Surviving in the Bureaucracy

I look at the qualifiers in the handbook – and give my own best effort to figure it out and gain inspiration in all areas that include “should”, “usually”, “may”, “often”, “can”, etc. There are relatively few “must” statements that are worded as absolute rules without exception, so I take everything else under advisement and . . .

I ask fewer questions than many others. Questions demand answers, and people tend to insist on giving answers when questions are asked – and, in cases that don’t carry eternal consequences (which are FAR more common than many people assume), it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission and/or rules.

Here’s an example that sort of broaches what I mean Ray.

I was discussing the new CHI with someone, and they indicated there is a section that describes the Church’s position on moral issues, like surgical sterilization.

Apparenlty, the section starts out indicating that surgical sterilization is “strongly discouraged”. But then says, it should be considered “only when”….and then lists two highly medical circumstances which should be substantiated by a doctor. The section ends with the statement that even in the event of medical advice to sterilize, one should only do so after consulting with their Bishop, each other (assuming a spouse is involved), and the Lord.

In this case, how would you take this. “Strongly discouraged” sounds like it has potential to allow some personal interpretation — say, for a woman who knows that pregnancies are hard on her marriage, and feels that for the good of her mental health and marriage, she wants to ensure that she has no more children. However, the statement “only when” limits the choice to two, narrow circumstances that are verified by a medical doctor.

How would you interpret this?

Wow, I never would have guessed that subject was even in the handbook! I thought the handbook was about administering the church organization, not such personal issues. Even still I’d take it as a guideline or ideal, as the proclamation on the family says:

…other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation

I know it’s referring to a different topic, but I think the same spirit of the law exists: Policies, guidelines, and council are given as aides — the final decisions are always ours to make according to our own personal revelation.

Ray also makes a VERY good point about confidence, when people see you know what you’re doing and you have no hesitation in your decisions, they will rarely think twice about it. …Well they may disagree privately but you’ll probably not hear about it.

…I don’t thrive in environments where I have to consult a thick book of rules to determine how to handle most situations I run into…The Church is probably the most bureaucratic organization I know of outside of government or businesses that are subject to a lot of government regulation…I’ve been in leadership meetings, and have come out with ideas that I think would be effective in unlocking situations where we aren’t currently getting results, but the leaders consult the handbook, and then conclude we can’t do this or that because it’s not consistent with policy. I’d be lying if I said this isn’t a source of frustration for me….how do you survive in an organization which is laden with rules you find stifling?

In some ways the Church is almost more frustrating than a corporate/political bureaucracy because of the whole notion that the organization is supposedly already perfect even if people aren’t so if you don’t happen to agree with some of its official polices then the assumption is that you must be wrong because it couldn’t possibly be the Church that is ever wrong as far as many members are concerned. Basically, many of these policies are not even open for debate and we can’t necessarily count on Church leaders to honestly evaluate them either to consider how well they are working at this point and whether they are truly worthwhile or not. The only thing that makes me feel better about this situation is that it’s just a church so there’s not much they can really do about it if you don’t agree with them and they really only have as much power as people give them.

I understand the argument that “The Church” IS its membership, in some very important, practical ways – but when an apostle says explicitly that the CHI is NOT scripture (like was said in the training) – and when multiple apostles emphasize that the CHI is significantly smaller because there is too much regimentation and too little revelation right now – etc. – I think we really need to separate “The Church” from the membership in some of these discussions and realize we are frustrated by the membership not accepting the leadership in many cases.

Agreed. I guess what has always baffled me is they will say this kind of thing in training meetings, and then many of the talks at GC seem to be the exact opposite. example: Costa. Oaks, Bedard, BKP… I think BKP comments make my point. He sounds like a completely different person at the training than he did at CG. And take Oaks talk. The talk itself isn’t all bad — but most of us here KNOW what 85% of the membership is going to do with it. Church vs the culture vs the religion vs worship vs the corporation… where does one end and the other begin.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the prophet and apostles would address these cultural issues in GC where the good TBM type of members might actually listen and CHANGE? Until the prophet and apostle do so – it will not change.

“we cannot change, we will not change” BKP

As to the vasectomy thing, since lay members don’t ever see the CHI, we never had any idea that it said that, and who on earth would even think to ask their bishop about a personal decision like that? It’s pretty silly to think members are going to assume they need ecclesiastical clearance for such a thing. So, it seems like one of the Cider House Rules to me. (If you haven’t seen that movie, it’s a set of rules posted in a bunkhouse for workers, but none of the workers are literate, so they don’t know what the rules say).

It’s public knowledge now. My only comment is that how will anyone ever know if you had one?

Also, my question is this — if someone went ahead and did it, knowing full well that what the CHI says, would this be worthy of some kind of Church discipline or a court? Or would it prevent a person from answering the catch-all temple recommend interview question affirmatively (is there anything that would prevent you from being worthy…..) etc? Or do you see it as a matter of conscience?

I seriously had not known until now that surgically ending childbearing was frowned upon. At least not under the circumstance of already having a complete family. I know many faithful LDS couples in that boat that made the choice to end the possibility of a new pregnancy. I have never heard the practice shunned – and this is among very orthodox TBM families. I am really surprized, for what it’s worth. Guess it goes to show that not all these little policies make their way into every corner of Mormon society. I would have no hesitation with it myself (if the procedure was fast, easy, painless, and free).