Primary program

I went to church today for the first time in months, because it was the primary program. I know the primary program is supposed to be cute and fun, and it certainly had that effect as I was making faces and waving at my own kids. But after a while, I just couldn't stand it anymore. I was glad that my 18-month old was acting up so I could take her out in the hallway.

As I sat in the pew today, I began to suspect that the primary program is the epitome of why I can't stand church. It wouldn't be so bad if most, or even some, of the kids went up and said things like, "I know I can be a good person by helping others." Or, "I can help my family by sharing my toys with my sister." Or, "When I mess up I know I can be forgiven." Or even, "Jesus told us to love everyone so I need to try to do that."

But did any of the kids say anything like that? Not hardly. Without a pause, four-year old after four-year old streamed up to the podium and announced things like, "I'm thankful we have a prophet we can follow, and his name is Thomas S. Monson." Or, "I know the prophet will never lead us astray." Or, "I know Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus, and Moroni helped him translate the Book of Mormon." Or, "I'm preparing to go on a mission." One six-year old had a black missionary nametag.

I've come to accept that this is standard fare, but come on. Far from uplifting, I find this extremely depressing. Can we ever let kids be kids? Do we really need to make every single one of them parrot doctrinal garbage when some of them are barely out of diapers? I don't like to think that my kids are being indoctrinated, and stuff like this primary program certainly doesn't ease my mind.

At least we ended the service by singing only two verses of "Praise to the Man". It could have been worse.

Why I don't go to church

It doesn't seem that long ago, but I guess it's been over six months now. I was giving church another shot, not as a believer but as a curious fringe participant. I was interested to see whether the LDS church could be an enjoyable place to socialize even without being a fully invested member of the in-group. You can probably guess how it went.

It goes without saying that I think the supernatural claims of the church lack credibility. I was not trying to make myself believe those claims, nor to pretend to anyone that I believed them. I wanted to see if I could ignore them and find other positive reasons to attend church. At first, I thought it might help to treat the supernatural claims as part of a fantasy epic like the Lord of the Rings, and treat the church like a dedicated book club. It's nice to discuss what we can learn from the fact that Bilbo was the only character to give up the ring voluntarily. Why couldn't discussions about Joseph Smith and the First Vision be the same?

That worked for a while. It was actually kind of fun to treat the entire experience as interactive fiction. But I found I could only go so far before it became very tedious. In a book club discussion, everyone recognizes the meta-reality of the situation and there is common understanding that the story didn't literally happen. You can step outside the walls of the story and take a look from the outside. But the stories at church are not like that, at least not in the LDS church. You don't get to say, "I find Joseph's story to be a good metaphor for the search for the divine within all of us." No, what you're supposed to learn is that God and Jesus are real, and that they are separate beings with ten fingers and ten toes. We're talking about literal truth here. At least that's what the manual says.

So the stories are mostly fiction but everyone treats them as real, and they're not pretending. Which is fine, I expected that. Mormons spend a high percentage of church time simply talking about the stories, and it's difficult for me to ignore being totally disconnected from reality for so long, but I tried. What I wanted to know was, would the remainder make up for it? At church, could I glean insights into my own life like I used to? Would I learn anything worth learning?

As a Christian in high school and college, I went to church because I felt it helped me become a better person. We often talked about compassion, love, and service, and I surrounded myself with others who were dedicated to these propositions. Don't get me wrong, there are many people in the LDS church who also value these things. But as the weeks passed, I began to see that we mostly weren't discussing how to be a good person. We were discussing how to be a good Mormon, which is something else entirely. And in many ways, for me, becoming a good Mormon would run directly counter to becoming a good person.

For example, one of the virtues I value most highly is empathy. I wish everyone could put themselves in someone else's shoes and see things from their point of view. I try to do that often, but not often enough, and I feel that improving at it would make me a better person. But at church we don't generally try to see things from other perspectives. If anything, another perspective might be raised only to show how it is wrong. Again, this stems from an inability to step away from our personal fictions into the meta-reality of the situation to view ourselves from outside.

There are many other examples that are just as fundamentally wrong, in my opinion. The characterization of LDS teachings as "pay, pray, obey" is not too far off, and I disagree with every item on that list. I feel that I need to give money and service to those in need, and to worthy causes that need support. The church teaches us to give money to the church, for them to use as they see fit, but only a small percentage of that goes to those who need it. I feel that I need to find the inner strength to overcome life's challenges and stretch myself to become a better person. The church teaches that we should let a supernatural being take care of the hard stuff, and sometimes even the easy stuff. I feel that I need to determine my values for myself, and that a bottom-up approach to problem solving, with many ideas from many perspectives, is likely to produce good solutions most of the time. The church teaches that they alone hold the authoritative keys to true doctrine and true morality, and that if you stray from their top-down edicts, you will suffer. And the list goes on.

So that's why I don't go to church. I don't believe the stories, and it doesn't help me become a better person. I disagree with much of what is taught, and there is no freedom to have meaningful discussion about why. I've said before that I like to find meaning in my life by contrast with my environment. But when contrast is all there is, it gets tiresome. My approach to life is so fundamentally different from many other people at church that sometimes it's difficult to relate to what anyone is saying. So I think I've finally admitted that church is not really for me. I haven't gone at all for several weeks, and I've probably attended only a handful of times in the last six months. It's nice to skip being irritated for three hours on a Sunday, but I also haven't found anything to replace it. I keep thinking I should, because despite my introversion I know I need social interaction. But so far, the status quo is okay.

Another boring Sunday. Why bother?

Yet another boring Sunday, sitting through three hours of church. Honestly, it's gotten to where "enduring to the end" means staying awake for all three hours. Is this supposed to be inspiring? Is this supposed to pump me up or "recharge the batteries" so I can go out and make the world a better place and myself a better person? I feel the drive from within myself to do those things, but most weeks it feels like church sucks the life out of me. I'm certainly not recharging anything by going there. I'm sure someone must be getting something positive from it, but that person is not me.

I commented to my wife this morning that I think Jesus would be pretty uncomfortable in our church. He doesn't seem like the white shirt and tie kind of guy. Of course, I said this after failing to get a haircut for a couple months, failing to shave in the past week, and throwing on a green collared shirt after rolling out of bed and taking the world's quickest shower. So I guess I was looking for someone to champion the cause of the bed-headed schlub. I still contend that Jesus has got my back on this one.

A lot of Sundays, I look around and wonder what in the world I'm doing at church. For the past year or so, I've been keeping a positive attitude about church and my own participation in it. In my own mind, my main reason for doing so has been because I enjoy the community and I like being at least a little bit social.

But lately I've been asking myself, is that really true? I can't think of anyone at church I'm particularly close to, and in fact I'm not sure anyone at church even likes me very much. I obviously don't fit in, I wear brightly colored shirts, and the only time I speak up is when I feel I have something worthwhile to say. Unfortunately, that means I rarely say anything because I'm not willing to answer questions like, "What is the definition of priesthood?" Questions like that have no relevance to my life, but the call and response routine is apparently what we have been reduced to. And whenever I do speak up, I usually get blank stares as if I had said the moon is made of cheese and I just had some for lunch. Stunned silence, thinking, "Okaaaaay..."

