represent “the Spirit and Body of Jesus Christ. This whole thing is nothing but a (highly successful and lucrative) investment corporation with a façade of religion. Gratefully, thousands of people are figuring out the slimy nature of this enterprise.
Linking “Obedience” to “Happiness, Blessings, and Prosperity” has some unintended consequences. One way is when people who are super obedient don’t find happiness and don’t seem to be prospering – it sometimes happens that they determine everything that the church has taught is false. Also, when people leave the church and are no longer being obedient, but they find themselves being very happy and prospering, that’s another evidence for them that the church is false.
The word “Blessings” gets used a lot at church, and I feel like most of the time it gets equated with tangible material gains or monetary gains. I don’t think the gospel has much to do at all with our financial well-being.
“Do we have any idea just how many temples are actually financed by wealthy members”
Richard: I can only comment authoritatively on one temple (I served on the 10-member Dedication and Open House Committee). All of the land for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple was donated by Rio Tinto Corporation that owns the Kennecott Copper mining area. Very shrewd move on their part as they also own the adjacent Daybreak Community housing. Their research showed them that TBM’s flock to housing near temples, and Rio Tinto could set their prices on the houses and make a killing.
All the things the church has done over the years including opposing gays, that lead to 80% of members over 40 thinking voting for trump was a good idea. And still is.
We are having an election here on Saturday and most members will vote for the conservative end, because they think thats what the church wants. Polls are showing we will have a change of government to Labor, who I have voted for.
I think since RMN has taken over the 15 are required to be obedient to him, so just an eco chamber. Not even diversity of thought among old white males. Spiraling down the gurgler in lockstep.
“How do we reform the echo chamber?”
Well, I think the easiest thing to do would be to allow/encourage/mandate GAs to retire. Let them go play with their grandchildren and enjoy their retirement without chaining them to strenuous church callings til they die. Making old men work til they drop is inhumane IMO and I’m not sure how the practice got started. Perhaps it’s an unintended consequence of JS’ martyrdom.
Anyways, if the Q15 members could retire, we’d have younger men at the helm who might be more open to new perspectives. And then maybe, just maybe, those perspectives could open the doors to having women in the Q15, or black people, or LGBTQ+ people. No guarantee that it wouldn’t still be an echo chamber of some sort, but I imagine the needs of the membership would be addressed more effectively with more diversity at the top.
Years ago, the Church leaders held a special fast and monetary collection to assist with providing relief to famine-stricken in Ethiopia. The members surprised the leaders by giving a lot money money than was expected. More money than the Church was prepared to distribute. This apparently lead to the birth of (or growth) of LDS humanitarian services. A positive unexpected consequence. And an example of how members influenced leaders of a top-down organization.
Members could also have a positive influence on the poor and stricken by giving a portion of their tithe directly to relief organizations instead of giving all of it to the Church. This might be a good way to suggest to leaders that their priorities are misplaced.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Nice discussion.
Not a Cougar: Yes, the Gospel Topics Essays certainly. I don’t know quite what the leadership was expecting, but they got more than they bargained for.
Anna and Angela, you are right, I don’t read much of the feminist postings and discussion. Thanks for adding come commentary. I’m glad my guess was more or less on the mark.
DaveW, I agree. Moving on from Scouts was the right thing, but replacing it with pretty much nothing, along with downgrading the YM Pres position, didn’t do much for the youth. I don’t know what the leadership were expecting, but I’m sure they were expecting *something* and they got nothing.
DeNovo, yes the zig-zag course of the POX policy is no doubt a result of the loud and unanticipated response it got from a large chunk of the membership.
aporetic1, I think the ascendance of the Mormon Prosperity Gospel has had a slow but undeniable effect on the average member’s view of the gospel. To most, it is now God’s program for dispensing temporal blessings, period. Other doctrines are largely irrelevant. I doubt this was what was intended when leaders ramped up the Blessings Gospel.
I don’t know if it would ever come about, but my reaction to “how to reform the echo chamber” is to get Church leaders to at least sometimes respond to the loyal opposition (it exists even if they claim it doesn’t). So many times when I hear/read a leader’s talk/presentation, I often wish I had an opportunity to push back or otherwise ask for clarification on parts of the talk. Some of these talks (think Elder Holland’s talk at BYU last August) create quite a public firestorm — even among those of us who attend Church meetings, hold callings, and otherwise try to be in full fellowship (the loyal opposition that allegedly doesn’t exist). I am so often disappointed when leaders don’t respond to questions/criticisms of their talks. I expect that some of it comes from a “wrestle with pigs and you will get dirty” kind of thinking, but some of us asking questions or expressing criticism are not pigs or other enemies of the Church. I guess I just think that, if leaders stepped out and addressed some of the questions and criticisms, that would encourage them to consider other viewpoints.
Kirkstall touched on my unintended consequence with more poignant eloquence than I have. Let the aged authorities retire, or force them into emeritus status, so they can enjoy their families and attend to the work of aging. Dealing with old age saps one’s time and energy which are naturally in decline. Then we could have leaders, with maturity certainly, but more current vision, and more vigor to shepherd members, many of whom have critical, unmet needs. Instead we have the unintended consequences of rather complacent leadership at the top with serious limits on their time, strength and attentiveness. God only knows what all of those consequences are.
Here’s my .02 cents on the rest of the OP::
Thanks for clearly illuminating just how invisible women’s voices and concerns are. Addressing this would take actively, vigorously making changes, no complacency allowed.
(Not holding my breath.)
Regarding the massive accounts accumulated from tithing and other donated income, I see similar impulses with another monolithic institution that operates with “donated” money— the US government. Both organizations behave somewhat like money junkies, revenues are never enough, “more” is a constant unfilled need, and the hoarding and spending are done in secret as much as possible.
