A Dialogue
Setting:
Fellow, a gaunt man in his early 30s, sits in handcuffs at a desk in a detective squad room. He wears sneakers, faded jeans, and a black turtleneck. The squad room is cluttered and grimy. Wherever there is paint, it is chipping. The furniture is heavily worn. Across the desk from Fellow sits the captain; he is a man of average build in his late 40s. He wears scuffed black dress shoes, gray suit pants, a faded yellow dress shirt, and a brown-striped tie that’s a bit loose. His sleeves are rolled halfway up his forearms. Wearing reading glasses, he looks over an arrest report. On the far side of the room, there is a large cage containing a bench and room for multiple adults to stand or sit. The scene opens with a long, awkward silence.
FELLOW
(fidgeting)
I’m worried about my companion.
CAPTAIN
(without looking up from his reading)
We’ll find them. This can and will sort itself out.
FELLOW
I guess I have a hard time believing that.
CAPTAIN
(putting down the form and removing his glasses)
Maybe we can talk about how belief plays into this. What I really need to know is why you did it. Why does a professed Christian deface a Mormon temple?
FELLOW
Uh-uh.
CAPTAIN
Uh-uh, what?
FELLOW
Not a Mormon temple, a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
CAPTAIN
Okay. Didn’t you used to be a member of that Church?
FELLOW
Still am, technically. But I stopped practicing five years ago.
CAPTAIN
Why did you stop?
FELLOW
I lost my faith in the Church’s historical truth claims.
CAPTAIN
All churches make claims. Maybe they aren’t all true, but if they inspire people to do good, what’s the harm?
Fellow chuckles.
CAPTAIN
Why is what I said funny?
FELLOW
To the Church formerly known as Mormon, historical claims are everything. If you stop believing in them, you lose the ability to wholeheartedly practice the faith. You start feeling fake, tortured, closeted. At least members like me anyway.
CAPTAIN
And now you are a missionary for a different church.
FELLOW
Not a church, just a movement.
CAPTAIN
This “movement” you’re in now—is it their strategy to attack the Church’s temples?
FELLOW
No.
CAPTAIN
Then, why did you deface the temple?
FELLOW
I was angry.
CAPTAIN
Yeah. But why? What made you angry enough to deface something so sacred? A building that’s part of your heritage.
FELLOW
I just…
A uniformed police officer, diminutive and a bit overweight, enters the room. He makes eye contact with his superior. The captain gives a slight wave, as if to say, “We’re fine over here.” The diminutive officer turns and heads to a different desk, sits, and begins leafing through a pile of reports.
CAPTAIN
Tell me about Prop 8.
FELLOW
Why do you ask?
CAPTAIN
The officer who arrested you said you were talking to yourself on the ride to the station. As he put it, you were mostly muttering, but a couple of times you clearly said, “Prop 8.”
FELLOW
You can look it up.
CAPTAIN
I did look it up. Now I’d like to know what you think about it.
FELLOW
Well you know… big political fiasco. Regardless of what euphemisms Church PR uses, Prop 8 is a move to prevent gay people from marrying. Proponents of Prop 8 are bigoted.
CAPTAIN
Yeah, but are they hostile and dangerous? Or do they simply have deeply held conservative beliefs about how to legally define marriage?
FELLOW
Believers have been conditioned by conservative Christian churches to be disgusted by homosexuality. Those churches spend large sums of money and political capital to keep LGBTQ+ members alienated. And the emotional effect of alienation is pain—physical and mental pain. So yes, I define them as hostile and dangerous.
CAPTAIN
And you’ve retaliated by defacing their temple with graffiti which some might consider hate speech.
FELLOW
Call it hate speech if you want. It’s still free speech, which isn’t a crime.
CAPTAIN
True, but graffiti is. It constitutes destruction of property. And if the property damaged is of sufficient value—like say, decorative doors made of fine wood on an upscale building—the resulting charge could be a felony. In any case, the words you spraypainted invoke violence.
FELLOW
Yeah, Captain Moroni taught me well.
CAPTAIN
Captain who?
FELLOW
Just a Mormon reference. Look, I was born and raised in the Church. Every election year, local leaders would stand at the pulpit and read a canned statement claiming the Church practices strict political neutrality. Yet, in an effort to prevent homosexuals from entering the same contractual relationships they do, the Church sent outside money and legal muscle into the state of California. Not only is that NOT political neutrality, it’s a move against California’s state’s rights. It is the highest form of institutional hypocrisy.
CAPTAIN
So that’s why you defaced the temple doors. You think the Church is hypocritical.
FELLOW
All churches are hypocritical. My problem is this particular church is not… it isn’t…
CAPTAIN
Isn’t what?
FELLOW
The Church is not man enough to admit that it is hypocritical. Its leaders are not honorable enough to confess they are just a normal religion doing the same old power grabbing. Just another macho ‘merican institution clinging to exceptionalism in an effort to demonize criticism.
