In the fall of 1992, the Salt Lake Tribune published an article with a headline of It’s Judgment Day for Far Right: LDS Church Purges Survivalists. I wonder if another purge is needed for the far right today?
The article by Peggy Stack said that the LDS Church was purging “hundreds of Mormon dissidents” who are preocupied unduly with Armageddon.
From the article
Those interviewed by The Salt Lake Tribune say they have faced church discipline for a range of transgressions — from having too much emergency food storage to adhering to the doomsday predictions of popular Mormon presidential candidate Bo Gritz, who received more than 28,000 Utah votes in the November election.
Targeted are those obsessed with the early speeches of LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson and who believe the ailing, 93-year-old leader has been silenced because his opinions no longer are politically popular.
While the survivalist’s mentality is still present in some LDS, I don’t think it is the same as the far right MAGA members today. The only overlap I can see is that they are both far to the right politically. Back in 1992 the leaders felt there was enough of a problem that they excommunicated hundreds of members. I wonder if the leaders of the Church have any fear of the MAGA crowd and their new found importance with Trump back in office.
During a meeting of Church leaders in 1992, Elder Jeppson (of the 70s) gave a list things leaders should be on the lookout for.
Among activities sounding the alarm at stake houses across the West:
— The practice of home schooling.
— Having leanings or membership in the John Birch Society.
— Holding study groups.
— An inordinate preoccupation with food storage.
— Reading doomsday books and other materials unapproved by the church.
— People who sell their services of gospel understanding for money.
— Quoting the exact day of the coming of Jesus Christ.
— Performing temple ordinances outside the temple.
Some of these sound pretty funny today, like home schooling and holding study groups.
Now lest you readers are feeling smug with your more nuanced and left leaning views, Elder Jeppson also had something for you
While the church is focusing on the ultraconservatives for now, Elder Jeppson also has counseled stake presidents to watch out for feminists who advocate women holding the priesthood and pray to a Mother in Heaven. He also warns of intellectuals who challenge the origins of the Book of Mormon and church authority.
So, do you think the MAGA members emboldened by Trump’s victory will be of concern for the leaders? Or is this different, with the MAGA and Survivalists sharing only some traits, but are really different with each presenting unique problems for the Church Leaders? Do you think the Q15 have had discussions about the MAGA members? Is there anything that the MAGA crowd could do today that would force the hand of leaders are conduct another “purge” of the far right?
Wheat & Tares 
Dang I remember the 92 election and I’ve read plenty about Bo Gritz’s Vietnam experiences, but I don’t know until reading this that he was a presidential candidate and a Mormon. Thanks Bishop Bill for opening up a new rabbit hole for me to explore.
I don’t know about a MAGA purge as I think there is some MAGA sympathy in the church’s highest levels.
But I have wondered about the needed-but-never-happened purge of stake presidents, bishops, and so forth who were Chad Daybell supporters before the murder charges made it unfashionable to openly continue as Daybell supporters.
How about all the DezNats who are in good standing in the church??
I think they are more likely to quietly purge those who support more lenient abortion laws, gay marriage, and gender transition for minors.
vety quiet soul’s comment is worth considering. The MAGA group is firmly in support of traditional gender roles and traditional ideas about sexuality and sex. Traditional gender and sexuality norms are one of the Church’s centerpiece doctrines. The Church probably considers sexually progressive ideas to be more of a threat than the MAGA tradwife ideology.
The prepper stuff wasn’t supporting a primary doctrine of the Church that the leaders were super concerned about. Obsessing about the Second Coming was making the Church look whacko, without bringing any advantage like support for banning abortion or persecuting trans members.
The COJCOLDS should stay out of politics completely. This means that they should not take policy positions on either local or national issues. And it also means that they should mind their own business when it comes to the views of the membership.
As a guy who despises the woke Left and the MAGA Right (and as someone who is out of the Church) this is an easy position for me to take obviously. But what business is it of the Church anyway? Heck, they can’t keep their own doctrine straight or maintain a consistent temple ritual. So why would I want their opinion on my politics?
Some of you folks care way too much about what the Church thinks. I respect your beliefs, even if I disagree with them. But I don’t respect people who run to the bishop or stake president or Church HQ for political approval.