When I joined the church, I was looking forward to having interesting discussions about deep topics in Sunday school. I was accustomed to that in the Christian churches I previously attended. But in the LDS church, there is no such discussion. It's taken me ten years, but I've finally realized there can be no such discussion in this church because everyone thinks we already know all the answers. Question about the meaning of life? Reference the chart with three circles. Question about the nature of the divine? Reference the Joseph Smith testimony in the back of your book. Question about whether it's okay to wear flip flops to church? Reference last month's General Conference talk. Seriously, we have canned answers for everything.

Because I happened to have it on my iPod, today I also read Why the Church is as True as the Gospel, a Sunstone article by Eugene England from many years ago. He makes some valid points, and I can see what he's getting at, but overall I got the feeling that the church as he experienced it doesn't really exist anymore. The church doesn't stretch me to prove contraries or help me to grow my love for others through service to needy people. It simply annoys me, week after week, as I silently listen to bold proclamations of things I find disagreeable, unsupportable, or factually incorrect.

Some people stay because it's their family, it's their tribe, it's where they feel comfortable, or whatever. I understand that, and that can be a valid motivation. But I've never felt that way about Mormonism myself, even as a believer. For my entire life since high school, I have regularly attended various churches on my own, because I wanted to be challenged and stretched. I have wanted what Eugene England wrote that we should experience in the LDS church, a deeper experience of meaning through struggling to make peace with opposition in all things.

In fact, I would say that's one of the main reasons I still attend the LDS church at all; because I tend to define my own ideas by contrasting them with other ideas that are not mine. "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." I sharpen my ideas by testing them in the marketplace and keeping the best ones, and for a long time as a Christian, I found that church was a good place for me to do that. So somehow I still try to do it in the LDS church. But you know, after a while being constantly beaten down with iron gets tiresome. I'm not experiencing both truths on either side of a paradox. I'm experiencing one truth, running unopposed, and I'm not sure how long I can stand it.

So what's the point? I guess I need to branch out socially. Visit other communities, go to more skeptics meetings, volunteer my time actually doing something useful. It's hard to find the time, but that's not a great excuse. Whatever I'm looking for, I'm apparently not finding it here, and I need to expand the horizons.

We each have our reasons for staying or leaving

(Cross-posted at Main Street Plaza.)

I posted this elsewhere not too long ago, and it seemed to get positive feedback, so I thought I would share this experience here and get your thoughts about it.

During a conversation with my wife in the car after meeting some fantastic believing/disaffected couples for dinner last week, I realized something that has somehow completely eluded me until now. My wife and I approach the church very differently because it has fulfilled completely different needs for each of us.

I joined the church as an adult convert ten years ago. Previous to that, I had many deeply spiritual experiences as a Christian, but not in the LDS church. I did not join the LDS church because I felt anything special, or because I felt it met any particular spiritual or emotional need I had. If anything, I found the LDS style of worship definitely lacking in the profound spiritual feelings department.

Instead, I joined the LDS church because, based on my investigation, I believed it was true. Many of the beliefs made a lot of sense to me, and as I read much of the material that has been written about the LDS church, both pro and con, I believed I had found something that fulfilled prophecy and had the true gospel. Or at least something as close to such a thing as I was likely to find.

Consequently, as I have reexamined my assumptions and my beliefs over the past few years, I found it easy to disconnect from the church emotionally once I no longer believed in it intellectually. After all, I did not join for the emotional, spiritual, or social aspects of the church. I joined the LDS church because it made sense. Once it no longer made sense, I had no reason to hold onto it, and I let go almost immediately.

My wife, on the other hand, still enjoys being a part of the community and enjoys the good feelings she experiences when she goes to church. As she has learned more about the historical or doctrinal problems in the church, I have sometimes been confused as to why many things don’t seem to bother her as much as they bother me.

But last week I realized that she did not join or stay in the church primarily for intellectual reasons. It doesn’t matter as much to her whether everything makes sense in a rational way, or whether there are problems with the history or doctrine. Those are not her reasons for being there. She feels spiritually connected in the LDS church, in the same way I felt as a Christian before I joined it. That’s why I look back on those times with fondness, and that’s why she stays in the LDS church today. Whether it’s true or not has little bearing on that.

I think a lot of us disaffected folks approach the church in the same way I’ve described my own approach. We see it as failing the test of truth, and therefore try to distance ourselves from it. That’s certainly a valid way of dealing with it. But I realized that there are other reasons people might reasonably choose to stay despite the problems, and I think that’s fine too. After all, I think just about everyone needs something spiritually fulfilling (note I did not say religious or supernatural). While I personally do not find that in the LDS church, and I never have, some people do. And that’s why my wife probably will never have the same problems with the church that I do, and that’s okay.

Now if only we could get the warm fuzzies without the authoritarianism, life would be golden!

Colbert - Mormon Church Trespassing

This Colbert clip is fantastic, as always. It's about the two guys who were arrested for criminal trespassing on Main Street Plaza, and not at all because they are gay. In case there was any doubt about that, hear the money quote: "I am absolutely not a professor of sticking it to the gays."

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Mormon Church Trespassing
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Nailed 'Em - Mormon Church Trespassing

Dallin H. Oaks is wrong again

It can be frustrating when the LDS church always insists on framing itself as the innocent victim, even when they are actively seeking to oppress others. They seem very interested in speaking out of both sides of their mouth in the past few weeks, first with Bruce C. Hafen's anachronistic address on the evils of homosexuality and now with Dallin H. Oaks's recent statements about religious freedom, in which he compares the LDS church to oppressed black people in the 1960s. (No, I'm not kidding.) I read the address from Oaks in its entirety, so I understand his statements in context. Here are my responses to Oaks's five points of counsel concerning religious freedom.

First, we must speak with love, always showing patience, understanding and compassion toward our adversaries. We are under command to love our neighbor (Luke 10:27), to forgive all men (Doctrine and Covenants 64:10), to do good to them who despitefully use us (Matthew 5:44) and to conduct our teaching in mildness and meekness (Doctrine and Covenants 38:41).

Yes, please. I'm on board. After all these press releases and the recent General Conference addresses attacking everyone from gays to unbelievers to parents who teach their children to think for themselves, I would love to see a little more mildness and meekness.

Second, we must not be deterred or coerced into silence . . . We must also insist on this companion condition of democratic government: when churches and their members or any other group act or speak out on public issues, win or lose, they have a right to expect freedom from retaliation.

I completely agree with this. However, what Oaks and his ilk seem to want is not freedom from retaliation, but freedom from opposition. That is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution. There is nothing illegal or immoral about boycotting the businesses of those who contribute money to causes you disagree with. There is nothing illegal or immoral about denouncing bigotry broadly and loudly. Oaks did get one thing right, though: vandalism is wrong. Vandals deserve to be prosecuted and punished under the law.

