Recently, as happens every couple of years or so, I received unsolicited contact from the local missionaries. They asked via text message if they could stop by for a short visit. As has always been my policy with the missionaries, (even during the bitter times), I accepted their request. Part of my open-door policy stems from being a returned missionary.
The visit, which I found cordial and enjoyable, included the missionaries seeking a modest commitment from me. In this case, they asked me to watch stake conference via a Zoom link they provided. As I had mentioned earlier to them in the visit, with the exception of one weekday morning Catholic mass (few attendees), I have not attended any in-person worship service since February of 2020. As a current hospital employee, providing non-clinical support in the emergency room and on other patient floors, I am a special witness of just how prevalent Covid continues to be. I have no plans to return to in-person worship anytime soon for any church.
Anyhow, I watched stake conference, and I had a mostly positive experience. Then, as they requested, I emailed the missionaries with my thoughts. Since both the missionaries and the Seventy who visited the stake chose to invoke Alma 32, I’m going to do the same with this post. I’ll model a couple examples of evaluating religious fruit. Then I’ll turn things over to you, readers.
Stake Conference Observation #1:
The first half of the conference session followed a deliberate youngest-to-oldest order of speakers: teen, college, full-grown adult/parent, senior
Good Fruit:
This ascending age-based order of speakers showcased and celebrated something The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tends to do well: multi-generational fellowship and worship. Boomers, Gen-X, Millennials, and Gen-Z come together and benefit from their varied perspectives
Bad Fruit:
This order of speakers reinforces a gerontocratic power structure which favors older and more affluent members, inevitably marginalizing everybody else. This perpetuates the Church’s tendency to lag behind the times, resist social progress, and appear irrelevant to younger generations.
Stake Conference Observation #2:
Many, perhaps most, of the speakers, became emotional at key moments in their talks. As their tears began to flow, they spoke with increased fervency about their relationships to Jesus Christ and Church leaders.
Good Fruit:
Latter-day Saint worship provides a reverent and generally non-confrontational way for people to have communal spiritual experience, to be comforted and nourished by group emotional catharsis.
Bad Fruit:
Members are clearly practiced at getting themselves into a particular emotional state (crying) and then calling it the Spirit. Though this ritual tendency may be sincere, it is nonetheless a practiced worship behavior, a byproduct of social conditioning at Church, and in no way proof of authentic divine presence.
Other Stake Conference Observations:
- Younger speakers seemed to focus more squarely on their relationship with the Savior, testifying of their gratitude, adoration, and resulting blessings. Older speakers seemed to focus more on the institutional Church (temple attendance, priesthood leadership), testifying of their gratitude, adoration, and resulting blessings
- Elder Vaiangina Sikahema, General Authority Seventy, presided and gave the final talk. As I told the missionaries after, he seemed like a pretty cool guy and a talented leader. He also made a point to reference his time playing football in the NFL (otherwise many like me would have been completely unaware of this). When I was the missionaries’ age, the especially prominent Church athletes included Dale Murphy (MLB) and Steve Young (NFL). Elder Sikahema’s calling reminds me how the Church likes to pull its retired professional athletes–celebrities–into prominent leadership and ambassadorial roles
- Elder Sikahema called up several youth to give minute testimonies. They gave these testimonies with the general authority standing beside them (so he could squeeze their arm if they started to run long, but also provide them face to face compliments and hugs after a job well done.) I certainly remember seeing people called up out of the pews in past meetings to give off-the-cuff testimony
- Elder Sikahema did a nice job pointing us toward specific passages of scripture focused on the Church’s version of Christian theology. He also displayed a testimony of the Savior. However, the thrust of his talk was unmistakably adoration for President Nelson
Your turn, W&T readers!
Choose one of the observations above. In the comments below, show how what I observed could be either a good or a bad fruit. Alternately, share an experience of your own from a recent session of conference or sacrament meeting. Then dare to sincerely identify BOTH a good and a bad impression of what you observed.
