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Regrets for this late response. The boy scouts have taken me hostage in the wilderness for a long spell. Threw me off a cliff into a river if that’s any consolation to anyone. What I really like about Old-Timer is that he calls it like he sees it. Not afraid to tell the bear where to poop in the woods. I suppose being a Priesthood descendant of J. Golden Kimball, my repertoire of insults is more extensive and more offensive than most. The epitaph that got deleted that I used to describe my local church leaders was what I would consider only mildly insulting. But it is good to have a better idea of the boundaries around here and I thank you for not deleting any more of it. Correction accepted with a smile.
I agree with most of the contents of the above comment. Calling the police is among the most effective ways to get ostracized in any group. Local church leaders are usually good people doing the best they know how. I listed it last as a desperate option when “all else fails.”
This is a mere semantic point. To me calling the police is not the nuclear bomb option, more like high altitude pamphlet bombing. The nuclear bomb option is physical confrontation. My father, a professional boxer, taught his boys how to fight. He also taught me specifically, to walk away from most fights since I am kinda scrawny and not that strong. I didn’t listen very well and lost most of the fights I ever got into as a lad. During the Great Depression, my stocky Scottish grandfather punched the bishop hard enough to break his jaw and landed in jail for it. He was provoked; it was a long, mostly forgotten story. I know from sad experience about this option.
People carry knives and guns and physical confrontation easily escalates into deadly violence. The key, my father taught us, to staying out of jail is to “never draw first blood.” But verbal provocations that cause an adversary to take the first swing or fire the first shot justify retaliation as self-defense. On the other hand, the key to staying alive is to “never bring a knife to a gun fight.” I happen to know that it is legal to carry concealed weapons to church with a permit in the state where I live. Apparently this option has recently been banned by the LDS church in our buildings.(
http://www.utahconcealedcarry.com ) Why take the trouble of doing that if it never happens? This to me is the ”nuclear bomb option.” To get in your leader’s face, use some highly insulting names until they take a punch at you and then beat the h.!! out of them. Or if they draw on you, better have your gun ready to go. Notice I did NOT recommend it. Calling the police is actually rather mild to what can and has actually happened many times.I wish to take more serious umbrage with the second comment on another point. The concept of sexual harassment is probably most explicitly defined by the US EEOC in the work place. The word “unwelcome” appears frequently in their materials along with the phrase: “verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” I would contend that “asking questions in the role of an ecclesiastical leader” could be against the law as defined by the EEOC if the questions are “unwelcome” and if they are “verbal” and if they are “of a sexual nature.” A middle age man taking a teenage girl into a room alone and asking her questions about her sexual activity against her parent’s expressed wishes seems to fit this definition. I don’t see any reasonable way around it. Whether a stricter or more lenient standard applies at church in contrast to the work place is not a serious question. Expected behavior at church should be at least a notch above that in the workplace, not below it.
I fought this battle for a dozen years and I will spare you the details or specific advice. Take home lessons include:
1.These youth interviews have some kind of primal importance to local church leaders far beyond what I consider reasonable. And quite apart from a few perverts in positions of authority getting their jollies. Like maybe they instinctively sense if they can control everything concerning the sexual expression of the youth they control everything else?
2.[Insult of most local leaders deleted.] You are not dealing with the likes of Brigham Young or Isaac Haight. (Organized the mountain meadows massacre) Signs of weakness already manifested include long delays in handling the issue, long defensive written letters (not face-to-face), and general passive aggressiveness. Stick to your guns. Maybe these local Idaho leaders are different than mine but probably not.
3.Be quietly but firmly willing to suffer their consequences. A parent has every right to limit an interview; while the church has every right to extend Priesthood offices or allow participation in temple work on their terms. Hum the tune to the hymn, “Do What Is Right, Let the Consequences Follow.” It is also a black mark on them when your son/daughter does not advance according to their agenda.
