Is it just me or did the pandemic break the Church? Actually, I don’t think it just broke the Church. I think on a broader level, it broke community, at least in-person society.
First, credit where credit is due, the pandemic is one area that I see the Church as handling relatively well. At the time it occurred, our stake president (who was a medical professional) immediately put health first. In person meetings were cancelled. Full building disinfection was done. Masks, gloves and hand-sanitizer were provided when meetings resumed on a limited basis, and Zoom meetings are still an option in that stake so that immunocompromised and elderly ward members and anyone who is just sick that week does not feel obligated to attend in person and either infect themselves or others. I realize that this wasn’t the case in all stakes and wards, but it was what I saw. (I’ve also seen gluten free sacrament options provided in my last four wards, for over a decade now).
Pres. Nelson’s public endorsement of the vaccine was another strength, especially when compared with the oddball Evangelical sects that were licking toilet seats at Church to show their defiance. The example all of our church leaders set in wearing masks and social distancing, and in general, taking the pandemic seriously was a positive. After all, most of them are in the target age group for Covid mortality. I realize that there were vaccine hesitant or even anti-vax members at Church, including some who utterly refused to wear masks even when asked, but that’s not what broke us, at least not in my opinion. Every ward has a few brash self-centered people. We’ve endured worse.
What broke us is the community-busting act of going through a pandemic. Suddenly, we had to avoid human contact. Rather than going into restaurants, movie theaters, airplanes, churches, schools, and the workplace, we hunkered down. Online communities became a much bigger source of human contact. We couldn’t read facial expressions as well as we used to. We were able to avoid social contacts that were obligations before.
When the announcement was made that church was cancelled, at first it reminded me of how it felt when I was a kid and church was cancelled due to snow. A snow day from Church was as good as a snow day from school! The routine was interrupted. We all shared the experience of … not sharing the experience. It was like normal life was being skipped, and we could do something else, like read a book or do a puzzle or play family games or bake something or garden. That’s how it felt the first few weeks.
As time went on, though, I was surprised at the sense of calm and relief I felt. It was like setting down a heavy suitcase and realizing how much it had been hurting my shoulder to carry it. I wasn’t eager to pick it back up. My life moved on. My time was spent on other things. I didn’t have to help put on activities or teach lessons. I didn’t have to wake up my kids for school, or worse, seminary. I didn’t have to sit on hard, cold folding chairs for two hours. I didn’t have to listen to mind-numbingly boring content that mostly consisted of mundane quotes from mediocre talks. I didn’t have to listen to people pretend that these threadbare quotes were amazing. I didn’t have to talk to people who had no interest in me or my life beyond the church. I didn’t have to pretend to care about people who also didn’t have to pretend to care about me.
This “break” occurred across all facets of life: work (everyone immediately was working from home, isolated), school (our high school senior was told “Everyone will just graduate with whatever you’ve done so far; the rest of the school year didn’t really matter”), and any other social obligations (no eating out, reduced shopping, no movies, not using much gas even). There were some of those things I missed more than others, but on the whole I was glad that there were fewer social obligations.
After a month or so, I started to feel starved for social contact. I started to go out of my way to visit some of my friends and neighbors, albeit with social distancing and outside. But these weren’t necessarily church friends, and I was still content to keep all contacts to a minimum. This probably just means I’m an introvert, but I really did enjoy many of the friendships with people at Church over the years. I just didn’t miss them as much as I would have expected, given how important they seemed at the time.
Valerie Hamaker, in her Latter-day Struggles podcast, talks about the concept of superficial relationships at Church. Too often, especially in a high demand environment, the relationships are not really about the people involved. They are about the high demands. This concept is familiar if you ever had a seminary teacher tell you that a “true” marriage is one between two people and God, in which as they draw nearer to God, they naturally draw closer to one another. In essence, this is describing two separate relationships (with God? with oneself?), not a relationship between two people, and guess what happens if one of the two people leaves the Church? No relationship remains. It’s a recipe for feeling like a commodity rather than a person in a relationship, interchangeable with any more devout stranger if you step out of line or your beliefs change, which Pres. Kimball put so well when he said that any “worthy” young man could marry any “worthy” young woman successfully if they were both faithful. You aren’t really a person so much as an idea to your partner. While this is terrifying in one’s most intimate relationship, where we want to be seen and valued for who we are, it is often equally true in one’s larger social circle.
So when ward members suddenly couldn’t be around each other anymore, the superficial nature of some of our relationships made it clear that we really didn’t have much reason to think about one another absent the construct of church attendance. Those social bonds were revealed to be weak. On top of that, the rituals and activities that used to create those bonds, that now couldn’t happen were easily discarded and downplayed. For example, we were told that for single women (60% of the Relief Society sisters are single), it didn’t really matter that they couldn’t take the sacrament because they didn’t have a priesthood holder in their home. After a lifetime of being told that it was the most important reason to be at church weekly, it was simply shrugged off. Apparently it was a placebo, for women at least. The Church was for men, and married women sort of. The rest were expendible, which exposed the myth-making.
As we continued in our little tiny silos, we filled our need for social contact either within the home or online, places where it was safe. That isolation led to further polarization as well as conspiracy-mindedness, and an erosion in empathy toward those who are less familiar or whose values differ from our own. And here we are.
- Was this similar to your experience during the pandemic and coming out of it? How did your experience differ?
- Has your attitude toward social settings changed as a result of the pandemic? In what way?
- Do you feel that relationships at Church are often superficial? Are there some that are time-tested for you? Which ones and why are they more lasting than others?
- Do you wish we could go back to our pre-pandemic way?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Covid was never a real problem. But the vaccine has caused many problems. It was never an approved vaccine with appropriate safety testing. It was authorized under EMU (Emergency Use Authorization). Many people that received the vaccine have had their lives changed forever. Just looking at excess death statistics and we have a significantly higher number now than before Covid. The vaccine never stopped the virus.
The church was very wrong to suggest that it was “safe and effective.” It was neither. Social distancing and masks were also completely useless. Countries like Sweden that didn’t adopt any of those policies fared much better than the countries that locked everyone down and made everyone afraid.
And yes, church attendance changed dramatically. Some people still have not returned to church. Social events are a very important part of the gospel, and they are almost non-existent.
I agree the prophet set a good example and they asked us to do the right things but the average active member in my ward either didn’t hear or didn’t think it was important. The older folks in my ward followed and we have a lot of them but some didn’t and of them three died. Our ward is 450 members in a town of 600. In the town, one other died but he was very old and health compromised and isolated himself and his wife. He got Covid from his Grandkids, who were from a family that did vaccines so I feel genuinely sad for him but the other three….. The ward leadership asked us to pray and fast but they themselves wouldn’t mask or get vaccines so….
The we had a change in leadership in the ward and the new Bishop was an anti vaccer, even though he was president of the local school district. At church he’d have a mask on but never over his nose and half the time not over his mouth as well. At that point, it was hard for me to want to attend church because of all the “put downs” I’d get if I’d express my opinion about wearing a mask or any other topic. I was labeled the ward democrat even though I’m registered as a republican or else I was told I was a RINO/liberal. It got very old.
It’s been a couple of years since my wife and I have been to church (her a year longer than me) and we have had only one person reach out and that’s because this lady and I worked together for 25 years. I worked with others but they haven’t reached out which shows to me the superficiality of relationships. Now two years later I just cringe when I’m in a grocery store and see the smile that I know means nothing, that is if they ward member will even acknowledge me.
I think there were a lot of opportunities for change that could have made our society and church better but I think most of them have been wasted. Wages are higher but the cost of everything is way up because I think they can just raise them and blame anything else but greed when it really only is greed. We also haven’t fixed health care and our society is plainly divided with half the people believing “the lie” and a man who now has 4 felony indictments. There’s no need to pray about politics or related them to the scriptures, just believe in the party platform as interpreted by a twice impeached president.
cachemagic: Your comment is a violation of site rules. This post is not about vaccines. You don’t get to hijack posts for your own hobby horse topics. Comment on topic or not at all.
O.K. I am sorry. I thought I was on topic. But of course you can delete my comments.
Well, seeing as I wasn’t active before Covid, the pandemic didn’t affect my attendance or church relationships at all.
