In Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel recounts a conversation he had with a Catholic leader who was concerned about the consequences that participation in the Interfaith Youth Core might have for the young people under his care. The leader feared that interfaith dialogue among young people might devolve into an argument about who’s going to heaven and who’s not.
Patel showed great wisdom in his response: he emphasized the importance of shared values, like service, over what he called the “mutually exclusive” discussions. Referring to the mythical rock and whirlpool between which Odysseus had to sail, he said, “This is a methodology that avoids the Scylla and Charybdis of interfaith work. The Scylla is the idea that we’re all the same”; Charybdis, in turn, “is the thinking that religious differences are so great that we can’t even talk.” Patel continued: “The middle path, the only route to collective survival really, is to identify what is common between religions but to create a space where each can articulate its distinct path to that place. I think of it as affirming particularity and achieving pluralism.”
I find Patel’s words supremely relevant to the matter of LGBT bullying. Sexuality is a topic on which mutually exclusive discussions are too easy to have, and for precisely this reason it is a topic on which genuine dialogue very much needs to happen.
Given the reality of pluralism regarding this issue, I submit that both of the mutually exclusive positions—whether teachings about the sinfulness of homosexual behavior or assertions that any such teaching or belief is tantamount to bullying—often end up paving a very short road to moral failure. Each of these positions can, in its own way, lead proponents to (dare I say) sin against the shared notion of human dignity that makes bullying wrong in the first place.
Because I belong to a church that teaches the sinfulness of any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman, and in the intended spirit of using this topic as an opportunity to speak to those of our own faith, I’ll address my own side second.
First, to my friends on the other side: I plead with you to recognize that religion at its best teaches what I like to call the “care of souls,” or the obligation of believers to consider the genuine welfare of others. In my experience, the care of souls is one of the most difficult moral challenges that my belief brings to me, and never is such care more necessary or more difficult than when dealing with those who sin. Because most of us believers sin more regularly than we’d care to admit, each of us should have a personal interest in making sure that the care of souls is of the highest quality.
I readily acknowledge that we often exercise this care imperfectly, even as I must also acknowledge the times when I have seen it exercised masterfully. My own experiences of witnessing the love of God felt powerfully and mutually between church leaders and repentant sinners lead me to believe and to hope that we can find a way to care for our LGBT brothers and sisters as we ought to while adhering to our deeply held beliefs. Please be patient—and merciful—with us as we strive to live up to our highest ideals.
Now to my fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: growing up in the Church, I was taught that God does not identify us by our sins; rather, he sees us as his children, and nothing can break the bond of his love for us. In all our dealings with others, we ought to keep in mind these words from the Doctrine & Covenants: “Remember that the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” This remembrance—as with our weekly sacramental renewal of the covenant always to remember Christ—calls us unceasingly to work at treating others as Jesus would. Did he call people to repentance? Yes! We should learn from him how to do this with love. Bullying is not a call to repentance but a cause for it—and repentance from us, not those we bully.
We should not be cowed from speaking our hearts or our minds in public, but in this we should follow Christ in fulfilling the words of Isaiah: “A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.” We should seek the peaceful path whenever possible, never the belligerent or polemical one, neither breaking the already wounded nor seeking to silence the voices that speak against us.
So what is the path between Scylla and Charybdis on this issue? I think it involves both sides recognizing the similarity of the moral dilemma before them—and recognizing moreover that dialogue is the only real way of facing that dilemma. In either case, the urgent moral question is how to balance deeply held belief with one’s treatment of people who violate that belief, whether by engaging in homosexual activity or by teaching that such activity is wrong. The great virtue of dialogue in such cases is that by talking with someone—and deliberately refraining from haranguing them on the mutually exclusive issues—we might learn that there’s more to a person than his or her violation of some principle that’s important to us. We need not and should not wish the violation away, for that would mean renouncing beliefs that make us who we are, but neither should we let it prevent us from knowing or loving someone else.
LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks has put this moral question quite pointedly: “[I]f an adult child is living in cohabitation, does the seriousness of sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage require that this child feel the full weight of family disapproval by being excluded from any family contacts, or does parental love require that the fact of cohabitation be ignored? I have seen both of these extremes, and I believe that both are inappropriate.” Oaks’s question applies, mutatis mutandis, to both sides with equal force. With Scylla and Charybdis on the near horizon for all of us, perhaps a frank exchange of navigational advice would be a good place for the dialogue to start.
—
Note: The exchange referenced in the first two paragraphs can be found in Eboo Patel, Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007), 166-67.
