Online Criticism

I think it depends on what model you are choosing for viewing “the church is like my marriage” and the church is a spouse, or if you use “the church is like my parents and their marriage”.

Kids will gather and talk about their parents and the realities they see with one another, and even stay loyal as a family if it is kept within the right circles and discussed honestly, instead of burying their heads in the sand and pretending the family is perfect.

If Mr Otman wants to get online and talk to me about his wife….I’m not very invested or interested and don’t frankly care about his wife’s failings. I just think that isn’t very cool for him to do that if it goes on incessantly. If he is doing it with other women and creating an emotional bond or something along those lines, well…he is violating trusts. My point…to me it seems it matters who he is talking to and what is being talked about. There is not hard rule that anything said online is always a violation of trust.

What if his wife is mentally ill and he is getting online to talk to a support forum for spouses that need to learn about and deal with coping with mental illness in spouses? Is that violating a trust when his actions might be sincere for support and learning? What if he is trying to get support so he can stay in a marriage that is so painful and has complex problems that can’t just be solved by a therapist saying “Love your wife more”, or a bishop saying “Pray harder for your spouse”. Is a person disloyal and adding to the problem by sincerely trying to educate themselves more and save the relationship with support from others? I say no.

So…there are holes in Mr Otman’s comparison, in my book. My guess is he just hasn’t experienced some things the way others have, and so he doesn’t understand them.

Getting online to bash the church and be disloyal is not a good idea, and not what we do on this, or many of those other sites he mentions. The intent is very different from his simplistic comparison.

Perhaps the point he is making is “Don’t just vent, and don’t be disloyal.” Beyond that, there is lots of room for why online posting can be healthy.

In a marriage, I don’t think one spouse would be imposing penalties on the other for non-compliance, such as lack of full fellowship. Some may withhold “priviledges” (you can probably guess what I mean by that), but that wouldn’t make for a long lasting or happy marriage, I’m sure.

Nate Oman said the following on a recent comment at BCC:

I do, however, think that the Bloggernacle at times mistakes arrogance, cynicism, and posturing for intellectual insight, moral nuance, and righteous indignation. That happens at T&S, it happens at BCC, and elsewhere it happens with even greater frequency. I think that our covenant relationship with the Church is like a marriage. It rests in very large part on habits of affection and loyalty, habits that can be eroded by mental and conversational habits in which we dissect the beloved’s shortcomings with others. I assume that it would be dangerous for my marriage if I was to spend a lot of time kibitzing online with my friends about my wife’s failings. Now, I think that marriage is ONLY an analogy to the covenant relationship with the Church, and hence I think that there are lots of conversations about the Church and its failings that are quite appropriate and would be harmful in the context of a marriage. Still, I think that it is ridiculous to suppose that our public discussions of Mormonism have no impact on our emotional and spiritual habits, or that such habits are not very close to the heart of what it means to faithfully keep our covenants.

I think he’s right in part. According to studies, there are 4 things that predict divorce, and maybe there’s a church counterpart to these: 1) contempt, 2) criticism, 3) defensiveness, and 4) stonewalling. Now, I say this goes both ways. If the church criticizes and shows contempt for gay people or stonewalls the legitimate concerns of women, that’s also a predictor of “divorce.”

It seems like some of the people that criticize the Church online the most already don’t believe they are in an unbreakable covenant relationship with the Church that supposedly means they should feel obligated to be loyal to it to begin with. So in terms of the analogy to marriage it’s more like they are already divorced or basically want a divorce from it and mostly only put up with the Church as much as they do anymore primarily for the sake of their relationships with other Church members that still believe in it.

As far as I’m concerned, the Church deserves to be criticized in many if not the majority of cases it has been criticized recently. Also, I don’t think some of the talk about covenants helps at all; it is actually symptomatic of what is wrong with the Church, namely that it continues to claim that it is more important than it looks like it really is based on the available evidence or even a reasonable leap of faith and it currently relies too much on fear, shame, repeated guilt-trips, social pressure, a sense of obligation, promised future rewards and punishments, and other blatantly manipulative tactics to basically make up for the fact the the costs of being a practicing Mormon are so high in proportion to any tangible benefits for the average active member here and now.

because it is so very one-sided.

agreed.

I also don’t like the marriage analogy because a good marriage is an equal partnership, that type of relationship is hard to equate to an individual/institution “partnership.”

I used to get very frustrated with people talking about covenants and accusations of not honoring covenants. I made covenants with God, not an institution. Yes the church plays a role as a type of facilitator, but the appropriate function of that role may be misunderstood. I constantly refer to the D&C warning on unrighteous dominion. The church often fills its role properly, it’s not all bad.

Sticking with the analogy of marriage or inter-related relationship, if a relationship plans on healing there needs to be some gestures from the various parties. Even if they are divorced, reconciliation will not happen until some positive value is sent from each opposing side toward the other side. And it needs to be genuine, even if it is only one small item.

Like Hawkgrrl’s husband, my dad isn’t an apologize-r either, but he has learned over the years to share compliments, hugs, ice cream dates and so on in an effort to keep dialogue, good memories and happy experiences alive. Those gestures go a long way to smoothing over the rough spots. It would be nice if we could find a way to turn that tide.

My disconnect with the analogy comes from an idea in marriage counseling where one parties efforts to change can often save a marriage. Say I’m a nagging wife, and I deliberately begin to back off, or to praise in place of nagging, according to counseling methods this change on my behalf takes down a barrier and opens up love in my spouse or family and healing begins. In the present institutional church situation I don’t see that. In a way one spouse isn’t actually interested in the marriage, or at least this marriage.

My disconnect with the analogy comes from an idea in marriage counseling where one parties efforts to change can often save a marriage. Say I’m a nagging wife, and I deliberately begin to back off, or to praise in place of nagging, according to counseling methods this change on my behalf takes down a barrier and opens up love in my spouse or family and healing begins. In the present institutional church situation I don’t see that. In a way one spouse isn’t actually interested in the marriage, or at least this marriage.

I’ve read this a few times now and each time I’m not entirely sure who represents the nagging wife or the uninterested marriage partner. The church and her critics could equally fill those roles in your analogy.

After reading all the comments all the bases I would have covered have been covered already.