I have no problem and respect the desire of the Church to be called by its official name. What I do find problematic is what the church wants us as members to be referred to as simply “members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”
This no only strips us of any kind of cultural identity but it relegates us to simply being members of an organization rather than as a people or community and shows that church leaders view us only as “members” and not as a people worthy of distinction.
“ Years ago, the Church leaders held a special fast and monetary collection to assist with providing relief to famine-stricken in Ethiopia. The members surprised the leaders by giving a lot money money than was expected. More money than the Church was prepared to distribute.”
And how much of that money actually under up helping Ethiopians?
We no longer donate money to the church for humanitarian causes. We only donate to those charities that have public records one can review to see where the money goes.
Wait… it was called Motel 6 because it used to cost 6 dollars a night?? (Insert mind blown emoji and/ or gif here)… Anyway, I’m in an contrarian mood so I’ll take Dave b’s challenge. I would argue that gutting the ym/yw programs, including scouting has produced the unintended positive consequences of more service activities for the youth. Maybe it’s due to lack or funding or lack of creativity by ward leadership, but it seems like the youth (at least in the wards I have been in) are choosing to do service on mutual nights at a higher rate now than when there were more structured programs. Granted, there are only so many widows available with yards full of weeds and leaves, but still.
I think it’s possible that the unexpectedly high support for LGBTQ+ inclusion and respect is in part a consequence of the teachings about the importance of the family.
Great post Dave B. I have always enjoyed studying the law of unintended consequences and think it’s a great way to evaluate the conventional wisdom.
Many have posted great thinking and while I would love to talk about the church’s lack of financial transparency and cash hoarding, others have covered that topic well.
I would like to address the unintended consequences of excommunicating (or [insert euphemism here]) members through church disciplinary councils. While bishops in the Utah territory held unique powers as civil judges, by the back half of the twentieth century they served primarily as spiritual judges. While I’ve done no original research in this area, my sense is members were excommunicated primarily for two reasons. One purpose was to mark and cast out those who presented a danger to other members (e.g., apostates and predators). The other purpose was to enable members to repent for the most egregious sins (e.g., adultery, felony criminal convictions, chronic fornication, even illegal drug use and addiction). My father told me remarkable stories from the 1960’s when in priesthood meeting they would have a closed door priesthood meetings and announce disciplinary action taken against a member who was named. Even one time the member stood in front of the group assembled and confessed his adulterous behavior to the adult priesthood body as a condition of his repentance. My father told me it was very uncomfortable. I don’t know if this was a codified policy. My guess is it may have been a local custom since correlation really hadn’t gained full traction yet in the mid 1960’s.
I turned 12 in the early 1980’s and when a few minors (all three were 17) in are ward were excommunicated. Imagine that, minor members EXCOMMUNICATED from the church. It’s incomprehensible when I reflect back. I remember asking my mom why it happened and while she wasn’t specific it was clear they had all fornicated and partied (not with each other). I would argue excommunication constitutes a violent action and that all three were victims of institutional abuse. For context, I grew up in a rural area just outside the Mormon trail, but in an area with quite a few members and robust wards. Still, it was a rural setting and only a handful of adults in our ward (and stake) had college educations. As I would learn from first hand experience and later as an adult looking back, wisdom and good judgment were in short supply where I grew up.
I think the purpose of excommunication was to enable repentance and a return to full fellowship. The reality is that those who were excommunicated almost never returned to the church. Based on recent reports from my older siblings, none of the three minors excommunicated ever returned to the church, and in at least one case it significantly damaged her well being and sense of self. She has suffered from that action her entire life.
At some point after the turn of the twenty-first century, the church seems to have concluded excommunicating members did not help them in any productive way, and few who were excommunicated ever returned to the church. I served in several bishoprics over a long period of time, and I was involved in a couple of dozen disciplinary councils. In no case was the member excommunicated (even for adultery). I agreed in every case excommunication would serve no good purpose. I’ll go a step further and say members who sat in front of the three member panel (bishop and both counselors) with the clerk clacking away on a laptop were humiliated; meaning, church councils themselves damage members. I think its a brutally shameful structure and I came to oppose the entire construct and spoke out against it. I think the councils did far more damage to the members than good, regardless of the outcome.
Even today, the church seems to be struggling to know what to do with this obsolete process of spiritual violence, and woman seem to be hurt the most. The church excommunicates apostates in an attempt to silence dissidence, even then I think the church loathes the negative press and attention high profile excommunications garner. The attempts to have members on trial sign an NDA, keep smart phones out of the room, disallow guests, call police to clear supporters from church parking lots, etc., seem utterly absurd to me and demonstrate how ineffective disciplinary councils are. Yet, unintended consequences be damned, the church just won’t let go and instead makes incremental changes which don’t seem to have a material positive net impact.
Geoff – Aus: a sincere question: do you think (and perhaps dream) about Donald Trump…..Every. Single. Day? You have a remarkable tendency to work this buffoon into even the most unrelated topics. Every thought about counseling?
One major unintended consequence example was the sports team Baptisms back around the 1950’s. Missionaries would establish sports teams, and, recruit non-members to be Baptized as part of joining the sports team.
This turned into a disaster, with really low church meeting activity rates, huge home/visiting teaching lists of inactive members, etc. But, anyone questioning the sports Baptism practice when it was started could be called unfaithful, rebellious, etc.
Even before Proposition 8 in 2008, there was Proposition 22, with the same exact marriage issue being voted on in California before in 2000, and the Church had heavy involvement in that. Funny thing was that many church members were unaware of this.