I am not keen on purging because of beliefs, but something may be rotten in the state of Denmark. I don’t fear people who voted for Trump. There were reasons, and those reasons were shared by a lot of other Americans. Daybellism and DezNat both appear to be strongest in Idaho. Something seems to be foul up there, and it seems to be present in stake presidencies and bishoprics and leaders at all levels. I have a proposed medicine. Let’s quit teaching that everything that an apostle says at general conference or that he prints in a book is revelation. Each conference speaker gives a talk from his or her perspective, and gives it as counsel and for edification, not to speak the mind and will of the Lord. We have one prophet, not fifteen, and that one is only a prophet when he speaks as a prophet (which isn’t all the time). Good people trying to good in their own way and from their own experiences.
How would we identify the lunatic fringe? That gets problematic. My wife and I have food storage, but we are not preppers. I have a shotgun and a 22 rifle, but I don’t have tens of thousands of bullets. Yet someone sitting in an office building in SLC could say that anyone who has more than 3 months worth of food and more than one firearm is a prepper. That definition would be gravely flawed. How do we identify people who hold racist or supremacist views? By their on-line words, I suppose, or by their associations, but we have to be careful. My job requires that I maintain an active security clearance. One way to lose a clearance is by membership in a hate group. Some have said that the CoJCoLDS might be a hate group because we don’t allow gay marriages in our temples and for other reasons. I don’t think that all LDS should lose their security clearances because of their membership in a group.
Looking at the 1992 Jeppson list, I was amused at “People who sell their services of gospel understanding for money.“ Would this include all of the people on the LDS lecture circuit? They speak for money. Would it include people like Bradley Wilcox, General YM Counselor? He is selling dozens of titles at Deseret Book seeking to help people understand the gospel. I was also intrigued by “Reading doomsday books and other materials unapproved by the church.” I don’t read doomsday books, but I recently re-read Milton’s Paradise Lost, and I doubt that I could find this book on a list of approved books. I don’t think the church publishes an index liborum prohibitorum, so how would one know what books were unapproved? Something like “Performing temple ordinances outside the temple” should be easy: when identified that the deed has happened, excommunicate all who were involved.
The best solution might be to not place so much reliance on bishops and stake presidents, who are effectively unchecked during their tenures, especially stake presidents. Now that we’re sustaining area presidencies (a practice that I don’t wholly think is necessary), members should have access to those area presidencies, by means of letters or email. The church could encourage members to report anything questionable. Sure, the stake presidents will get a very deferential review by the area presidency’s staff, but it increases the chance that bad behavior might be spotted. MIssionaries should be able to report problems to someone above the mission president. All of this would require a solemn pledge of anonymity. Maybe a sort of ombudsman, but one with power to respect confidences and to get answers. A little transparency can be a good thing.
Christ did a purge of the temple with the money changers. The temple had truly become a “den of thieves,” meaning they were ripping off innocent people who were forced to convert their currency into a currency the temple would accept. They also rejecting the worshipers only animals and told they were insufficient and would have to buy one from them to be accepted.
The only purge that should happen in the LDS church is a purge of the money changers/decision makers. They have repeated the same patterns as the “leaders” who Christ condemned in the NT.
Why is the LDS church trying to attract people to join the church/ or youth to maintain their family heritage and then purging them out the back door? If the LDS church had a balance of right vs left political adherents and were truly politically neutral, this discussion is mute.
If the purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ to become more like Christ, then adherents should be purging the money changers (as Christ did) instead of feeling pressure of purging fellow members.
There is a big difference between the people Christ purged from the Temple and the people the Church purges from Membership. If you make a lot of money, you’re pretty safe. Ask hard questions and you’re toast.
Georgis, would that we could email and communicate with area authorities. Have you ever tried to get email addresses for anyone above Stake President. IMO they have no interest in knowing what our concerns are.
The church leaders will just continue to claim authority and stay the course. They have long been fully aware of movements to their right questioning their authority. But they have been less of a threat than liberal movements. Their message to them will be similar to what it has been towards liberal members. They’re called of God and you have to stay on the covenant path. That said, I think they want to steer clear of Trumpism. The Motab sang at Trump’s inauguration in 2016. They should avoid that same mistake this time around if invited (simply by saying that they no longer sing at inaugurations, irrespective of the winner). Trump seemed like an aberration in 2016. Now he is an obvious cancer.
In general, I’m not in favor of any types of purges. You know who outgrew purges? The Catholic Church, but only after they burned thousands of people at the stake. To me purges feel insecure.