CAPTAIN
Is it possible you are being too hard on a group who is, as you suggest, just normal? Human like you? Is it possible this incident was just an earnest young man getting a little too wound up?
FELLOW
Too wound up? Do you understand what’s going on inside me?
CAPTAIN
Help me understand.
FELLOW
Have you ever detained a religious extremist before?
CAPTAIN
Yes. I am well-acquainted with the various passions which lead some to commit crime. And I find their behavior understandable, but not excusable.
FELLOW
When the news of Prop 8 broke, it had been five years since I had practiced Mormonism. I was completely inactive as it is called. But when I turned on the news, I saw protesters outside the temple. I saw them writhing at the gates, gnashing their teeth, threatening to vandalize the temple with profane handwritten signs and packing tape. I saw angry gentiles laying siege to the most sacred place in my world. And you know what happened?… I felt a sudden burning urge to drop everything and go put my body between the temple and the people threatening it. Five years away from it all, and in an instant, I was back to being a zealot. That is how embedded religiosity is in me.
CAPTAIN
But you came back later and defaced the temple yourself. It doesn’t make sense to me.
FELLOW
Why would it? You are not in the priesthood.
CAPTAIN
No I am not. But I am empowered to uphold the law. And even if I sympathize with you, I am prepared to charge you and assist in obtaining your conviction in court—if I feel you have broken the law. What I don’t understand is why you would defend the temple one moment, and then vandalize it the next.
Their voices have been rising. The diminutive officer rises from his chair and takes a step toward Fellow.
OFFICER
Captain?
CAPTAIN
We’re fine over here.
The diminutive officer sits back down.
FELLOW
I opposed Prop 8. I believe that LGBTQ+ people deserve the right to marry and to be who and what they were born to be. I assumed after five years out of the Church, I would be on the protesters’ side. But when I watched those MSNBC fanboys yelling schoolyard taunts through the gates, insulting husbands and wives walking into the temple to honor their dead… Their signs were cheap posterboard scrawled with clunky sloganeering. But I have been inside that temple, so I know what words to spraypaint that will get the attention of the brethren—the highest leaders in the Church. And I thought maybe, just maybe, I could get them out of my system once and for all.
CAPTAIN
So, you defaced the temple in a bid to break free from it. Are you saying that’s why you did it?
FELLOW
I did it because they had it coming.
CAPTAIN
Then it’s just vengeance.
FELLOW
If you want to call it that.
CAPTAIN
I do. I also attended my share of religious services growing up. I seem to remember somewhere in scripture where the Lord says, “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.”
FELLOW
Would that be the Lord who sends angels with flaming swords to ensure obedience? Perhaps you refer to the Lord who appointed the prophet Moses—a man called and chosen—who ordered his army to execute an entire community of gentiles except for their female virgins. Do you really want a man like that calling the shots in your government?
CAPTAIN
Fellow, are you just angry at everyone and everything?
FELLOW
I am what I was born and raised to be. When I brought vengeance to the temple, I did so with the very passion the Church instilled in me as a youth. And if vengeance can be that potent in a liberal apostate like me, imagine what it will look like coming from men who wholeheartedly believe in the Church. Captain, I do not think I am the last one you are going to arrest. However, I may be the last one who cooperates.
CAPTAIN
I see.
FELLOW
I’m thirsty.
CAPTAIN
We’ll get you some water. But first, I’ve already contacted a Church representative. I told him my thoughts based on the initial report. I told him you’re still young, probably just need to work through some things, maybe see a therapist. I suggested no formal charges are needed at this time. He said he would pass my suggestion on to what’s called the temple presidency. I am optimistic I can get you a deal that keeps you out of prison. You’ll need to go back to the temple grounds, help clean off the graffiti, and offer an apology.
FELLOW
An apology?!
CAPTAIN
An apology would be appropriate, and it’s part of the deal.
FELLOW
I don’t want a deal. I want to be a testament.
CAPTAIN
Fellow, do you know what it’s like to be locked up for any amount of time? Do you know what it is really like in prison?
FELLOW
Nobody does, except the people who go there. Nevertheless, I’m not making a deal that gives any impression they are right, and I am wrong. I can’t and won’t.
CAPTAIN
Then I’m gonna have to put you in the cage now.
The captain gestures toward the diminutive officer. He rises, produces a ring of keys, and walks toward Fellow and the Captain.
FELLOW
The outside curtain.
CAPTAIN
Pardon?
FELLOW
You’re going to put me beyond the outside curtain.
CAPTAIN
If you want to call it that.
The captain stands. He steps back and watches as the diminutive officer takes Fellow by the arm leads him to the cage.
End of Scene
Questions for Discussion
Thank you for reading. Your reactions are welcome in the comments section below. What are your impressions of Fellow? Of the captain? Of the outcome?
What doctrines, policies, or cultural norms in church leave you feeling angry? Why?
In contrast to the behavior described in this post, what are healthy ways to process religious anger?
