Back in October of 1985, Elder Dean Larson of the 70’s gave a talk in General Conference entitled “By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them” This was in the middle of the Hofmann document fiasco, and just two weeks after his talk, the bombs went off. The goal of his talk was to make sure people didn’t put too much faith in the documents , and instead judge the Church by its “Fruits”.
To be clear, Matthew 7:15-20 is talking about how to steer clear of false prophets. His bottom line is that you’ll know a true Prophet from a false one by their “fruits”. We shouldn’t use this verse to judge individual people, groups of people, or other countries. I guess you could judge a church or religious movement by its fruits, given that those fruits are the product of their leader (prophet).
Elder Larsen gave an example of Joseph Smith’s fruits as the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pear of Great Price. Maybe today with all we know about these books and their origin that might not be the best example of good fruits from Joseph Smith.
Let’s play out this metaphor of fruits. Let’s say I have a orange tree in my backyard. If it gives good fruit all the time, then the tree is good, and I’ll keep it. But what if 20% of the oranges are sour, and leave a bad taste in my mouth. The sour taste is really not harmful, just disagreeable. I have become adept at spotting the bad oranges from the color of the peal, so I can avoid them. The tree is still good, and I get lots of good fruit from it. I’m keeping the tree.
What if over time the number of sour fruit grows, and I’m having a harder time distinguishing the sweet from the sour fruit. It comes to point that it is no longer worth my time to prune and water the tree for the little joy I get out of the few good fruits, so I dig up the tree and get it out of my yard.
But what if the bad fruit was actually dangerous? What if some oranges had a fungus in them that could harm me or my family. It was only 10%, and I still get lots of good oranges. What should I do? Should I keep the tree, knowing that some of the fruit could hurt me or my family? What if friends come by and pick some of the fruit, not knowing how to distinguish the good from the bad? I would feel awful if they got sick from my tree! I decide its not worth it, and even though 90% of the fruit is good, I decide to dig up the tree and get it out of my life.
The very astute readers of Wheat&Tares know where this is going. The Church has good fruit. It also has some annoying sour fruit. Lots of people put up with the sour fruit and keeping active in Church, because of the good they get.
Now we get the harmful part of the church. These harmful parts might be just sour to some people, but to others it becomes dangerous and they need to leave. Some of the good fruit like the focus on the family can become sour for single parent homes, and down right dangerous for homes with LGBTQ members of the family.
What fruits of the Church do you find good and worth it?
What parts of the Church do you find sour, but something you can avoid to enjoy the good fruit?
What parts of the Church do you find harmful, to the point that you need to leave?
Wheat & Tares 
There’s a possibility that we may judge wrongfully. Here’s some helpful counsel from Moroni 7:
13 But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.
14 Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren, that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.
Growing up in the 1980’s this teaching was constantly reinforced. The Deseret News, frequently ran articles of top Mormon athletes. Features of Mormon businessmen who were successful. Mormons in congress and even some in international government. This all proved that the church is coming out of obscurity and has “good fruit”. If you are a church member you will have success. Living in the LDS bubble, I took the bait. Look at all the temples the church was building. We were up to 20 in 1981, with another 6 announced in 1983. This defiantly proves the church is true with God’s fruit. In my youth Sunday School class, we were required to name all the temple locations, along with the Q15 names. Even as a geography buff, I do not think I could rattle off all 350 current sites. We were taught that LDS families have the best statistics for happiness, longevity. UCLA did a study that shows Mormons live 10 years longer than their American cohorts. However, we were not told SDAdventists, and non-smoking/Alcoholic Jews, Catholics and other faiths have the same data. We were told that living the WofW would prolong life and to run and not be weary. Current data shows religiosity of all religions increases mid-life obesity. Look in your own ward, I suspect very few of the decision makers could run and not be weary or even walk without fainting. How many ex-Mormons lost weight and are healthier after changing their participation with the church. The WofW has good fruit of non-smoke and alcohol, but it is not all encompassing, as the Lord’s only law of health.