4.Don’t underestimate your youth. They can deal with these problems often with greater flexibility and creativity than you can. If you teach them the basic principles and get them to buy into it and let them know you will back them up no matter what, then they will take care of the problem themselves and usually not gently. Often they will escalate the struggle to include other youth and the bishop will rapidly have a small revolt on his hands. Few youth actually enjoy these interviews. The more difficult struggle is when church leaders attempt to divide and then wrangle your youth away from your influence. But you still have many advantages and should prevail.
5.Use technology. Remember Nixon and his tapes? That was new and powerful technology then. Today your youth can have a digital device recording everything said while in those interviews with you listening (or their friends giggling) right outside the door or anywhere across the globe. A sensible Bishop would see that this playing field has shifted distinctly to his disadvantage and be grateful for the added protection a chaperone affords him. Various states have different laws governing what is legal when recording conversations, but youth are not going to get into much trouble even if it is illegal.
6.If all else fails bring in the big guns. As an American citizen you have the right to freedom of religion and that includes freedom from religion. You can call the police and file a complaint against the bishop if he goes against your expressed wishes and forces your children to do something against your consent. You can remind him of your rights as a citizen. Watch them shape up then. In SE Idaho the LDS church might have more influence on law enforcement than here. But police work everywhere by its very nature involves working on Sunday and takes officers out of regular church activity. Hence most police do not yield to church authority one bit. They might investigate and ultimately file no charges; but even that will set a church leader back on the path of righteousness and reasonableness.
Good luck.
Personal Revelation You took this topic thoughtfully where you thought best. I would have taken it in a different direction.
I think personal revelation can be one of the most damaging and dangerous concepts in contemporary Mormonism.
Personal revelation can be a great source of comfort. I remember the horrible feelings of loss at my mother’s grave side service. She was gone for good. I would never see her or hear her voice again in this life. She requested no funeral. My father was weighed down unlike anything I had imagined and could barely walk. He was a tough old bird, WWII vet, and professional boxer and took care of mom unflinchingly during her long and difficult decline with dementia. I’d never seen him so broken. What was left of the old guard of relatives and friends, all looking much the worst for wear, shuffled around powerless to do much.
Then my daughter (age 14 at the time and destined to become a professional musician) picked up her violin and began to play extemporaneously and from memory the simple favorite hymns my mother loved and it all went away. Although cold and windy the music was miraculously beautiful, unlike anything I have ever heard before, the music of heaven. I became spiritually aware that my mother was free from her burdens and in good place, associating with her parents and departed relatives who loved her. Life had been hard at times but the joy outweighed all the pain. The graveside service turned into one of the most beautiful experiences of my entire life. We were comforted and I have not felt much pain about her death since then. We miss mom but this burden was lightened. I thank God for this blessing and acknowledge that it is not given to all.
I met a girl in college and through personal revelation knew the minute I saw her that I would marry her. She was infatuated with me and we dated for 18 months. These were the best times. I prayed about her and had many personal revelations that she was the one for me. I remember praying with her up in the mountains and if angels had appeared it would not have surprised us. The next 80 years seemed like but a moment and I could taste the glory of the celestial kingdom with her. The problem came when she decided that she didn’t want to marry me. That resulted in at least a year of pain, confusion and spiritual darkness. If I had not so entangled the spiritual and the romantic I would have had clear access to the spiritual help I needed to negotiate this common but difficult experience. Later I would become aware of a cute Japanese girl in my student ward, perfect in so many ways, who had received a personal revelation that I would marry her. I served my mission in Japan and loved the language and culture. I dated her and gave it an honest effort but I never felt the inspiration or desire or the love to marry her. Everything I could do to try and persuade her gently otherwise was destined to fail. She returned to Japan and left the church. The girl I did marry was not the result of spiritual confirmation, quite the opposite. But I am amazed she married me.
