According to Carl Jung, each of us has a “shadow” side that represents the aspects of ourselves that we reject, repress, and try to hide from others and from ourselves. Jung also famously taught “That which we resist, persists,” or in other words, you can repress and hide your shadow side, but it’s not going away. You cast a shadow wherever you go.
In the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Jadzia Dax is a Trill, a symbiotic species with a humanoid body that lives under the control of (in a mutually beneficial relationship with) a parasitic implant inside of it, allowing the species to last through several human lifespans, and to achieve greater potential and achievements. In the episode Facets, Jadzia undergoes a religious ritual in which she is allowed to “meet” and accept the previous hosts of the Dax symbiont. Jadzia has been having some disturbing mental issues that are preventing her from performing her duties, and the ritual is intended to restore her balance. She discovers in the process that one of the prior hosts was a violent criminal, a murderer, and the symbiont has rejected and hidden this personality from her. By accepting and embracing this violent predecessor, she is able to find peace and wholeness.
J.M. Barrie explores the shadow in an amusing episode in which Peter Pan literally fights his own shadow, trying to control it and bend it to his will. His shadow is defiant, mocking him, dodging his attempts to control it. Peter Pan’s internal struggle is his desire to remain a child, playful and carefree, while his adult identity tries to emerge, forcing him to take responsibility as his body matures.
In the Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Rudolph finds himself on the Isle of Misfit Toys where he befriends others who have been rejected by Santa’s crew at the North Pole: a Charlie-in-a-box, a train with square wheels, a cowboy riding an ostrich, a water pistol that squirts jelly, a piggy bank with no slot, a kite who’s afraid of heights, a boomerang that doesn’t come back, a bird that swims. These cast-off toys are discarded because they are unconventional, and suffered from production issues that caused them to come out differently in the toy-making process. At the end of the film, Santa shows up at the Isle of Misfit Toys and reclaims these unloved treasures, delivering them to new homes where they will be appreciated and loved. Rudolph’s own “flaw” (his bright red nose) is the thing that saves Christmas by lighting the way for Santa’s sleigh through the thick fog.
Does the church have a shadow, and if so, what is it? Churches in general all have shadowy elements, and here are a few (using a list of similar topics about the Catholic Church):
- Historical Controversies. Polygamy, the race ban, and Mountain Meadows Massacre all reveal shadowy elements to the Church’s fraught history. Multiple accounts of key events like the First Vision (or missing accounts of the Melchizedek Priesthood ordination) are also thorny. Additionally, the church has often not been on the right side of history. Consider how reluctant the church was to side against Naziism, how slow they were to embrace civil rights, how they fought against the ERA, how long they continued to encourage gay people to marry against their sexual orientation and to undergo conversion therapy.
- Sexual Abuse Scandals. These remain an issue for the church, one that they have yet to figure out, instead focusing on Kirton-McConkie’s advice to admit no wrongdoing and avoid reporting, even when it would be the right or moral thing to do. Consider the recent arrest of a stake president (Rhett Hintze) in Harrisburg, PA for not reporting a bishop (Sean Gooden) despite knowing he had sexually abused his wife’s younger brothers. That charge against Hintze, which could carry a felony conviction, just happened in January. While the church claims that the charges against Hintze are “misguided,” according to Pennsylvania guidelines (which were updated after the terrible Sandusky sex-abuse scandal at Penn State that tarnished the reputation of beloved coach Joe Paterno) clergy are mandatory reporters. It is starting to seem like Kirton McConkie’s advice is always against reporting, and that they assume that every state is going to be like Utah, which is not accurate. Aside from this recent example, there were the BYU rape scandals less than a decade ago that we reported on here in which we learned that rape victims who become pregnant from their attack may be expelled from BYU for being single and pregnant. That scandal also revealed that BYU and the local Provo police department were sharing records with each other so that the school could target students, including those who were sexually assaulted. Gold standard, indeed!