This next statement seems to be the one that has gotten everyone riled up:

It is important to note that while this aggressive intimidation in connection with the Proposition 8 election was primarily directed at religious persons and symbols, it was not anti-religious as such. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation.

Okay, in the context of his argument, the point would be technically valid if religious voters were actually intimidated against voting on Proposition 8. However, I haven't seen any evidence of this. All the "retaliation" he cited happened after the election, and most of it was not intimidation but simply free speech.

While I think I understand why he said it, I'm frankly amazed that he chose the "blacks in the South" analogy, and that he stuck by it when pressed. It's a very, very bad analogy for several reasons.

First, if any group is being deprived of its civil rights analogous to blacks in the 1960s, it is certainly not the LDS church. It is the gay people who are being denied the right to marry. Duh. I mean, mega-duh.

Second, as I said, it's not clear that anyone was actually intimidated against voting in the Proposition 8 contest. People didn't just boycott black businesses in the '60s. Call me when Prop 8 opponents start lynching and turning the fire hose on Mormons on their way to the voting booth.

Third, the LDS church actively discriminated against black members until 1978, at least a full decade after the rest of the country got with the program. LDS church leaders have made many extremely racist remarks in their official capacities as officers of the church. Most notably, Brigham Young spent three decades preaching racism and hatred from the pulpit, including the doctrine that "if the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." Considering the circumstances, Oaks's comparison of the LDS church to blacks struggling for civil rights is thoughtless and offensive.

Just because you have a persecution complex doesn't give you the right to compare yourself to every group that has ever been oppressed. Especially when you yourself were the oppressor then, and you are still the oppressor now. Come on now.

Third, we must insist on our freedom to preach the doctrines of our faith.

No problems here. Freedom of religion entails the freedom to preach bigotry. Freedom of religion does not entail the freedom to enact bigotry into law simply by virtue of its religious nature. However, all people, religious or otherwise, have the right to vote as they please.

Fourth, as advocates of the obvious truth that persons with religious positions or motivations have the right to express their religious views in public, we must nevertheless be wise in our political participation. . . . religious persons will often be most persuasive in political discourse by framing arguments and positions in ways that are respectful of those who do not share their religious beliefs and that contribute to the reasoned discussion and compromise that is essential in a pluralistic society.

Excellent. I assume this means the church is retracting the false assertions it advertised widely during the Proposition 8 campaign: that churches will be forced to perform gay marriages, that schools will be forced to teach young children about gay sex, that private adoption agencies will be forced to give children to gay couples, etc. Not to mention the biggest, most ridiculous lie of all: that gay marriage somehow takes away the rights of heterosexual people. Spreading lies about your opponents seems less than respectful.

Fifth and finally, Latter-day Saints must be careful never to support or act upon the idea that a person must subscribe to some particular set of religious beliefs in order to qualify for a public office. The framers of our constitution included a provision that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” (Article VI). That constitutional principle forbids a religious test as a legal requirement, but it of course leaves citizens free to cast their votes on the basis of any preference they choose. But wise religious leaders and members will never advocate religious tests for public office.

Top-notch advice. This is in contrast to Rick Warren's statement, for example, that he "could not vote for an atheist", and the 2007 Gallup poll where 53% of respondents said they would not vote for an atheist presidential candidate. As a likely result of these kinds of attitudes, the number of Congresspersons who listed their religion as "unaffiliated" in a 2009 Pew Forum survey is exactly... zero. In fact, according to the survey, "In 2007, Representative Pete Stark (D-Calif.), a Unitarian who joined Congress in 1973, became the first and so far only member of Congress to publicly declare that he does not believe in a Supreme Being."

Far from "persons with religious-based points of view [being intimidated] from influencing or making the laws of their state or nation," as Oaks would have you believe, the current situation is the exact opposite. Lack of religious belief is political suicide. But it shouldn't have to be.

For the most part, I agree with many of the principles Oaks outlined. My main beef is that I don't believe the LDS church generally follows its own advice in this regard. And the comparison to "blacks in the South" was completely unjustified and ridiculous. I understand that playing the victim is a cherished LDS tradition, but sometimes you need to own up to your actions. Dallin H. Oaks, you're truly not the victim here.

General Conference impressions

I don't know why I keep putting myself through this. We spent the day at my in-laws' house, and of course they watched both two-hour sessions of the LDS General Conference on TV. I decided to pay attention, because even if I disagree with much of what is said, every once in a while someone will say something interesting.

The morning session was okay. I don't remember much except Eyring explicitly emphasizing that you and every member of your family need to be "worthy" if you want to be with your family in heaven. This strikes me as a particularly nasty mafia tactic. Awfully nice family ya got there; it would be a shame if anything happened to it. Every other religion that comes to mind already believes that you will be reunited with family after death. Only the Mormons make it conditional.

The afternoon session was much worse. Holland went off on a tirade about how Joseph Smith's miraculous story of the golden plates is the only possible explanation for the Book of Mormon, and that all other explanations are "silly theories" and "pathetic answers". Anyone who doesn't believe this story is "foolish" and "misled", and must... well, actually, I'll let you read the words for yourself.

[T]ell me whether in this hour of death [Joseph and Hyrum] would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as impostors and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

For one hundred and seventy-nine years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed, often silly theories about its origins have been born, parroted and died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spalding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for the book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather who said simply enough, ‘No wicked man could write such a book as this, and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.’

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort for our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that's the case then such persons, elect or otherwise, have been deceived and, if they leave this Church, they must do so by crawling over or around or under the Book of Mormon to make their exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be ‘a stone of stumbling,… a rock of offence,’ a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe.

First, every religion has its martyrs. Joseph and Hyrum Smith did not go meekly to the slaughter, but died in a gunfight while incarcerated on charges of destroying a printing press that was being used to expose Joseph's polygamy and aspirations to set himself up as a king. All of this is well documented, and completely irrelevant to whether the Book of Mormon has divine origins. My point is that Joseph Smith did not choose to "die rather than deny". He was violently killed by a mob after continually provoking those outside his Latter Day Saint movement.

For the record, my personal assessment is that Joseph Smith probably did not consider himself an "impostor and a charlatan", but was a devout Christian and believed that the Book of Mormon would bring more people to faith in Christ. The Book of Mormon is like Christian fan fiction, except it desperately wants to be part of the canon. Joseph may have even felt "divinely inspired" while dictating the story from a rock in a hat. But I tend to think he knew on some level that he wasn't, which explains the extremely lame excuse for the lost 116 pages. Anyway, all of this is armchair psychology, and also irrelevant.

