Yahoo News headline (they borrowed the opinion piece from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel): Trump worries more about South Africa’s nonexistent genocide than real US racism. This stems from another Oval Office ambush, this time catching South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa unawares. As reported:
The meeting quickly turned from courteous to contentious after Trump accused the South African government of seizing land from White landowners. Trump then played two video clips full of false claims about the genocide of farmers and handed out copies of new stories purporting to expose the truth.
The whole charade struck a chord with me, inasmuch as the LDS leadership seems to play the same game fairly regularly. It seems to me there are cases of “LDS leadership worries about nonexistent problem X rather than paying attention to real problem Y” for a variety of related Xs and Ys. Here’s an example.
Gay marriage. When the LDS fight against gay marriage was in full swing, it was linked to all kinds of terrible hypothetical consequences, pretty much none of which have come to pass. The actual consequences seem to be that now-married gay couples can go shopping or to go a show or any other public activity more freely than before, with the exception of attending an LDS Church. They enjoy some marital civil rights (inheritance, access to partners at hospitals, adoptions) that they maybe could not get before. Most of the general population (again, excepting many Mormons) has come around to viewing gay marriage as just another feature of civil society.
What was a real problem LDS leaders ignored when they spent all that time fulminating against gay marriage? How about abuse within heterosexual marriage, like spousal abuse or child abuse? And why were LDS leaders happy to largely ignore that problem? Most LDS leaders just hate to give a fellow priesthood holder a hard time. Sure, they are against spousal abuse and child abuse in theory, it’s just hard for them to see it and take meaningful action in practice. It’s usually easier to accept a fellow priesthood holder’s denials or offer some lame excuse rather than do what they are supposed to do (defend the victims!).
And why do leaders and institutions often fall into this “complain loudly about unreal problem X while ignoring real problem Y” pattern? It’s almost self-evident. Trump would rather score political points with naive MAGA types than deal with real problems at home in America (he’s into complaining and name calling, not actual governing). LDS leaders would rather score culture war points with naive Mormons than deal with real problems in actual LDS marriages. It’s just doing what serves the interests of leaders or institutions rather than the real interests of citizens or members as a whole. “Why should we spend millions or billions from our budget treating real problems when we can make voters/members happy by just railing against nonexistent problems they already buy into?” is the game they play.
I could come up with more examples (say LDS leaders constantly asking local members to work hard to bring inactive Mormons back into church activity, while ignoring the stuff in LDS doctrine and practice that is driving people away in the first place), but I’ll let readers fill in the blanks.
If I’m barking up the wrong tree, let me know. Otherwise share an example that irks you.
Wheat & Tares 
It might not be barking up the wrong tree so much as barking up the same tree. Here’s another one.
The headline that caught my eye today was about our elected gerontocracy. The problem is epitomized by Trump and Congress, and it is bipartisan and multifaith. Where are the young people?
From Pecksniff to Jonas, Martin Chuzzlewit sifts a lot of tares before he finds any wheat…..
Muzzlewit, it’s not my fault that Trump provides a lot of malfeasance examples that are springboards for posts and discussion. I’m sure someone else will expand on your suggested gerontocracy topic.
I recognized long ago that gay marriage need not affect my marriage, and legal abortions does not mean that my wife has to get one. If I understand history correctly, the early church fathers felt and some taught that it was inappropriate for Christians to go to gladiatorial games, but they did not organize protests in front of the coliseums. Their teaching was internal to their members, but I suspect that some of the faithful might have attended on occasion. I think that our church’s public fight against gay marriage was doomed to fail from the outset, although there were some early victories. I lived in California in 2000 when Proposition 22 was passed; my wife and I declined an invitation to canvass on this issue, primarily because we felt that the issues were being misrepresented.
My contribution: I am concerned about what might look like a fixation on dollars, specifically tithing dollars. If going to the temple is so important, and I am not arguing that it is not, then we should institutionally remove barriers to temple attendance. I think that tithing might be a barrier, not because good people don’t want to pay, but because they think that tithing is 10% of gross and they simply cannot pay (10% of my gross would be 18% of take-home). We won’t teach from our pulpits that gross is not the standard, nor do we teach that each member should decide for him or herself what he or she should tithe (March 1970 First Presidency letter, printed in Engisn in April 1974). Instead, we know that missionaries and many local leaders are teaching gross and we don’t correct them, and some people even teach that if one has to choose between feeding his family and paying his tithing, he should pay his tithing. If the message is that people need to be in the temples, then we might remove barriers to getting temple recommends by proper teaching of what tithing is. Dollars received might go down, but temple attendance might go up.