But that doesn’t mean it didn’t change other relationships. For example, the retired ladies in my neighborhood get together once a month for breakfast. One lady, who is the only active Mormon of the group refused to get vaccinated. Well, other ladies have husbands with medical conditions or themselves have medical conditions that put them at high risk for Covid. So, the ladies stopped inviting the anti vaxer. Well, everyone is relaxed and back to normal social interactions, but the anti vaxer has never been included again. Another example is in a club we belong to, a few members lost a spouse. Without fail, those who lost a spouse to Covid have dropped out. One man, his wife never even attended, but he has still dropped out.
The political divide has also caused some changes. For example, another club had one f their founding member run for political office. So the club gave him some time in the meetings to run his political campaign. Several people were so offended by his ultra conservative ideas, and the fact that the club leadership seemed to support his campaign, and got angry and haven’t returned to meetings. I just don’t think that a few years ago, people would have been that offended.
And Cashemagic, seriously. The vaccine caused more deaths than Covid. I suppose that is why several states where a big majority voted for Trump, that deaths are still higher in those states, while the death rate gas returned to preCovid levels in states where people are actually being vaccinated. Your facts are backa**jackwards.
My experience was different in 2 ways:
1. I was already practicing heavy boundaries on my limited church participation. Like, really limited. It was easier to “not come back”.
2. Before the pandemic, we were already an “introverted, homebound family” – so the shift to online learning was a blessing to my oldest, and the shift to working at home was a blessing to my family (I got more sleep). We only now starting to shift back to being outgoing (sometimes) like we thought about doing pre-pandemic. Mostly, I don’t want to go back to pre-pandemic ways:)
Social Settings/Meetings
I think I am leery of returning to all “in-person” meetings. Some “in-person” meetings cost a lot to get there and give a “home court advantage” to the meeting inviter. I have been able to do “Zoom” Parent-Teacher conferences now instead of going “in-person” – and in some instances and that has been useful.
So there are now (in my mind) “meetings that should have been an email” and “in-person meetings that should have been a phone call/video chat/Zoom Meeting”:)
I was just thinking about this issue last Sunday as I sat in church and realized I didn’t know 95 % of my ward and that fact didn’t bother me at all. For me, the COVID thing was similar to the Trump issue; not to threadjack or just throw politics into things, but both subjects/issues made me realize the truly harmful effects of groupthink based on superstition and grievance. And that made me want to divorce myself even further from the social aspects of the church. Yes, COVID cut me off socially and, as you point out, gave me opportunities to become fulfilled in other ways, but it also demonstrated to me the willfully blind (and cruel) ignorance of many people in my ward, a large majority of which held the same beliefs as cachemagic. The fact that one can blithely dismiss the deaths of at least seven million people by saying COVID was never a real problem isn’t just staggeringly ignorant and unempathetic; it’s cruel and dismissive of not only the millions who died but also of the loved ones who grieved and still grieve those losses. This is the kind of delusional, despicable crap I’ve had to either confront head on or ignore for the last six years now (including both COVID and Trump delusions) at church. There is simply no effective response to that kind of callous and hateful thinking. And many so-called Christians, in the Mormon Church and elsewhere, buy into that shockingly inhumane worldview. People seem more willing to adopt and embrace delusional thinking than they are to question their own views/values/behaviors. Of course, that’s partially the result of being in a church that actively discourages critical thinking and the employment of reason. So yes, being socially cut off made me realize that I didn’t need church so much, but that was compounded by the fact that so many people who were supposedly members of my faith community kept saying things that were not only plain wrong, but absolutely antithetical to the teachings of Christ.
I think that’s one reason, to answer one of your questions, why relationships at church feel even more superficial to me these days; we’re supposed to be bound together by the love of Christ and love for one another, but really, that’s just sort of on the surface. We give lip service to concepts like “love one another,” but those phrases don’t mean much if we believe in and say things that casually dismiss another’s pain. That’s probably the reason I don’t know and don’t want to know 95 % of my ward; I’m tired of being disappointed.
Personally, I stopped attending the year before the pandemic, so the pandemic didn’t affect my relationship with the Church.
Anecdotally, I have a couple friends who, due to the pandemic, took a couple of steps back from church, and found that they liked not doing church. They found they didn’t miss the Church, and in fact, kind of went through a “detox” of sorts where taking a break from the Church really broke the Church’s hold on them. All of the old stories they used to think were normal when they were active now seemed crazy after a couple months break. These friends were from active, orthodox families, went to BYU, served missions, did all the Church told them to do, etc. If it wasn’t for the pandemic, they would have never had the opportunity to take a step back from it all and reevaluate
I definitely stepped back due to the pandemic (I already had stepped back a bit prior) and haven’t stepped back in. Like Zwingli’s friends, I suppose, being outside the constant Mormon barrage made it nice to decide what I think and feel on my own. And being married to a former member (which means he’s no longer a priesthood holder, right? So much to unpack there and not gonna do that threadjack!) sacrament was a no-go in my home and learning that the thing I had been told was the most important reason we go to church is apparently unnecessary and irrelevant for single women stuck at home kinda added to church becoming the same. I miss the friendships/relationships, although as the OP expresses, there were certainly pseudo relationships. I kinda miss some of those, too, to be honest. Even if they weren’t deep friendships, some were still fun and meant a something at the time. Differing degrees of friendship still provide benefits, I think.
This fixation on the LDS Church is misplaced.
Hawkgrrrl asks “Did the pandemic break the Church? ”
My observation is the pandemic response was the greatest self-destructive act in American history. What occurred was a 2+ year long social hysteria devoid of common sense. Bold opinion to which you may object? Consider the following evidence.
(1) The actual risk of fatality due to a Covid infection is extremely low. For children the risk is infinitesimal. For adults the risk increases with age but this risk was always less than the common risks adults experience day by day.
(2) The science of social distancing was literally made up and masking to prevent transmission of a respiratory virus has never been clinically proven. We know masking was a joke because the central message of masking was to “wear a facial covering” – what was important was the charade of masking and not the reality that blocking viruses requires extremely stringent quality controls. Your cloth mask does NOTHING to protect anyone from respiratory virus. But this lie was embraced and repeated by many, including those professing to be health experts as well as by Christians, who in a bizarre twist of deception asserted that it was Christlike to participate in the hypocrisy of cloth face coverings.
(3) Lockdowns have been proven to be destructive to public health. Missed medical treatment, missed medical diagnostics and despair and addictions exacerbated by social isolation created many more extra deaths than what could possibly be claimed to have been saved.
(4) Closing schools and pretending to educate children with remote learning has greatly setback child education. The greatest harmed were the poor. The pandemic response increased economic and social inequality more than ever.
(5) Covid harms were exacerbated by government officials denying beneficial treatments and medicines, and instead these officialsimposed harmful care. Ventilators were deadly and this was known very early into the pandemic. Yet ventilators were pushed hard. Doctors who discovered helpful Covid treatments were mocked. We witnessed the bizarre and inexplicable dynamic where politicians and pundits ridiculed doctors who were saving Covid patients. How did this happen?
(6) The Covid vaccine was an experimental drug that was never shown to reduce death, stop infection or stop transmission. Yet the jab was pushed with lies that it would do these three things. LDS leaders willingly promoted vaccine apartheid – decreeing that the unjabbed were “unclean” and could not participate in church functions.
With the pandemic response being so devastatingly harmful and with government officials complicit in causing this harm with lie after lie, where were leaders of the LDS church? They stood with the government officials.
All this said we have a clear and convincing proof the pandemic response broke the Church. It is that leaders of the LDS church do not speak of the pandemic. The LDS response to the pandemic did not build faith in God and demonstrate that members are blessed when they put their trust in the Lord. Rather, the LDS response to the pandemic was that the church leaders and members follow the wisdom of the world.
And so one should ask. If being a good LDS is about putting trust in the wisdom of the world, where does God fit into the religion?
RW insanity broke my relationship to church. That just happened to be entwined with COVID and the election.
I think the pandemic greatly exacerbated and accelerated a trend that was happening already. People were burnt out, tired of callings. Church history was this leering monster that would get you if you just looked at it long enough, etc., etc., etc. The pandemic normalized leaving, and way more people have. People aren’t afraid to look into the history more, to decide how they feel about things. Everybody knows people who have left. Some of them are better for it, others worse. In other words: normal.
It added gasoline on a simmering fire. I’m not sure it’s possible to put it out now.