- Political Power. The prior example shows the Church using its considerable influence to exert its will in secular matters. Church leaders were also caught on film joking about the need to ensure any new Utah politicians were “church-broke” and would be willing to do the Church’s bidding.
- Wealth & Institutional Corruption. The recent SEC fines reveal that the church considers the matter closed, but also that the church literally fired people who refused to break the law, replacing them with more cowardly men who would not mind breaking the law, signing documents attesting knowledge the church prevented them from having, as part of their jobs. The church was also revealed to be substantially wealthier than members knew, due to increased pressure for all members to pay tithing (since the 70s and 80s when tithing participation was much lower), and due to investments made with tithing surplus.
- Empowering Women. Several of the other shadows listed already touch on this blind spot, but it certainly blew up recently when Sis. Dennis claimed the church grants more power to women than other faiths, which is patently false and reveals she doesn’t really know much about other churches. Then there was the obligatory defensive pile-on by “faithful” women eager to beat down their sisters to show their fealty to the church. What a sh*tshow.
- Treatment of Dissenters. The existence of the Strengthening the Members Committee, a secretive group that monitors members’ online and media presence, vigilant for dissent is certainly one example of this, as is the culture of worthiness interviews and encouraging members to “tattle” on each other at the ward level, and to the Honor Code office at BYU.
- Patriarchy. Obviously a church that only gives decision-making power to a subset of “company men” is going to have some blind spots as relates to those not allowed to be in these decision-making spaces, those neither represented nor given a vote. When that church is also based on a foundational system (polygamy) in which women are sexually exploited to glorify their god-husbands and give birth for eternity, you get some weird outcomes.
Here are a few I will add that aren’t inspired by the Catholicism list:
- Policing worthiness. We are obsessed, culturally, with worthiness, to a very unhealthy degree. We think nothing of having leaders question us regularly on our beliefs and actions, according to an incomplete and changing checklist, including on items that the church itself would struggle to answer correctly (e.g. honesty–see SEC scandal, and affiliating with groups that teach things contrary to the church–such as all their political bedfellows and the WCF). We think nothing of members who tattle on one another over matters of belief that are nobody’s business.
- Conflating conservatism with the gospel. I’m not sure how long this one has been such an institutional shadow, but it certainly hasn’t been good since Benson’s presidency, and possibly before that.
- Leader worship. Although Jesus taught that we should not seek for the praise of men, that doesn’t appear to apply to leaders, at whatever level they may be, all the way down to nearly every DL and ZL I encountered on my mission. Rather than a church based on common consent, as described in the Doctrine & Covenants, we have a church that does the bidding of the men in charge exclusively, with no exceptions for individual circumstances allowed. The number of times I’ve heard people gush about Pres. Nelson is honestly gob-smacking. I guess since Monson had dementia for so long, we didn’t hear that for a long time, but wow, we are out of control.
So these are some institutional flaws, but unlike Santa with the misfit toys, the solution, embracing your “shadow” side, isn’t necessarily the same thing as gathering up the discarded toys you rejected. It starts with accepting that you have the flaws behind rejecting those toys in the first place. In the above examples, there are issues with authoritarianism, misogyny, racism, control, corruption, nepotism, cronyism, and dishonesty. The steps include:
- Admitting to yourself that you have these shadows
- Understanding why you have these issues as an institution; how did you get this way?
- Addressing the core reasons that you have those shadows, so that you can compensate
- Being vigilant in future to avoid the excesses that result when you ignore your shadow
Nearly all of these excesses can be boiled down to one core problem: insecurity. There have been many forms of this insecurity over the church’s history, including:
- Being considered Christian by more mainstream, popular sects
- Religious freedom / the government threatening its existence thanks to polygamy
- Financial insecurity–lots of times when the Church literally wasn’t solvent
- Threat of progress, or at least it’s viewed as a threat by those who don’t like progressive changes
These insecurities are pretty apparent if you open your eyes. It’s why the Church hates bad press and seeks to control critics. It’s why most abuse cases are gladly settled out of court with a big fat check and gag order.