To be clear, if you only discuss your observation from one side, good or bad, you have missed the point of this post. I hope for some great responses. Thank you for reading!
Wheat & Tares 
Thanks Jake. I can relate to what you observed and mostly agree. A fair argument for the order of speakers is that it provides the opportunity for leadership to correct or to amplify the words of less experienced speakers. This provides a backstop and it ialso fits the social expectation. Once the Stake President or visiting authority speaks people figure those are the final words and it is time to head home.
It is a fascinating observation concerning the priority church leadership gives to endorsing the leadership hierarchy. It looks like a social conditioning as I am not aware of this enforcement in my normal church activity. In fact in my East coast ward of very faithful and highly accomplished members rarely if ever is adoration expressed of church leadership. But stake leadership and general authorities adore the hierarchy and feel it necessary to recognize the hierarchy and approve of it.
The excessive praise of hierarchy/ bureaucracy is not natural. So why do we see it in the church? Why are leaders especially expected to give the line of praising the church president? I could see the desire to acknowledge great accomplishments of a person. But the LDS pattern is to adore the person for simply possessing a title. This is a bizarre quirk of LDS religion and one that seems to separate the leadership hierarchy from the general membership – as if the hierarchy is a special, unique club.
“Hierarchy is a special, unique club,” sounds like either a cult or a form of authoritarian governance where the average person never really knows where they stand to praise is used to show they stand with the leader.
I really like this good fruit/bad fruit analysis. Excellent approach.
Hmmm, as you were focusing on the age of the speaker, I was wondering about the gender. It sounded kinda like an all male line up. Which is really not unusual unfortunately. But then that IS the hierarchy. And, I wondered it you noticed hierarchy because it was all male arranged in order of age/authority. All male leadership with the women lumped down among the children, below the deacons. Yup, sounds normal.
It really makes me wonder if I have a place in the church as anything but a child. Here I am, 72 and still being lumped with children. And the temple taught me that even “heaven” which sounds more like hell, is the same, with me in the hierarchy below my husband as a priestess and servant of him. So, even if I make it to top heaven, I am still lumped with the children, serving in the nursery as an incubator of more children.
Good thoughts? There was a comfort of familiarity to your description. It just feels like home, and I suppose it still is. I spent 60 odd years there. I still long for home, even after deciding that my church home is abusive just like my parents home. The feeling of returning home is still there, even as I try to escape the results of abuse. I loved my mother and father. In spite of the abuse. I loved them until they died, and I miss them. And I love my church home and always will, but I can’t live there. I can’t deal with never being enough and being treated as second class, so I am crying as I write this. But how can I love a God who lives my brothers more than he loves me, when that was EXACTLY how my abusive parents treated me. Saying they loved me, but only loving what I did for them. Only needing me to love them while they were too selfish to even see they were using a child for their own gratification. On my father’s part, even sexual gratification. My church home may not sexually abuse me, but the emotional abuse is still there. The shame, the using me for their purpose even when it harmed me, the constant telling me how I am not enough. But there is familiarity and a weird kind of safety feeling to home, even when you know a beating is coming. I can’t really describe the feeling of safety in an unsafe environment, because you have to have lived it. But battered wives or children will know what I mean. There is the comfort of home even when it is unsafe. You think maybe things will get better and “he” will learn to love me better if I am just good enough. But you eventually learn that you can’t be “good enough” …. Ever. And you are forced to give up and leave what you love, leave home. And it hurts more than the abuse.
So, your description is like a letter from home, from the parents that I love but can’t even live close enough to visit. It is good, familiar, home.
And that got to be more than I intended. But I think I will leave it. I still wish I could go home. But I know the abuse will kill me eventually if I did.
A Disciple – Do you think the church leadership is starting to see that some members of the church aren’t believing “when the prophet speaks the debate is over” anymore? That we are actually taking back our own spiritual authority. And so they are trying to build up the leadership by constantly praising them, hoping the general membership will join in?