Wheat & Tares 
Thank you for posting this thought-inducing scenario. I tend to feel for the perp, mostly because of my similar antipathy of the Prop 8 question. However, after watching protests and counter-protests for going on 8 decades now, I have come to the sad conclusion that, after any first wrong is met with a protest movement, the question of right/wrong largely disappears. In other words, there is no good guy after the first rock is thrown, or the first paint is sloshed on the wall, or the first revenge action is taken. I watch the various dust-ups in Israel; who is at fault there? Both groups are in the right, but both groups are also in the wrong, as long as they continue their violent actions. I wouldn’t know how to resolve that situation long-term, but I do feel that throwing another rock will not accomplish anything. The Black Lives Matter riots are based in supremely-correct reactions against obvious police/community brutality against persons of color – and yet – no white person that I know of changes his/her opinion about the situation of that community’s oppression when they see the TV portraying mob violence.
I suppose that leads me to the likes of Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King’s peaceful actions. Yes, they were brutally received, and brutally responded to, and their adherents received an unfair number of broken heads and bones – how can you say that is a good way to respond to evil? But – they did accomplish a greater good.
Bottom line – I think a person who sloshes paint on a temple wall should be prepared to acknowledge the hatred and violent response that his action creates.
I hate graffiti and vandalism, but how do you get your feelings heard in a Church with top-down management? A Church leadership that is allergic to diversity? A leadership that has made missteps and continues to make mistakes.
As members of the Church, how responsible are we for the consequences of leaderships’s bad decisions?For the suicides resulting from the Church’s attitude toward the LGBT+ community?
I definitely identify with the rage of Fellow. That characterized a large portion of my initial years when my faith changed. And there was literally no outlet for it. Nobody still inside would listen to it.
I’ve calmed down now. They say the best revenge is a life well lived. I’m trying to show my tribe that my life is amazing without the institution. Not that I want them to leave if they are happy. I want them to recognize that the other 99.8% of people’s lives are just as valid in the eyes of deity as theirs. And it comes without all the unnecessary rules and emotional baggage.
I hope that Fellow can get there.
Temples are one thing, Dairy Queens, honkytonks and 7-11’s quite another. Here’s a suggestion: if you feel like vandalizing a temple, have a 7-11 Grape Slurpy and Dolly Madison Cinnamon Sweet Roll first, then see how you feel. My guess? – pretty darn good! This is what makes American great. Also, get a job, deadbeat, and you won’t have time for stupid sh*t that’s going to land your stupid a** in the clink. Consider returning to school to up your game and maybe find a pretty brunette to marry. Have some kids. Go to the beach. This is pretty much the advice you’ll get at church. Ignore everything else but be forewarned: some of those old hymns you’ll sing will make you cry.
I’m curious about the movement Fellow belongs to and the companion who’s MIA. It’s an interesting idea—an anti-Mormon movement with a hierarchy and structure modeled after the mission field. It’s not something I’ve ever heard of in real life. It seems like most people who leave the church have little interest in that kind of hierarchical structure anymore so you don’t see much in the way of organizing malicious action against the church. Especially violence. I’m not familiar with an anti-Mormon DezNat equivalent.
The organizations that do exist put their energy into discourse (OW), peaceful protest (Sam Young), awareness (Mormon Stories et al), celebration (Love Loud), or caring for the marginalized (Encircle). Compared to all that, graffiti seems like a pretty big waste of time.
Cool scene though. Kinda reminds me of that book Day of Defense in which a pair of missionaries stand trial before a bunch of ministers of other faiths and proceed to put them all in their place with Exceedingly Sound Doctrine. That book wasn’t exactly nuanced ha; this is much more realistic and better written.
Thank you to everyone who is sharing thoughts. This is very helpful to me as a writer and W&T as a community! I’m especially struck by readers describing mixed or seeing-both-sides reactions to Fellow’s behavior, such as Chadwick identifying with Fellow and hoping for things to go better for him in the long run. These comments remind me how humanity often manifests as conflicting and paradoxical.
Roger Hansen, you describe “A Church leadership that is allergic to diversity…” I don’t think I can say it better than that. Perhaps the deeper problem is that the Brethren condition members to see the allergy as desirable and as a doctrine. Or perhaps we should say, sacred policy?
Kirkstall, yes, the undefined companion and movement references are kind of little doorways/teasers I’ve provided myself. That’s me setting up some possible paths for future Fellow posts. He’s a character I’ve employed before and may do so again.
Thanks again, everyone!
I posted before about the long-term futility of ‘fighting fire with fire’ (I mean, fighting apparent evil with obvious evil), and I just saw a website entry that seems to reinforce that concept. Erik Hoel, writing (16 February 2023) about the dangers embedded in AI chatbots on ‘The Intrinsic Perspective’, said ” . . . As this essay is a strident call to activism, I feel compelled to remind people that violence never works in service of a movement. Ever. From Tolstoy to MLK to climate activism, nonviolence is far more convincing and better supported. Bombings, assassinations, etc, besides being horrific and immoral, also always backfire. The Weather Underground convinced no one.”