The repeated use of derogatory epithets is not lost on me. It gets old as a debate tactic. I refuse to see it as anything other than humorous.
This seems like an odd line to thread – Trump’s ridiculousness and lies to leadership not wanting to call out fellow priesthood holders. It’s hard to see a parallel in my view: and that actually proves my point for making this comment. So often in life, there is asymmetry in information. We do not all live our lives in “movie mode” where we see things that happen to lead up to some big or catastrophic event. How many of us are truly able to understand, immediately AND CORRECTLY, something that is occurring right then? How often do we ask, “is this really happening right now?” And how many times have we thought we saw something, for it to turn out to be something quite different?
To play on your example with respect to domestic abuse: “Most LDS leaders just hate to give a fellow priesthood holder a hard time. Sure, they are against spousal abuse and child abuse in theory, it’s just hard for them to see it and take meaningful action in practice. It’s usually easier to accept a fellow priesthood holder’s denials or offer some lame excuse rather than do what they are supposed to do (defend the victims!).”
I wholly acknowledge that there are some that have – and do – undoubtedly followed the easier path. But the commentary seems to wholly exclude those who are in an information asymmetry and are trying to resolve it. Perhaps the generic “LDS leaders” (which I assume you mean local leadership at the Bishop/SP level) are hard-pressed to get to the true facts of occurrences. Perhaps it takes much longer to get there, at which point it is no longer a nice, simple problem/solution that we all seem to want to consume in the Internet age, and so we ignore it or miss it entirely.
But I suppose that was just an example for the premise of your post, about “complain loudly about unreal problem X while ignoring real problem Y”. That also seems to ignore the possibility of information asymmetry. Well, to back up, I say this in the belief that Trump does what he does on purpose, with an immoral purpose in mind, and the belief that “LDS leadership” does not have an immoral purpose in mind in whatever they focus on.
Overall:
1) the formulation of the question seems to pre-suppose that “LDS leadership” knows what the “real” problem is, and instead chooses to complain about an “unreal” problem – which I find reductionist at best and intentionally ill-minded at worst.
2) the request for alleged observed examples “(say LDS leaders constantly asking local members to work hard to bring inactive Mormons back into church activity, while ignoring the stuff in LDS doctrine and practice that is driving people away in the first place)” relies upon a third-person, movie-like view where there is no information asymmetry. Which is, at least from my life experience, never really the case. Even when we have most facts, we still can’t look into the mind of the other person or people, and thus there will always be information asymmetry for how others choose to act/what they choose to focus on.
3) I, for one, really do understand how tiring it is/can be to try and educate people who have notions that are flat-out wrong: e.g., what the constitution actually says versus their support for Trump’s actions that are blatantly violative of it. But to transform that stupidity on their part into legitimate nefarious intent on their part is often incorrect (yes, some really are craven and seek autocracy). Most of them really are just stupid – ill-informed and unwilling to learn. To translate this to why I think it is relevant to your prompt, I get the sense that frustration over what the author believes are stupid choices or actions by “LDS leadership” has morphed into a belief that those choices/actions are expressly done with nefarious intent. Which is probably just not the case, more often than not. More of it is probably from being ill-informed, and yes, sometimes an unwillingness to learn or let go of/unlearn incorrect ideas.
In short, while I do not doubt that there is someone, somewhere in “LDS leadership” that chooses to play the game you allege, I really DO doubt that this is an explicit strategy agreed upon by a majority of decision-makers. It rather smacks of closed-mindedness in the author, which really is ironic given the position from which the post is written (the tone of the post being one of moral authority over those who are morally bankrupt enough to explicitly lie to distract from real issues). It completely ignores the possibility that some of these people really do believe they are focusing on something that matters, arising from not having all the information, or from deep-seated convictions (right or not). To then compare that to someone who literally lies, and does so on purpose, is just so disappointing.