Thank you for the comments so far everyone. Very much appreciated.
Anna, I’m glad you mentioned the gender aspect, which I admittedly sidestepped in drafting this post. I do not have a program, and I did not take notes. But at least two of the scheduled speakers were women, including the college-age speaker.
Regardless, your critical point about patriarchy is taken. At every stake/general conference I’ve ever been to, the prestige spot of final speaker has always been given to a man–because it is always given to the presiding priesthood leader, being the person in the room with the greatest authority (prestige).
In the current tradition, there is no way for a woman to be granted the honor of speaking last in such a general session (keynote/headliner/special guest, etc). No woman can have that speaking slot because no woman in the Church can be ordained to an office that would make her the conference’s ranking VIP. I’m hard-pressed to come up with a good fruit angle on that reality. In any case, thank you for sharing your deeply personal perspective on the bittersweet (to say the least) nature of connection to home
TL,
I am at a loss to explain the deliberate effort to inform the membership of their need to support the hierarchy. I can remember the days when we prayed for the bishop and prophet. This is different. This is a forced gushing of praise by subordinates for the president. Or in stakes it is the high councilors praising the goodness of the stake president.
What is weird about the latter case is stakes are sufficiently small that it is no great ask for the stake president to show up in person and make himself known to a ward. But no. He sends a representative to proclaim his goodness.
I wonder how it would be if instead of subordinates gushing about the boss they focused instead on what the boss wanted done. What initiatives does the president have, why are these initiatives important and how might we assist in accomplishing them? Don’t tell us the “boss” deserves praise. Tell us what the “boss” is doing and let us be motivated to join in support.
I don’t have a problem with the presiding man giving the “prestige” talk. I don’t think people going to hear Jesus wanted to hear Peter, Thomas, Mary, or Joanna. It isn’t a gender thing. I want to hear from the visiting authority (or from the stake president if there’s no visiting authority), and I really don’t care too much what the stake RS president or the stake SS president or the HC over the employment program has to say.
I do appreciate the OP pointing out is how his recent visiting authority’s talk was “unmistakably adoration for President Nelson.” I know this happens because I’ve heard it myself, and at general conference speakers seem to work hard to get in a Pres. Nelson quote, with Pres. Nelson sitting right behind them. It looks too much like sucking up to me. I am a convert. I’m good with following Christ, and following the prophet is a probably a good way to follow Christ, but that isn’t our message. If our message is follow Christ, and following the prophet is a good way to follow Christ, then we’re failing at communicating because people hear “follow the prophet” and not much more. Honestly, too many members don’t really care much about following Christ, maybe because we can’t see him, but we can follow a man. Isn’t that the same thing that we fault Catholics for, not praying to Christ because He’s too distant and holy, but praying to Mary or other saints.
A good fruit is to let the nourishment that runs in the vine (Christ) produce good fruit naturally and quietly in us, with the fruit being the result of our faith in Christ. A bad fruit (or a false fruit) is to create good works for the purpose of being seen of men, to create seemingly good fruit (smells good, looks good, tastes good) for wrong reasons, to say Lord, Lord, and to do many wonderful things, but to do it all to puff oneself up, or to brag about it to bring attention and praise to oneself.
The prophet suck up is for sure getting worse. I was a kid when David O McKay was president of the church and we hardly ever even called him a prophet. “The prophet” was not the current church president, but Joseph Smith. And there was almost none of the flattery and quoting and gushing. Gradually it has gotten so “the prophet” is whoever is currently in the position of church president a he is the object of fawning and adoration and worship. But it developed over time as our leaders seemed to encourage, “follow the prophet” instead of follow the Savior. The contrast between the simple respect paid to President McKay, and the constant quoting and suck up butt kissing of President Nelson is a pretty stark contrast.