I was talking to a good friend the other day about the pandemic. She said how she missed seeing people’s expressions and visiting in public places like the grocery store. I confessed I loved the masks. I could get in, get my groceries and get out without having to put in any socializing effort hardly at all (or wear make-up)! She leans more extravert while I lean more introvert.
I am in a state that was closed down for close to the longest in the country. Honestly, I was fine. I had just moved to my current area approximately one year before the pandemic started. I didn’t really know anyone in my community that well. One lady (my good friend above) had asked me the week before to teach her piano, so we continued piano lessons every week during the pandemic which I think basically kept me sane. I also have a Marco Polo group chat with two nieces and my two sisters so I had social connections that way. I also live with my husband and disabled daughter so I didn’t have the loneliness some people did.
I do remember the huge relief I felt by not having to go to church each week and perform my various callings, or attend meetings I didn’t love. I’ve been to Sunday School exactly once since the pandemic and I sometimes don’t go to any Sunday meetings at wll when I don’t have any responsibilities – something I would have never dreamed of doing pre-pandemic.
I have been married for 34 years and lived in 11 different wards. I have learned I will generally acquire one true friend in each ward. All the other people are friends I genuinely enjoy as long as I’m in that ward, but the friendship doesn’t really last after I leave. But when I move those people are replaced with another group of friends who I genuinely enjoy, rinse and repeat. So for me, church friendships have always been somewhat superficial I guess.
Wow. First it should be noted that death rates in the US spiked due to Covid. From a US government publication: “Deaths in the United States increased by 19% between 2019 and 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 — the largest spike in mortality in 100 years.” They have come back down due to widespread vaccination and better public health measures (some people are smarter than they used to be about avoiding risky settings and practices). Even Trump, with his weak grasp of real-world facts, views the vaccine as a great triumph and wants to take credit for it. So those who think the vaccine is ineffective or worse place themselves in the unenviable position of being even *less* in touch with real-world facts than Trump. I didn’t think that was even possible.
As to community effects of Covid: I think the whole affair accelerated trends like remote work in the workplace and using online tools for some LDS meetings and such. Yes, it’s nice to have some contact with ward friends on Sunday, but two-hour church is a lot better than three-hour church. The question is whether zero-hour church is better than two-hour church — for some yes, for some no. Some of that depends on the particular state, stake, and ward you attend. As the Church continues to drive progressive members to the exits, it becomes harder for those who aren’t conservative zealots and Trump acolytes to feel comfortable in some (not all) wards. Leadership is, as usual, doing too little, too late to prevent or oppose these developments.
Whatever the rhetoric, the Church is becoming a less welcoming and less friendly place for a fair percentage of its members. I can’t see this getting better. The leadership is either not willing to fix the culture problem or doesn’t want to.
So Mormonism and Covid – where to begin? As evidenced by these comments, the pandemic exposed simmering political and cultural divisions.
Overnight, laymen became qualified health professionals and “knew” the science behind masks, vaccines and social distancing. The gospel of Alex Jones became their mantra. Rubbish.
In my ward, a healthy 48 year old brother caught long Covid and was subsequently diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. He has been given 1-2 years to live. When the bishop requested members wear masks, half did not comply. SS discussions became heated political diatribes. The faction of reasonable people simply stopped attending.
Similar to society writ large, the right/left Covid related divisions have permanently damaged any remaining Mormon culture.
The church has been destabilizing community for decades. COVID May have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but honestly, “you couldn’t have pushed people away faster if you wanted to”. How? Here’s a list (not comprehensive).
– shutting down ward kitchens. Since the time we were Neanderthals, mankind has bonded over fire and food. We are wired to create community around food. Weddings, funerals, festivals, etc. revolve around food. And the church severely limited our communal dining. Despite having $100B to spare.
-shutting down dinner groups and discussion groups. . Again…stopping us from having actual fireside chats and gathering around our neighbor’s table. You’re not supposed to talk about the gospel outside of church, or outside of correlated HT/VT or ministering lessons, ya know.
-shutting down the arts (roadshows, bazaars, etc.) Heck- community doesn’t need theater, art, or music? Right? Wrong. In the church’s corporate model it only needs the MoTab, and one or two feeder choirs. The heck with the rest of us.
-shutting down ward sports. Ok- granted. Ward ball was frequently satan’s playground, but sports could have been a positive way to build community.
-shutting down ward/stake canneries, farms and other meaningful service outlets. No need to serve together as a community or build a local reputation.
-shutting down church-sponsored schools (BYU High, other stale academies, etc.) Today, many other churches run daycares and after school programs because that’s where the community need is. Heck- I actually bonded with the Methodist congregation in my community because they taught us pre-k. But, no. We don’t do that kind of work.
– shutting down all member contributions to temple building, ward- building, or other Zion-building activities. Is cleaning the church a community-building event? No. When more than one family volunteers each week I may change my mind
-shutting down everything the Relief Society used to do. It used to run the hospitals in the Mormon Corridor, build offices, manage graneries, lead welfare efforts, publish its own magazine, write its own college-level curricula, foster writing and poetry competitions, engage women and families, etc. It’s now enveloped in LDS.Inc and we don’t have the opportunity to interact with one another in the same way.
-shutting down or drastically minimizing “auxiliary” programs (homemaking, scouts, weekday primary, etc.)
Need I go on? We’ve been slashing community as fast as we can for decades. COVID, while devastating, is just another drop in the bucket.
@Hawkgrrl, many relationships in the Church were harmed due to the way folks interpreted mandates. The subject matter which drove the mandates is relevant. It’s disappointing that you threaten to censor @cachemagic: the comment was totally relevant, except that he used the forbidden v-word.
The issue driving the pandemic mandates involves public trust in institutions, and how some LDS fundamentally trust the CDC and FDA, WHO, and some LDS don’t. Attitudes towards institutions impact relationships, particularly if the attitudes oppose.
We talked openly about this at our EQ. Most everyone who trusted the FDA, CDC, and WHO, admitted to having negative feelings towards those in opposition—fellow members. Now that we’ve learned that the truth claims of the FDA, CDC and WHO were false (unsubstantiated by data sets and double-blind randomized control trials), attitudes have softened on both sides.
My stake presidency reacted to the First Presidency letter which urged the wearing of masks by sending us a letter telling us that since every other row would be taped off, there was no need for masks during stake conference. The pandemic showed that a lot of previously TBM decided that they’d rather be TBTW (True Blue Trump Worshippers). Unfortunately the church itself was very reluctant to enforce its own rules.
Several months ago I was asked to speak about following the prophet in sacrament meeting. In the talk I read several statements from the prophet from the past 12 months including excerpts from that First Presidency letter. A family in the ward told me later that the bishop was squirming in his seat during my talk.
Angela calls the pandemic “community-busting,” and she’s right. But in this there’s a paradox. In the pandemic, we were called to act as a community by sacrificing many of the ways we experience community. That’s how you deal with an epidemic of disease. You have to act collectively, sacrifice collectively. It’s an extreme test of the community’s resilience.
I’m back at church, but I’m troubled. My personal experience during the pandemic was seeing meetings full of people who proudly refused to protect each other from the plague. They ignored the prophet’s advice while pretending that nothing in their personal faith had changed. I did not feel safe among them. I still haven’t figured out quite what to do about that.
It’s troubling to me that many of the people I go to church with agree with the deniers in this comment thread. They don’t really get community and communal action. It’s a fantasy to criticize the pandemic response using facts (either true or made-up) that could not have been known except in hindsight. In an epidemic, there is no good choice. In real time, Covid forced us to choose between two awful things: a rampant deadly plague, or social isolation that takes its own terrible toll. On the whole in most parts of the world, we chose to avoid death. We succeeded in reducing the death toll significantly. We did that by collective efforts to reduce the spread of the virus and to develop a vaccine with unprecedented speed. We should be grateful for that while we work to heal the many kinds of damage that social isolation caused.
I feel like you’ve described my experience through the pandemic and coming out of COVID.
My attitude about social settings have changed in that I only go with and socialize where I want to, whereas before, I felt obligated to go and do everything. I much prefer the healthier approach of doing what I can and want to, and casting off the pressured obligations.
I think you’ve put words to my experience of church social connections being somewhat superficial. Most of my church “friendships” weren’t very deep because I didn’t really miss interacting with them. However there are some close friends in my ward who I met through church and they’ve become dear friends. We’ve raised kids together, mourned together, etc. I’m so grateful for those friendships.