I was having a different discussion on Reddit that is nevertheless kind of related. The discussion was about what Josh H said above. There is a huge issue with people running off to tattle to bishops all the time, or at BYU to rat each other out and send people to the HCO for extremely stupid things. There’s a problem with bishops combing through social media (or Gladys Kravitz types reporting social media they don’t like). This issue is also related to the worthiness policing local leaders have to do in regular interviews. Back in the day, a whole lot of church members were active, but didn’t have a current temple recommend. It wasn’t until at least the 90s that you had to have one to be considered “worthy” of a calling. As the saying goes, the fish rots from the head. Church leaders want the control of policing orthodoxy, of knowing the level of belief and orthopraxy of every member, intruding into their very thoughts and issuing warnings when anyone has any modicum of doubt or even diversity of perspective. This intolerance of difference is both the core problem and the cause of the far right fringe. When you place a premium on out-righteousing everyone else, and you insist on evaluating everyone on it, you’re going to bolster a radical fringe. People like DezNat, the preppers, and basically 80% of the church members in Idaho all behave as they do because the Church encourages extreme belief and practice. Not everyone is going to become extreme, but the extreme members do so because the organization does nothing to discourage it and everything to foster it.
That is an excellent comment by the Hawkgirl.
Excellent post and discussion. There’s a difference between (1) far-right LDS thinking or movements that threaten LDS leadership or make LDS leaders nervous, like Denver Snuffer or prepper types, and (2) far-right LDS thinking that LDS leaders like, such as DezNats and the LDS version of White Christian Nationalism and the whole MAGA Mormonism movement (more than 50% of the American Church now).
They’re never gonna purge the right-wingers they like. I call it the weak right flank problem of LDS leadership and the Church. They still think that feminism and marijuana are big evil challenges, while largely oblivious to the MAGAfication of the Church. They’re still much happier to quietly push progressive Mormons out of the Church, while at the same time walking on eggshells not to alienate the tithe-paying MAGA base of the Church. The occasional talk about tolerance and civil discourse has pretty much zero effect — so much so that I think those talks are just PR ploys to make the Church sound tolerant while continuing the quiet institutional embrace of intolerant right-wing politics.
Some of the signs of someone who is too far right are hard to distinguish from very mainstream, conservative members. It is interesting that some commenters still disparage MAGA as extreme, when Trump clearly won the presidency and the most raw votes. Many prominent current and former democrats voted for President Trump. Some of the MAGA planks that are least in favor with public church positions are the most widely supported by the broader US electorate. There are surveys showing up to 70% approval for mass deportation among US voters. Reducing government overreach, and DEI initiatives and other MAGA goals are right in line with church leaders’ positions.
I have seen public surveys of “faithfulness” of young adults sorted by their school attendance. Among 5 broad categories, home schooled children were the most faithful years later. Private protestant schools finished a close second. The other 3 categories, public schools, secular private schools and catholic schools led to much diminished faith among the young adults. The LDS leaders have designed seminary to counteract the secularization of public schools, but it is likely that they see some impact and are aware of this broad trend.
I think that the GAs would be happy if even less political issues were preached at church. Reading between the lines from the last GA visit to our stake, he told the stake president to tone down the political points he preached, even though the words were quotes from church leaders.
I find the people who cannot contact any area authority or other high level leader somewhat puzzling. I have the phone number/email for 3 of the last 5 area authorites for our area. 2 of these were former local stake presidents and lots of members around here would know them. Ask around, I bet a few people in your ward or the next one over know an area authority.
“I have seen public surveys of “faithfulness” of young adults sorted by their school attendance. Among 5 broad categories, home schooled children were the most faithful years later.”
Could you be looking at a narrow definition of the word “faithfulness?”
This seems to be, rather, a measure of levels of indoctrination of students in various types of schooling. Interestingly I don’t see general authorities choosing to homeschool their children or grandchildren. Children raised within closed systems may be less likely to push against the boundaries, but at what price?
madiW
It depends on the parents. My kids are homeschooled. However, I taught them to think for themselves and study, research, ponder and pray for themselves. We allow differentiation in my family. Now that they have a transgender relative, they have all left the church. Some members of the church would assume this was because I indoctrinated them in liberalism. That isn’t true.
Unless you eliminate WiFi, computers and cell phones, kids have full access to all kinds of information from the Internet. Impossible to indoctrinate them with your point of view. I know because I tried. But no regrets. I have learned so much from my kiddos.