My guest post on W & T

I appreciated the post on W&T and was interested by many of the comments. For most of my adult life, I assumed that membership and participation in the Church was black and white. You’re in or you’re out. You’re active or you’re inactive. You’re a member or you’re a nonmember. These dichotomies (while ultimately inaccurate) made it easier and quicker to interact with those around us. In fact, it’s not unique to the LDS. All humans do it. We’re generally not interested in subtleties or gray areas. Who has the time to think about every person you meet or every interaction you have? So, it was comfortable. Over the past few years, I have come to realize that dedication to the Church and membership in the Church takes many different shapes. And that our convictions wax and wane with the passing of experiences. However, I doubt the rank and file active member looks at things this way (I could be underestimating). However, I don’t think that is the case with our leaders but our leaders have a difficult balance to walk between compassion and maintenance. To advocate broad tent Mormonism COULD be advocating accepting whatever (strange) doctrine an individual believes. Such acceptance could water down the average member’s convictions and their commitment. It’s the black and white aspect of church membership that makes many feel good about it. I don’t mean to sound cynical but I do believe that the LDS leaders will forfeit compassion for maintenance when push comes to shove. It just makes sense from an organizational standpoint.

Nice write-up Gerald. I really worry for the church that if some things don’t change that the church will start really shrinking here and growing in areas that need lots of $. The church has been VERY (overly) financial conservative for many decades now (probably due to nearly being bankrupted in the past). As much as has been stockpiled, enough drain for enough years and things will be different. I fear if they try and change some things at that point, the prospects of really increasing the membership in places like the US will be greatly decreased as the only Mormon’s left are the paranoid, “we are victims” type folks that no “I’m a Mormon” campaign will make appealing. So sad.

I appreciated the post on W&T and was interested by many of the comments. For most of my adult life, I assumed that membership and participation in the Church was black and white. You’re in or you’re out. You’re active or you’re inactive. You’re a member or you’re a nonmember. These dichotomies (while ultimately inaccurate) made it easier and quicker to interact with those around us. In fact, it’s not unique to the LDS. All humans do it. We’re generally not interested in subtleties or gray areas. Who has the time to think about every person you meet or every interaction you have? So, it was comfortable. Over the past few years, I have come to realize that dedication to the Church and membership in the Church takes many different shapes. And that our convictions wax and wane with the passing of experiences. However, I doubt the rank and file active member looks at things this way (I could be underestimating). However, I don’t think that is the case with our leaders but our leaders have a difficult balance to walk between compassion and maintenance. To advocate broad tent Mormonism COULD be advocating accepting whatever (strange) doctrine an individual believes. Such acceptance could water down the average member’s convictions and their commitment. It’s the black and white aspect of church membership that makes many feel good about it. I don’t mean to sound cynical but I do believe that the LDS leaders will forfeit compassion for maintenance when push comes to shove. It just makes sense from an organizational standpoint.

Great post and I agree… or perhaps it is great because I agree… hmm I must think about this. lol

Nice write-up Gerald. I really worry for the church that if some things don’t change that the church will start really shrinking here and growing in areas that need lots of $. The church has been VERY (overly) financial conservative for many decades now (probably due to nearly being bankrupted in the past). As much as has been stockpiled, enough drain for enough years and things will be different. I fear if they try and change some things at that point, the prospects of really increasing the membership in places like the US will be greatly decreased as the only Mormon’s left are the paranoid, “we are victims” type folks that no “I’m a Mormon” campaign will make appealing. So sad.

I have thought about this myself. SOME of the decisions made must be made with at least one eye on the dollar (and not because the Church is avaricious). The Church has a lot of balls to juggle (temples, schools, missionary work, etc.) and significant dips in revenue can potentially affect their mission.

…Wheat & Tares welcomes guest poster…There is an epic war of ideology occurring right before our eyes in Mormonism. The question at the heart of this battle is, “Are Doubter’s Welcome?”

Basically Church members are only welcome if they keep quiet about any major doubts or disagreements regarding the official party line and openly expressing contrary views will typically not be received very well and you could even be excommunicated for apostasy in that case depending on how your local leaders react. I agree that this is an important distinction to make if you mostly want to blend in as peacefully as possible. However, I disagree with the idea that this difference (thinking it versus openly saying it) means that this is the way it should be and the Church is right to draw the line where it currently has.

Personally I think it would be much better if people could openly discuss different opinions, agree to disagree, etc. civilly without it being such a big deal. If the Church can’t compete very well in an open marketplace of ideas then I think that is an indication of the relative weakness of their position and they should probably consider being more careful about the claims they make and what exactly they expect everyone to agree on instead of trying to censor and bully any critics or dissenters. What good did it do to draw a hard-line in the case of the racial priesthood ban as long as they did? As far as I can tell this approach did about as much good as it did for Catholic Church leaders to tell Galileo to keep quiet about the fact that the earth wasn’t the center of the universe; it mostly just prolonged the inevitable and made them look bad over the long run.

Also, it looks like an increasing number of members don’t simply have doubts, many of them are already convinced the Church is wrong in one way or another and are content with this answer and don’t want to go back to having a traditional LDS testimony. Personally I think more Church leaders and apologists need to recognize that many Church members are never going to change their minds and only put up with the Church as much as they do mostly to avoid upsetting their families instead of approaching this with the attitude that disaffected members are supposedly broken and need to be fixed or else they are a lost cause. Insisting that disaffected members should just get with the program or get out will mostly aggravate them and backfire in many cases because many of them are simply not going to just go away quietly, it will result in family strife that isn’t really fair to anyone involved and/or they will take their family with them if they go and some of them will end up becoming long-time enemies of the Church.

Basically Church members are only welcome if they keep quiet about any major doubts or disagreements regarding the official party line and openly expressing contrary views will typically not be received very well and you could even be excommunicated for apostasy in that case depending on how your local leaders react.

hmmm :think: …kinda…but maybe it just has more to do with how you tactfully express doubts instead of extremes of keeping silent or being loud and disruptive. People go to church to be uplifted. If white-washed teachings go too far in just saying what is good and sweeping too much reality under the rug, there is a time and place to question or bring up truth that should not be ignored, and smart faithful people will agree. But not if it distracts the spirit the tribe is seeking after. There is a way to try to do it tactfully. Good GD teachers push the class to expand thoughts, but not to the point of losing them with false teachings. The tension that exists leads to growth for everyone.

Personally I think it would be much better if people could openly discuss different opinions, agree to disagree, etc. civilly without it being such a big deal.

Not everyone agrees. I mean, everyone probably agrees being open and agreeable is a good thing…but not everyone agrees on what healthy tension is, and not everyone wants to go to the same level of openness and tolerance.

One person’s historical itch is another person’s fingernails on chalkboards.

No one will disagree we should find ways to help fund schools for the education of our children…but they may argue that using Casinos to fund schools is the wrong way to do it.

So it is with doubters in the church. There are some wrong ways to do it, and if one desires to be accepted…it requires tact, dosage, and timing for expressing doubts, but cloaked with good actions to build social capital so that questions uttered are not always taken as attacks or suspicious objectives on zion, but trust can facilitate openness and various viewpoints.

To compete in the marketplace, you have to differentiate. The organization may not succeed by being all things to all people…but if you get brand loyalty by some…it can lead to growth rather than lost in competitive identity. The church tries to protect its brand of truth, which will not resonate with some people. Such is the marketplace.

I think doubters are welcome if they play by the rules and don’t disrupt the tithe paying members from their ability to recharge their batteries.

Apostasy is judged from actions, not thoughts.

Doubters are welcome; fighters and converters aren’t.

What if the fighter is only fighting for his space?