During the isolation of COVID, I saw sides to some church friends that I was surprised by and that game me pause to reevaluate my relationships with them. I’ve watched some sincerely good people go all in with local Republic party politics (which are extreme and full of conspiracy at the local county level in my area). There’s nothing wrong with being conservative, but election-denying, Mom’s for Liberty “conservatism” is extreme, based on fear, and dangerous to democracy.
@Laursat – “Angela calls the pandemic “community-busting,” and she’s right. But in this there’s a paradox. In the pandemic, we were called to act as a community by sacrificing many of the ways we experience community. That’s how you deal with an epidemic of disease. You have to act collectively, sacrifice collectively. It’s an extreme test of the community’s resilience.”
WOW. This right here👆🏻. This is it. Thank you!
I quit attending Church about a year before the pandemic shut us down, so no changes there.
I relaxed into the lockdown. Not having places to go was good for me, I think. Before the pandemic, I used to try and meet up with people in person every weekend, plus commute to work five days a week. Now, I go into the office two days a week, and rarely have weekend plans. I like the slower pace and don’t plan on going back to my prepandemic routine. I have less to say when people asked what I did over the weekend. I’m more boring? I’m okay with that.
Watching people decide that science is stupid was really mind-blowing. I mean, who on the planet would have predicted that we would get a vaccine and then people would refuse to get the vaccine? Weird. Just So Weird. The USA was already trending towards conservatives having alternative facts and living in an alternate reality. The pandemic dragged that reality split into the realm of science, rather than just politics and gender issues.
I read “The Phantom Plague,” by Vidnya Krishnan. It’s about tuberculosis. Science finally proved that tuberculosis was caused by a bacteria and this terrible disease that was universally fatal could be prevented by good hygiene. Public officials rolled out a “stop spitting” campaign. Women stopped spitting. Men (mostly) did not. The whole thing was eerily like the “I Won’t Wear a Mask” temper tantrum that people threw about covid. Men would not stop spitting their chaw all over the streets. Instead, women’s skirts got shorter so they weren’t dragging long skirts through filthy streets and over filthy floors and spreading germs that way. It took decades before men were willing to spit in spittoons instead of on the floor. It was frustrating to read, but also kind of comforting to know that the Internet isn’t necessary for some people to be selfish jerks about public health and disbelieving science. The Germ Theory Deniers were a thing.
Mortimer lamented the loss of community since the church has done away with many activities such as canneries, ward kitchens, roadshows, etc. Having worked on roadshows, served at cannery, cooked and served for ward dinners, contributed to building funds on top of thinking, etc – all these things add so much to the heavy load that active members are already carrying. It just led to the burnout that many experience and relief that not going to church during COVID provided. Activities that provide community are wonderful and beneficial, but they ask so much more of members that carry the brunt of it. I don’t know what the answer is there.
Two of us quit my stake’s high council at the same time 8 months ago. I quit the church for its stances on social issues and the other guy quit for the opposite reason – that the church wasn’t conservative enough.
I loved Covid church, we hiked and played tennis and had 20 minute lessons at home. The first Sunday church was canceled we drove to the chocolate falls of northern AZ that I’d been wanting to see for years. I did miss the people though.
After I left I did learn quickly how superficial church friendships are. I was a recently released bishop and a super active high counselor and I expected to be love bombed. Only one person has reached out to ask how I was doing. Not even the sitting bishop asked to talk to me. I’m actually ok with that but was super surprised. I really feel like it’s “what have you done for the church today??”
It seems like people in many churches all of a sudden realized like the OP said. I’ve been carrying around a burden and didn’t realize it. I do *not*miss pre-Covid church but in my conservative AZ congregation it doesn’t seem much different.
I’m glad some of you got to enjoy the pandemic. It burned me out churchwise. The initial lockdown was great. Then summer 2020 the ward bishopric changed and my husband was called as counsellor. Big stake push for resuming in person sacrament meetings (no vaccine at this point) and we were expected to attend. Husband managed to get agreement that the bishopric wouldn’t all be attending every week, in case there was a case of infection resulting in everyone at the in person meeting being required to isolate. Husband given responsibility for all the health and safety assessments legally required (pandemic) for each and every activity, which meant I was the one ploughing through all the government rules and guidelines. My reading of those clashed with the church area directives. Specifically on the point of sharing a microphone. And expecting all those standing at the microphone to remove their masks.. as a brass player I was also following the research being carried out at the university in Boulder Colorado on safe practice for music lessons / band rehearsals.. which looked heavily at aerosol dispersal and recommended high ventilation in all cases and masks for some instruments, which saw me making bell covers for trumpets and trombones for use in schools.. anyway this research led me to point out that having people walk up to the microphone, remove their masks, speak, then the next person, in the same airspace in a poorly ventilated space with little air movement was a huge risk factor. We got higher grade masks for my husband and it was conceded that members would not be required to remove their masks at the pulpit, and windows would be open, at least in our congregation… but most continued to remove masks, the SP making a very particular show of doing so.. I also followed local infection rates and protested about a planned youth activity (December 2020) at a time when local infection rates were climbing steeply (I was vindicated when our city moved from level 2 to level 4 for infection and was locked down for Christmas), and meetings returned to Zoom only for a few more months. It felt like I was doing head to head battle with stake leadership in an effort to keep members safe, and it was exhausting. Visiting SP would complain about draughts from open windows. And testimony meetings where those who attended in person belittling the faith of those zooming in, infuriated me. It was all about them and how they needed everyone to be there! The epitome of selfishness it seemed to me.
I was also a member of the primary presidency. And there was a lot of push from non primary ward council members for primary to do something. I’ll state first off, I don’t enjoy primary callings, and I don’t really understand children. Our primary president was run off her feet working full time in an essential service, and taking a course of study. So the bulk of organisation fell on me. What with constantly being undermined by an extremely passive aggressive parent and wondering why we didn’t believe our own stuff about family centred church supported, we set up a brief primary zoom session between the end of the zoom sacrament meeting and start of Sunday school.. since having parents supervise their kids online, and number of devices in a family were all things I wanted to consider. Then in summer 2021 in person meetings began to resume for the second time. Some people were still bellyaching for in person activities.. our activity leader was very busy working in an essential service too, and I am absolutely no way whatsoever an activity person. most especially a messy kids activity person, even under the best of circumstances, so I said there’s nothing to stop parents getting together and organising activities if they want them. I got very tired of passive aggressive manipulation from the RS president I was constantly having to block. Once second hour meetings resumed in person (still before all adults had been fully vaccinated as people were called for vaccination on an age order basis), it was down to me to organise things safely. Most of our teachers were still zooming so we had to keep the kids together. We had external doors and windows open, and held singing time outside.
At the same time during the first lockdown my eldest child was locked down on a university campus, thankfully one that took good care of the students remaining on campus, providing full catering for them to collect as a take away. So I was speaking with that child daily and helping to stay on task with their university work under trying circumstances. That alone had my nerves stretched thin. Second child had made it home a week prior to lockdown and was having to do their university work remotely. And my husband was also working from home. So I had gone from being alone during the day and having control over what I did when, to having a house of people studying and working requiring me to schedule when I could do noisy tasks. Post pandemic that hasn’t changed. Eldest child graduated university, and is now working from home writing computer code, with in person meeting monthly held in rented office space. Husband now works from home at least two days per week, and the company are not going back to the full office model. Indeed they’ve taken the opportunity to reduce parking space and sell off land. They’d already been reducing office space per employee even before the pandemic., so life is very different.
I’m still burned out, and I have little patience with people at church who tried to undermine and manipulate etc throughout the pandemic.
Angela: I think this is one of the poignant and beautiful paragraphs you’ve ever written. The words (and emotions behind them) have touched me more than anything else you’ve presented. “Peace, Relief, Calm, Time Reclaimed, Healing, Boundary Creation and a Life Re-Directed” all describe exactly what the “Covid Period” have come to mean to me….especially since we’ve all been forced (to one degree or another) to return to “normal”. I don’t think it’s entirely appropriate to be thankful for a Worldwide Epidemic….but I’m truly, deeply forever thankful…for what’s come since. My sincere compliments.