Thanks for your thoughtful reflection, Jason. I agree that people of all religious/non-religious backgrounds “should seek the peaceful path whenever possible, never the belligerent or polemical one, neither breaking the already wounded nor seeking to silence the voices that speak against us.”
I also believe that dialogue is an important tool for humanizing “the other.” But I’ve struggled to know how to approach this in practice. It is relatively easy for those of us “on the ground” to have dialogue amongst ourselves on issues of importance like LGBT bullying. How do we have this conversation with those who are in religious authority over us? How do they engage in relationship with those souls for whom they are responsible to care?
Oliver,
You ask some very difficult questions, and I can only gesture toward answers from the perspective of my tradition. I’d be quite interested to hear from you about how my answers translate into your tradition (or not).
LDS believe that the church is led by revelation, which means that grass-roots activism is unlikely to effect change. That said, the process of revelation has important human components. In addition to the will of God, it has been my experience that revelation depends on asking the right question and being completely willing to act on whatever is received. (Revelation can also help with both of these aspects, as neither is easy to achieve, particularly with respect to a vexed issue.)
With this in mind, perhaps the best thing we can do to help our leaders develop the care of souls is to submit to it, by which I mean asking their counsel as we engage that process of learning to ask the right question and submitting our wills to God’s. We’d probably learn from their experience, and they might also benefit with respect to their own revelatory processes. I believe that a course such as this would more likely lead to a good outcome than direct confrontation. This course will also probably disappoint from time to time, but I think this will be the case less frequently than it would with direct confrontation.
Your question has an important practical bent that I admit has concerned me, too. That is: by writing about LGBT bullying on this site, we’re probably preaching to the choir. Granted, if one person reads something we’ve written and then refrains from bullying, it will all have been worth it. But I suspect that most of the visitors to SoF think that bullying is wrong whether we say anything about it or not. So the real question is: how can we be reaching the people who need to hear that message (and I mean rhetorically as well as logistically)?
Thanks for your comment,
Jason
I will submit a longer reply in a short while, but in the meantime it strikes me that an exactly similar post could have been written regarding the “correct” way to deal with disagreements over the rights and wrongs of slavery, which was also biblically justified by its proponents and biblically condemned by its opponents.
Now, we see calls for a “peaceful path” which seeks to give comfort to slave-owners as completely unacceptable – we assert, without exception, the rights of enslaved people and to hell with those who think otherwise (I mean this metaphorically, of course!).
I wonder how long until we get to that point when it comes to the civil rights of sexual minorities? Let me put it bluntly: I am oppressed. I am unwilling to compromise when it comes to my rights. I am not interested in “dialogue”.
Justice and oppression ARE mutually exclusive, and I know on which side I stand.
James,
May I invite you to read two documents by current LDS Apostles? The first is by Jeffrey R. Holland, and is to my knowledge the clearest expression of LDS doctrine on matters of sexuality:
http://emp.byui.edu/SATTERFIELDB/PDF/Chastity/SymbSac2.pdf
Of course, as someone who is not LDS, you are in no way bound to agree with these doctrines, to say nothing of abiding by them. Nevertheless, Elder Holland does a superb job of saying what the positive purposes of these doctrines are: they are not merely exclusionary.
The second is a speech given last week by Dallin H. Oaks on the issue of religious freedom:
http://beta-newsroom.lds.org/article/elder-oaks-religious-freedom-Chapman-University
Elder Oaks offers several examples of recent cases in which granting civil rights to one group has led to the violation of the civil rights of others. What solution do you propose to this conundrum? What do you intend to do about those of us whom you consider to be the modern moral equivalents of slaveholders? Put bluntly, are you willing to become an oppressor in the name of freeing yourself (and others) from oppression? Or is there, as I hope, some humanist vision for a civil society that allows us to coexist without oppressing each other? Can you articulate such a vision?
Jason
I’m afraid I disagree again — and normally I’m so agreeable!
Elder Oaks offers rather extreme examples of government overreach but Jason seems to use them to suggest that such extremes must necessarily follow as a natural successor to granting new freedoms (“are you willing to become an oppressor in the name of freeing yourself … Can you articulate such a vision?”). (If I’ve misinterpreted you, Jason, my apologies.)
Such a humanist society seems, to me, to be more than possible. In such a detente, the Church would not use its authority and influence over its flock to prevent civil society from granting marriage rights to LGBT individuals. In return, civil society would not force the Church to perform rituals it considers sinful–any more than civil society currently requires the Church to marry two Catholics in the temple. Religious leaders would be free to label things sinful– though not call for violence, or yell Fire! in a crowded theater– and activists would be free to label those labels sinful. We would have a battle for the soul of the people, but without limiting the civil society freedoms of either.