When Dale Murphy, Rowdy Gaines, and Mark Schultz converted to the church this was the good fruit of baptism and LDS church association. However, the church has a different narrative for Ted Bundy. Similarly look at the sexual abuse of children. 93% of all child abuse is associated with churches, with 20% of congregants as victims. The LDS statistics are parallel. Worse, is that the LDS church has a history of paying off victims for remaining silent and not pursuing further action. TBM’s state those cases a rare; if so look at FloodLit website.
But look at the economic prosperity of Utah that is a sign, God is blessing the Saints. However, when the economies of Dubai, Fort Myers, Austin boom, their religions are not credited.
A discussion could claim I just cherry picking, but this topic is too large to layout in a blog. Once you line up all the facts and data is a reason why some people dissociate from the church when reading Letter CES/wife/MS; with putting more of the data together and not cherry picking.
How can you call an organization “good fruit”, that Ex-communicates Sam Young for his insight, and then the institution adopts the same policy a few weeks later?
Is there good fruit within the LDS community? Absolutely !!! However, the good fruit comes from individual members doing individual acts. The church has a history of hijacking and taking credit for all good works associated with members. If you got a raise at work it is for paying your tithing; not your hard work. My mother spend countless hours in charity within the church organization, however the Church took all the credit for her self-motivated actions.
For the cases of bad fruit, the church responds the church is perfect, but the people are not. However, when you look at the trends of the bad fruit and the church’s hesitancy and outright resistance to make change; it is amazing that the church has been associated with so much “good fruit”. However, since the hardliners are now in charge of the Q15, AreaPres, and most StakePre, these days are numbered.
The website LDS data analysis shows most LDS teachings are based on trends and fads, and not eternal truths. Terminology of yesterday is no longer valid, and what is important today was not previously in fashion. Their website has not analyzed this term yet. A quick web search shows that “Fruits” was the in-vogue phrase of the Mid-1980’s, and then used sparingly since. However, since those were my formative years, it has more weight than “covenant path”.
I find my answer in Matthew 7:18.
Things I find good:
Things I find sour:
Things I find mixed:
Things I find bitter/harmful:
A directionally similar statement is often used by post Mormons: “that which is unique is not good and that which is good is not unique.” I can’t think of a single doctrine that is good which isn’t shared by other belief systems, including the ubiquitous eternal family doctrine.
There are indeed many positive traits of the LDS faith and culture- especially if you fit the mold. However even a moderately objective examination reveals a whole bunch of hurtful practices. The real shame is that some of those hurtful practices could be resolved quickly.
Even on a personal level I used to think – hey look I avoided all the negative consequences of alcohol, drugs, sex, etc. However, I look around and see a world full of non LDS adults who’ve managed to develop healthy relationships with things we label as evil.
I went through an endowment session yesterday, for the first time since the pandemic. A lot has changed. Anyhow, coming to the consecration covenant, which always used to make me flinch, on account of the voice practically bellowing the name of the church. They’ve stopped bellowing, to the point I can actually pay attention to the intended purposes – the building up of the kingdom of god upon the earth, and the establishment of Zion, or something to that effect (I was pleased it was a session with subtitles for the hard of hearing, as being able to read really helps me focus as well). So now I’m asking myself precisely how is the church going about building up the kingdom of god, and establishing Zion? What precisely is the vision for that? Because from where I am sitting it’s not looking very impressive. Doesn’t scripture tell us that the Lord called his people Zion because there was no poor among them for example. That is not what we see at church. Locally members wear themselves to the bone at their own expense, supplementing meagre allocated budgets from the top, whilst at the top leaders, often retired from prestigious professions, presumably with commensurate pensions, are granted a generous stipend far in excess of the earnings of the majority of members, and it isn’t at all clear what they are achieving with this. Where are those fruits? Where is the investment in building a Zion society?