- Do you agree these are some of the church’s shadows? Can you think of more?
- What could the church do to compensate for these shadows and to recognize these tendencies?
- Do you see the church as insecure? Are there other examples?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I will be interested in hearing about the focus of Kirtland Temple tours begun this week by LDS missionaries. Will the stress be on accounts of supernatural/ viaionary experiences in the building or the dedication and sacrifice of a community that crumbled due to financial mismanagement within a couple years of the Temple’s dedication? My guess is “faith promoting” over historical reality, but I would love to be proved wrong.
What does WCF stand for? Also where can I find more information about how the church responded to the Nazis?
Racism and misogyny are also based in insecurity, only more in the insecurity of the individual. Many of our top leaders have exhibited this form of self hatred directed at others. There are theories that homophobia is really based on misogyny. Packer’s naming of the three greatest enemies of the church named both homosexuals and feminists.
no time now, so maybe more thoughts later.
I suspect LDS leadership’s persecution mentality — thinking everyone is out to get the Church — drives some of their questionable management decisions, like playing fast and loose with financial disclosure rules that got them in trouble with the SEC. Desperate people often make bad decisions.
When your mindset is that Satan and “the World” (pretty much everyone outside the Church) are all out to get you, your zeal to defend the Church leads to the ethic that anything that defends or protects the Church that you can get away with is “the right thing to do.” Regardless of the law or any moral considerations, they seem inclined to do anything they can get away with. At least until they get caught. As strange as it may sound to the average Mormon, it isn’t much of an exaggeration to say the Church (as an institution) has no moral compass.
Anna, I totally agree. I think the far right wing members in the church use their political beliefs as a justification for holding such beliefs you mentioned. They use the words of dead prophets like ETB or twist the scriptures to support beliefs that have no basis in what I envision as pure Christianity or Religion. It’s hard to justify many right wing beliefs as Christian yet it seems they are proud of what they believe and are proud to be Christian Nationals which to me shows their insecurity to believe in the simple gospel as portrayed in the Sermon on the Mount.
Great list. I would add that the whole the church preaches agency and religious freedom, it has shaming mechanisms to discourage those who opt to leave. They are subtle but effective. These include tithing settlement, the expectation that fathers baptize and bless their own kids, the expectation that parents be at temple weddings and the forbidding of temple entrance to non-recommend holders, the emphasis on eternal families and marriage (something never even mentioned in the scriptures), the placement of heavy taboo on drinking tea and coffee and socially drinking alcohol, etc. The church should acknowledge that it only seems to be able to respect religious freedom when someone has never been a member of the church, but once someone has and they leave, they just can’t accept it and use mild to medium coercive methods to shame the departer. People should be free to leave the church without shame and blame. Leaders should direct members to use only persuasion and invitation to engage those who have left.
lws329:
You can read about the Church in Nazi Germany in the 2015 book “Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany” by David Conley Nelson. Sobering reading; heartbreaking impacts. I have some familiarity with some of what the book describes, having lived in Germany for many years and having witnessed firsthand the ruins of post-war Nuremberg, and can vouch for the long-lasting impact on members lasting into the 1970s and 80s.
You make a long list of what you call the Church’s shadow side or shadow elements. At some point, don’t you think we have to move from calling these a bug instead of recognizing them as a feature?
Church leadership is very clever in the way they present themselves. You know, IBM 1960 corporate look. And this has a tremendous impact on the way TBMs view them. Imagine if instead of this look we saw a bunch of Utah country folks (plaid shirts, beards, etc.) in charge. My point is that we have been fooled by the image these guys portray which has a way of shielding the Church from its shady characteristics. Case in point: we’ll see a bunch of polished speakers at GC in two weeks and the TBMs will feel that all is well in the kingdom. How could these noble guys in IBM suites and white shirts be shady?