I approached the completion of one phase of education with an excellent career ahead of me. I distinctly felt the Spirit telling me to join the military. I did and that was the worst mistake of my life. It ruined my career and it partially ruined me. We almost divorced. I lost my single-mined devotion, my sense of moral clarity and purpose. I became cynical and sarcastic. God or goodness does not exist in the dark belly of some places I have been. I felt lower than Jonah in the whale as expressed in the poem in chapter 2. I have never really gotten over it and my income is probably about half or less than it would have been. While in uniform I grew to hate America and would curse under my breath when I saw the flag. But since then I do feel a sense of patriotism and pride to have done that hard service. I guess somebody had to do it.
The year after my mother’s death I was strongly impressed by the Spirit to volunteer to go to Mongolia to fulfil a service opportunity there. We had the funds to do it and my career was going no where. My wife felt no such inspiration and did not want to put into jeopardy the health or education of our children. We didn’t go and she bought a new car instead which cost more than living in Mongolia for 3 years. I often quip; listening to my wife is more reliable than listening to the Spirit.
We were only able to have 2 children and they have done well. We were inspired to buy a large house, expensive to maintain, with the idea of raising maybe 6 or 8 children and we still live in the enormous house alone now. I have felt the Spirit directing me to consider adopting children, but my wife does not feel this way. Since the burden of raising children in our situation where I have a demanding job and she stays at home would fall heavily on her shoulders, I do not think it is the right thing for me to insist and she is to an age where she doesn’t follow my lead in much of anything anyway. I felt inspired that like my dad and grandfathers I would be able to work until I was at least 80-85 years old and we did not save much for retirement. I was first diagnosed with coronary artery disease in my early 50’s and will now have to work until I die and still rely on my children to take care of their mother financially. A more sensible plan would have been to plan for retirement at a slightly early to normal age.
I know of cases where people followed personal revelation instead of sound medical advice and suffered serious health complications because of it, including in one extreme case the death of their child. I have relatives and friends who married quickly under guidance from the Spirit and lived to regret it for the rest of their lives with subsequent turmoil, divorce and screwed up children. Scout leaders following the Spirt have gotten boys lost in the mountains exposing them to serious danger. Too often people neglect the part of studying it out in the mind (until it becomes obvious) and use prayer and personal revelation as a way to avoid the hard work that should precede the important decisions in life.
I think we need to better define where following the Spirit might be expected to work and where it might not. Many of our antidotal stories at church are unhelpful or misleading. I think expecting the Spirit to verify what amounts to scientific questions is foolish. I think going against logic, sound judgment, or common sense is almost always a bad idea. In matters of romance, personal revelation is most dangerous. Sometimes a decision has to be made without much knowledge of the consequences available even with maximal effort and then we have to choose and accept the consequences. It is illogical to assign good outcomes to following the Spirit and to blame ourselves for the bad outcomes. We should own all of our decisions, good and bad, then come to a place where we ask God for guidance generally and thank God for both outcomes. (I’m not there yet.)
I am not alone having a problem with the Spirit which helps rich children find lost toys and lets poor children die or continue to be beaten or suffer horribly every day in spite of their constant sincere prayers. When describing workings of the Spirit I prefer verbs like comfort, create, inspire in place of verbs like know, compel, feel, prove, etc. This is based on life experience and not scripture or doctrine.
I have over 10 years experience with boy scouts in a large non-LDS troop of 50 to 70 boys and that age is my favorite. Which is unusual. Here are a few additional suggestions. Boys that age are listening even when they are not listening. Which is most of the time. They multi task well but don’t focus well. There might be something biological going on like neurons disconnecting and reconnecting. So don’t take it personally if they seem to ignore you. I can’t tell you how many times older boys have thanked me for something I said to them years before when I thought they were not really listening. It is usually something simple like “you can do this” or “why not try it (something hard)? “
Boys that age learn better by doing than listening. Anything active will be better than having them sit there.
Most of us have conveniently forgotten that boys that age can be astonishing rude and nasty when adults are not around. What they dish out to you is probably pretty mild in comparison to what they are capable. I don’t know what to do about this except pray (and keep them away from actual young girls until they mature more).