This is not dialogue on this blog at this point – it is just armchair grouching. I say that as someone who still visits occasionally because I have read some truly meaningful, inspiring, and thought-provoking posts that have uplifted me and expanded my view.
I’ve just spent a weekend with my two childless nieces. Instead of children they have dogs that they pamper. The dogs go everywhere with them and everyone has to accept their pets no matter which public place they decide to drag them into.
That’s where the children went. Neither of them are gay, but the effect is the same. I suppose that someday we’ll be electing their dogs to Congress for lack of anyone else.
Mr. Chuzzlewit, I liked your thhq handle better. Maybe you should go back to it. Once you establish a handle for commenting, it is generally frowned upon to switch to another handle to hide your identity or your previous commenting history. I referenced Trump’s penchant for name-calling in the body of the post, so I thought it was appropriate to mirror Trump’s behavior to one of his defenders.
Georgis, good point. It makes you think that what is important to the leadership is not that people get to the temple to perform their own ordinances or those for the dead, but instead it’s the dollars and the temple is simply leverage to get people to pay up. Temples not solely for leverage, of course, but largely for leverage. Notice how the role of the temple recommend for members has expanded over the last couple of generations. It’s not just a temple recommend, it’s a required passport for lots of LDS privileges. Same dynamic.
Purity culture has produced the fear driven human sexuality messaging, better known simply as “the law of chastity”. The focus is on Chastity being defined as a legal concept, of two people engaging in sexual behavior without the piece of paper that makes it legal. So, Chastity largely is dealing with a problem that is really not “the problem”, suggesting that chastity is about two teenagers on a beanbag in the basement giving into their natural desires. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat thinking I’m supporting hedonistic pleasure seeking, there are plenty of reasons teenagers are not ready for physical intimacy, but among those is not that is makes them “dirty”.
Meantime, the real problem with sexuality is not about consenting parties, it’s about exploitation. Sexual abuse, trafficking, and even coercive and manipulative practices “within” the bounds of marriage. You heard me right, the law of chastity is broken just as much “inside” the legal marriage structure as outside of it. Nobody wants to get into the very messy and nuanced discussion during Elders Quorum about how many married men are breaking the law of chastity, not by cheating or pornography, but by abusing their own spouse.
Who’s this thhq fellow?
I think of LDS leaders panicking about women who “become pornography” because they wear sleeveless clothing while ignoring the fact that 11-year-old boys have more authority than the General Relief Society President of the Church does is a pretty good example. The infantilization and marginalization of women in the Church is a perfect example of misdirected attention to the wrong problems.
Put me down as a vote for hedonistic pleasures.
The church was trying to cut expenses (and potentially avoid red tape like insurance and OSHA) when they stopped paying for janitorial services for buildings and shifted it to the members and their personal insurance as volunteer work.
The problem that they are trying to solve now (without paying anyone else) is the communal load of “volunteer work” – the Primary lessons, the Senior Primary BSA/GSA replacement program, the funerals/new baby meals, scripture study, the Seminary program, FHE & “Come Follow Me”, the ministering program, RS programs, Family History work & record transcription, and priesthood meetings on top of all parents working, school stuff, community stuff, continuing education stuff, and the more intensive childcare and eldercare resource commitments. Some people are quiet-quitting because the requirements of being an “active” or “socially acceptable LDS individual” are so high.
I forgot to include the weekly youth group ministry as well.
In Elders’ Quorum this Sunday, we had a lesson about Elder Anderson’s talk on abortion. I’m pleased to report that I have not supported any female member of my family in seeking an abortion so far this week. The lesson must have worked! Time will tell if I can keep this streak up!
On a more serious note, reading the opening of his talk I saw a missed opportunity. There was a story of a young woman who chose to keep a child, who had a very loving and supportive family and ward, and pressure to make a different choice from the father of the child. Maybe the real focus of the talk should have been on being that kind of family and ward, the kind who don’t judge past choices, respect the mother’s agency in making current choices, and are there for her no matter which one she makes. And that just might result in fewer abortions, which is what Elder Anderson wanted anyway, I assume.