I’m convinced that the real purpose of General Conference is to portray to the members that the ship is steady and that these guys are looking out for us. We know them by name and we recognize them (I could easily name the entire Q15 and I recognize all 15 of their faces and voices). Even I, the ultimate LDS skeptic, find it hard to believe that they are engaged in shady behavior. But the evidence is listed above.
Timely and important topic. Based on recent events, it is apparent that LD$ Inc is ramping up their shadowing activities. All their tangled webs require the institutional church to increasingly lie and hide the truth. Despite their best efforts, Mormon HQ no longer controls the public narrative – much to their dismay.
Recent events of concern include:
It is also clear the church has transformed the Deseret News from a quasi-journalistic entity to a propaganda tool. Rather than covering topical issues, their lead stories often deal with religious freedom and exclusively pro-Mormon topics. Thankfully, the Huntsman family kept the SL Trib alive – so far.
lws, the WCF is the World Congress on Families is my guess. Eliza did a series of posts about that and Eastern Europe.
lws329: Here’s an article about Helmuth Hubener, the youngest German (age 17) who was tried as an adult and executed for defying the Nazis. He was turned over to authorities by a coworker, then excommunicated by his bishop (a Nazi) while awaiting trial. https://www.history.com/news/meet-the-youngest-person-executed-for-defying-the-nazis
WCF stands for World Congress of Families, a group designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. E. Oaks for a time was on their board. The Church has hosted their annual conference in SLC, and has sent high ranking authorities to their meetings held elsewhere. The group aligns with far right dictatorships like Orban’s Hungary and Putin’s Russia, and has drafted legislation for countries to criminalize homosexuality. Elisa wrote an excellent four part series on the church’s involvement with this group; if you type WCF into the search bar, you should be able to find all 4 posts quickly.
Josh H: I’m not sure that Jung would consider one’s shadow side to be a bug, so I didn’t mean to imply that it was. Everyone has a shadow side: insecurities, things we are ashamed of, aspects of ourselves we don’t want to acknowledge. That’s about our own psychology. To be more emotionally healthy, we should identify these things or they begin to control us.
Years ago, I read a book about Jungian dream management that talked about scary things that happen in dreams. These are aspects of ourselves we try to hide: strong emotions, feeling trapped, anger, fear, shame. In our dreams, these emotions might take the form of a violent stranger, a dangerous animal, or a natural disaster. To deal with them, we need to face them and accept them. They are a part of us. Only in ignoring them or pretending they don’t exist is there danger that they will develop an outsize power over our actions.
Anna: I agree with you that there is a deep seated misogyny in many of the church leaders, past and present. Men who have a horror of the feminine, who fear their own “feminine” qualities, who are ashamed of being seen as weak or soft or compassionate or not masculine enough, often reject and dominate anything they see as insufficiently masculine as a way to prove to themselves that they are *not* feminine. In ancient Rome, while homosexual acts were common, all relationships were seen as tops & bottoms (in modern parlance): those who penetrate or those who are penetrated. The former were masculine, even if they did it by force (maybe especially if they did it by force). The latter were submissive to their power. It’s clear that for quite a few men those attitudes persist. But exerting power and control is not what Jesus taught. He taught by persuasion, reflection, ideas, not through force and coercion and domination.
@Rich Brown, I’ve appreciated reading your perspective on the Community of Christ’s recent sale of the Kirtland Temple to the LDS Church. As Mary Ann recently pointed out, LDS Church history sites are now supposed to be supervised by the Church history department instead of the Church missionary department. Hopefully, that will mean that these types of tours are higher quality with more history and less pushy proselyting than there has been at LDS Church historical sites in the past.