Think of it as a party and join in the fun. More than doctrine, these kids need to belong. It sounds like your team teachers are more than able to take care of teaching doctrine. Socialization at church is probably as important as teaching concepts. If these boys feel part of an open and inclusive LDS peer group (not clannish and exclusive) and the majority of those boys are generally doing the right things in the big picture (drugs, sex, etc ; not the laughing and goofing around), then belonging will help lift all of them.
Watch for the boys who are a little different and maybe are being excluded. Then figure out how to get them included better.
Think about, instead of being released, maybe changing what you are doing to make this calling work for you and that will probably be the path to making it work for them. Release yourself and then call yourself to a new and better (more realistic) version of teaching/coaching/mentoring these boys.
Ray writes: “I believe we absolutely need to focus more in our Sacrament Meetings (especially) on Jesus’ life (both as mortal exemplar, which I believe is our biggest teaching deficiency, and as the Christ) and his post-death status of Savior and Redeemer – and I LOVE the shift over the last decade or so to a MUCH more open acknowledgment and treatment of grace by the top leadership, even as I would love to hear it even more. I believe all religions and Christian denominations are doing it right AND doing it wrong, to varying degrees and with regard to different aspects of godliness. Thus, my statement that we all just teach about “God” differently.”
On this I agree. It is beautiful. Any other points of disagreement I have with Ray I am willing to concede generally as allowable differences in semantics, experience, perspective, etc.
Complete grace is extended to Ray. He does a great job here.
May I summarize for my own benefit.
1. We agree that there is room for improvement with better focus on Jesus/Atonement.
2. No one here is willing to defend or make excuses for the 2A.
3. The concept of the 2A runs counter current to the concept of the Atonement.
4. A large portion if not all current church leaders considered GAs have been given the 2A.
5. Logical leap; Connection between the 4 points above???
I guess my bottom line already stated before: If church leaders want me to follow them in religious matters, then they need to unequivocally follow Christ. This 2A business is a major distraction for me and probably many others. It needs to go.
I took a badly needed computer holiday and after skimming these responses I think I will need another. First and MOST IMPORTANT. I will not back down when it comes to the centrality of Faith in Christ as the core principle of the gospel and I think I should not let the immediate response and explanations of Bro. Ray (Aug 1) go unchallenged.
But first, I do appreciate that Bro. Ray is the person responsible for what ultimately is allowed to be discussed and that he has the responsibility to delete anything that he thinks has gone too far in order to preserve the mission and tone of the discussion. The level of excellence of most of this blog speaks to the skill with which he has done this. It is your blog and I am as a guest in your home. Delete as you find necessary and without remorse. I only hope and pray that the other Bro. R. does not run again and get ahead and his opponents provide the reference on a hostile national forum that I did not in the deleted material.
Some personal background: For nearly 30 years I have been married (originally in the SLC temple) to an evangelical Christian. The last half decade I have attended LDS and evangelical meetings every week (I am not working) one right after the other and many other times during the previous years of chaos associated with raising children. Comparisons are impossible not to make. In my experience a person who does this long enough to get past the superficial surface differences and gets to know the hearts and souls of the members in both traditions; they cannot rationally accept that we somehow exceed the devotion of evangelicals to this core principle. This is their strong suit. We can attack the trinity or biblical inerrancy or divisiveness or infant baptism or any number of differences, but this one is not going to work.
I realize that different people have different perspectives and see things differently. What sounds like flimsy excuses to me might seem to be well reasoned arguments to Bro. Ray. But many of his explanations and comparisons of evangelical Christians are simply wrong. The evangelicals would not agree with these characterizations of their beliefs. Especially the lack of comprehension of the very subtle differences between salvation by grace in the two traditions. This becomes the paper tiger logical fallacy. If you have much substantial interaction with evangelicals and are drawing these conclusions based on first hand experiences, then we are not talking about the same group of people.
Evangelicals do not believe in easy salvation with a one sentence prayer. That is a gross misrepresentation of them. When you offer that as a parallel to the 2A you essentially make my case. The 2A is as bad as the mischaracterized beliefs that many Mormons hold as evangelical beliefs. Some of these mischaracterizations of evangelical beliefs are naïve canards that float around many LDS wards. You probably know the wag: can you learn what Chinese food tastes like in a Mexican restaurant?