As noted, I personally think the Church will ultimately remove barriers to LGBT participation as it slowly but surely removed barriers to participation by other oppressed groups–directly as a result of the shift in public opinion–but that’s largely irrelevant to the question of civil rights. The Oaks dichotomy–paraphrased: for some to gain civil rights, others must lose them– is demonstrably false, and more troubling, intentionally designed to make the rest of us afraid. But the truth is, my marriage isn’t harmed by James’ marriage, my children aren’t harmed by his ability to adopt, and so on. Put bluntly, he does not become my oppressor by throwing off the yoke of his oppression.
Carla,
I agree with your vision of civil society and even favor it. The problem, however, is that this vision depends on tolerance, and James seems to have made his refusal to accept tolerance quite clear. Indeed, he finds the very teaching or belief that homosexual activity is sinful to be intolerable. That makes my question about the means that he intends to use to further his vision of a society without this intolerance quite urgent indeed. Moreover, it raises the possibility that the Church’s decision to engage in the Prop 8 campaign was based on a coldly realistic assessment of the situation.
Which brings me back to the actual content of my post. It has been my experience that polemical exchange encourages both parties to entrench, which in turn leads to their respective positions becoming even sharper and more abrasive than they were to begin with. Has James (or Jesse) considered the possibility that outside pressure _delayed_ the 1978 revelation? Given that the Church has supported a broad (if not comprehensive) range of legal rights for LGBT persons, might it not be possible that its opposition to civil marriage could diminish if it did not perceive legal threats to its doctrine and practices from the other side? Elder Oaks clearly perceives such threats, and even if the examples he cites are “extreme,” they are not imaginary.
Personally, I think that this war is causing a lot of hurt on both sides that could be ameliorated by a more peaceful, dialogic approach, one centered on shared values of human dignity and worth. You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I hope I’m not the only one.
For my part, I intend to raise my children such that they need not fear being hated by me if they turn out to be gay, and I will do all in my power to counteract any hateful discourse within my home or elsewhere. My wife and I are united on this point, so I guess I’m _not_ the only one.
Jason
My mother is convinced that the Church leadership did, in fact, delay the 1978 revelation so as to not appear to have been pressured into it. And I’m quite open to considering that possibility. But I have to ask, delayed from what timeline? Delay indicates that change was inevitable. But what made change inevitable? I have to believe it was the negative spotlight cast on the Church by highly public and extremely active outside pressure, pressure which made the Church’s position increasingly untenable over the long-term.
Two case studies seem to provide support for this hypothesis: the status of polygamy and the status of women. Denying black men the priesthood may not have been at the core of doctrine (though the vehemence with which it had been preached at times during the century preceding its revocation suggests that what defines a “core” doctrine is itself subject to rather Orwellian treatment: once rejected, it’s no longer core). But the centrality of polygamy and the role of women are both at the very heart of Mormon doctrine. Yet one was cast off (for this life, anyway) and one has been retained with only mild refinements, even as society’s broader norms have changed radically. In the case of polygamy, direct external pressure (public outrage delayed statehood) led to its termination. In the case of women, no direct external pressure (except, fleetingly, during the ERA debate) was ever applied, and no significant change in doctrine has ensued.
The 1978 change was, for many Mormons, a traumatic and upsetting one, not something undertaken lightly. The 1890 change was all the more so, creating a deep schism in the Church that continues to this day. Would Church leaders have taken such terrible risks had they not faced an even more deadly one? They haven’t taken such risks for women, but then, they’ve never had to.
It may well be that the Church will need a respite from national focus before it can announce its acceptance of LGBT individuals, a window which allows it to save face or (more sympathetically) allows wounds to heal. But history suggests that without continual external pressure before that respite, change will never come. And, yes, that pressure is going to be painful, for all sides, and this “war” is going to have casualties. But as the saying goes, “I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.”
Carla,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I respect your position, and I would probably share it if I had not received a spiritual witness of the divine origin of the 1978 revelation. You seem quite knowledgeable about the LDS Church, so I assume that you know that I know that my spiritual witness doesn’t count for anybody but me.
For my part, I have no interest in forcing LDS positions on anyone. I favor civil government along the lines you describe, not theocracy. I want a situation in which LDS are free to believe as we will, and in which others are free to disagree as they will.
That said, I premised my post on the understanding that the LDS position on homosexual activity causes pain. My purpose was not to defend that position, but to ask, given its reality, what I and others can do to care for those it hurts. I think that such questions are vital for any civil society in which people disagree on matters of importance.