However, there’s no chance in hell that an LDS run tour of the Kirtland Temple is going to even come close to broaching the topic of the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society. This topic very quickly leads to questions of the prophetic fallibility of Joseph Smith, and while the LDS Church likes to give lip service to the idea of prophetic fallibility, they never, ever actually talk about actual instances where a prophet has erred–not yet, at least, and certainly not under a prophet like Russ Nelson, who doesn’t seem to believe that he could make a prophetic mistake himself. Relating back to the OP, this unwillingness to discuss the failures–even the most obvious of failures–of past prophets is another shadow that the Church is still unwilling to confront.
I’m quite confident that the emphasis of an LDS run tour of the Kirtland Temple will be of the whitewashed, faith promoting variety which means no mention of the financial failures ultimately caused by Joseph Smith that led to so much suffering of the members there. I’m afraid the best you can hope for (and I’m not even sure you’ll get this) is for some whitewashed history to be presented alongside the faith promoting narrative. Consider yourself lucky if you are allowed to leave without having to hear the missionary tour guide bear their testimony or ask for your contact information. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re going to get.
the biggest insecurity of the church and the members is the wild, no-proof story of JS and the BofM itself. Church members put a lot of efforts into telling/proving how true these stories are. I’ve never seen another religious group so obsessed. Come off as having something to prove.e
Re: The Excommunication of Helmuth Hübener:
“Shortly after Hübener’s arrest, branch president Arthur Zander wrote “excommunicated” on Helmuth’s membership record. However, district president Otto Berndt refused to countersign the action. Anthon Huck, a member of the European Mission presidency, provided a second signature. Several Church leaders later said they intended to distance the Church from Hübener to protect Latter-day Saints from the wrath of Nazi officials. After World War II ended, Hübener was posthumously reinstated in the Church and, in 1948, given temple ordinances by proxy.”
Here’s a link to the full essay:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/helmuth-hubener?lang=eng
Growing up in UT, and to this day, I’ve always sensed an underlying inferiority complex within the church—no, we aren’t the “weird” Mormons. It is interesting how church-owned Deseret News frequently carries articles focused on how great something is in UT. Having lived in 3 other states, I’ve not seen their regional newspapers do so much “navel gazing.”
But, let’s face it. We Mormons are somewhat “weird,” and we send armies of young people out to convince everybody that we are the whole truth and nothing but the truth—never mind we hide/ignore our history of polygamy and view coffee and tea drinkers as sinners, etc etc.
The Church sets a high bar for moral conduct of its members but falls short in transparency and truthfulness.
and btw. We continue to believe in polygamy as an eternal practice…..
Jack, you’re probably right and you quoted what should be a reliable source. I had heard years ago, not that he had been reinstated posthumously after the war, but that his excommunication was quashed as a nullity because of procedural defects. It became a non-entity as if it had never happened. A reinstatement acknowledges the validity of the excommunication. While my preferences don’t dictate history, I think it would have been more appropriate to quash the excommunication rather than to reinstate Brother Hübener. Interestingly, the branch president, Arthur Zander, who posted the sign that Jews weren’t welcome at the meetinghouse in 1998, moved to Utah in 1952, and died in SLC in 1989 at the age of 82.
Georgis: Fascinating.
“Church members put a lot of efforts into telling/proving how true these stories are. I’ve never seen another religious group so obsessed. Come off as having something to prove.”
One could argue that such unproveable stories are the basis of all major religions. Orthodox adherents to Judaism (Moses and the Exodus) Islam (Mohammed and the angel Gabriel), Buddhism (Buddha under the Bodhi tree) and Christians (the resurrection of Jesus, etc…) also “come off as having something to prove” and “put a lot of effort” into promoting their archeologically unproven origen stories. We are just closer to the time of Joseph Smith than the others so it is easier to be more skeptical, I suppose.
Very interesting article!
I have never heard the words “church broke”, they describe perfectly so many of our local leaders here where I live.
The words we use to describe them were “suck ups” and a few others that were a bit crude.
Typo: who posted the sign that Jews weren’t welcome at the meetinghouse in 1938 (or thereabouts, before the war), not 1998!