Most nonsensical is the argument that we emphasis God as much as anyone. So what. Like what church doesn’t emphasis their God? Whatever they talk about is their God. Even the Unitarian First Church of the Church Picnic, which only plans and holds picnics for their members, talks as much about their God, the picnic as anyone else. The problem for evangelical and Mormon alike is that mere picnics, while vaguely reminiscent of some of the best of Christ’s teachings are not Christ and will not enlarge the soul; whether they enlarge the waistline or not. This to me is another clear logical fallacy.
Aside from a quagmire of the differences of our opinions and logic, one might also ask the opinions of naïve visitors to the religious services of each. Truth by democracy. When I do missionary work and invite friends (either evangelicals or not) to visit us, they experience the appalling lack of focus on Christ and it is the central reason that they do not give further consideration to us. Actually it is worse than that. It is like every week my wife and I play the game; whose service will be the most Christ-centered this week? I almost always lose and often embarrassingly. And to add insult to injury, my bishop agrees that our services are not as Christ centered as they should be. Then for one week our ward does better than average and he comes up to my wife and asks why she doesn’t come back. Look we did pretty good this week. The contest for the souls of the children of men is not won after one week but over lifetimes and centuries.
My wife and I agree on this subject. The main difference between us is that she sees no hope of reform in the LDS church and I am still trying although my efforts have been ineffective, misguided, often weak and feeble. I do not accept your perspective; my wife does not and will never return to the LDS faith to the degree that your views continue to prevail. My bishop and many other LDS friends do not accept your perception and none of the many friends who might be converted to our denomination accept it after variable amounts of investigation. The only people I know who do accept some permutation of your views, (that we are Christ-centered enough but in a different way) are the members of my ward and my extended family who don’t want to change and don’t want to engage evangelicals. So even if you are ultimately proven right you are not useful to me and push me towards my wife and away from the LDS faith. Continue to preach to the choir but don’t ask me to hold the back door closed on them when they leave.
May years ago when my wife and I were younger, filled with zeal and energy and both on the same page of trying to make our ward more Christ-centered, we developed a little grading system for testimonies, talks, sermons, lessons, etc. A way to perhaps measure what worked and what did not.
Grade I- No mention of Christ except ritualistically at the end. “In the name of …”
Grade 2- Passing mention of Christ but not centrally related to the topic. (Christ on the third row.)
Grade 3- A substantial portion devoted to Christ as center to our religious life.
Grade 4- Most if not all devoted unmistakably to Christ.
Grade 5- Christ-centered and life-changing, very rare.
We did not expect everything to be Grade 3 or 4. But it was astonishing how close to Grade 2 we hovered. (I would grade my blog comments here as Grade 3 to 3.5). We easily explained this system to other friends in the ward and often achieved substantial consistency over many meetings, even if we did not agree on specific events. And the very act of getting other people to measure Christ centeredness in the content of LDS meetings tended to elevate it. I challenge you to honestly apply this system or some variation objectively to the next fast and testimony meeting you attend. As a start.
The more pressing topic remains unaddressed. Explain how the 2A does not run counter to faith and repentance. Core Christ centered beliefs. (Maybe you did, I didn’t read everything). Explain why 2A is not just an archaic pioneer belief in need of being abandoned like the game of horseshoes as the preferred recreation of many pioneer leaders. Explain to me how 2A demonstrates the centrality of Christ while displacing the need for His atoning work. This seems pretty basic to me. Sin, estrangement from God and reconciliation through a change of heart and lifelong attempts of improvement of behavior. Explain the 2A and what it speaks to the Laws of Justice and Mercy.
The connection between LDS problems with Christ–centeredness and the 2A is a logical leap, but one I wish I did not feel compelled to make after many years of consideration. If church leaders want me to follow them in religious matters, then they need to unequivocally follow Christ. This 2A business is a major distraction for me and probably many others. It needs to go. No excuses.