If there must be a war over the issue of LGBT rights, I had much rather be a nurse on the battlefield than a soldier. I am heartily sorry indeed that my post seems to have served the cause of healing so poorly. In fact, because I believe that my further participation in this thread would hinder this cause more than it would help, I will make this my final comment.
Jason
Jason, I would be sorry to see you leave the discussion, especially since this clarification of your position leads me to read your original post in a new light. I think the challenge for me in engaging with this question in the form of a true dialogue is not only that it directly affects me and my community, but also that it seems to me that there isn’t a middle ground – LDS simply must stop trying to use civil means to impose its religious beliefs on other people.
Now, in this latest post you seem to accept this, saying “I have no interest in forcing LDS positions on anyone… I want a situation in which LDS are free to believe as we will, and in which others are free to disagree as they will.” If this is the case, then presumably you do not support the civil campaign that the church is waging to prevent marriage equality. If that is the case, then we do not have a disagreement at quite the same level, and there is no need for me to be so forceful in my arguments!
Thank you, James, for re-opening the door to my participation in this discussion.
The point that I’ve been trying to make all along, re: Prop 8, is that I think the Church supported the campaign less out of a desire to impose its beliefs on others than out of a fear that the legalization of gay marriage would result in the Church finding itself in an 1880s-style legal morass. I think that Elder Oaks’ speech amply supports this conclusion on my part. In that light, it would seem to me that those who favor civil marriage for all would advance this cause more effectively by trying to persuade the church that no such danger exists, and then by making good on the promises that such persuasion would necessarily entail, than by haranguing the church to change its doctrinal position or else. This latter course not only doesn’t help–it makes things worse, by contributing to the impression that the other side will use state power to impose its views, as happened in the late 19th century.
This process of persuasion would be very difficult, not least because so few people seem interested in engaging in it. That is why I believe that dialogue is so urgently necessary, and why I continue to advocate it no matter the response.
Thank you for your reply. You say:
“The point that I’ve been trying to make all along, re: Prop 8, is that I think the Church supported the campaign less out of a desire to impose its beliefs on others than out of a fear that the legalization of gay marriage would result in the Church finding itself in an 1880s-style legal morass.”
My first response would be to suggest that there is no legitimate civic ground on which to prevent a minority from enjoying equal rights. I.e. even if the church’s concerns were well-founded, that gives them good reason to debate the issue in public but not good reason to deny civil rights to a minority.
But that aside, I do not understand what the “1880s-style legal morass” you refer to is – I can’t find any reference to the 1880’s in Oaks’ speech. Perhaps you could clarify?
If the concern is that the state will begin to bear down on expressions of religious faith, then you can call me up and I will march beside you to protect those rights. But you have to stand with me now too, because free speech and equal rights are an indivisible package.
Oaks doesn’t mention the 1880s specifically, but the Church’s experience during that time can’t be far from his mind. You can read a secular account of what happened in Noah Feldman’s _Divided by God_, but the gist is this: Congress passed anti-polygamy laws, specifically with the Mormons in mind. As a consequence, Church leaders had a choice between going to prison or going into hiding; both happened. The confiscation of Church property, including the temples, was averted only by the 1890 Manifesto.
Given this, the sending of a federal army into Utah in the 1850s, the assassination of Joseph Smith in the 1840s (in which the governor of Illinois reneged on a promise of protection), and the “extermination” order of the 1830s (meaning that the Mormons had to leave the borders of Missouri), I think that Church leaders’ skepticism about their critics’ commitment to the civic guarantees of the US Constitution are, if not justified, at least understandable. It should be recalled that in “choosing” to leave Illinois in the 1840s, the Church chose to leave the United States because there did not seem to be room for the Church in it. Of course, the Mexican-American war meant that the US soon caught up with the Church, territorially speaking.
I think that voices from outside the Church will be more effective in assuaging these concerns that voices within it. But speaking to the Church in a way that it might hear first requires a genuine, compassionate attempt at understanding where the Church is coming from. That means trying to understand its teachings about eternal families, prophecy and revelation, as well as the historical and cultural background I’ve alluded to.
I have been trying to stand with you, James, from the very start of SoF. I think we have more in common that we yet realize; can we talk about that, for a change, instead of what divides us?
Thank you for that clarification and information – I didn’t know about any of that.
Certainly we can talk about what unites us, Jason. I will absolutely stand up in favor of consensual polygamy if you stand up for gay rights – perhaps we can march side by side!
Jason’s account of history is slightly one-sided, and while I might normally let that missing side pass, it’s actually as relevant to the Church’s actions today as the side that Jason relayed.