The World Congress of Families (WCF) was formed in 1997 in a meeting in Russia between American academic and Reagan appointee to the National Commission on Children, Allan Carlson, and the Russian intellectuals Anatoly Antonov and Viktor Medkov.
Though its origins are in the American Christian Right, the WCF has built a web of influence in different countries, providing a point of networking for global anti-LGBT forces and working as a political power broker as an anti-LGBT group in its own right
I think the shadow side of the church is preaching agency, but then using coercive language and practices that diminish a person’s agency. Elder Bednar has kind of acknowledged this shadow in some of his presentations where he says something to the effect that when you are baptized you give up your agency-be he seems to embrace and indulge this shadow. I believe the purpose of the gospel (and purpose of this life) is to build agency- so if the church is diminishing people’s agency, then I think that’s a shadow- and I think that’s a shadow that should be addressed, not indulged.
Re Helmuth Hubener….While attending BYU in the mid-1970’s, I attended a play about his life. And then it all disappeared, not to be seen again for about 30 years. I heard rumors that the play had been proscribed by “church leaders.” That was apparently true.
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-controversy-about-play-r/21649661/
PWS: Wow, that article was…something.
I have been thinking about the persecution complex and how it is shadow side of Mormonism, and how the Jews also have a persecution complex, and what is currently going on in Gaza. The Jews have been staring into the void so long that they have become the monster. They are using the Nazi attempt at genocide as an excuse to commit genocide and they can’t even see they have become the thing they fear. Will we Mormons look at this and see that if we cannot deal with our own dark side of persecution complex, that we will become the monster.
I mean, we are currently cozying up the far right Christians as allies in out culture war, but only 50 years ago McConkie was proclaiming Catholics the great and abominable. I could tell all kinds of stories about Mormons persecuting nonMormons. My great grandmother (child of polygamy) married a nonmember and they had to flee the state because of the persecution. When I was 3-6 I lived next door to my 2nd cousin. Her dad converted to Catholicism to marry his Catholic girlfriend. And she was the only Catholic I was ever allowed to play with. My mother had the common Utah prejudiced of Catholics being evil. We used our own persecution as an excuse to hate others.
Are we doing it now as we join the far right in the culture wars. It isn’t just against LGBT, but the far right has plans to get rid of IVF, not really because there are extra embryos produced that are sometimes destroyed but because, horrors, lesbians can use it to have babies. The WCF is not only fighting LGBT, but it also supports female genital mutilation in those countries that practice it. So, the far right is horrified about transgender “genital mutilation” when the person chooses it, but support the mutilation of females as a method of religious sexual control.
We should be horrified about who our allies are, but we aren’t because we are too busy persecuting others even when in the name of supporting “the traditional family” we support a practice that mutilates young girls. We have become the monster and we can’t even see it. Because many years ago, we engaged in mutual hatred with our neighbors in Missouri and then we called it religious persecution because we ended up getting the worst of it.
Anna, I agree wholeheartedly with your larger point that our (Mormon) view of ourselves as a persecuted people does us no favors.
The Nazis, though, did not “attempt” genocide; they committed it. Further, many, many Jews (most?) are horrified by the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza. Many are trying to stop it. Tens of thousands of dead innocents. As a Mormon and an American, I have no context for understanding that kind of loss.
That is part of the reason I would also push back against the idea that the Mormon persecution complex and the millennia long history of the Jewish people with pogroms, genocide, and systemic state-sanctioned violence are comparable. They are not.
This whole thing in Israel and Gaza is not about religion but about the nationalistic right wing politics of extremists. They may use religion as a justification or a rallying call but it’s the extreme right wing politics that is guiding the ship. When you hear Republicans here in the USA talking about never compromising and watch how they deal with virtually every issue, you are seeing the absolute worst parts of history and politics repeating itself. They can wrap themselves in the flag and sell the Bible with the Constitution and a handwritten copy of Lee Greenwoods “God Bless the USA” but they can’t mask their slash and burn desires.