“As time went on, though, I was surprised at the sense of calm and relief I felt. It was like setting down a heavy suitcase and realizing how much it had been hurting my shoulder to carry it. I wasn’t eager to pick it back up. My life moved on. My time was spent on other things. I didn’t have to help put on activities or teach lessons. I didn’t have to wake up my kids for school, or worse, seminary. I didn’t have to sit on hard, cold folding chairs for two hours. I didn’t have to listen to mind-numbingly boring content that mostly consisted of mundane quotes from mediocre talks. I didn’t have to listen to people pretend that these threadbare quotes were amazing. I didn’t have to talk to people who had no interest in me or my life beyond the church. I didn’t have to pretend to care about people who also didn’t have to pretend to care about me.”
Covid definitely turned me into more of a cafeteria Mormon than ever! I couldn’t believe how disappointing General Conference April 2020 was! Schools had just shut down, we were all so worried and in distress, everybody was suffering in some way. I so hoped to hear wisdom and words of direction from our prophet and apostles about what to expect and how we would get through it. What did we hear? NOTHING about how to cope or where we were headed. All the talks about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith could have been pulled from the 80s. I realized that these men really didn’t have any special enlightenment on this global pandemic. They went through the Covid motions like they were supposed to, but nothing was shown to be prophetic.
I appreciate the sincerity with which hawgrrrl writes and two sentences in particular gave me reason to ponder at length about her post.
(1) “I started to feel starved for social contact.”
(2) “Those social bonds [of ward members] were revealed to be weak.”
The context of the latter sentence made clear by this statement: “Valerie Hamaker, in her Latter-day Struggles podcast, talks about the concept of superficial relationships at Church.”
Social relationships in the LDS Church are primarily superficial. I say this as an observation, not as a criticism. It is more accurate to say social relationships in an LDS congregation are typically shallow and contrived. Contrived because the relationships are put together by external forcing – ward boundaries and callings and shallow because that is the normal human response to social organization.
What makes LDS social relationships superficial is the expectation that members have naturally strong feelings for each other. Some LDS believe that fiction. Most do not. Even the General Authorities seem aware that members of a congregation are not naturally “best friends”.
But shallow social contact matters, a lot. The pandemic lockdowns destroyed patterns of shallow contact, resulting in great emotional trauma that individuals and society will be dealing with for years.
It is an Eternal Truth that “by small things, great things are brought to pass.” The small, seemingly trivial social interactions humans have in their lives collectively have great impact on ourselves and on others. The elimination of these small, trivial social interactions was devastating, both to individuals, to institutions and to society as a whole.
What LDS leaders proved is they are superficial – they lack the understanding of the importance of the shallow social interactions that take place at normal church. These social interactions cannot be replaced by Zoom. Virtual interactions only have meaning in the context that a physical relationship actually exists. Allow that physical experience to fade and the virtual relationships will dissolve.
Physical social interactions provide an energy and life source, even if those interactions are informal. The willingness of Church leaders to decree this socialization “non-essential” and to pollute that socialization with “Covid Protocols” is revealing of their state of mind. It begs the question of what do LDS leaders think the purpose and value of church is?
It is obvious that members of society and of the church are very divided in their perceptions of Covid and the government response to it. As I stated in my initial comment, the nation’s response to Covid was the most socially divisive and destructive event I have ever known. I have no desire to further this division or to argue the “sides” of it on this forum, other than to state what I believe, which I did in my initial comment.
A defining belief of LDS is our church follows the framework of the primitive Christian church. The Apostle Paul explained this church had prophets and apostles and teachers to help unify and perfect the saints and to guide them in truth.
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:” (Ephesians 4:11-15)
The fact LDS members so strongly disagree about pandemic policies points to a failure of church leadership. The fact that leadership would rather move on from Covid and not talk about it points to their guilty knowledge – they know they failed and they do not know how to repair the failure.
The leadership knows that in the crisis of Covid they turned from God and placed their trust in the arm of flesh. They denied the power of God to do miracles. They denied the power of Faith to do good and instead leaned on the lever of Fear to manipulate and coerce members. And even those members who intellectually agree with the policies LDS leaders implemented know in their hearts that the policies harmed the church and the faith of the menbers.
I’ve thought about this idea, a lot. I’m not sure the pandemic broke the church so much as it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the snowflake that caused the avalanche. These don’t even capture what I think the metaphor actually is. For a long time, the Church has presented itself as a completely unified entity. Sure, there’s Leader Roulette, but the overall image the Church projects, even in individual wards, is that we have a singular belief and are all shiny, happy people. I think cracks have been forming and widening all along, but we didn’t see them because they were covered up, like a snow bridge over a crevasse. The pandemic shook things up enough that the crevasses became visible as some of us fell into them.
This post serves as an example as tensions continue to run high about vaccination, masking, and other issues. I’ve seen and heard comments about Pres. Nelson getting a vaccination proving that he was a false prophet. People who express a reluctance to attend church due to lack of masking could be accused of being unfaithful. And I’m sure it cuts the other way with those who chose not get vaccinated claiming they felt like pariahs. The anger, confusion, and fear resulted in harsh words, even whispered, with judgements passed around that so-and-so should just leave the Church altogether so that the “truly faithful” remained. Even unspoken, all of this can be felt just sitting in a meeting.
I was talking about all of this with my brother and his wife (who are much more active than me, btw) and she described it as a divide, but I think there are more cracks and individual camps than a simple split down the middle. Tensions like we’re seeing come from multiple sources and they’ve never been truly addressed by the Church over the years.
Instead, the Church tends to do what it has always done, prescribe the same basic solutions (go to church, read your scriptures, say your prayers, follow the prophet) believing that things will correct themselves. As Hawkgrrrl points out, that hasn’t happened, yet.
I think she’s absolutely correct about the superficial relationships, too. I have struggled all my life to form strong relationships in church, but really never accomplished it (maybe that’s on me, I’m willing to admit it could be). My strongest friendships have been outside of the church. Inside church, it always felt like people would talk to me out of a desire to be polite, but it never progressed beyond that. I’m not sure the structures of the Church are built to facilitate stronger relationships. It forces interaction through priesthood, RS, SS, ministering, etc. more than fosters relationships.
As for going back, I think that idea might be part of the problem. The nostalgic view that everything was perfect in “the good old days” misses that those crevasses were probably already there, we just couldn’t see them. We need to reckon with our fractures and heal them. Unfortunately, I think the general approach of the church is to put the snow bridges back in place.
A Disciple:
I gave you a thumbs down on your first comment. I gave you another on your second. The damage to community did not occur because people practiced protocols. It occured when they choose to ignore those protocols (and the First Presidency) and place vulnerable members of their community in danger. Real community occurs when the many sacrifice for the needs of the few. Zion blossoms when “I” and “me” are replaced with “we”. Trust was violated over the last few years.
“But shallow social contact matters, a lot. The pandemic lockdowns destroyed patterns of shallow contact, resulting in great emotional trauma that individuals and society will be dealing with for years. ”
I am an introvert. The loss of the “shallow social contact” was a great relief to me and helped me. It was physically and mentally exhausting to go to church each week. I rather like not going, much more relaxing and I don’t miss having to make small talk. No one really cared for me anyway. I have received very minimal contact since then and if I just ignore the feeble attempts they just go away. I have stopped going to church altogether and I find my Sundays are better. There are other reasons to I have stopped attending but I was PIMO anyway so now I am POMO,
Amen to Old Man’s comment above. A Disciple wrote: “Shallow social contact matters a lot”. In the context of a life threatening disease, we need to be concerned about shallow social contact? Such wordsmithing only reinforces the divisions that now exist in society as well as M0rmon congregations.
The non-masking, non-vaxing members of my ward turned their backs on the notion of “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. All in the name of pride and ignorance. And we wonder why so many Mormons are leaving?
I saw during COVID what most people on this site saw: rude behavior by the anti-vaccine crowd. But I also saw rude behavior by the pro-vaccine crowd. I saw people on both sides behaving badly, pointing the finger, demanding that people on the other side do this or not do that. Yes, the pro-vaccine, pro-social distancing crowd was guilty of accusing “disbelievers” of bad behavior. I saw people on both sides make accusations, and I saw people on both sides commenting on the mote in their neighbor’s eye without regard for the beam in their own eye. I saw people on both sides focused on telling someone else what to do, instead of focusing on what they needed to do individually. Hatred and bad behavior came from both camps. I read stories here, and heard stories from family members in other states.