Cwald , in my limited exposure to this blog you have far more to offer than I. Don’t leave because of a pot I stirred.
Thank you for your consideration and kindness.
I have been struggling with the temptation to respond to this discussion for days. Please forgive me if this is out of line. Just delete it. I have issues with the 2A.
Ordained as “Gods and Goddesses,” “Kings and Queens,” “Priests and Priestesses.”
“calling and election made sure”
“sealed up to the highest degree of glory in the celestial kingdom”
Is President Thomas B. Monson a God or not? He has so been ordained in the holy temple, (my guess by Harold B. Lee or else one of the other apostles/prophets).
What do these statements mean? How can they mean anything other than a guarantee of the highest reward promised by Mormonism in the next life, Godhood? Any sins committed are not held against them by God although they might suffer consequences at the hands of men. If it means anything less, then it is like giving a man an airplane but then finding out it is a paper airplane not a real one. No hint that this is an allegory. It is deceitful if it is less than asserted. Is the explanation of the 2A watered down to nothing more than a ritualistic reminder of the gifts promised to every single one of us? We all have the promise of this reward upon the conditions of righteousness and conditions of forgiveness through the atonement. If the 2A is actually less than what it says it is, then why the extreme secrecy? This does not make sense.
What makes sense is that the 2A is what it says it is and I have an even bigger problem. The 2A nullifies the further need for the Atonement of Christ in that person. They no longer need rely upon the grace of Christ. They no longer think repentance is a principle that applies to them. The 2A is frankly an anti-Christ heresy. Explain to me how it is not. Those who are ordained, who ordain others and who actually believe in the 2A are no longer practicing Christians as far as this topic goes. In addition, this doubly violates the Laws of Justice and Mercy; that we are responsible for what we do, while relying upon the mercy of Christ for forgiveness. The recipient of the 2A can sin and not repent and not be punished by God? What doctrine is this?
It is beyond my comprehension how a sincere and practicing and believing and blessed Christian could ever allow themselves to be given the 2A. If somehow this “privilege” was ever foisted upon me I would not accept it. I would say, I do not need you to ordain me to be a God or anything else. Because I am standing on the promises of Jesus Christ, my Savior. Has this ever happened? Because it needs to happen- more often.
This is serious and bad enough, but all theoretical so far. What is the practical effect of having hundreds if not thousands of top leadership in this church being secretly given the 2A and ordained to Godhood? Beyond pride and clannishness?
I have noticed for many years that in comparison to protestant and particularly evangelical churches, the LDS church does not place as much emphasis on Christ. This can be objectively measured by listening to testimonies given, scriptures read, hymns sang, lessons taught and sermons preached. Many members agree with this observation and a few GA speeches also imply a need for improvement in this area. The most compelling simple example is the need President Gordon B. Hinckley felt to add a subtitle to the Book of Mormon, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”
This problem is more than one of omission, distraction or neglect. In place of Christ as the central object of our worship we as a people have erected an idol. We worship the institution of the church and in some cases the adoration we hold for Joseph Smith or the current top leadership borders upon worship. I do not think this is a coincidence. The top leadership believes they are Gods. It becomes impossible for the lesser Gods among them who have been given the 2A not to treat them as greater Gods and difficult for the even lower level uninitiated leadership not to fawn and flatter and monkey those above them. The greatest barrier to bringing Christ into the center of worship in Mormonism is the secret existence of the 2A and the strong authoritarianism that it spawns, in my opinion.
Other side issues include the concept of the “more sure word of prophecy” which seems to indicate a promise of something akin to omniscience. This is correlated with the tendency of our leadership to be resistant to anything they didn’t think of themselves. Their forgivable but obvious lack of omniscience is demonstrated frequently and I personally don’t have much of a problem with it except as it interferes with dialogue and progress.