Rowdy Gaines is Mormon? I didn’t know that and as a young freestyle swimmer hoping to qualify for Nationals he was a childhood hero and now the ubiquitous voice of swimming commentary. Well, I guess the LDS church still works for some people.
To built a bit on the bitter fruit analogy. There are plenty of real world examples where because a genetics, something that taste good to one person is very bitter to another (e.g. cilantro) or be because of drug-drug interaction some that is healthful for one person is harmful to another (e.g. grapefruit). So we shouldn’t be surprised that a doctrine or policy that some see only as good is in fact bitter or toxic to another.
I personally find nothing uniquely good in the church. I have met incredible members for sure, but I’ve also met incredible people in my community PTA and at work and in community kids sports leagues.
I pretty much see harm in almost every thing they say these days. Others would disagree and that’s fine. But I will say that when you wear rose colored glasses at church the red flags are just flags.
As to the church helping me avoid debauchery, I saw a meme the other day that said “I cannot relate to euphoria; my high school is busy advertising crazy sock day.” I live in a pretty charming community so my kids are doing just fine without chastity and word of wisdom lessons.
A second thumbs up to James’s thoughtful comment.
Good stuff: having a place to go and be social every week. Church used to meet a lot of my social needs. I am fine with superficial relationships. I think they meet a need. Obviously, I need deeper relationships too, but I was fine with meeting those needs elsewhere. I liked all the smiles, the greetings, the chitchat and so forth. Church attendance became a burden for me when I got sent to Primary. Being around children is emotionally draining for me. I would rather be in the adult classes.
Bad stuff: Much about the bad stuff has already been eloquently said and I won’t repeat it all. A second thumbs up to Hedgehog’s comment. As a single mom, I worried that my boys would learn about priesthood and patriarchy, and I would lose their respect. We quit church before any of them were ordained. Now I’m wrestling with the incel stuff they run into online. The bad stuff at Church isn’t unique to Church, anymore than the good stuff is. Church just makes everything more intense because it’s so frequent and comes with the added weight of deity.
I had lunch yesterday with a lifelong friend who is still faithful. During the conversation, I mentioned something about the pressure the Church put on me and how that affected my self-image as I was learning how to parent a child with special needs. She immediately launched into a defensive speech. I wasn’t even attacking the Church’s truthfulness, just trying to talk about my experiences. So I would add the harsh ‘othering’ the Church encourages towards people who have left.
Ah, you are much better person than me. If my orange tree had slightly toxic fruit, I’d be personally handling them out to the neighborhood delinquents Oh the joy of making friends.
As for Mormon athletes, I recall all the glorification of Mormon quarterbacks. Not just the fruit, but the living waters of Mormonism grew strong minds and bodies. Mormon athletes in various sports received prominent write ups in various church related publications.
Humans live in groups. For instance, at every Olympics, the local paper list all the athletes with local connections. Even the ones who only lived here for two months when they were three. So group solidarity, rah rah rah.
In regards to Mormon athletes,, I wonder about the automatic status elevation. Especially when some of these poster athletes aren’t the poster child of Mormon standards. Mixed fruit, indeed.
When I saw the 2008 Olympic list of Mormon athletes, I was surprised to see Natasha Kai on the list. I had no idea. I knew of her from a different list. She was one of 3 and a half women in the entirety of world wide sports who was lesbian.
So while I find the Church extremely toxic to all manner of queer folk. (Got treated plenty when I was a young delinquent. Yum, yum.), I enjoy that they shone her light and didn’t place it under a bushel. Or rather she was placed in a display bushel at the fruit stand and not put in cold storage. Or reduced to pulp as animal feed.
I enjoyed the post and all of the comments, especially those that can acknowledge both the good and parts of the church, and the good and bad parts of leaving the church. I feel like most of the conversations I’ve seen (not on this blog) have the dynamic of comparing the best fruits of the church/gospel to the worst fruits of atheism, and on the other side it’s been comparing the best fruits of atheism with the worst fruits of the gospel. I’ll acknowledge Toad’s comment that “That which is good in the church isn’t unique.” And I really appreciate Janey’s comment, “The bad stuff at Church isn’t unique to Church, anymore than the good stuff is.”