But President McKay didn’t like the open admiration, and quotes were supposed to be from scripture, and we didn’t use conference talks for all of our Sacrament talks and lessons. The first presidency would not have even allowed that kind of cult mentality. We as a church were trying to get away from the “cult” label given to Mormons the early church suffered from. Now, it is the word “Mormon” that seems to be objectionable and “cult of personality” behavior seems to be the “in”thing. Total turn around from trying to distance ourselves from the early reputation of being a cult of personality from Joseph Smith’s days, when the word “Mormon” meant “cult.” It is a very different church than the church of my childhood.
As far as the gender of the speaker, I wouldn’t mind either, except the church is to totally androcentric that it gave me the message that God loves his sons and not his daughters. As I went through my life trying to be the kind of woman that church leaders told me would make me happy, I found that they were not really talking about the kind of life that made women happy, fulfilled, or righteous. They were talking about the kind of life for a woman that was useful to the institution. Not even the kind of life God wanted me to lead. Meanwhile I saw top church leaders telling women to marry early and not put off babies, meanwhile they were marrying 10 years later than average and putting off children until they were well established in their career. It was this big “do as I say, not as I do” trap. Meanwhile they called career women to top church callings, not mothers who started family at 21 and had 12 kids. I started longing for more of a healthy role model for women and more focus on being Christlike and less worship of nuclear family. I couldn’t find what I needed in the church. So, now I watch sadly as my daughters and daughter in laws are happy in a male centric church until about age 40 and then wonder what the hell happened to their life and become angry feminists and leave the church because it just doesn’t meet their needs as women. So, yeah, I understand not caring about the gender imbalance or who tells them how to live their life. I am just not there anymore.
TL: I think your observation about the Nelson sycophancy is a chicken-egg question. Are these guys doubling down on being authoritative because of members doubting, or are members not buying that these guys are infallible because these guys keep insisting they are infallible (Streisand effect)? Seems like it probably is a vicious circle. It reminds me of when we were on a hike with our 9 YO daughter, and we knew she was going to have a hard time keeping up so we told her she could be the hike “leader.” She kept inevitably lagging behind, and then she would suddenly realize it, and in a burst of energy assert, “Hey, I’M the leader here!” forcing us to wait for her to get back in front of the family.
Good fruit: There is something comforting about these meeting rituals, I agree, but tbh I find them boring as hell, too. They are all kind of the same, which is the bad fruit problem you pointed out so astutely: “Members are clearly practiced at getting themselves into a particular emotional state (crying) and then calling it the Spirit.” This might play to the home crowd, but as I pointed out in my mission memoir, when I tried it with an investigator she thought I should probably be institutionalized.
“Members are clearly practiced at getting themselves into a particular emotional state (crying) and then calling it the Spirit.” Yes. Armand Mauss described this development a generation ago, and it’s only getting worse.
Mormon offers this wise counsel with regard to judging between good and bad fruit (Moroni 7):
18 And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged.
19 Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.
Oh, Jack. I don’t think your presence here is ironic from your perspective, but you serve as a constant reminder to those who have left the church because they found it to be patronizing, manipulative, sexist, limiting, and unaccepting. Was your goal to convince those who have left that they made the right decision?
jaredsbrother,
If we want a sense of how to judge the workings of the Kingdom then it seems (to me) that we should be willing to turn to its oracles — both living and dead — for insight on making those judgments. I understand that the church is filled with imperfect people–but even so, the basic principles that I cite from Mormon’s sermon should help us to know how to judge righteously in any situation.
Re: people feeling offended by my quoting those verses: I’d say–take Mormon’s counsel to heart. Search in the light of the Savior to learn whether my comments are appropriate. And my guess is that it will tell you that lugheads can be sincere.
I’ve mentioned on W&T that my family and I moved away from the Wasatch front and out of the west a few years ago. We live near a metropolitan area that is multi-racial. The breakdown is roughly 45% white, 25% Hispanic, 12% black and 8% Asian. And while we have not attended church, I have LDS Tools and have a sense of the make-up of stake leadership and the ward I’m assigned to. There are 8 wards in the stake; two are Spanish speaking.