Here is what is relevant. Any of the explanations mentioned by Holland (Ethan Smith, Solomon Spalding), as well as the null hypothesis that Joseph Smith simply wrote the Book of Mormon himself, are much more plausible and better evidenced than Joseph Smith's miraculous story of angels, golden plates, seer stones, and a "Reformed Egyptian" language no one has ever seen before or since. This explanation is supported only by the testimony of Joseph's friends and family, who claimed they saw the plates "with the eyes of their understanding". Nearly everything that is falsifiable about this explanation has been falsified. If you're going to call unbelievers foolish for disbelieving the paranormal story that is contradicted by evidence, you're going to need to come up with some damn good reasons why this story is more likely than the null hypothesis.

Holland made a brief allusion to such an alleged reason when referring to "Semitic complexity", which I must believe refers to chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. The problem is that chiasmus also exists in James Strang's Book of the Law of the Lord, the INFORMIX-OnLine Database Administrator's Guide, and even, according to LDS apologists themselves, in "random" (unintentional) places in the Book of Mormon. The human brain is extremely adept at finding patterns where none exist, especially when one is looking for the pattern in the first place. The presence of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is evidence of its ancient origin just as the presence of the word adieu is evidence of its French origin. In other words, it's not.

Also, how do I account for the fact that the Book of Mormon has had a profound spiritual impact on millions of people? The same way I account for the fact that billions of people believe the Pope speaks for God. The same way I account for the fact that billions of people have been profoundly spiritually impacted by the Qur'an. Excuse me, I think misspelled a word. I said billions, but I meant to say BILLIONS. The only way Mormonism can win the numbers game is not to play. Oh yeah, and I should mention that the numbers game is, of course, irrelevant. Millions of Hindus can't be wrong either.

The point of Holland's talk seems to have been polarization. I believe his talk will strengthen believers while also pissing off and alienating unbelievers. Is this what we really need? Is it useful somehow? I can understand his frustration with the increasing numbers of Mormons leaving the church lately, but launching into a rant about how stupid you must be not to believe in the obvious truth seems like a bad long-term strategy. If the church wants a small group of fundamentalist fanatics, they should continue to make inflexible, literal-minded speeches like this one. If they want a large group of believers of various level of orthodoxy, they will need to be a little more tolerant.

Before this talk, I actually considered Holland to be one of the more understanding and compassionate members of the Q12. From what I've read, and the talks I've heard from his own mouth, I believed he had a bit of insight into the mind of an unbeliever, or at least a bit of empathy for anyone who has tried to believe but simply cannot. I am greatly disappointed in him. I don't know why I keep expecting people, religious leaders even, to be rational rather than polemic. I'm starting to realize that such a hope is completely naive. People simply do not change, and religion gives them the perfect excuse.

So to sum up. Is the Book of Mormon a stumbling block, something that must necessarily trip me up in my irrational desire not to believe? Hardly. As an unbeliever, must I hopelessly crawl through the muck, always to curse God and never to find true happiness? Not really. Is it going to be easy to continue dealing with the personal attacks and vilification from the octogenarians with chips on their shoulders and heads up their asses? Apparently not. I really have to get better at tuning this crap out.

General Conference predictions

(Cross-posted at Main Street Plaza.)

Back in the days when I paid attention to LDS General Conference, I always attended the priesthood session with my wife's father and brother. I enjoyed the tradition of returning to report some fantastic fictional revelation to my wife and her mother. I call this a tradition because I did it every time, but I was the only one who ever did.

When I returned from the priesthood session in October 2000, shortly after I was baptized, I reported that President Hinckley had a revelation that all worthy women should be allowed to receive the Aaronic Priesthood, beginning on the next Sunday. They were flabbergasted and asked if that was really true. "No," I said. "But he did say you're supposed to wear only one pair of earrings."

I think the reason I did this is because I longed for true revelation. Something that could make a real difference. Even as a new convert, I recognized that no longer do Prophets Of God boldly proclaim Revelations From The Lord about the Very Nature Of God And Humanity. These days, "thus saith the Lord" has been replaced with "thus saith the manual", and dress codes and style guides pass for revelation.

I've forgotten most of the fake revelations I came up with over the years, but every once in a while, I still wonder what kinds of "revelations" from the LDS church leadership I would actually be impressed with. Here are some things I would love to hear. They may be implausible, but hopefully not totally out of the realm of possibility.

- All members will be afforded the same opportunities regardless of genitalia, social standing, business background, or sexual preference.

- The church's finances will be made public again, as they were before 1959, so everyone can confirm the incredible charitable work that has been done with members' donations. And for the next month, all donations will be given to those in the Philippines who desperately need it.

- Members are encouraged to express concern or dissent with the church's policy or actions, because that is a necessary part of a healthy community. Church leadership will seriously consider members' feedback instead of excommunicating them.

- The Word of Wisdom means what it says. Don't scald your throat with hot chocolate and don't eat three Big Macs in one sitting. Beer is okay, as are tea and caffeinated drinks. Better yet, disregard the Word of Wisdom entirely and follow the recommendations of your physician instead.

- Members are encouraged to examine church history from all perspectives, thinking critically about the evidence for the church's claims and trying to be as objective as possible in reaching their own conclusions.

- Previous revelation states fairly clearly that a proper tithe is 10% of one's surplus. Especially in these difficult times, this interpretation is emphasized, without any subtle implications that you should pay 10% of gross income instead.

- An earthquake of epic proportions will hit the Salt Lake Valley on March 22, 2010. Everyone pack up your handcarts. We're heading to Missouri.

Okay, maybe it's too much to hope for. Sadly, I think the chance of any of these revelations is nearly zero. Almost any of them would be a good start in making the world a better place. Instead, what we will hear from the prophets, seers, and revelators is probably more like this.

- Obedience is the first law of heaven. But don't just obey any old person. Obey the prophet. He says exactly what God would say if God could talk.

- Tithing is the first law of heaven. We won't come right out and say how much you should give. Just give as much as you possibly can, or preferably even more. It would sure be a shame to miss out on all those blessings, wouldn't it?

- Speaking of money, we're building a dozen new temples. That's called faithful stewardship, and it's certainly not a wasted opportunity.

- For God's sake would you please stop sending your kids to church in skirts and flip flops! How many times do we have to say this?! The Lord is displeased!

- Pornography is bad. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind bogglingly bad it is. By the way, you can find lots of it very easily on the Internet. But don't look at it. Don't even think about it. In fact, don't even think about trying not to look at it. We shouldn't even be talking about it right now. But we can't stop talking about it. That's how bad it is!

- I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that this is the true church of Jesus Christ on the earth today. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet. We love our dear prophet so much. We are unworthy to kiss his feet, or even to unloose his oxfords. May the Lord bless him with good health, and long life, and lots of sweet widow stories forever and ever. Oh yeah, and nameofjesuschristamen.

What would you love to hear in General Conference? Got any predictions of your own?

Hey preacher, leave those kids alone!

(Cross-posted at Main Street Plaza.)

I have a 6-year old daughter, and one issue that will start coming up soon is baptism. It’s not the actual baptism that bothers me; I basically see it as a rite of passage. I think eight years old is far too young to decide to join a religion, but if my daughter wants to do it, that’s great. What makes me most uncomfortable is the prospect of interviews with the bishop.