There was significant ugliness displayed by both the Mormons and the “Gentiles” during this period, but that’s true of most conflicts so why is it worth raising now? Because what prompted some of the incredible (violent and utterly inexcusable) anti-Mormon behavior was an attempt by Mormons to impose their religious beliefs on the civil laws in the communities they inhabited. (Something Jesse already alluded to in a previous comment.) We can have a chicken-and-egg discussion, but there’s no question that the undemocratic and theocratic nature of life in Nauvoo ultimately led to the destruction of both it and the prophet.
There are numerous examples, including Nauvoo’s highly irregular town charter, but the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor after it published a single edition critical of Smith is probably the most obvious one. Smith and the town council declared it to be a “public nuisance” and ordered the town marshal to destroy it, an event widely understood by historians as the spark that led to Smith’s assassination. Within days the nearby Warsaw Signal had published an editorial “Can you stand by and suffer such infernal devils: to rob men of their property and rights, without avenging them?”
(There are actually quite a few similar examples where Mormon moves to control government power aroused the fury of their neighbors. The growing cycle of Mormon aggression followed by Gentile aggression followed by Mormon aggression and so on ultimately led to the laws Jason has mentioned. Let me put these kids down for a nap and I’ll go remind myself of more, if you like.)
We can see the parallels today very clearly. The Mormon Church was going along, facing some discrimination as a minority religion (and primarily from so-called allies like evangelical Christians), but certainly getting no more attention than most minorities. Then came Prop 8. By attempting to impose its religious beliefs on the rest of civil society, the Church roused greater awareness of and opposition to its theocratic intentions. Then the “persecution” of Mormons (such as it is) began. Not the other way around.
If Oaks is, in fact, worried that such laws are coming, he should look to what prompted those laws in the first place, and avoid making the same mistakes.
Now that I have a little peace, I want to further refine my comments. I certainly don’t want to suggest that persecution against the Mormons (and in those days, the persecution was very, very real) was somehow deserved. It wasn’t. But both the informal persecution of lynch mobs and the formal persecution of the US Congress were directly tied to the belief that Mormons sought to wield political power over their neighbors.
Mormons might have been mocked for their rituals (which religions aren’t?), but they tended to be attacked out of worries that they would form a voting block, entirely directed by one man, that would completely overwhelm the rest of the non-Mormon citizenry.
(Well, that and for financial reasons. Smith’s earlier reputation for treasure-hunting combined with his failed bank and real estate schemes resulted in more than one angry mob chasing him out of town. I think he probably undertook such schemes in good faith, with no intent to defraud, but once he had a reputation, however ill-deserved, it influenced the perceptions of those who felt they’d been ripped off and perpetuated the cycle of violence against him personally.)
The notion that Mormons would vote however their leaders directed them was one that the prophet himself actively cultivated. For example, Smith and other church leaders explicitly promised to deliver the Mormon vote to the party that could do most for it, single-handedly turning Hancock County, Ill. from a Whig enclave to a Democratic one in 1841 after the Democratic party championed the Nauvoo charter in the state Illinois legislature — a charter which allowed Nauvoo law to override state law and which was expansive enough that both Mormons and non-Mormons interpreted it as granting the mayor (Smith) extraordinary powers.
(Even today, haven’t we all heard the semi-affectionate remembrances of how our forebears in Utah divided up chapels, ‘this side will vote Republican, this side will vote Democratic,’ to ensure the new state wouldn’t be dominated by one party? The instructions created a political plurality necessary to appease outsiders, but it also indicates the explicit power that Church leaders continued to have over their congregants’ voting habits.)
Of course, none of this is to say that the non-Mormons who were being overwhelmed by waves of immigrating Mormons were in the right. In Missouri, the Mormons initially angered their virulently pro-slavery neighbors by being too friendly to American Indians and freed blacks. The Missourians, a craven people deserving of my full contempt, feared that Mormons might undermine Missouri’s status as a slave state. They responded exactly like one would expect such rednecks to respond. That hostility drove the Mormons to steps like creating a militia and actively marching it down main street – an understandable show of strength that nonetheless further convinced the non-Mormon community that Mormons intended to dominate by force if necessary.
But again, why is any of the above worth laying out? Because it gets to the point that political persecution of Mormons has tended to follow, not precede, Mormon forays into politics (perceived or real). The LDS Church did not need to wade into the Prop 8 campaign to prevent the rise of future anti-polygamy type laws. In fact, doing so may have made such laws more likely.
I am still composing a detailed rebuttal of the (vile and insulting) sources you linked, Jason, but I can’t let this pass without comment. There is something extremely odd in the way you frame this discussion, as if in some way LDS is the party under attack which needs defending, while at the same time all of civil society should organize itself around the assumptions of a particular religion.