From the studies that I looked at, 19% of LDS LGBTQ teens had attempted suicide, which is horrible. When looked I looked at the national statistics, 18% of all LGBTQ teens had attempted suicide, which is also horrible. This is in no way meant to justify the church’s stance, or to say that the church’s rhetoric around LGBTQ individuals is good. I interpret this to mean that even if you leave the church, you’re not magically going to be free from the bad fruit that is found at church. The bad fruit that is found at church is also found in other organizations. Again, this isn’t to justify the bad fruit. The church should acknowledge it’s bad fruit and prune it. (Another stat that was interesting to me as I was looking this up is the completed suicide rate per 100,000 by state. Here is the rate in Utah and the surrounding states: AZ-20.6, NM-24.7, NV-21, UT-22.1, CO-21.1, WY-25.6, ID-22.2, and MT 28.7. Based on those numbers, I think it’s tough to give the LDS church too much blame or credit for the state’s suicide rate.)
In my own life, and for my family, I’ve tried to take the approach of “Keep the good fruit from the church, and leave the bad fruit”. I’ve done this while remaining in the church and it’s worked well for me. I have family members who have taken the same approach, but they’ve done it from outside of the church, and it’s worked well for them. Bishop Bill made a post in November entitled “Is Religion Good for You” which on a worldwide survey found that well-being outcomes between religious people and non-religious people overall were pretty similar. The human brain loves to find simple answers, and since the LDS church is such a big part of people’s lives, it’s easy to point to that as the simple answer for why things are going great in their lives, or why things have gone horrible in their lives. So feel free to credit or blame the church for good fruit or bad fruit if you want to, but I think the real goal should just be to embrace good fruit and discard bad fruit wherever you find it.
When my kids were little I was a member of La Leche League, a breastfeeding support group. They had a saying they would repeat after each meeting. I don’t remember it word for word, but it went something like this: If you hear something helpful here please take it with you. If you hear something here that hurts please leave it behind when you leave.
Unfortunately, this only works with people who have the personal autonomy and authority to decide for themselves what is good for them and what isn’t, and feel empowered to leave behind those things that are hurtful. The church certainly doesn’t teach this kind of autonomy, yet this is what is most helpful for staying in the church as a person matures and comes to understand reality as the fruit of our community matures grows and reveals itself.
It’s easy to declare how wonderful the fruit of our faith is, when our trees are saplings and we have blossoms and immature fruit. But eventually we all grow up and discover that things aren’t always as we were taught to believe.
I’m not sure that “the church” is a single tree, but an enormous orchard. I have a personal tree, which is next to the trees of my wife and kids. These days my tree seem to give fruit that is ok, but doesn’t seem as sweet as I remember it. The trees around us have a lot of redeeming qualities. The stuff they ship in every six months from the SLC part of the orchard seems to be an even mix of extremely bland, and actively caustic. Increasingly, we are trying to enjoy the good fruit our trees produce, while refusing delivery of the stuff from SLC, though some neighbors seem intent on dropping some of it it off on our doorstep regularly. They seem to have weird taste buds. (And they probably think the same of us.)
Fruit can be both delicious and rotten at the same time. Most of us seem to agree that one of the good fruits of Mormonism is the sense of community; people that show up for each other in all sorts of beautiful, imperfect ways. However, this same community will dump you or completely forget about you the moment it becomes known that you have “fallen away into apostasy”.
The talk referenced in the OP mentions latter-day scriptures as examples of Joseph Smith’s fruits. But his “fruits” (AKA his lasting legacy with consequences that still affect Mormons today) also include polygamy, violence against dissenters and rebellion against the government. The fruits of Brigham Young include much-needed organization and governance for the early Saints, but also tyranny and racism while significantly ramping up the polygamy and violence his predecessor started. In the modern era RMN gave us one less hour of church every week (good fruit) while is actively engaging the Church’s vast resources in retrenchment, rebranding and overbuilding (rotten fruit). It’s complicated, because people are complicated. And though I don’t believe that any of us are as bad as the worst thing we have ever done, we also aren’t that much better.