The 2A includes the gift to live as long as desired. I agree many of them do live beyond what is usually expected. But if a busy person actually believes they will live as long as desired, perhaps they are reluctant to devote a day to having that recommended colonoscopy at age 50 and every decade thereafter. Quite literally it is a pain in the ass. And this might explain why Bruce R. McKonkie died at around age 60 of colon cancer and Gordon B. Hinckley of a more benign variety of the same malady, both preventable deaths.
President Hinckley was accused of stretching the truth on occasion to paint the church in the best light in front of the media. But what kind of a liar does the 2A make President Hinckley when he said to Larry King on national television, in response to a question about the Snow couplet (As man is now, God once was. As God is now, man may become) that “I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. …. “ Yet President Hinckley does know. He has already been ordained a God and he has already become “as God is now.” He had likely ordained many others recently. And if he had the more sure word of prophecy, how did he not know this as he claims?
I sustain President Thomas B. Monson and the rest of them as prophets, seers and revelators; especially since I am allowed to a degree to define what that means for myself. I do not sustain any of them as Gods nor Kings. Neither should any of you! As this becomes more widely understood via the Internet, perhaps our leadership will finally be forced to repent of this childish diabolical nonsense and turn whole-heartedly toward Christ, as was allegedly recommended by David O. McKay over half a century ago.
I promise to go back in my cave and keep my thoughts to myself and behave for awhile.
I think I agree with y’all close enough on this topic that if we sat down face-to-face we would be on the same page. Estimating number of converts: The LDS church only had 3 million members when I was in high school in 1970’s about a half a lifetime ago. Today we claim 15 million. My estimate that half the church are converts might be too low. More like 80% of the church is new converts and random pairing of marriage partners would lead to exclusion of 96% of parents. Retention of converts versus multigeneration members is drastically different and they do tend to marry each other. But for my half estimate to be high, that would imply single digit percent of retention of new converts. Did it ever occur to anyone that the exclusive judgmental attitude behind the temple exclusion also helps drive the poor retention?
I agree that violating the W of W for the first time in 30 years on the temple grounds was unusual. As far as switching the tables and being excluded by the Russian Orthodox church. I sort of would expect that from them (and I would expect that a small bribe of a snort of vodka would allow me to enter). But I expected a church indigenous to the USA with centuries of religious tolerance to do better than the Russians. At least we are not shooting down passenger planes flying over Utah. How would anyone feel about that? Not so bad the Russians do it, why not the Mormons.
I do agree that we in the South are better integrated racially than most other churches and that is a big plus. But we also set up every Black member for a faith crisis with our history. Retention is far less than if we had done a quicker (1950’s) and better (not wait 36 years to admit wrong doing) job of putting the racial past behind us. The extensive damage from excluding family from marriages continues to burn too many testimonies and faith.
My daughter had a music teacher in an mixed race marriage and they did not feel welcome in many churches. We broguht them to our ward and (aside from the horrible music) they found the Mormon people friendly and accepting. She wanted to do a week-long summer music camp using our building and initially was given permission by the bishop. But then he started reading the handbook and making more and more conditions that seemed to be unreasonable and eventually she moved the music camp to another church with the $300 fee. About 200 music students came to the week-long music camp. We felt so awful about what had happened that we paid the $300 fee to use the other church ourselves and took it out of our tithing. Needless to say the music teacher did not show further interest in the LDS church.
Not directly related, except that it is part of a pattern. Again we have a problem of central authority interfering with good works. Will that ever stop?
Ray: I am having trouble comprehending what you are saying.
I agree that policy should not be driven by extreme exceptions. But I do not see how what I relate is extreme. The details of my 2000+ word rant are extremely long and unique but so is every life situation. The number of exclusions in my case is high. But how is it acceptable to exclude just one person and extreme to exclude virtually everyone in both families using the same policies? What if the mother of the bride of an engaged couple both from near perfect families snitched a bit of coffee and is the only one excluded; how is that morally any different than what I describe?
I would also like to make an argument that exclusions of immediate family members from temple marriages are not rare, but quite common.