You say “James seems to have made his refusal to accept tolerance quite clear. Indeed, he finds the very teaching or belief that homosexual activity is sinful to be intolerable. That makes my question about the means that he intends to use to further his vision of a society without this intolerance quite urgent indeed.”
You are quite right that I refuse to accept that some of my fellows are bigots and seeks to impose their bigoted views on other people in direct contravention of their rights. I would have hoped that anyone in a democratic society would be “intolerant” of those who wish to foist their religious values on others who do not share them. My response to this extended and cruel campaign is to campaign against it by writing, marching, calling my representative etc.
None of these methods are out of the bounds of normal civic discourse. I would never support a law, for example, that banned any sort of preaching, nor one which abridged the rights of anyone to say anything about homosexuality. I have fought against such laws in the past, contacting my MP to speak against the arrest of an American preacher who, while in the UK, preached that gays were going to hell. I am even in a minority in the gay community in my opposition to hate crime legislation, which I feel unfairly punishes certain forms of assault over others on unjustifiable grounds (although I’m open to persuasion on this last point).
But the isolated infringements on religious liberty by the state are minute in comparison to the daily infringements on individual liberty perpetrated on gay people by religious institutions. The fact is that magnitude of the threat Oaks imagines IS imaginary, and part of a persecution complex entirely in keeping with Christianity’s central figure.
That you should assume that I, because I support the civil rights of all human beings, wish to oppress you, is evidence of this paranoia. As Carla points out, and which you completely fail to respond to, extending civil rights to gays harms no one, oppresses no one, puts no one down. If gays can get married, no one is thereby forced to marry someone of the same sex. But by actively campaigning against that right, LDS is trying to get me to live according to religious beliefs that I do not hold. This is the very definition of theocracy – something Oaks clearly advocates for in his call for religious speech and action to be given “special protection” above secular forms of speech and action.
I am intolerant of theocracy, Jason. Are you not? Do you really wish to force me to live as if I were a Mormon when I am not? Are you seriously arguing that religions can legitimately force others to live as they hold people should live? Because that is precisely what you seem to be supporting here.
I must end with a comment on this, because it made my sides split from laughing: “Has James (or Jesse) considered the possibility that outside pressure _delayed_ the 1978 revelation?”
Are you seriously suggesting that a revelation from GOD might have been “delayed” by pressure on the church from human beings, and that this might be happening now regarding gay rights? As if a bunch of fags could retard the Almighty, His Will stifled in a riot of Pride flags? Please. This simply uncovers the rank hypocrisy of the church. If a “revelation” can be “delayed” by human pressure then God is not worthy of worship. It is clear that this stuff is MADE UP by human beings, and by accepting the affects of social pressure on the Church’s “revelations” you have quite conceded the whole thing.
I like to imagine that God might say the following, were he to be so easily delayed:
1. Hearken, my servant Oaks, unto the voice of the Lord thy God, and receive my word in answer to thy fervent pleas!
2. Lo, I am well pleased with thee and my servants the Apostles and with all the righteous Saints of my Church. Because of your righteous obedience you are blessed, and I now reveal my Word unto thee, to proclaim unto my Saints and unto all the World;
3. For thou hast oft inquired of me regarding those men who sleep with men, and women with women, because of which the blessings of my priesthood and of my exaltation have been denied to them;
4. And thy cries and the cries of my gay children have ascended unto me, and I now reveal unto thee further light and knowledge in this matter. I would have revealed this sooner, but thy cries were muffled by the impertinent clamor of human rights activists and intolerant gays, who did not wish to remain second-class citizens any longer, and I had a hard time making them out amidst the noise! If only they had been silent!
5. For my Church is like unto your father Abraham, whom I did sorely tempt, in that I commanded him to take his beloved son and offer up his life as a sacrifice to me; and it is also like an old man who is hard of hearing, and whose long white hair gets into his ears sometimes, and lo, his revelations are delayed!
6. And lo, Abraham in the fulness of righteous obedience did take his son, and did bind him to an altar of rough stones, and did raise the knife to sacrifice him, according to the command which I had given him.
7. And by mine angel did I stop his hand, for his sacrifice of obedience was complete.
8. For human life is not to be taken as a sacrifice to me, except the sacrifice of the Only Begotten, of which Isaac was a type, for such a doctrine and practice is repugnant to me.
9. But it was for Abraham a test of obedience to my Word.
10. And lo, likewise the doctrine of the curse of Sodom and the mark of gayness, as well as everything pertaining thereto, is also repugnant to me, but was given unto my Saints as a test (which they enjoyed far too much for my liking, but oh well!).