Interviews make me uncomfortable for several reasons. First, I’m not thrilled about a relative stranger probing for private, personal details of my children’s lives, especially without her parents in the room. I’m not okay with the church acting in loco parentis when the parentis is already loco. Second, the church ostensibly teaches a concept of Jesus Christ as a mediator between us and God. However, in my experience, the institution itself likes to usurp that place, and interviews are a powerful way to do that. Third, most of the shortcomings one is asked to confess are not really shortcomings. The bishop asks questions to determine whether you are a good Mormon, not whether you are a good person. And finally, the horror stories. Oh, the horror stories.

Our bishop seems like a good guy, but I’ve heard the stories many times, from people I know. The perverted bishop who pried for details about a young girl’s level of intimacy with her boyfriend. The girl who had no idea what oral sex was until the bishop described it in detail. God forbid, the actual sexual abuse that occasionally shows up on the evening news. I’m sure that most interviews are not like this, probably not even close. But you never know when it will happen. In a private room with a closed door, with a young girl who believes the bishop speaks with the authority of God, inappropriate things will sometimes happen. And as the parent of a daughter, it worries me.

Strangely, I’m not as worried about my younger sons, at least not as far as the inappropriate questions and behavior. Maybe that’s because they’re not old enough to be interviewed yet. Or maybe it’s because almost every horror story I’ve heard happened to a girl.

I see value in the act of confession, whether it be to another person or simply in your own private reflections or prayers. It can help us become better people by identifying our shortcomings, but only if we define a plan of action for overcoming those faults and improving our lives. I think it’s interesting that in the Catholic church, you are given the choice to speak with the priest face-to-face, or to keep your confession (theoretically) anonymous. I can see how anonymity could help you feel that you are confessing to God, not just to the guy across the desk. I can’t ever see the LDS church moving toward anonymous confessions, because the point of the interview is to identify a connection between your identity and your status vis-à-vis the church. I think the interview is meant to strengthen one’s loyalty to the institution, not one’s penitence before God.

On a related note, has anyone noticed that the LDS church has gone a little interview crazy lately? Tithing settlement, temple recommends, PPIs, and you had to get a special recommend to attend the recent temple dedications in the Salt Lake Valley, for crying out loud. This screams of control tactics to me. I don’t remember Jesus grilling his apostles about masturbation. He usually just said, “Come, follow me.”

Anyway, I’m not sure of the best course of action. I think all the potential problems may be alleviated by insisting that my children not be interviewed unless one of their parents is present in the room. It still doesn’t thrill me, but at least I may retain a modicum of control over the situation. If my child feels less inclined to divulge personal secrets that way, so much the better. It's none of their business anyway.

Do you have any interview stories of your own? Do any of you have kids that have been through interviews? How did you feel about it? How did you handle it?

Good week at church today

Most weeks for me at church are really irritating, but this week was actually pretty awesome. I think it started last night as I was dreaming about (not really dreaming, more like my brain was trying to work out) how I could be more active and part of the church community even as total unbeliever. I'm not sure I want to commit to anything regular, like - heaven forbid - a calling. But I like some of the people at church and I could probably stand to be more social.

So I approached the day with a positive attitude. My wife got a migraine just before we were about to leave the house, and I surprised her when I said I would take the kids to church by myself. Not for all three hours; I'm not that crazy. But long enough for my wife to take a nap.

The Elders Quorum lesson was about profanity. The instructor is one of my favorite people at church, because he always has an entertaining way of saying things. He took an interesting approach wherein he alternately would write "fake" swear words on the board, but then refused to say "Dios" out of respect, even though he said the word in English when he asked, "What's the Spanish word for God?" I volunteered "cheese and rice" as fake swear words. He didn't get it, and I didn't explain it.

I brought up the recent study showing that using actual swear words can alleviate pain in physically painful situations, and the instructor said that you could probably find a study to support any position. He mentioned conflicting studies about the benefits of wine, and said we should take those kinds of studies with a grain of salt. The guy next to me and I looked at each other immediately. He said, "Salty wine?" I said, "Maybe with a margarita, but not with wine, ugh!"

The instructor then proceeded to cite a few scientific studies as part of his lesson. For some reason I can't remember which studies they were, but they were good ones. I thought the irony was kind of funny, but then again, I was amusing myself throughout the whole lesson. Other people piped up and talked about how the most offensive part of profanity was the (sometimes) hurtful intent behind it, not necessarily the words themselves. Not everyone was convinced.

After the lesson, one guy came up to me in the hallway and said he had read about the same study I cited. We got talking, and I was surprised that we agreed about nearly everything regarding profanity, even down to the idea that words truly have no meaning except the meaning we give them. It was perhaps the coolest conversation I've ever had in church.

The Sunday School lesson was about "celestial marriage", and I was prepared to bite my tongue hard when the instructor started reading from D&C 132. But instead, it turned into a discussion about nice things we can do for our spouses to show them we love them. I enjoyed the conversation so much, I even stopped reading my book! In fact, I was in such a good mood by the end, I even said the closing prayer when I was called on spontaneously to say it. Most weeks I either would have declined, or seated myself farther back to begin with.

Anyway, as long as I'm going to church, and I don't see that ending anytime soon, I think having a positive attitude helps a lot. I'm going to try to do that more often, and to look for ways to interact that don't require me to share everyone else's beliefs. I'm not sure what exactly that means, but it was a good day and I'm feeling encouraged.

Notes from the Richard Dutcher talk

I attended a talk by Richard Dutcher this past Sunday at a local Unitarian church. It was totally worth it. I took copious notes, which I have synthesized below. Be warned, it's long! But for those of you who aren't interested in reading all the details, here's a 64-word synopsis of the main message I took away. This may not have been the message Richard intended to convey, but it's what struck me most powerfully.

The search for truth will necessarily lead you down paths you never could have expected. In this search, a real artist must be willing to open the doors that he is afraid to open. In doing so, he will discover more about himself and about ultimate reality than he could have thought possible. It is a difficult journey, but the only journey worth making.

That's Richard Dutcher looking sophisticated and me looking goofy. Here are my notes from the talk. Everything in boldface is a direct quote; everything else is my own words.

Richard started out by asking whether anyone had ever had the experience of preparing a talk, only to discover two minutes beforehand that you don't actually like it. This happened to him, so he delivered page one of the "old talk" (that part wasn't so bad, in his opinion) and then decided to wing it.

In an email to an LDS friend, Richard encouraged him to attend this talk, saying, This historic speech will rock the very foundation of civilization and will be known as the turning point in the evolution of human spirituality. But apparently the friend had to babysit in primary instead.

The first movie Richard ever saw was The Cowboys, starring John Wayne, at age 7 or so. The reason he didn't see any movies before then was because he was raised Pentecostal and it wasn't allowed. TV was okay for some reason. When his mother married his stepfather, a Mormon, he discovered that Mormons were allowed to watch movies. A great benefit! He fell in love with movies and watched everything he possibly could.