1. Over half of the church is first generation converts and conversions of whole families are rare. If all young people randomly pair then ¾ of these marriages the parents of one or both of the engaged couple would be excluded. Of course they don’t randomly pair off, new converts probably tend to marry other new converts, since many are concentrated in certain areas. But even so it might be as high church wide as 60%.
2. Tithing compliance is the most common reason a temple recommend is not given and it was published as late as the mid 20th century. It never exceeded 30% of the church membership. I seriously doubt it is any higher today. If most people don’t lie about it then we have the same percentages as above. About 25% of the parents of engaged couples pay tithing. And there are probably more random pairing across this variable. (Alternatively we have quite a few people lying about tithing to go to temple weddings and I suggest this is just as bad if not worse). Similar arguments could be made about other temple recommend deal-breaker laws of the church such as word of wisdom.
3. To the extend that converts are generally more zealous, we have independent sorting of both of the two factors above resulting in something clearly greater than 60 to 75% exclusion of parents. The only place these calculations do not hold true is in the small tight-knit communities in Mormon strong holds where social exclusion of nonmembers and inactive members is pretty much a cradle to grave process. Active children almost exclusively marry other active children and generally all parents go to the temple wedding. It is very easy to ignore the people outside the Mormon social circle in these places. And these places no longer make up the majority of the LDS church, not even close.
4. Simple calculations of determining how many siblings are excluded are much more difficult. There is a general trend of children following the behaviors of their parents and the results probably are similar and probably the same group of people are excluded. However, we also by policy also exclude all younger siblings of both genders who are under 18. We exclude most of the unmarried female siblings older than 18. This is because Mormon women do not participate in the temple until after their temple marriage, or are near hopelessly too old to marry. This is not a small group. For a sibling to attend a wedding they either have to be off their mission, or married. I will mention that participation of our boys in full-time missionary service is under 40% and so we exclude another chunk of siblings. That has got to add up to over half.
5. A person can go to Temple Square in Salt Lake on a spring or summer Saturday where perhaps a dozen or two temple marriages are performed. The waiting room of shame can be visited and excluded people counted. This can be compared to the number of people who leave the temple with the bride and groom. You only have to walk a few steps to count these two groups. You will find more people waiting outside the temple than coming outside of the temple. And this does not include those excluded who prefer to skip the painful waiting in the room of shame. And this where the church is strongest and has the highest portion of multigenerational members.
Here is an extreme situation. A girl grew up in my ward with 5 older brothers. She was hot, I would have probably sold my brother into slavery to date her at the time. I think 4 of her brothers went on missions and the 5th repented. All of them were married in the temple and this girl was excluded from all of these weddings. She went to BYU and somehow went off the rails there within a year. Next was UCLA and then bumming around Europe as a hippie. She came back to Utah when the cash ran out, or rather her parents quit supporting her decadent lifestyle. She lived with various guys and finally settled down with one of them.
She decided to get married at a nudist camp and the invitation she sent to all the straight arrow members of her former ward said: “All nude wedding. Clothing not allowed.” Some of the guys from the old gang went and claimed she gave them a hug and it was worth it. She managed to exclude her entire family as they had excluded her.
Does anyone esle see a similarity?
Steve; I guess you are right. I can’t do anything else except wait.
But I have a problem with that. I live in the South. About 20 or 30% of my stake is Black. The history of discrimination is one thing but the lateness of Mormons getting on board is quite another. Every Black person knows when the Civil Rights Act was passed, when MLK was shot, etc. 1978 is painfully too late. The recent admission that all the prophets from BY to HBL were simply wrong was supposed to mollify some of the anger. But it had quite the opposite effect in my ward. Although appreciated, it also reminded every Black member again what happened and re-opened old wounds. Maybe in another century this will not be an issue. Maybe. That is the price of waiting.
The progressive leaders in the church and many members could see as early as the 1950’s where the problems of racism were going. If we had managed to get this one right early, we would be a much stronger church here in the South. We might be as much as twice as strong as we are now. The waiting for 20 years did unacceptable damage.