I think my ward handled things well: never once were covid actions discussed in priesthood or SS, and my wife tells me that RS avoided it, too. We opened up the cultural hall so there was plenty of space, and we closed off every other row, and some people sat in the cultural hall, where there was more air. I was vaccinated and boosted, but no one at church ever knew it. I wore my mask regularly and consistently and kept my distance, but I spoke to the unmasked and would sometimes offer a fist bump. Our area presidency didn’t send out letters telling us what to do. We still do sacrament meeting via zoom. I am sad to hear that many wards, especially in the West (in Zion?) had a lot of finger pointing and name calling among their members. I can readily see where such behavior will help break an already breaking community. I liked Mortimer’s list–we’ve been breaking up our community for many years.
Disciple has what my mother called “REAL faith”. While she meant it sarcastically, I just think it is a different kind of faith. My mother didn’t believe in God at all, so she isn’t any kind of example of what kind of faith to have because she had none. But she told people, “God helps those who help themselves.” And what she really meant was you act as if there is no God, because if you trust God, he is going to let you down. At best her belief system could be summed up with something that I believe came from a GA, but I have no idea who was that liberal. He said that “You act as if it all depends on you, but pray as if it all depends on God.”
Now that is the kind of faith that the pro vaxers seem to have. They act as if it all depends on themselves, while (maybe) praying as if it all depends on God.
Disciple seems to have the kind of faith where he depends only on God. Not doctors or scientists but only God.
Me, I am my mother’s daughter, except with belief in God…..but I really don’t trust God enough that if the angel says to me, “Do you believe God can cause a wind to blow you to the top of the cliff? Then let go of the branch.” Me, I am going to hang onto the branch because I honestly don’t think God would cause that wind for me. Nope. God would cause the wind for someone he loves, but he doesn’t love me that much.
So, to Disciple, I have a lack of faith. But to me, I have practical faith. I am going to act as if everything depends on me and pray as f everything depends on God, but I am not going to be so stupid as to trust that god will protect me from a virus if I don’t listen to the best advice doctors and scientist give me and do every thing possible to avoid contacting said virus.
In regards to the replies from Old Man and De Novo I ask: Why did not the church leadership allow members who valued normalcy to meet together normally? The leadership did give stake presidents some leeway. My stake president was especially Covid cautious. An adjacent stake was more liberal. I began attending meetings in the more liberal stake where I found I was better able to worship God according to the dictates of my conscience. But the experience was still abnormal.
It amazes me to this day that for the longest time I had a more normal social experience going out to eat at restaurants in my city than in attending church! My stake is still abnormal due to the enduring legacy of Covid protocols.
The leadership failure was in the First Presidency not recognizing how varied members were in their perception of risk. And with the First Presidency empowering stake presidents to mandate strict Covid protocols they destroyed the ability of members in those stakes to demonstrate Covid was not as great a threat as claimed. My stake president toured the stake denouncing members who did not conform to the CDC guidelines. As I wrote, I experienced normal social life at my city restaurants long before I did at church.
The church had a fabulous opportunity to lead the world out of the Covid panic. But instead of allowing the youth and the brave to show the world how to live and thrive through Covid, they encouraged conformity to fear and lies. There can be no “Army of Helaman” in the modern LDS church.
And yes, the fear and lies were awful. Requiring children to cover their faces? Requiring the Aaronic Priesthood to cover their faces? Promoting vaccine apartheid – separating members based on vaccine status? These policies were so horrible the church now pretends it didn’t happen.
There were congregations that ignored Covid protocols and people did just fine. Is that not a good thing? Did not Pres. Nelson lead the church in a day of prayer and fasting with that specific request that we return to normalcy? But no. Church politics dictated that members exercising faith and rejecting fear was not praiseworthy! I find that reality bizarre and bewildering.
There is no doubt Covid protocols and fear mongering was especially harmful to youth . Why were LDS leaders so unsupportive of defending the youth? Why did they promote the awful deception that youth and children are “disease vectors” and “germ factories”? I simply cannot process how mean and degrading mandates of Covid protocols were to children.
And so my quest for normalcy for myself and my family took place with opposition from my church leaders and not their support. And this opposition despite the fact that when the pandemic began the First Presidency asked members to exercise faith that life would return to normal.
A Disciple: Your last comment sounds truly unhinged, so I suggest you dial it down a bit. Calling it “fear-mongering” and “lies” and an “awful deception” is going way way way too far down a rabbit hole. I agree with Anna’s comment about those who believe (along with the Evangelical toilet lickers) that God will protect them = faith vs. those who believe we are responsible to do all we can first, then (maybe) God will protect you (or call you home; he’s fickle like that).
I do, however, agree with you that superficial social contact is actually important to human beings. It’s not nothing. It was definitely a casualty of the pandemic, and I’m not sure where we go to get it now that things are *mostly* back to normal. People got weird and took sides, as so many have pointed out. Some got paranoid and rude as was also mentioned. Some got super political. Some became very vocally racist, trans and homophobic, and openly hostile towards anyone they didn’t like. If I’m going to find a “superficial” social group, this doesn’t feel like a good one. My kids are grown, so the PTA is out (plus, groups of parents leading book bans and using homo and transphobic slurs openly makes that equally hostile). The Church didn’t invent awful people, but it certainly has made them feel extremely comfortable at Church. So yes, “normalcy” has been a casualty. Also, to call denialism of the dangers of a pandemic that literally killed loved ones of bloggers and commenters “normalcy” feels like bad form.
My new go to superficial social contact has been joining the local community orchestra, which is rebuilding post pandemic. Lovely people, and a love of playing music together is a great thing to have in common. And great for introverts like me. since it’s mostly playing music and not too much in the way of small talk.
To add, like Anna, I also grew up hearing pray like it all depends on God, and work like it all depends on you.
I believe that I’ve experienced two very different Churches in my lifetime: the Church of my youth and the Church of my adulthood. I was born in the 70s and lived entirely in the “mission field”. As Mortimer mentioned, there were a lot more activities like road shows, canneries, sports, dances, fund raisers (the annual “elephant ear” booth at the county fair), etc. in the Church while I was growing up. I really feel like my family and I personally had deep, genuine relationships with a number of fellow ward members, and I think the reason is that we spent so much time together working and serving and just making all of these things happen. Ward members knew each other’s quirks and idiosyncrasies. We knew about the bad blood between family X and family Y, but we also knew each other at a deep enough level to mostly overlook each other’s flaws and come together and behave as one big (slightly dysfunctional, as any real family is) family.
At some point during my early adulthood (late 90s, early 00’s?), the Church started cutting much of these activities out. I remember attending ward council during that time where the bishop was always hammering on whether an activity had a “priesthood purpose” or not, whatever the heck that was supposed to mean. What that meant, in practice, was that all the “fun” activities of the Church didn’t have a “priesthood purpose”, so they were being eliminated.
The result, for me at least (and from the comments, it sounds like I’m not the only one), is that, unless you are in top leadership (bishopric, maybe relief society presidency, etc.), members simply don’t spend enough time working, serving, and communicating with each other to develop deep relationships. Because of that, covid really didn’t change my church experience at all. Despite living in the same house for over 20 years, I still pretty much only had superficial relationships in my ward pre-covid, and covid didn’t change that at all. It’s not that I’m incapable of having deep relationships as an adult. Indeed, I have a number of close, meaningful relationships that I’ve developed mostly with coworkers over the course of my 25 year career. I think I’m not forming meaningful relationships with ward members because I’m just not spending enough time with them. The Church no longer asks people to spend enough time together doing things like road shows, dances, canneries, sports, fund raisers, etc. for these relationships within wards to form naturally.
That said, I’m with Sara when it comes to returning to the old days. I so fondly remember growing up and spending so much time with my ward family, yet I don’t yearn to return things to just the way they used to be just so that I can form deeper relationships with ward members. Road shows? No, thank you. I didn’t like them as a youth, and I’m quite certain I’d like them less as an adult. I’m just not very interested in doing all of those things “lacking a priesthood purpose” that we used to do and would prefer to spend my time participating in activities that are more interesting and/or meaningful to me. That actually is how I spend my time now. Besides Sunday meetings, I just spend my time outside of the Church since the Church doesn’t offer the opportunities/activities that I’m interested in. I do enjoy performing *meaningful* service for others where I feel like I’m actually making a difference. If the Church helped facilitate those types of opportunities, then I might consider participating. The Church currently doesn’t do this, so I find ways to serve outside of the Church. Note that I do *not* consider the types of activities that I hear many senior missionaries are doing to be meaningful service, so I’ll likely be opting out of that, too.