An embarrassing moment, trying to get in to see The Exorcist while underage. The cashier asked, "Do you have ID?" Richard responded that he had forgotten it. The cashier grabbed his wallet, which Richard had set down, and Richard said, "Oh, there's one!" One of the most embarrassing things he's ever said.

The Holy Ghost was far better behaved in the Mormon church than in the Pentecostal church. Also, the story of Joseph Smith's martyrdom was the coolest story ever. They took him to jail, then they shot him, then he fell out a window, then they shot him some more. What a story!

Deciding whether to go on a mission, Richard really wanted to head to Hollywood instead. No one could convince him otherwise. Then he saw Return of the Jedi. He had a change of heart and decided that going on a mission was the right thing to do. It's all George Lucas's fault. (Incidentally, this reminded me of my own experience when I saw God's Army, which I mentioned to Richard later. I guess I can say it's all Richard Dutcher's fault I joined the LDS church.)

He almost made it two whole years on a mission in Mexico without seeing a movie. But he couldn't hold out, and went to see Splash. It was like giving a bowl of soup to a man who hasn't eaten for a week. He thought it was an outstanding movie that should be nominated for every award in the book. He convinced his companion to go see Police Academy after that, but 30 minutes into it, the companion was convinced Satan was in the theater, so they had to leave. If I ever meet Satan, I'm going to ask him how it ended.

After the mission, Richard went to Hollywood and spent some time writing vampire stories and other stuff that didn't make it big. His first movie Girl Crazy was where he learned filmmaking, and it took five years of his life, but the movie itself had no lasting importance. He wanted to make movies that would tell his story, say something important, something to be proud of.

When someone once asked a famous writer, "What do you think about X?" the writer responded, "I don't know, I haven't written about it yet." They all say "write what you know" but what we know is boring to us. So we avoid it, but we can't get by just writing vampire stories. Richard realized that no one had made a movie about what it's like to be a Mormon missionary, and that was his story.

He wrote about ten revisions of God's Army, and found himself weeping at times because it opened up thoughts and feelings that he didn't realize were unprocessed. His wife reviewed it and said, "It's good, but there's not enough of you in it." Finally, he decided to make the story his own and no one else's. I don't care if President Hinckley likes this movie.

At Q&A sessions, everyone always asked, "What does the church think about the movie?" He never knew how to respond until once he said, I don't know... you're the church; what do you think? Elder Haight's wife was in the audience and applauded his answer. So that was how he answered that question from then on.

He thought for sure he would get in trouble for the scene in which a missionary is reading "anti-Mormon" stuff and says, "What if they all know it's a lie? Damn them to hell!" But no one made a peep about that scene. They were all upset at the scene where a missionary is on the toilet. Apparently missionaries do not go to the bathroom. But I was a missionary, and I knew different!

Suddenly Richard was being compared to Ozu, Tarkovsky, Bresson; and he had never heard of them. He started exploring Tarkovsky's idea that film is its own language. It's not theater, not music, not photography. What is its nature? It's perhaps the medium where you can come closest to seeing the soul of the filmmaker. He doesn't particularly like Tarantino movies, because those movies show no soul.

He carries around a piece of paper with about 30 good ideas for stories that fascinate him. Subjects that interest him but he hasn't figured out yet. I probably shouldn't tell you guys this, but he is currently working on a project dealing with the prostitution problem in 1908 in Salt Lake City. Murders, how the culture responded to the problem, etc. Fascinating stuff.

Normally when Richard makes a movie, he loves to see a packed house. After the premiere of Falling, though, there was something so intensely personal about it that he had a strong impulse to go up to the projection room, take the film away and never show it to anyone again. It's like baring your soul for the world to see. If people don't like his other movies, that's no problem. But if they don't like this movie, they don't like me.

My notes get much more fragmented at this point. I think this is when the Q&A period began. The first question was about how Mormonism has shaped his storytelling, and Richard said that just after he finished up his talk, he realized he hadn't really touched on his journey through Mormonism at all!

No other art form besides film has such an ability to express a human soul. Art can transcend the specifics that normally prevent communication. Barriers of time and place. One person two hundred years ago in Africa can speak directly to someone right here, right now.

There's no arriving. When I made God's Army, I thought I had arrived. And I was so wrong.

Directors he would recommend: Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, John Cassavetes.

I don't say I lost my faith. I say I lost my belief.

These virtues that religions coopt don't belong to them. They belong to humanity. Things like love, kindness, honesty, etc. They were not invented by religion and they are not exclusive to religion.

His spiritual journey has taught him to have humility about his own beliefs. He is no longer adamant that his own point of view is the correct one. I was so very wrong and so very sure.

It is very difficult to change one's beliefs, and it took a long time to deal with it. Who did this to me? Or did I do it to myself? He had a transcendent experience looking up at the Lincoln Memorial.

About whether the Joseph Smith story is on the list of ideas for stories he still wants to tell: Yes, I have to tell it. That's unfinished business. But you won't know about it until it's done. Someone interjected, "Which version?" Richard responded, "My version."

Why do Mormons struggle with creating good movies? Richard suspects that Mormons struggle because a real artist is searching for truth, and that will necessarily lead them out of Mormonism. There are some doors that dare not be opened. But as an artist, you need to go through those doors.

He told a Buddhist parable he recently read, about a man who was journeying through a forest and came to a wide river. He constructed a boat, which allowed him to cross safely. Once he reached the other side, he was faced with a choice. He was grateful for the boat because it had helped him on his journey. Should he therefore pick up the boat and carry it with him on his back? Or could he instead simply express his gratitude and move on? For Richard, Mormonism is like the boat. It helped him when he needed it, and he is grateful. But he has said goodbye and moved on.

I think this might be where I raised my hand and asked my own question. I started by saying that God's Army was my Return of the Jedi, and that it helped me decide that I should join the LDS church. I quickly followed up with, "But don't feel bad about that!" and everyone laughed. I asked Richard whether it has been difficult to deal with friends and family who are still believers, and how he deals with it. Then I quickly sat down, because although I don't normally get nervous when speaking, even in front of large groups of people, I realized that for some reason I was starting to shake violently.

I didn't hear much of Richard's answer, because I was too busy thinking about how weird it was that I was so nervous. But I think he said that it's not too much of a problem dealing with LDS friends because most of them don't want to talk to him at all. I think he said he tends not to talk religion with them, and if they want to know more about what he thinks about that, they can read about it in the paper.

Films with plenty of spirituality: Blue Angel, The Bicycle Thief, It's a Wonderful Life, To Live by Ozu. Trying to think of a modern example. The best he could come up with was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I wish someone would ask me a question like, "How does it feel to kill a person on-screen?" What about when the death is implied, off-screen? How does it feel? This is a very important kind of question to ask.