Margie, did I sound like I think *any* persecution complex on the part of Mormons is justified? I thought I was pretty clear in indicating that there was fault on the Mormon’s side of things that got them driven out of Missouri and in NO way does the killing of less that 100 total of Mormons compare to the millions of Jews killed over centuries in Europe. All I was saying is that the Mormon persecution complex caused them to be cruel to innocent people once they got to Utah, and that right now, perhaps Israel has gone further than “defending themselves” when they block any humanitarian aid getting to starving people in Gaza. I was totally on Isreal’s side until they are purposely just killing children by starving them. That goes beyond defending their own country. My main point is that pretending to be victims has made some Mormons cruel.
Hi again, Anna. I completely agree that our Mormon persecution complex has made us cruel. I disagree that the Mormon persecution complex is any meaningful way like the generational trauma inherent in the Jewish identity. At issue in this conversation for me is not a question of which is or isn’t justified. At issue for me is that in my opinion the two are too dissimilar to compare or to draw useful parallels from. In other words, the cruelty our people indulge in, in the name of our “persecution,” real or imagined, has nothing to tell us about Jewish trauma or any behavior that may or may not stem from it.
Israel has gone too far, and its actions are unspeakably cruel, but my understanding of the Mormon persecution complex and the cruelty it leads us to gives me no reliable insight into the situation or the factors that motivated it. In my opinion.
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This past Sunday in Elders quorum we discussed Elder Cooks conference talk “Be Peaceable followers of Christ”. You might think from that title that the focus would be on understanding how we might act in more peaceful ways. There is some of that, but a massive amount of weaving in and out of our Mormon victim identity. He said, “It has never been easy for His followers”. Oh, come on Elder Cook, did you take basic world and American history when you were younger? It’s never been easy being Christian, accept since 370 AD when Constantine coronated Christianity the accepted religion, and it became their political battering ram. Which is exactly why Christianity’s doctrine sees everything through a legal lens. Rather than playing the “poor me” syndrome for Jesus’ followers, it might be good to just acknowledge that life is difficult for just about everyone. I think in US history NOT being Christian has probably been harder than being Christian. Persecution has always been present, but it’s hardly something to be worn as a badge of honor, or proof that you are on the right track. It’s only proof that humanity still has a long way to go.
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Got a kick out of the reference to the general conference speakers as “polished.”
I’d describe them as dull, unemotional, monotonous, and delivered at the speed of a sloth.
Outstanding article! Perhaps the Church is so entrenched in its shadow side because it refuses to acknowledge or apologize for its past mistakes and it conflates the Church and its leaders with God, saying they (God) will never lead the Church astray. As LDS top leaders aggrandize more financial and ecclesiastical power and provide less accountability and transparency, we may see issues with the Church’s shadow side worsening, with continued attacks on LGBTQ, more emphasize on leader worship, further marginalization of women, and more talk of the “covenant path,” while ignoring the sick, suffering, poor, elderly, and the unhoused. The Church is often refering needy, faithful members to community resources (see Handbook 22:12) instead of helping them. This is happening repeatedly, especially if the needy are poor, elderly widows.
The increase in missionary costs, firing of custodians, vast purchases of income-producing properties throughout the world, overbuilding of lavish temples, and the unfathomable accrual of wealth (the Church is wealthier than most corporations and countries), it has no need to address its shadow side and is becoming the very thing that the Book of Mormon and Jesus condemned: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation (Matthew 23: 14) and “For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted (Mormon 8:37).
Unless the Church receives extreme political pressure, it will continue to use the excuse of religious freedom to hoard hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth at the expense of the poor (Bountiful Children’s Foundation has identified over 100,000 LDS children that suffer from severe malnutrition, but can only feed about about 6000 of them), to silence victims of eccesiastical sexual abuse, and to attack and shun those who speak truth to power.