11. And ye have been valiant and righteous in obeying the words of my mouth which were given not as true doctrine but only as a test for your benefit.
12. Now, therefore, rejoice in my blessing and receive my Word! For no more shall ye make any distinction among my Saints as to their sexual orientation or as to their gender identity; for I the Lord God am no respecter of persons, but all shall come unto me and all may be worthy to receive all the blessings of my Gospel without let or hindrance.
13. And again, apologies for the delay, and next time make sure no one fights for their rights in case it retards my Revelations!
Now that I have a little peace, I want to further refine my comments. I certainly don’t want to suggest that persecution against the Mormons (and in those days, the persecution was very, very real) was somehow deserved. It wasn’t. But both the informal persecution of lynch mobs and the formal persecution of the US Congress were directly tied to the belief that Mormons sought to wield political power over their neighbors.
Mormons might have been mocked for their rituals (which religions aren’t?), but they tended to be attacked out of worries that they would form a voting block, entirely directed by one man, that would completely overwhelm the rest of the non-Mormon citizenry.
(Well, that and for financial reasons. Smith’s earlier reputation for treasure-hunting combined with his failed bank and real estate schemes resulted in more than one angry mob chasing him out of town. I think he probably undertook such schemes in good faith, with no intent to defraud, but once he had a reputation, however ill-deserved, it influenced the perceptions of those who felt they’d been ripped off and perpetuated the cycle of violence against him personally.)
The notion that Mormons would vote however their leaders directed them was one that the prophet himself actively cultivated. For example, Smith and other church leaders explicitly promised to deliver the Mormon vote to the party that could do most for it, single-handedly turning Hancock County, Ill. from a Whig enclave to a Democratic one in 1841 after the Democratic party championed the Nauvoo charter in the state Illinois legislature — a charter which allowed Nauvoo law to override state law and which was expansive enough that both Mormons and non-Mormons interpreted it as granting the mayor (Smith) extraordinary powers.
(Even today, haven’t we all heard the semi-affectionate remembrances of how our forebears in Utah divided up chapels, ‘this side will vote Republican, this side will vote Democratic,’ to ensure the new state wouldn’t be dominated by one party? The instructions created a political plurality necessary to appease outsiders, but it also indicates the explicit power that Church leaders continued to have over their congregants’ voting habits.)
Of course, none of this is to say that the non-Mormons who were being overwhelmed by waves of immigrating Mormons were in the right. In Missouri, the Mormons initially angered their virulently pro-slavery neighbors by being too friendly to American Indians and freed blacks. The Missourians, a craven people deserving of my full contempt, feared that Mormons might undermine Missouri’s status as a slave state. They responded exactly like one would expect such rednecks to respond. That hostility drove the Mormons to steps like creating a militia and actively marching it down main street – an understandable show of strength that nonetheless further convinced the non-Mormon community that Mormons intended to dominate by force if necessary.
But again, why is any of the above worth laying out? Because it gets to the point that political persecution of Mormons has tended to follow, not precede, Mormon forays into politics (perceived or real). The LDS Church did not need to wade into the Prop 8 campaign to prevent the rise of future anti-polygamy type laws. In fact, doing so may have made such laws more likely.
Our most important role in life is the care and teaching of souls. We should show love and kindness to others. Sometimes we need to lovingly express our beliefs and desires to others. As with our children, sometimes we need to lovingly correct and teach. Above all, we need to show love to others. If someone feels loved, they will learn to show love to others. This alone can correct a multitude of problems in our society.
Like James, I, too, see strong parallels with struggles of generations past.
And I disagree that grass roots activism is unlikely to foster change in the LDS Church. Sin, in most major religions and certainly in the LDS Church, has proven to be a highly mutable concept. Miscegenation was once cursed by the Twelve, now it’s not given a second thought. The cynic would argue that in this and other circumstances the Church was faced with an existential crisis and made a calculated decision: adapt to evolving social attitudes and continue to be a relevant force or cling to current beliefs and risk increasing marginalization. The believer would argue that the Lord revealed a new truth recognizing that Man was finally ready. Either way, the result was the same. The people moved. Then the Church did.
I thoroughly agree that, to paraphrase you, civility is an important component of conversation. I think we should think of people as people first, and not identify them exclusively with their ideologies. Unfortunately for civil conversation, people identify very strongly with their religious (and political) beliefs and are enthusiastic about labeling themselves. All Mormons, for example, know that they may be “in” the world, but they should not be “of” it.