Richard thinks that when people see Evil Angel, they may think it contradicts what he's saying in this talk, but it doesn't. In filmmaking, one is always trying to come to greater understanding; what you are continually creating is yourself. Experiment! If there are brushes in your box that you "shouldn't use", then you should definitely use them! You will learn. Either you will learn why you shouldn't have used them and will never use them again, or you will learn that the people who told you not to use them were full of crap. Either way, you have learned something valuable.

So that's the synopsis. I apologize for the disjointedness of it. It's the best I could do in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute. Oh yeah, and after I left, I realized that although I went up and shook Richard Dutcher's hand after the talk was done, I never properly introduced myself. Richard, if you ever read this, my name is Mike. It was nice to meet you.

Richard Dutcher at the Summer Forum 2009 at First Unitarian church

This coming Sunday, August 9, Richard Dutcher will be speaking at the Summer Forum 2009 at First Unitarian church. That's the awesome-looking church up by the University of Utah, near the corner of 1300 East and 500 South. The talk begins at 10:00am and will last about an hour and a half. Anyone interested in going? I'm definitely planning to be there.

Richard Dutcher is a talented filmmaker who basically started the "Mormon cinema" genre with his film God's Army in 2000. Interestingly, that film played a fairly significant role in my decision to join the LDS church as a 22-year old convert. That's a story for another time; I plan to post more about my complicated religious journey fairly soon. But I vividly remember sitting in the theater with my wife and her family, thinking, "You know this is true. You know this is true." That was the closest thing I ever got to an answer to Moroni's promise. Apparently it was good enough for me at the time.

Anyway, Dutcher has since left the LDS church, as he stated in an open letter published in 2007. It seems that many of the questions he raised in his films led him to unexpected answers, and "a spiritual path which may ultimately prove incompatible with Mormon orthodoxy". Because his talk on Sunday is entitled "A Spiritual Journey Through Film", he will probably be talking about his experiences of the past several years, and I'm very interested to hear what he has to say. I would guess he's traveling along a similar path to many others who have left or are leaving the LDS church. Which is to say, he must have been offended and left because he wanted to sin. Right? Right?

If you're interested in attending, post a comment, or send me a private note, or just show up. Try to find me if you like. I'll be the one wearing clothes. Hope to see you there.

Skipping church... again

My wife enjoys going to church each week, so I usually go as well, because I love her and want to support her. Also, one adult trying to wrangle three kids aged 6 and under, keeping them quiet for a 75-minute sacrament meeting, qualifies as one of the worst babysitting jobs in the world. I don't want to leave my wife alone to face that cruel task, so I usually go to church.

Lately, though, I've been finding my church experience, especially the first two hours (Elders Quorum and Sunday school), to be more annoying than it's worth. So I've been skipping the first two hours more and more often. At this very moment, in fact, Elders Quorum is being dismissed and Sunday school is about to begin. I am sitting at my desk in the basement of my house. All is quiet. Out the window, I can see clouds, sky, and grass. I am content.

Whenever I attend church, I find myself disagreeing with almost everything that is said. That is pretty amazing in itself, as I am not a particularly disagreeable person. Since it would be somewhat impolite to vocally express disagreement with everything that is said every week, I usually scribble my thoughts furiously on index cards so that my head doesn't explode. I don't mind being in a setting where I disagree with those around me, but I've started to decide that I'm not going to put myself through it week after week without a damn good reason. Masochism has its limits.

I would probably find more to agree with if every week weren't a Joseph Smith lovefest. Last week's Elder's Quorum lesson boiled down to "Be like Joseph Smith. He was awesome." But what if you have good reasons to think he was not so wonderful? There are also plenty of admonitions about how important it is to sit through the temple movie for the jillionth time, and to visit your list of assigned neighbors each month and pretend to care about them while taking notes on their religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Of course, that's not exactly how it's phrased, but that's the gist.

I know people of various belief levels who go to church and just tune most of it out, and I don't understand how they do it. If I'm in a situation like that, especially a situation that looks and acts like an actual discussion, as Sunday school does, I can't help paying attention and trying to contribute. It's very frustrating to feel that my contributions would not be welcome, and that's how I feel whenever I go to church. I don't learn anything new. I can't contribute. I'm not challenged in any way except via frustration. I feel like an outsider.

So I attend church less and less. Somehow this feels like a failing, not because other people expect me to attend church, but because I have expected it of myself basically forever. However, the reason I expected myself to attend church as a believer was because I wanted to be challenged and enlightened as often as possible. In fact, this desire has not changed. But the sad fact is that church no longer fulfills this need in my life, so I need to move on. Not just physically but emotionally as well. And that's okay.

I will still be attending church for the reasons I mentioned at the beginning of this post, but I'm going to try to improve at tuning it out. I know why I'm there, and it's not for anyone but my family. I shouldn't continue to behave as if it's for me.

I know there are plenty of unbelievers of various persuasions reading this blog. Do any of you still go to church? If so, what kind of church do you attend, and why do you go? How do you deal with it? Do you tune out, pay attention, speak up, start discussions, or what? I'd love to hear any of your coping mechanisms, and maybe try them myself.

Is this a negative blog?

A few months ago, I was asked by a faithful LDS person not to do any "negative blogging" while at this person's house. The request caught me off guard, especially considering I had just finished fixing this person's wireless network, and I stammered something conciliatory. There's plenty I could say about the concept of asking someone not to indulge their personal thoughts in unobtrusive silence. I won't. But I will say two things. (If this person happens to be reading this entry, my comments aren't directed to you personally, but our interaction sparked some thoughts I felt like expressing.)

First, I don't consider what I do here to be negative. This person was obviously referring to this blog, where I am sometimes critical of the LDS church, as well as other organizations and belief systems I find to be suboptimal. I try to promote the virtues that are most central to who I am as a person. These include honesty, integrity, evidence-based critical thinking, kindness, empathy, and not making shit up while claiming divine truth. I think these are among the highest virtues, and to support them is a very positive thing indeed.

I will always be critical of people who proclaim virtues with their lips while denying them by their actions. This sometimes includes the LDS church leadership, though they're certainly not the only people who do this. I genuinely hope others will treat me in the same way, and will let me know if they think I am falling short of my own ideals. If I were not open to criticism myself, my criticism of others would be hypocritical. Criticism does not mean simply to tear something down. It means to try to examine it objectively, perhaps even to improve it. Although criticism is one thing the LDS church seems not to value, I continue to express it because I believe it makes the world a better place.

Second, in the "wink, wink" nature of the request, I perceived an implied, unspoken agreement. Maybe it was a misperception, but the attitude seems to be that unbelievers like myself know we are wrong, and we know deep down that we are fighting against the truth. Hence the ease with which the word "negative" is used to describe my actions, and I'm supposed to just nod my head in agreement.