I think all (or almost all) Latter-day Saints overlook a major part of both of Elder Anderson’s talks on abortion – namely, that one’s Christianity and horror regarding abortion should move them to provide financial support to help people avoid abortion, to help them have and raise children. But I have to think that not a single one of the loud anti-abortion or pro-life people among us have contributed a single penny to a ward member who might need help to raise an unplanned child, either on a one-time or continuing basis.
Go re-read his talks, either of them — offering financial support is included in both of them — in my mind, neither of his talks were about public policy positions on abortion; rather, both were calls for church members to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak, as a matter of real Christian living. But no one wants to hear that, so they pretend that Elder Anderson’s talks were about public policy.
@ji
I’ll agree that I don’t hear a public policy agenda in Anderson’s abortion talks. And I agree that to the extent that he advocates supporting those facing difficult decisions about a pregnancy, that is a laudable message, and I wish it were more prominent in his talks, because I think that’s where the real focus should be. I’m not sure I’d agree that it’s a “major” part of the talk, but it’s there.
What troubles me about both talks is his focus on a particular type of story: a woman faces a high risk pregnancy, a situation where even by the church’s own guidelines an abortion would be considered acceptable, the woman chooses to go through with it at considerable risk to herself, and there’s a happy outcome. That’s great, but by not telling some of the other possible stories, a woman who made the same choice and is now dead as a result of it, or a woman who chose to end the pregnancy and feels good about her choice, he is reinforcing a culture that despite what the handbook says, there’s a preferred option.
But the bigger point, to go back to this blog, is that abortion is a really weird thing to dedicate two general conference talks to. Surely the membership of the church know the church’s position on this, and surely there are more broadly salient topics for a forum that only comes up twice a year.
I think the Church recognized the number of young people who were raised in the Church dipping out at some point during their college years as a huge problem. One “solution” they came up with was to lower the mission age. If we can get these kids out of the youth program and into the mission field asap, they thought, we can convert them for life. However, the problem was not (and still isn’t), that kids’ “testimonies weren’t strong enough,” the problem was (and still is) that they didn’t see the church relevant to the everyday problems of their lives, not the things that they care about in the world. Imagine if instead of simply lowering the mission age, the Church had transformed the missionary program into a peace corp-like worldwide service program that gave kids options of where to go, how to serve and how long? I wonder how many more young people they could have retained. The problem is not the level of commitment to a belief in a set of truth claims. The problem is people don’t see the vision as relevant – because there really isn’t one. It was the vision of Zion that originally attracted converts to the Church. “Zion” is now a scrupulous, pious to-do list. No wonder people are leaving or mentally checking out.
I’ll also agree that I don’t hear an explicit public policy agenda in Anderson’s abortion talks. But my mother in Utah County tells me that others heard such a message, attributing to Anderson things that he did not say (along the lines of “abortion is murder” and such). I am torn about whether to blame Anderson for that. On the one hand, he didn’t say what he didn’t say, but on the other hand, he had to know that his talk would be used to advance a political agenda.
lemming, isn’t it strange that some will hear what wasn’t said (such as a public policy message in Elder Anderson’s talk) and will not hear what actually was said (such as offer financial support to people who might otherwise seek abortions).
The change in the definition of marriage is catastrophic–and the fact that we take it in stride (like we do so many other things) doesn’t mean that it won’t have serious negative effects. Making adult consent the highest defining virtue of marriage makes gender irrelevant and displaces the entire enterprise from its core function and purpose. It is completely antithetical to the Abrahamic Covenant.
What Elder Anderson did not talk about:
The role of men in the equation…
Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Blair
Utah passes a law banning a book by three school districts, triggering the state to ban the book in all school districts. Or, they pass a law where transgender students cannot participate in sports or have to use the bathroom of the sex they were assigned at birth. These are state laws, but the legislators who voted for them were LDS, and their wards support them. Yet, Utah has one of the highest suicide rates for teenagers in the country. Why? Because we don’t talk about the issues they face, they aren’t allowed to read books about the issues they face (the books banned have to do with LGBTQ, people of color, and are written by women, or women of color). School leaders who also happen to be LDS talk about the books as pornography, yet they haven’t read them, and a description of a same-sex kiss is not pornography. So, as I see it, the church spends all this time worrying about LGBTQ students but ignores the relationships parents should have with their children or how to talk to them, accept them, help them, and love them, consequently, students are left alone, have no one to talk to, little resources to help, and a stigma from family, friends, and teachers. They are left hopeless, and too many make fatal choices.