The pandemic forever changed the way I engage with church.
Nov 2015 changed the way I wanted to engage with the church. But due to callings, and quite simply inertia, I just couldn’t figure out how to quit. They say it takes 66 days for a new behavior to become a habit, and roughly 10,000 hours for the habit to be deeply ingrained. Church engagement was deeply engrained. Whenever I tried to disengage I felt so guilty I ended up coming back.
Thanks to a full sixteen months of not having live church in my area, I finally broke the habit of attending church. And not only broke that habit, but developed other Sunday habits in its place. My wife and I would go for a hike every Sunday morning (living in SoCal=year round hiking). We would have movie afternoon with our kids. We would swap puzzles with neighbors and work on them on Sundays. With the chain finally broken, my church engagement is now completely redefined in a positive way for me.
And like Angela mentions, the weight that was lifted from my shoulders after decades of wrangling our kids every Sunday and filling multiple callings and more meetings than were necessary, this new normal has been a tremendous breath of fresh air.
For me, the pandemic made clear that our church does not care whatsoever for pastoral relationships. It seemed the church only cared about meetings and callings. When everything was cancelled, it was radio silence from everyone. Like, if there are no meetings, then church is essentially all on your own. It was a hard time for our family. I was a college professor, having to pivot online, while 4 kids in online school, and being pregnant and then having a newborn that was definitely a surprise baby. I was expecting to hear words of support and encouragement. Where was the support for my kids? Our youth programs and especially activity days and primary shut down completely for a long, long time. Activity days still hasn’t really restarted. It really broke our kids relationship with the church at crucial ages and none of my young men want to go nor my primary son. Only nursery is still a plus. That first general conference where they basically ignored what was going on in the world was really a breaking point for me. I realized the church sees themselves as performing callings, but not as any kind of a pastoral, help giving place. It was very disappointing.
Angela said “People got weird and took sides, as so many have pointed out. Some got paranoid and rude as was also mentioned. Some got super political. Some became very vocally racist, trans and homophobic, and openly hostile towards anyone they didn’t like. ”
Example: Craig Robertson of Provo, recently deceased. Openly hostile, goes to church with a Trump hat, paranoid, etc.
Sara,
I see your point. It takes dedicated time and hard work to build community. We aren’t willing to do either right now, and we don’t have the drive and purpose our pioneer forefathers and mothers did. Zion for them was the primary goal, for us- it’s something we pour in between the cracks in our lives. We are supposed to be focused on ourselves- our *personal progress*, our home, family and personal enrichment, our own personal relationship with deity, and our own covenant path. Meanwhile, we shirk our community, live away from extended family, and don’t even know the neighbors. Have you watched “Call The Midwife”? It’s a fascinating series on PBS which showcases the time, effort, and multiple talents needed to water and feed community. Every week I’m exhausted just watching them put together community events. But, honestly, what are the consequences of our solitary lives? Putnam answers that question in the book “Bowling Alone”. The answer isn’t pretty. Perhaps we ought to re-prioritize community as a the most vital fabric in society and our lives.
Georgis and Mountainclimber479,
I don’t think that SLC has suffered the same loss of community that we, the rank and file have. They toil together for decades as a community of GAs- linked by familial networks and and multi-generational friendships. They are busy until the day they die, soing important things. They are so busy correlating everything g we are supposed to do, that they haven’t noticed that they haven’t left us anything *to do* except the casserole brigade and rote Sunday observance. And frankly- any church will offer you that. We were special because we were a utopian community, an temple
Building, poverty-eradicating, enlightening people intent on building Zion- the community of humanity. Without that, I’m not quite sure who we are or whether we are on track. Without our Zionistic and millennial zeal, I’m afraid we are slowing down.
So I am a longtime ticket holder of BYU football – in November 2021 they played the mighty Bengals of Idaho State in the final home game of the season and you could tell just by the attendance (for a lesser opponent) that people were glad to have some sense of normalcy. My local theater only ever shut down for a few months and started playing classics like Goonies, Raiders, etc and had a limited selection i.e. “Chaos Walking” with Tom Holland. I quite enjoyed the relative emptiness of the cinema but enjoyed being there. Feb 2021 went to Disney World in Orlando but still could not get on one of the Star Wars rides!! In contrast, went on a cruise in Feb 2023 where it seemed the ship was at full capacity.
My ward in Salt Lake County has at least six activities a year – there seems to be a sense that we are trying to recreate the unity that was lost during the pandemic.
Zoom can definitely not replace the communal vibe of a Church classroom but I give my strongest possible JCS-like endorsement of same for Sacrament Meeting and Stake Conference. Hauling the little ones to Stake Conf seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
Angela C,
I appreciate your comments. Concerning my criticism of “fear-mongering” that is what I literally experienced from my church leaders. We and youth had to follow the script or “people would die”. What I saw transpire was the youth were demanded to sacrifice everything – two years for a child / teenager is a lifetime – and it was a useless and futile sacrifice.
In the 1984 film Footloose the town leader & pastor is adamant dancing be prohibited. His motivation is that his oldest son has died in a car accident after an evening of dancing and drinking. Because of this tragedy no kids should be allowed to dance. The thing that was dangerous – alcohol – was used to ban the thing that was not dangerous – dancing.
And so it was with Covid. The young were not at elevated risk of illness and they were not an elevated threat to adults. But the fear of Covid was used to punish the youth and make them the sacrificial offering to the “Covid God”. Meanwhile adults worked from home and enjoyed a two year vacation from reality.
The willingness of adults to make the young sacrifice for Covid was unique to Blue state / Blue city USA. The rest of the world either kept schools open or reopened them quickly. There was no rational for keeping schools closed in the 2020-2021 school year. Yet that happened in the USA and LDS leaders gave their blessing and support to this tragedy.
Just one example of this “fear-mongering” I observed. In summer 2021 a neighboring stake hosted a regional youth dance. Leaders of my stake discouraged the youth from attending.and opposed the dance being held. This was in summer 2021, after the vaccine was available and after it was observed normal life could resume, as normal life was being lived in much of the world by that time.
What can explain why LDS leaders in certain localities would be so fearful of members returning to normalcy? How is it possible the general LDS leadership was so reluctant to promote a return to normalcy when (1) this was a specific objective of the special Covid fasts and (2) delays in returning to normalcy directly harmed the church program, which heavily relies on normal human socialization to function.
Communities change themselves to new circumstances, or new circumstances will force change on a community.
It’s really sad, though not very new, to see various commenters here give preference to their version of “normalcy,” over safety. Heaven forbid the world changes a bit, and you have to adjust! Even the existence of a vaccine that mitigates some of the effects of covid doesn’t mean that we’re “back to normal.”
What’s even sadder is that these “normalcy” seekers got their way. We still have over 3k people a week dying of covid in the US and barely anyone wears a mask anymore. One man who tried to measure the air changes in his chapel during church was told by his bishopric to stop, or he’d face legal action for “trespassing” (for using a CO2 monitor in church!).
I’m doubly sad for those who lament the loss of “normalcy.” They didn’t just lose normalcy, they lost friends to a widespread disease. They lost connection to friends and family members who aren’t as easily fooled. There are various studies showing that covid deaths are significantly higher among conservative populations. I bet that a big part of why our church communities have changed a lot (in addition to those reasons listed by the OP, which I’ve also experienced), is that many of the more conservative folks who refused to get a vaccine/wear a mask/social distance died earlier than they would have otherwise.
Again, communities change themselves to new circumstances, or new circumstances will force change on a community.
A Disciple, 1. That the vaccine is available does not mean that everybody immediately gets the chance to go out and get it, at one and the same time. Roll out takes a while. Vaccine production takes time. In the UK roll out occurred in order of age and vulnerability. So in summer 2021 not every one was fully vaccinated.
2. You can’t really separate adults and children in the way you seem to be doing. The adults are their parents, their teachers, their grandparents. The adults are the people who look after them. Choose your potential harms I guess. Unnecessary deaths of their loved ones is going to take its toll on mental health too..