Well, I disagree. In fact, I do not believe deep down that I am doing something wrong. I do not believe that I am fighting against the truth. When I say Korihor was right, I'm not being flippant; I mean it. However, I would not say that Mormons are really atheists who are fighting against the truth. I would not say that deep down, Mormons know their beliefs are harmful. I understand that we have honest differences, and I respect those differences as valid disagreements.

Here's something I would hope we can all agree on: Regardless of whether there is a creator god who loves us and wants us to grow, I believe we should try to do so anyway. The more questions we ask, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more we grow. The more we grow, the better we are. Progression is a valid principle, even if not an eternal one.

However, I no longer see the value in artificially constraining the answers to my questions. For example, I don't see the value in seeking answers only as long as the answers don't challenge faith in Joseph Smith or the LDS church. I also don't see the value in seeking answers only as long as the answers don't indicate anything paranormal or supernatural. I'm not interested in protecting my personal answers at the expense of hard questions. I am only interested in what is true. As Joseph Smith himself once said, truth will cut its own way. In other words, if something is actually true, it will withstand scrutiny. So I scrutinize, and I believe that makes this a positive blog.

Perspectives on Church History from the Community of Christ

A few months ago, I came across a message from Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) president Stephen M. Veazey, regarding church history principles. But the person who told me about it had copied and pasted the text, modifying a few names and presenting it as the words of LDS church president Thomas S. Monson. I pretty quickly realized it couldn't have been written by any leader of the LDS church, because it says things like this:

Because of my exploration of various credible works, and probing discussions with historians, some of my previously held notions have been challenged and adjusted in the face of additional knowledge. The “apologetic” approach to church history—presenting our story in as favorable a light as possible—is not sufficient for the journey ahead. That approach does not evidence the integrity that must be fundamental to our witness and ministry.

and this:

If we say that a book on history is the only true telling of the story, we risk “canonizing” one version, a tendency we have shown in the past. This blocks further insights from continuing research. Good historical inquiry understands that conclusions are open to correction as new understanding and information comes from ongoing study.

I could imagine someone like Joseph Smith saying these things, or Joseph F. Smith, or even David O. McKay. But I cannot in my wildest imaginations see Thomas S. Monson saying them. First, he would have to admit that it is possible for his own notions to be challenged and adjusted in the face of evidence, which would imply that he is capable of learning "additional knowledge" he doesn't already have. Second, he would have to admit that the whitewashing of LDS church history in recent decades has been a mistake, which would imply that church leadership is capable of making mistakes. Third, he would have to admit that serious study of church history (i.e. from actual historians who examine source materials from outside the faith-promoting manual) is a valuable endeavor, and can actually give us a more accurate picture of the early church than what is taught each week in Sunday school.

I don't see any of this happening anytime soon. Instead, we get talks from Boyd K. Packer telling us that some things that are true aren't very useful. And in the latest General Conference, we are told that doubt is one of the "destructive Ds", and that unfavorable descriptions of the church are untrue and unfair. There is no nuanced discussion about when or where doubt or skepticism may be appropriate, or criticism of the church might be fair. Doubt is always wrong, and as Dallin H. Oaks reiterated during the Frontline story on the Mormons, it's wrong to criticize leaders of the church even if the criticism is true.

Here's the thing. Truth has nothing to fear from scrutiny. If something is really true, then it will stand up to thorough investigation. Examining all the evidence can only confirm the truth. So if the church-approved version of LDS history is true, then why is it taboo to study history from other credible sources? Why is it wrong to be unsatisfied with taking church leaders' word for it, and to examine the evidence for oneself? Why are we counseled against reading anything that is not faith-promoting? What is there to fear? The truth has nothing to fear, but irrational belief certainly does.

In my opinion, contrary to what Kevin Pearson says in the General Conference talk linked above, doubt is not "a negative emotion related to fear," which betrays a lack of self-confidence. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Fear is what kept me from acknowledging my doubts for a long time. In critically examining my own beliefs and doubts, rather than succumbing to fear, I have begun to overcome it. Rather than revealing a lack of self-confidence, I have become more confident in my ability to discern truth, and in my ability to handle many other areas of life as well. I don't have all the answers, but I am no longer afraid of not having all the answers.

If the LDS church's attitude toward its own history were more in tune with Stephen Veazey's statement, I would feel a lot more at home in the LDS church. I would love to have discussions about actual church history in Sunday school. Not because I want to tear down people's faith, but because I find the subject interesting and I would like to explore it with other people who claim to care about it. Unfortunately, this is not possible for two reasons: most members don't actually know very much about church history; and discussing anything that challenges the faith-promoting story is essentially verboten. It doesn't have to be that way. It hasn't always been that way. But I also don't see it changing anytime soon.

Thousands in downtown SLC protest the LDS church's Prop 8 involvement

This is just excellent. Apparently thousands of people swarmed downtown Salt Lake City last night, to protest the Mormon church's involvement in passing Proposition 8 in California. I really wanted to be there, but I needed to spend some time with my family, and that's more important. Gee, it's nice for me to be able to spend time with my legally wedded spouse and our children, don't you think? I wish everyone were able to enjoy the same privilege.

Shockingly, the church finds the protest "disturbing" and objects to being "singled out" for exercising its right to free speech. Well, here's a news flash. When you, a large tax-exempt religious institution, claim that your leaders speak for God and then mobilize your membership by telling them that they need to vote in a certain way on a particular political proposition regarding the civil issue of same-sex marriage... you're going to get singled out.

You can't have it both ways. On the one hand, you call this issue your "Gettysburg", read letters about Prop 8 from the pulpit, call for donations and volunteers, organize call chains, and generally make it felt that every member of your religious organization in the state of California is expected to sacrifice for the cause of taking away others' right to marry. On the other hand, you act surprised and hurt when those whose rights have been stripped become angry, members of your own church actively voice their disapproval, and thousands of protesters show up at your doorstep to protest your coordination of this exercise in codifying discrimination into law. Pardon my candor, but what the hell did you expect?

In the comments to the Salt Lake Tribune article linked above, a commenter named slgb8 condemned the protesters, saying that the church has its own right to free speech and the protesters were trying to take that away. He said:

Don’t take rights away from others that you would not want to have taken from you. I think we should be careful not to take away others rights to free speech even when we don’t agree with them. We could start the country on a road the end with none of us having basic rights.

I agree with that completely, but Prop 8 is not a free speech issue. It's an issue of marriage. Let's substitute the phrase "free speech" with the word "marriage", shall we?

Don’t take rights away from others that you would not want to have taken from you. I think we should be careful not to take away others rights to marriage even when we don’t agree with them. We could start the country on a road the end with none of us having basic rights.

Much more relevant. It's the correct idea, but this particular commenter had the wrong idea about who is attempting to take away rights from whom. In fact, who has succeeded in doing so.

I seriously am about as close to resigning my membership as I ever have been. This has been an emotional election season, and I am emotional as I type this, but I think that even with a clear head and a calm spirit, I do not want to be part of an organization that so confidently proclaims its willingness to take away others' rights. That is the exact opposite of what I hope to stand for.