When we stress one thing and ignore another, we sometimes pay a huge price with our children.
Jack, a big part of me agrees with you. May I ask, though, that you look at this question from a different angle? Imagine that you possess something rare and valuable, let’s say a real bona fide Caravaggio painting that you inherited over generations all the way back from some cardinal-ancestor who commissioned it. It is yours with clear and uncontested title. It brings you great joy, not because of its value in dollars (you don’t intend to sell it) but because of its beauty: the image, the colors, the brush strokes, how it plays in the light, as well as its history. Your neighbors across the street see your happiness at your prized possession and they want one, too, and they see one at the flea market, and they buy it for $50. They hang it proudly in their home. It makes them happy. It brings them joy. They invite you into their home to share their joy. You know that their Caravaggio is fake. It isn’t that they wanted one to be better than you; they wanted one because they saw that yours brought you great joy, and they wanted some of that same joy. What do you do? Do you rejoice with them at their new painting? Or do you tell them that their painting is a worthless forgery? Would you rejoice with those who rejoice? or would you make sure that they and everyone one else in your neighborhood knew that their painting was not an original? Can you see that their “fake” painting in their home in no way diminishes the “truth” of your painting in your home? They’ll figure it out when they go to sell it: it won’t bring the money that yours will bring, were you to put it up for sale. But you aren’t an art merchant; you’re a neighbor. I would hope that you would be kind and graceful, and that you would rejoice sincerely with your neighbors in their new happiness. Their fake painting in no way threatens you, your painting, or your treasure.
I hope others don’t throw stones at me for likening gay marriage to a fake Caravaggio. I’m trying to make a comparison and am probably failing.
There are a lot of things worse than gay marriage, such as adultery, spousal abuse, and child abuse. How many two-sex marriages are perfect, or anywhere close? Before we worry too much about the mote in our neighbor’s eye, maybe we should look at the beam in our own eye. Jesus was able to break bread and eat meat with prostitutes and publicans, but that doesn’t mean that he took prostitution and publicanism in stride. He healed those who were sick physically, the lame, deaf, blind, and diseased, and he healed those who were sick spiritually, who were otherwise known as sinners. Gay marriage is the law of the land. You don’t have to participate in it, but their gay marriage in no way threatens yours. You similarly don’t have to participate in an abortion, and if you were an ancient Christian you wouldn’t have to go to the gladiatorial games. You in your part of the world, and me in my part of the world, can live the gospel as best as we know how without condemning others for how they do or do not live it. I don’t worry about God punishing America because of gay marriage. I don’t know how many gay marriages there are in America, but the number surely pales to the number of adulteries, abuse, and cruelty. Does God look less favorably on two men in a loving marriage, or on a man and a woman in regular marriage where the man and wife cheat on each other and hurt each other? Before we condemn gay marriage because it isn’t what God intended, maybe we should ensure that our marriages are what God intended. That’s what a candle on the candlestick does: it gives off steady light and invites people to come to it, but it is not a spotlight (like in a prison) shining in the dark trees looking to catch people. I would hope that we could be more like a candle on a candlestick than like a spotlight on a prison tower.
Georgis
I appreciate you are trying to talk to Jack in language he can understand. But Dude, yes, you are failing. Could you possibly be more insulting? Oh look, how cute, a gay couple with their fake relationship. Well done, Sir. But hey, if you can convince Jack to bring a present to a same sex wedding, it counts towards the good.
There are some days though, I prefer honest contempt and derision over genteel condescension.
What I would tell Jack is look past D&C 132, where women are breeding stock in service of the man with the winning paternal haplogroup. Or would that be the one mighty and strong haplogroup.
What matters on Earth, in the present, is the quality of the relationship. That is not a catastrophe. Two people in a committed loving relationship, working for the betterment of each other and their family, is an improvement. Society is stronger because of it.