A Disciple: “The willingness of adults to make the young sacrifice for Covid was unique to Blue state / Blue city USA. The rest of the world either kept schools open or reopened them quickly.” That’s just not true. I live in AZ, and schools here were shut down as I said in the OP. Are you claiming AZ is a so-called “blue state” (an oversimplified term if ever there was one)? To your earlier point that shut downs were a social experiment, yes, of course that’s true. So was the social experiment (on the other side) that Sweden did by leaving everything open. There were many deaths there pre-vaccine, as there were here. When you don’t know the right course of action, you take the information you have and you make a call. Either side saying that one way was the “right” way is, IMO, a big oversimplification. Both approaches had negative outcomes.
“How is it possible the general LDS leadership was so reluctant to promote a return to normalcy when (1) this was a specific objective of the special Covid fasts?”
I’ll take a stab. Because they don’t really believe that fasting and prayer has magic powers that overcome the influence of a virus and they’re just falling back on empty ritual so they look leader-ly.
I live in Queensland which is referred to as the deep north, because it is more conservative, but nothing like Utah. We closed things down and wore masks, and didn’t reopen until we had 90% of the population vacinated. We united to fight the virus.
Utah wit h a population of 3.3 million has 5300 deaths attributed to covid.
As a result although we have a population of 5.3 million we have had 3075 deaths , having universal healthcare help too.
But these may not be republican facts, just truth.
I hear you have been having prolonged hot weather in the majority of the northern hemisphere, do people like deciple believe climate change is contributing? Or do the have alternative explanations for that too?
One of the reasons I didn’t go back to church after it was shut down is because I realised so many American members, and leaders, were no longer accepting truth.
Geoff,
In the continental US only Texas is having “climate change” this year. The rest of the country has experienced average to below average temperatures with a number of states having exceptional years of rain and snow. Two years ago the droughts in the western US were proof of climate change. The droughts ended. Does that mean climate change ended?
The biggest threat to the future prosperity of mankind is failure to invest in the industry and infrastructure that will support 8 billion plus humans living on the planet. Windmills and solar panels are luxuries that will not do this. This is why China and India are building coal and nuclear power plants at an incredible pace.
Observe that per capita carbon consumption in the United States has declined in recent decades. The stunning truth is the US and Europe and Australia will have no impact on future carbon levels. I say stunning because media and politicians talk as if the solution to “climate change” rests on what the Western nations do and reality is what the Western nations do is inconsequential. This is so not only due to the growth in carbon emissions in the developing nations but also because any time the earth burps – volcanos – more carbon, methane and water vapor are expelled into the atmosphere than what First World nations can possibly reduce several years over.
I mentioned that windmills and solar panels are luxuries. The greatest gift the First World nations can give to poor nations is support for inexpensive, reliable sources of electrical power. This would be coal & gas . Fossil fuels are what made Europe and the United States economically successful. The electrification of the United States the first half of the 20th century- largely realized through coal power plants – is one of the great political and engineering achievements of the country. The lack of access to reliable, low cost power is what prevents the world poor from having the same opportunity of economic growth and prosperity.
And if you are concerned about the welfare of the planet and the people who live on it now and in the future, concern yourself with cobalt mines. NPR has an article headlined: “How ‘modern-day slavery’ in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy” I think we should add rechargeable battery EVs to the list of luxuries that make the richest in the world feel superior even when such products do little or nothing for the benefit of others.
“In the continental US only Texas is having “climate change” this year. “
I don’t have time for a deep dive but what occurs to me offhand is:
• The ocean temperature in FL has been above 100˚ degrees this summer.
• There’s been a shark attack off NYC as sharks migrate to cooler water.
• One of Maine’s major industries, fishing, is having to adapt as other marine life also migrates northward.
• Reefs are dying.
• Eastern Canada was on fire for a couple weeks and people across the northern states couldn’t breathe the acrid air that wafted southward.
• Prior to that BC had 600 fires that were described as out of control.
• On the East Coast hurricanes have become both more severe and more frequent.
Please widen your sources of information and get a clue about what’s actually happening. Culling your sources to those that agree with your pre-conceptions may feel satisfying but you can’t prepare for the reality that’s inescapable if you won’t even allow yourself to be aware of it.
Disciple: I don’t know where you are getting your information, but it’s not a good source. Here in AZ, the previous record for consecutive days over 110 degrees was 17 days. This summer we hit 31 consecutive days over 110, the longest streak in recorded history. The hospitals have had hundreds of people coming in with asphalt burns, heat stroke and heat exhaustion. I’ve lived here since 2006, and this was the first year that felt this brutal. Our swimming pool which has never been over 87 before hit the mid 90s.
Temperatures in the Florida Gulf near Key West were higher as well, in the mid 90s. This affects many marine species. Canadian fires created dangerous pollution all over the Northeast. The historic city of Lahaina, Maui, including the ancient banyan tree, has burned. Locals and tourists were jumping in the ocean to save themselves. Over 40 died.
The earth has been warming since the end of the last ice age. Where we are in that geological cycle is hypothesis. Better it be towards the middle rather than the end as ice ages are extermination events.
There is value in anthropogenic climate change theory. The main issue is not the science but the economics of the policies. The benefits of fossil fuels are great and dogmatic, anti-fossil fuel advocacy is foolish.
Of all human factors impacting the earth’.s ecology, carbon emissions are very minor. Of much greater impact are land and water development and pollution. Urban sprawl, asphalt and concrete will increase temperature. Irrigation and vegetation will increase humidity and alter temperature variability. Particulates / pollution block sunlight and chemicals alter the ecology of lakes, rivers and oceans.
A recent political recognition is that particulates can be used to block sunlight. I agree! Particulate emissions / air pollution have been decreasing for many decades. With diminished air pollution we would expect more sunlight reaching the ground and warmer temperatures. Do we really think it would be a good thing to increase air pollution in order to lower the temperature?
And then despite what all humans can do, the earth is infinitely more powerful. The truth is the warming observed in July cannot be explained by the current climate models. If geological events are warming the oceans and doing so with much greater climate forcing, what good will banning fossil fuels do?
Current climate policies are like spending money on improved insulation and then leaving the doors open. A whole lot of money and public coercion resulting in no benefit because the program is based on ideology rather than wisdom.
The following NBC News article relates the current climate confusion. Yes, the authors affirm their faith in “climate change” but they admit the theory is failing to explain what is actually being observed.
“Scientists look beyond climate change and El Niño for other factors that heat up Earth”
…
“One surprising source of added warmth could be cleaner air resulting from new shipping rules. Another possible cause is 165 million tons (150 million metric tons) of water spewed into the atmosphere by a volcano. Both ideas are under investigation.”
And there are more alternatives, such as the fact the earth’s magna is constantly shifting and is known to exhaust heat to the oceans and atmosphere. How much heat?
As for wildfires they are a problem. The solution is not banning gas cars. It is more wise land management. This program would reduce the harm of natural fires as well as those ignited by arsonists.
A Disciple: Your comment is in violation of site rules (honestly, so was the one before this one). This is not a post about global warming. Introducing your own hobby horse topics continually will result in your eventual moderation. Stick the the topic. You’re kind of exhausting.
A Disciple, something that strikes me about all your comments is that you have tremendous hindsight bias. It’s not like COVID showed up in 2020 with a handy set of labels saying “mortality rate ~1%” and “transmission outdoors unlikely” and “low risk for young people.” It was a brand new disease and government officials (and Church leaders who went along) were trying to protect us against the risk that it would have a mortality rate of 10%. Or 50%. We only found out how risky it was or wasn’t by living through it. If it had been like the 1918 flu, you could now be complaining from the grave about how you didn’t get the chance to demonstrate that it wasn’t as great a risk as claimed.
I will always wonder how many more survived Covid because Pres Nelson was a physician, and used his training, knowledge and experience to keep people safe. I can’t imagine Bednar or others encouraging members to get vaccinated, wear masks etc.
One person (who moved from our ward to a different state) I know who will never attend church again because of the pandemic is our former bishop’s wife. She died from Covid. Yet, her adult daughter and family(who still lived in our ward) were the only ones who continued to ignore the mask mandate for in-person attendance.
Disciple is wrong about Covid. I wasn’t wearing a mask and getting vaccinated mostly to protect myself—but to protect others. We don’t know the medical histories and risk of fellow church members and their families. There is no doubt vaccines saved lives.
I think the bigger issue that caused people to step away was Prop 8. But probably Covid too—especially for those who already had one foot out.