The next step of your approach might be, or at least might allow for, “agree to disagree.” I think that’s a fine approach for less weighty matters, but the difference between moral disapproval and exercise of political power for moral ends is separated by the bright line of liberty. On one side is the freedom to hold and express the opinion that a given behavior is sinful. On the other is an active campaign of oppression that seeks to bring the power of the state to bear against those who engage in the given behavior. The power of the state resides in violence: arrest, detention, torture, and forcible revocation of privileges up to and including including life.
I am loathe to imagine the theocratic society Mormonism would have created had it not been subject to the liberalizing influence of the United States of America (which Brigham Young sought to flee). The doctrine of blood atonement, the Danites’ violence against sinners and political enemies, and the “vengeance” of the Mormon people against the people of Missouri, notably at Mountain Meadows but also in other incidents, are characteristic of the theocracy pre-statehood Mormons built in (Nauvoo and later) Utah. It is too easy to dismiss this ugly history by claiming irrelevance to the modern, image-conscious Church. In fact, the doctrines that brought about such violence and oppression of others are still extant. They make up part of its genotype even if they currently find limited expression.
The Mormons sought in several experiments to make temporal law conform to God’s will. Each case was a failure and an affront to their neighbors. Mormon prophets and scriptures are clear that the Church will play an integral part in government now and in the future. Mormons will save the American Constitution; many Mormons believe Glenn Beck is part of the fulfillment of that prophecy. And eventually, after the second coming of Christ, the Church will provide the governmental structure to rule the Earth. Presumably women and homosexuals will be ineligible to exercise any governmental power, which in that day will be synonymous with “priesthood power,” which is the privilege of a man to act in God’s name.
Once again, it’s easy to dismiss those doctrines because they seem far-fetched, and not only to outsiders. But in fact, such ideas affect the behavior of individual Mormons today. More disturbing than the proposition that Mormons will someday have full governmental power to enforce God’s will is the Church’s push to legislate its morality now, notably in California and, of course, Utah.
Happily, the Church is on the losing side of this battle. As prophesied by the Mormons, the world is moving away from the notion that morality should be enforced with violence and oppression. The Mormons see this as growing wickedness that will make them stand out in contrast and make them more attractive to the “elect.” I have no doubt the Church will take one of two paths: liberalize and survive at the margins of American society, or take a hard line and shrink into complete social irrelevance. The historical trend indicates the Church will choose the former. Under social pressure the Mormons renounced polygyny, which had been understood as the core of the “plan of salvation.” But that doctrinal break was not clean and came long after social pressure began. The Church was dragged quite involuntarily into racial equality about 20 years after the American civil rights heyday; many members were shocked at the doctrinal about-face that granted the priesthood to the descendants of Ham (re: anyone having or suspected of having even a “drop” of “African blood”). But just imagine if the Church had not changed: it would not exist in anything like its current magnitude.
Similarly, the Church will eventually revise its treatment of homosexuals. I almost wrote “repent” instead of “revise,” but repentance would require not only abandoning a behavior but also recognizing its wrongness. The Church’s habit is never to admit a mistake but always to employ Orwellian apologetics to provide a rationalization.
The doctrine at the core of the Church’s policy is that all sexual behavior is elective. This condemns homosexuals to a life of either pretending to be heterosexual and marrying a woman or observing an excruciating celibacy in which even masturbation is a sin. This is no choice! There can be no forgiveness of the Church for brutal aversion therapy perpetrated at Brigham Young University, nor for making young people feel unloved and rejected by God for their sexual orientation. Protestations that God and Mormons love the sinner but hate the sin are no consolation, not to mention in many cases duplicitous.
The anti-homosexual policy of the Church is institutional, and the institution can never feel sorry or merit redemption. But then the Church would never seek forgiveness; despite the apparent sincerity of Elder Marlin Jensen’s quasi-apology last September it served only to provoke a brutal clarification from Elder Boyd Packer at the next general conference. Instead of forgiveness through repentance the Church will seek redemption through forgetfulness. They will change the doctrine and eventually everyone will forget it had ever been different. Some will even deny that the Church could ever have discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation, much as most modern Mormons are unaware of the details of race-based doctrines and polygamy.
The Church will eventually change its doctrine on homosexuality, but in the meantime it is doing great harm to homosexual people who have been raised to believe that the president of the Church speaks for God. The doctrine will eventually change and the change be forgotten, but it will be too late for too many. I think some Church leaders must see the writing on the wall; they can’t win the “culture war.” If they can see, they are guilty of a great moral crime. If not, they are still guilty of great moral error and many serious character flaws, including cruelty.
How does one engage in a *dialog* when one side speaks for God?
Reason it, brother! Reason it!