Jack and georgis your comments are very hurtful. Imagine your grandchildren reading what you wrote here 1, 2, or 3 decades from now. Would you be proud? Protip: if after some self reflection you change your mind, I’m sure the admin will gladly delete your comments.
Committed queer relationships are not akin to knockoff art. They just aren’t. And society isn’t crumbling because there are more committed relationships today than there were fifteen years ago. Hatred is the problem. And like the kids say, ain’t no hate like Christian love.
Admin: a major reason I stopped attending church was because my heart could no longer bear listening to such hate in SS/EQ. If we aren’t going to hold comments accountable, I guess it’s time for me to move on.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Nice discussion all around. Abortion is a great example. Leaders spend a lot of time denouncing abortion-for-convenience, which is a much smaller problem than the lack of support for young single mothers, which they almost *never* talk about and the institutional church largely and rather hypocritically ignores. I mean if you as an institution *strongly* discourage abortions, you should logically then support those young single pregnant women who take your advice.
We all know the Church has hundreds of billions that leaders could dip into to use to support young LDS women who take their “no abortions” advice and bear a child. But they will spend tens or hundreds of millions on buildings, the “look at all the temples I am building” initiative. They made a Perpetual Education Fund a few years ago (which I’m guessing goes largely to “deserving” young LDS men who served missions). How about a Perpetual Fund to Support Young LDS Women Who Take Our Advice and Don’t Get an Abortion When Maybe They Should Have. Put a few billion in it. Put your money where your mouth is, LDS leaders. People are more important than buildings, aren’t they?
With the repeal of Roe and the re-outlawing of abortion in most red states, the new problem is not those who get an abortion-for-convenience (what GAs always rail about) but those who *need* an abortion for medical or other legitimate reasons but can’t get one. You will wait a long time before any GA publicly acknowledges that new problem, at least until one of their daughters dies because of complications, having been unable to get timely medical treatment or an abortion because punitive anti-abortion red state laws chased most of the pregnancy docs out of the state.
Chadwick, I see disagreement but no hate. Not even name-calling or profanity. Sorry it’s not working for you.
How about unintended consequences?
-non-members in Utah feeling shunned
-ward projects to help the community while those in the ward have their own pressing needs (charity should begin at home!)
-EQ helping with moving for families that could afford to pay movers
-sleeveless garments creating a black market in areas where the items are not yet distributed
Who moderates comments? I’m surprised/disappointed that my comment yesterday didn’t post. It wasn’t antagonistic or derogatory, so I’m not sure what held it up. I’ll try to assume it was just lost in a stack. Otherwise, I’m disappointed that this really is not a forum to share thoughts that don’t always agree with those of the original post.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Adam F, I fished your lengthy comment out of the spam filter and posted it to the thread. It assumed its proper chronological place near the top of the comment stack. I’d invite other readers to backtrack and give it a read.
Adam F, I invite you to go find a woman in your ward or stake who has been the victim of spousal abuse and ask her, “What do you think is a greater threat to the well-being and happiness of members of the Church, gay marriage or domestic violence?” Let me go out on a limb and predict she’ll say its domestic violence.
“Reductionist at best and intentionally ill-minded at worst.”
Adam F really sums up this topic well. South African immigration was only a trigger for reciting a list of grievances. The original immigration topic was abandoned without any intelligent discussion. And the list of grievances is a compilation of problems that can’t be fixed. If you can’t fix it, it’s a problem that doesn’t matter. For the next four years politicians and church leaders will be spending money on another set of problems, not the ones in the list of grievances. Instead of borrowing money to expand Medicaid and forgive student loans they will be borrowing money to build Temples and factories.
I tried to broaden the topic into a “problem that matters” discussion, using our gerontocracy as an example. [The Democratic Party is not well served by having seven ancient Congressmen dying in office….another random thought on that particular problem]. I wasn’t trying to steal the thread, just to expand it into the universal discussion promised in the title.
Dave B, I was away for a while so just saw this. I agree with you regarding your question! I’ve long since forgotten the complete impetus to my original (lengthy) comment, but I think it was not to say that domestic violence is not a problem — it is to question the slightly unwritten assumption that the “leadership” focuses on gay marriage because of an express intent to deflect away from true issues, like I think was used as the original comparison to Trump’s MO.