Five months ago, I received the text from the missionaries with a Zoom link inviting me to tune into stake conference. The hook was that an area seventy and a general authority seventy would be visiting to reorganize the stake. I thought I would tune in and observe.
The program was the same as you describe. A young woman then a sister during the evening session, then a member of the outgoing stake presidency, the area seventy and finally the general authority seventy. The Saturday evening session featured emotion from the sister as she recounted a painful trial (I found value in her personal story), but everyone else was scripted and flat. No teaching, mostly admonitions, warnings and promises of blessings from obedience. I had a football game on my other screen to keep me from completely zoning out.
The Sunday session was all about the reorganization. The general authority seventy released the current presidency and then sustained the new presidency. The outgoing stk president’s wife spoke for a few minutes, and the rest of the program was all men. The outgoing stake president was brief, happy, grinning ear-to-ear as he said sayonara to his calling. The area authority (a personal investment advisor by profession, of course) next spoke and I struggled to listen to his self-inflated sales talk–it was like listening to a carnival barker or a summer sales hype man rallying a room of college students. A true company man. The incoming stake president (an accountant by profession, of course) mostly went on and on about how humbled he was to be one of the Lord’s selected servants to be called to this very important and vital responsibility–very emotional with thanks expressed to his parents, wife, children, other members, God, the prophet. I know this sounds cynical, but I’m writing an accurate representation. It’s like the new stake president had received his calling and election made sure. The general authority seventy (a former business executive by profession, of course), spoke last. He talked prophet worshipped for a long time…yes, we all know how amazing RMN is because of his age…and preached supporting the new presidency because they have such demanding callings and require everyone’s unquestioning support, and obedience, amen. Oh, and attend the temple.
Again, there was no teaching, some emotion, adulation for those released and called, and the drumbeat of prophet worship and obedience. I can’t think of much fruit of value.
I spent some time on LDS Tools looking at the stake presidency, stake high council members and other stake officers. It was near the end of the Sunday session that it finally struck me–everything about this stake conference reminded me that I could have been in Saratoga Springs, or Bountiful, Layton, or Highland. Everyone was white, all of them. Every single stake officer and the entire high council, not to mention the area and general authority seventy. Not a single Hispanic despite there being two Spanish speaking wards. There was a camera mounted behind the choir seats and when the mid-meeting hymn was sung, it showed the congregation. I didn’t see a single black member. I did some more research on the stake officers. Over two-thirds were BYU educated and appeared to be from the Mormon belt. The stake conference was a representation of Utah, period. There was no local flavor, nothing that felt like the neighborhood in which I live or the broader culture of our city of millions. I have to say that was the biggest disappointment. Mormons are still largely an island unto ourselves.
On balance, it all seemed like bad fruit to me, or at best fruit with no flavor and no nourishing value. It’s a few hours time I won’t get back, and reminded me of why I stopped attending church.
Thank you Jake.
To me the good fruit is the people. Almost all of them mean well and are trying their best and are simply oblivious to the harm in the system. They want to do good. The refocus on Jesus by the younger crowd evidences this.
The bad fruit here for me is this notion that a leader can demand your testimony. Beliefs are personal and sharing should be optional. Really the message here is that authority can invade you anytime with any demand. Very unhealthy.