Of course, if our top leaders were not so terrified that we all might start thinking for ourselves, we might be allowed to determine what is good fruit and what is poison. As it is, they insist we either eat everything, or leave the building, and some of it is really poison.
Yesterday, I tried to explain to my home teacher why I won’t come back to church, and he is one of those rare people (a) dare to ask (b) really want to know, (c) who care enough to try to understand, and (d) will respect my boundary. He is the rare bird who really cares. And, I *like* him and his wife, so I didn’t want to just push away the caring. So, I explained, well, this and this were poison, and yeah he gets that. Really he did, but by staying away, I am also cutting off so much that he sees as good. And I finally got through to him that the constant sorting of good from poison is exhausting, and I have some unusual allergies as a child abuse victim and it took some bad reactions to find the allergies, and now I have to sort, poison, allergies and just nasty and it gets to be too much and too dangerous because anaphylactic shock can kill. Then to have so many people just keep insisting that sorting out good fruit from poison is just *wrong* and so not only do I have to constantly sort good from poison, I have a constant fight with so many who keep trying to cram the poison down my throat, or sneak in what I am allergic to because they refuse to accept the allergy. And I am just not strong enough to be *that guy* (or gal) who is active and openly cafeteria Mormon when some of the stuff I am leaving they think contains essential vitamins. If I was that openly cafeteria, they would probably excommunicate me anyway, so why try? I tried for too many years and it just doesn’t work, because the church refuses to recognize that there are allergies, I can’t do it.
Anna: I totally understand and like you have chosen to give up the fight every Sunday. I have found good fruit in places were I been condemned. For instance by accepting and loving my daughter who has come out gay, married, and now has two sons she’s raising with her wife. I’ve also come to see bad fruit by watching fellow members in their Covid response against vaccines and masks. I’m tired of hearing the garbage and find I’m much less anxious when I don’t have to hear it weekly.
This post reminded me of what happened when we first moved to AZ in 2006. Our backyard contained a row of beautiful orange trees, uniform in size with straight trunks and rounded leafy tops. The orange blossoms smelled like perfume. The oranges were a vibrant orange, perfectly round. Planning to treat my oldest who was 11 at the time to his first “fresh-squeezed-straight-from-the-tree” orange juice, I got the juicer out, and a bunch of oranges we had picked that were in easy reach, and I started juicing. There was just almost no juice. I kept at it. About 40 oranges later, I had what amounted to two glasses of juice, and we toasted each other as we took a swig. It was bitter and disgusting, and we immediately spat it into the sink. Apparently, these were “ornamental” orange trees, not fit for consumption, but bred to look beautiful and smell amazing. That’s not a terrible analogy for my church experience. It hasn’t always been this way; I have some true life-long friendships with people I only know thanks to my church membership. But the church does love to portray itself as the source for perfect white cishetero upper middle class families with conservative dress and views. Just like those ornamental orange trees, it looks lovely, it even smells lovely, but those oranges don’t taste the way they look. When we focus too much on appearance, as we sometimes do in highly orthoprax religions where one’s outward appearance and actions are under scrutiny (and you can’t police what’s in people’s hearts or what they hide due to fear of judgment), then you don’t get an accurate picture of what the experience will be like.
I’d still consider an ornamental orange tree due to the smell of the blossoms and the beauty of the tree, but the juice is rotten. The actual experience isn’t as good as it looks.
@Hawkgrrrl we moved to AZ in 2005 and soon thereafter planted both a lemon tree and an orange tree. The lemon tree provides dozens of quality lemons every year. Juicy and sour. The orange tree is pretty and hasn’t produced a single orange. Both house scorpions galore.