I am going to add one more observation about the stake presidency reorganization I referenced in my prior comment. The area and general authority seventy made a big deal about how the the new stake presidency was the Lord’s choice, anointed by His spirit. I grow really tired of the gaslighting around stake presidency selections. The new stake president is nearly always the top vote getter among the bishops of the stake, members of the high council, the patriarch and the outgoing stake presidency. That is generally the audience given an application (it’s a euphemism to call it anything else) to fill out and used to select the incoming stake presidency. Each person in that group is asked to staple a headshot of themselves to the form and fill out the questionnaire. Questions include age, education, profession, mission served, children and their ages, and if the individual expects to relocate within the next ten years. At the bottom there are three lines where it asks you to rank order your top three selections for stake president. I had been through this process three times over about a decade and half and in all cases the top vote getter was called to be stake president, and most of the time the other two were called as counselors. To me, a process like this can make rational sense, with one massive, glaring omission: the lack of input by sister leaders in the stake. Women have zero input in the process. What I find to be so disappointing, however, is the lack of process transparency, and how the GA who reorganizes the stake makes it seems as though there is a Godly manifestation where the new stake president is delivered to the GA in a vision. Both the area seventy and general authority seventy in this reorganization went on and on about the revelatory process and how the new stake president was God’s choice. Couched in those terms, it’s misleading and incomplete. It wasn’t surprising to me that a counselor from the outgoing presidency was retained as the new president. Why? He is well known to the peer group who voted for him. One of his counselors had been a counselor in the outgoing stake presidency, and the second counselor sustained in the new presidency had been a recently released bishop. Local church leadership and general church leadership could accurately be described as being the product of church hegemony. I’m going to put this under the category of bad fruit because the process is not honestly described and because women are given no voice in the leadership selection process.
Big sky,
The selection process being what it is does not preclude the ratifying seal of the Holy Spirit on the final outcome of said process. When the spirit anoints–that is always good fruit.
Jack, then why not be honest about the details of the process? Why not be transparent? Why not involve women in leadership roles?
I don’t think they’re being dishonest by not including everyone in the process. In fact, I believe that too much involvement would cause more problems than it would be worth to include everyone. Judging by the scriptures the Lord’s people have always been a finicky lot.
Jack: “I understand that the church is filled with imperfect people” But in your view, those “imperfections” are so minor that their flawed counsel can still be safely followed with 100% exactitude. That is not everyone’s experience. “Re: people feeling offended by my quoting those verses” Get OVER yourself. Nobody is “offended” by you quoting scripture. It’s just a non sequitur to the discussion, a classic though-stopping technique. It’s funny how some Mormons love to imagine that they are speaking the harsh words of righteousness to these poor benighted apostates when the reality is that they are avoiding the actual topic at hand by spouting party lines.
Angela C:
“But in your view, those ‘imperfections’ are so minor that their flawed counsel can still be safely followed with 100% exactitude.”
According to Mormon we can search in the light of Christ in order to know how to judge good from evil. And so, if I feel by virtue of that gift that the counsel is good–then it doesn’t matter how flawed the people may be who gave it.
“‘Re: people feeling offended by my quoting those verses’ Get OVER yourself.”
Maybe I do need to get over myself–but still, it was another commenter who implied that my comment might be difficult for others.
“Nobody is ‘offended’ by you quoting scripture. It’s just a non sequitur to the discussion. . .”
I don’t believe that utilizing the foundational texts of the church to shed light on how to judge the church to be a non sequitur.
“It’s funny how some Mormons love to imagine that they are speaking the harsh words of righteousness to these poor benighted apostates. . .”
I don’t think Mormon’s words are harsh. I think they’re lovely.
***
Sorry, Dave B. I know I’ve exceeded my quota–but sometimes it’s hard for me not to respond to comments that are directed specifically at my comments.
Thank you everyone for chiming in with your thoughts on the original post. Grateful for the general effort to identify the good and bad fruit potential in meetings in particular. Chadwick, I appreciated your response regarding the minute testimonies. Got me thinking to see both sides laid out like that.
Jack, I understand the urge to respond when called out. But I think it’s fair to say you’ve taken it as far as you can, and arguably farther than you should have. So, thank you for bringing the devout perspective, but we’ve heard enough. And everyone else’s two cents have been fair and reasonable enough. Plus, together we’ve all done this copious pushing back in both directions with no F-bombs dropped. I mean, yay us! Seriously though, nobody is owed the last word. Having the last word is overrated anyhow. To be clear, inasmuch as I’m asking Jack not to respond anymore, I’m asking others to refrain from additional comments calling him out. I think all the back and forth to this point has generally been useful in marking out where we all stand. So let’s move on
I ask that we all give space to anyone else who might want to share other specific good/bad fruit examples not yet covered.
Great post Jake, and thought-provoking comments too. You’d have been a wise and diplomatic shepherd to a trusting little flock.
As I remember past stake conferences I attended, by far the best fruit for me was performing in the stake choir. Our directors were always well trained and capable of eliciting the best that a mediocre assemblage of volunteer singers could muster. They chose challenging arrangements and started us early on a strict schedule of practices, that I enjoyed almost as much as the performance. I believe some of those performances came as close to a shared testimony given in communal voice as was possible, and we all had moments of holiness in that.
On further reflection, those best moments involved feelings of praise or adoration for Deity, that we all felt deeply together, and were blessed by the gift of lyrics, music, practice, and leadership — a script prepared by people more talented than us that we could use to express such praise to the Lord. I contrast this with the praise of President Nelson that is currently in vogue, and the differences are startling. I realize that reverence for the mantle of the office comes easier for some than for others, and expressing it is natural. but there are many of us for whom the specter of an egotistical thoracic surgeon won’t recede, and for good reasons. Some of them demonstrated even after the mantle was invested, to his Mormon flock.
I’ve been in a lot of these stake reorganizations, on both sides of the table. “Revelation/Inspiration/Desperation” all come into play. I find that those that want to constantly describe their decisions as revelation in reality do not understand the process. Elder Faust once said that revelation is not a cheap experience and to be careful referring to every decision as inspired. I know of a situation when after all the interviews the GA said, we have not found the SP. He left to office to get a drink of water and noticed a group of men playing basketball, he asked the SP about one man and the SP said he didn’t know him. He then asked him to bring him to the office for an interview. Basketball player was told to go home and come back with his wife. I’ve been in some where the seemingly logical choice was not. I agree completely that the women auxiliary leaders should definitely be invited to give input just like the bishops and high council. Some are not necessarily called for what they are but what they will become.
BigSky, thanks for opening the curtain on the stake president selection process. I have never heard it explained anywhere. I didn’t know that bishops, high councillors, patriarch, and out-going stake presidency (and maybe a few others) filled out applications (or forms of any sort). It certainly means that the new president will almost be one of those people, meaning that a good man not holding position under the incumbent SP would almost never be considered. Makes me wonder if this is administration, selecting the best application (résumé) and then asking for confirmation of your selection. Reminds me of J Golden Kimball: “”Some people say a person receives a position in this church through revelation, and others say they get it through inspiration, but I say they get it through relation. If I hadn’t been related to Heber C. Kimball I wouldn’t have been a damn thing in this church.” Lots of very good people don’t have the right connections, and therefore cannot be considered in a short weekend filled with other meetings. To revelation, inspiration, and relation, let me add desperation–maybe more for a youth, primary, or early morning seminary worker than for a stake president, however. I don’t doubt that the fruit is oft-time good, and even very good, but I would like a wider net.
Perhaps this exchange in the last few comments (and I’m trying to honor your request to not throw more kindling on it) highlights the chief limitation of the good fruit/bad fruit metaphor: subjectivity.
What is the metric for the goodness or badness of a fruit? In the extreme devout view, anything that follows the directives of the church hierarchy is a good fruit by definition. Some of us might take a more utilitarian approach—net pleasures enjoyed minus trauma suffered.
I think Jesus’ original metaphor may have been less aimed at appraising things as good or bad and perhaps was more akin to the sentiment, “like produces like.” The original context being the recognition of false prophets, I think he meant real prophets do real prophet stuff and false prophets do false prophet stuff. Therefore, ye shall know a true stake conference by its fruits, namely, by how stake conferencey it is.